17 Saturday Feb 2024
Tags
bird courtship, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Mute swan, Spring is in the air, swan courtship
Spring is definitely in the air, according to these Mute swans. Though male swans can be quite brutal when competing for their chosen female, I saw none of that while watching these two, despite them being surrounded by a flock of other swans. The pair were gentle, their movements graceful and coordinated, and it was really rather lovely.
15 Thursday Feb 2024
Posted in birds
Tags
When I strolled around Cardiff’s Roath Park Lake two weeks ago, there were perhaps 20 Teal in residence, and many of the males were whistling their merry tunes. Last week, I could only find a couple of Teal so I now wonder if that whistling was an indication that the birds were beginning to think about mating, and that they have now begun their flights north towards their breeding grounds.
Though the females are the typical brown of most female ducks, the males, with their chestnut heads and green eye stripes and their finely patterned black-and-white feathered bodies, are rather gorgeous. Teal can be quite difficult to photograph at this lake: either they’re constantly bobbing their heads underwater to find food, or they’re tucked away under the lakeside foliage snoozing, so I was particularly happy to grab a couple of reasonable images of them.
10 Saturday Feb 2024
Tags
Alder, Alder cones, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Siskin eating Alder seeds
Alder seeds are delicious. That statement seems indisputable, judging by the gusto with which this small flock of Siskin were tearing apart the Alder cones and munching continuously and vigorously on the tiny seeds. And aren’t Siskin just the most glorious little birds? It was truly joyful to watch them at their feasting today at Cosmeston.
07 Wednesday Feb 2024
Posted in birds
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Bubulcus ibis, Cattle egret, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, drawing birds, nature journal, nature journalling
Okay, one more post about nature journaling and, hopefully, that will be the last for a while. The reason I’m focusing on my journal again today is due to the abysmal state of weather forecasting in this country. After several days of un-forecast rain and drizzle, yesterday’s forecast was for more drizzle and rain, so I went out in full waterproofs and with just my cheapo camera. What happened? You guessed it – not a single drop of water fell from the sky until late afternoon, and I didn’t have my good camera with me to take photographs of my first ever local sightings of Cattle egrets. So, this is where drawing comes in handy, to illustrate what I’ve seen.
p.s. The gold star is not me marking my own homework. It’s a visual indication of how superb it was to see these gorgeous egrets in my area.
06 Tuesday Feb 2024
Posted in birds
I hesitated before deciding to share this but the truth is that the miserable weather means I’m struggling a little to find daily content for the blog so here we are. I’ve always kept a nature journal, recording my finds from my walks, but this year I’ve decided to challenge myself by illustrating my journal with at least one drawing each day. I initially thought I would draw flora and fauna but so far I’ve focused on birds, and I might just stick to birds this year, as there’s so much to learn – and this is certainly helping to hone my observation skills! As I’m a complete novice when it comes to drawing, I started out copying other people’s quite stylised drawings I found online, using just a black ballpoint. I’ve now progressed to drawing from photos, and using ballpoint and coloured pencils. I hope, eventually, to be able to sketch in the field, and perhaps use watercolours, but I’m just taking things slowly, not pushing myself too hard too soon.
All of which was to explain why today you are seeing my drawings of a Jay’s head! Apparently, you can teach an old dog new tricks.
05 Monday Feb 2024
Posted in birds
Is it any wonder the Jay’s scientific name is Garrulus glandarius? Garrulus is from the Latin garrire which means chattering, babbling or noisy, and that is, of course, where the adjective garrulous (meaning excessively talkative) also comes from. (The epithet glandarius is from Latin meaning ‘of acorns’.) The Jay often announces its presence by screeching like a Banshee but the gorgeous Jay in my photo was making much more gentle sounds, chortling quietly to itself, as if it had just heard a good joke. Garrulous, yes, but It was also quite delightful!
03 Saturday Feb 2024
Like a bird giant, a Curlew strides past this small grouping of Ringed plovers and Dunlins.
At first glance, I thought there were only a couple of the smaller birds snoozing at the water’s edge but, as the tide was coming in, their slumbers kept being interrupted by waves splashing over them, so every few minutes they had to shuffle a bit further up the beach. And when that happened, more little heads would pop up from where they’d been tucked down amongst the rocks.
01 Thursday Feb 2024
Posted in birds
This foreigner, which has made itself quite at home in Britain, approached me for food while I was walking around a Cardiff Lake yesterday. Any guesses?
30 Tuesday Jan 2024
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Forest Farm, Forest Farm Nature Reserve, Siskin, Siskin feeding on Alder cones
It was easy to hear their sibilant chatter (if you’ve never heard it, SoundCloud has a good recording). With their green, yellow and black colouring, they were well camouflaged so it was hard to pick them out among the Alder branches and cones. And, because of all those twigs, branches and cones, it was even harder to get photographs, which is my excuse for not getting better images of the noisy Siskins I found feeding near the Glamorgan Canal at Forest Farm Nature Reserve last week.
27 Saturday Jan 2024
With the slicked-up feathers on top of his head, the dark ear muffs, the stylish plumage in 50 shades of grey, black and white, this juvenile Long-tailed duck is quite the sophisticated dude, don’t you think? He’s a first winter bird, born last summer, so hasn’t yet got the long tail his species is named for but that will soon grow in.
He’s been hanging out near the Barrage in Cardiff Bay for about a week, spending most of his time around the string of orange buoys in front of the sluices, diving frequently in and around those buoys then startling the perching Black-headed gulls when he pops up right next to them. The Coots don’t much like this foreigner in their patch either, but then Coots are ornery about most things.
earthstar 
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