Category Archives: birds

New year, new lists

02 Monday Jan 2023

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Yes, I make lists. Each year, a new page in my notebook, new pages in the spreadsheets on my laptop. I only keep two lists, one for the birds I see and one for the butterflies, which, unless I’m very lucky, won’t have any names added for a few months yet. I don’t do this in competition with other listers but rather as a way of comparing one year with another, and also of remembering. Just as photographs trigger memories of places and events, so too do my lists. And then there’s the personal challenge, particularly on the first day of the new year, to see how many bird species I can find on a walk around Cardiff Bay (31 in 2018, a whopping 47 in 2019, 44 in 2020, 40 in 2021, 45 in 2022). And this year’s total? Well, incredibly, yesterday’s 9-mile walk resulted in a total of 50 bird species, which was definitely helped by the lingering presence of Black redstarts, the Whooper swan, and this female Scaup.

New year, first bird

01 Sunday Jan 2023

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In previous years my first birds, seen or heard, have variously been a wee Robin that would tick-tick-tick its way around the tree at the front of my flat in the pre-dawn light, one of the many Lesser black-backed gulls that whirl around this seaside town, and a Blackbird whose alarm call rang out while I was still abed, probably in response to a prowling cat. This year, as last year and the year before, it was a little Robin, this one singing a merry tune as it sat in the tree. The RSPB website says Robins usually only live a couple of years but the oldest recorded was 11 years 5 months, so this could possibly be the same bird as in previous years.

230101 robin

Are you ready?

31 Saturday Dec 2022

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It’s time to wash off the dirt and grime of another year, enjoy a refreshing sluice down, jiggle and squirm to clean off the final flecks of dust, then shimmy and shake to flick off all that water before enjoying a thorough preen to prepare for the new year ahead. Are you ready? Set? Let’s goooooooooooooo …

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Little limper

27 Tuesday Dec 2022

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This morning’s weather was dismal, drizzle turning to steady heavy rain, so it was a delight to watch this little Moorhen. I’ve seen it before – it’s a juvenile, I think, from one of this year’s early broods, and it has a limp – its right leg looks weaker than its left, perhaps broken and rehealed when it was younger. But that doesn’t hold it back. It hobbles around as well as its kin and, perhaps to its detriment, it is quite fearless. When I walked slowly along the path, it popped up out of the water and headed straight towards me, presumably equating humans with the provision of food. Fortunately, it can still fly well too, so was able to flit quickly back to the safety of the lake when a dog headed our way.

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Orange legs

22 Thursday Dec 2022

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As a follow up to yesterday’s post about our local Redshanks, I thought I’d write about those legs, which, to my eye, are orange not red. A few months ago, I wondered aloud on social media why so many birds have such bright orange legs and was informed that, on a recent episode of the BBC’s Winterwatch television programme (I don’t have a tv so didn’t see it), it had been suggested that orange-coloured legs ‘are effective in disturbing benthic creatures when feeding/stirring the sediment’.

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Another idea suggested on the Canadian Science.ca website is that ‘bright orange feet may reveal that the male is good at foraging (carotene comes in the diet)’, though the writer of that article also acknowledged that there may be several other factors at play, and that scientists don’t actually know the answer to the fascinating ‘why orange feet?’ question. So, if you have your own theories, or verified scientific knowledge, please do share in the comments.

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Two Mipits

20 Tuesday Dec 2022

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Often, my first indication of the presence of a Meadow pipit (Mipit is the contraction often used by birders) is its pip-pip-pip call as it flies away. They are notoriously flighty birds, despite their markings providing such good camouflage that we often hear them before we have any chance of seeing them. I hear/see these birds in the fields at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park and also along the edges of Cardiff Bay, which is where the two birds below were foraging for food.

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This first bird was fossicking around the pebbles and amongst the vegetation of the embankment of the River Ely where it flows in to Cardiff Bay.

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And the second bird was on the edge of the Barrage. I’m fairly sure this was a juvenile – rather than fly away immediately on seeing me, it huddled very close to the board edging the grassed area, as if that would make it invisible.

Goldeneyed gals

16 Friday Dec 2022

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As their usual waterways freeze over and temperatures plummet, many birds are forced to move to find open water and places to feed. Though it’s certainly not pleasant for the birds, one of the huge pluses for those who love birding is that, in places like Cardiff Bay, having several days in a row of freezing temperatures can bring in the rarities. And, that’s exactly what happened today, with not one but four Goldeneyes present, a pair that I didn’t manage to see and these two females. I spent a delightful half hour watching them diving and preening and sailing back and forth just outside the iced-up waters along the Barrage. Magic!

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Not one but two

08 Thursday Dec 2022

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One of my local birding friends has a thermal imager that is extremely helpful when he’s trying to locate birds that are very good at hiding in plain sight – as long as they’re not obscured by too much vegetation, the heat generated by the birds shows up as a bright patch when looking through the imager. And that is how I got to see not one but two Jack snipe this week. Here’s a photo to illustrate how well hidden they are …

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The first bird Graham found was the most difficult to see. The image on the left below was almost all we could see of it – these birds have two parallel pale yellow stripes running along the sides of their heads and down their backs. Can you spot the head stripes? Luckily for us, this bird stayed a couple of days – it would’ve been out feeding in the night, then returned to huddle down in its roosting spot in the daytime. The following day we could make out less of its body but, as you can see below right, we could see its eye quite clearly.

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The second bird was discovered on the second day. I just happened to be there when Graham arrived and he immediately picked up a second heat source very close to the first bird. This second bird was much more visible, though its cryptic plumage still made it difficult. These photos were taken with a zoom lens – the first photo at the start of this post is what you could see with the naked eye. If you look carefully at the image below, you may be able to make out the other Jack snipe in the top left – you can see one horizontal yellow body stripe and one head stripe.

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I’d only ever seen Jack snipe once before this week, as a fleeting flying blur. I was hoping our birds might come out and do their characteristic bouncing dance but no such luck. Still, I’m certainly not complaining. Our views of these elusive birds were superb!