17 Tuesday Sep 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, autumn, birds, nature
Tags
#365DaysWild, autumn migration, bird migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Stonechat
The Autumn migration flow of birds continued through Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, with several species reported: a Redstart, a Whinchat, a Spotted flycatcher and several Stonechats, two of which very kindly popped up in the hedge right in front of me.
31 Saturday Aug 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, autumn, birds, nature
The yellowing of the leaves on the tree outside my window, my sightings of migrating birds, the cooler night-time temperatures have all been telling me for a couple of weeks that autumn is on its way, something the calendar will agree with tomorrow. But, for me, one of the true indicators is the arrival of the Turnstones, back from their breeding season in Greenland and northern Canada.
The five I spotted on the Ely embankment this morning still show some of their summer colouring but those chestnut feathers will soon disappear as the birds complete their moult into winter plumage. Welcome back, my little friends!
29 Thursday Aug 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature
Tags
#365DaysWild, autumn migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, migrating birds, Spot fly, Spotted flycatcher
The day started cool, with a heavy dew and clouds hiding the sun, and I thought I wasn’t going to find a lot during my Cosmeston meander. I was wrong.
Once the sun came out so did the creatures: two Green woodpeckers together on the grassy track ahead; two migrating Whinchats, my first this season; a Hummingbird hawkmoth that only hummed a little before landing on the dirt track in front of me – not something I’ve ever seen before; another magnificent Clouded yellow; and, today’s star, yet another Spotted flycatcher, my fifth at Cosmeston in the past week and the most confiding, allowing me to get quite close for photos. It has been a wonderful, and much needed, immersion in Nature today.
12 Monday Aug 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, autumn, birds, nature
Tags
autumn migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Lavernock Nature Reserve, Spotted flycatcher
Willow warblers are peeping from every bush, Blackcaps are chacking, Swallows and martins are swooping low over the fields at Cosmeston for last minute snacks before they cross their first stretch of water on their way south and, today, at Lavernock, I saw my first Spotted flycatcher of the year. Autumn migration is well and truly underway!
04 Sunday Nov 2018
Tags
American bird, autumn migration, birding, birdwatching, Black-tailed godwit, British vagrant bird, Dunlin, Greenshank, Lesser yellowlegs, RSPB Lodmoor, Tringa flavipes
Its name says it all really – the Lesser yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes) is a slender wader, with long yellow legs, and the smudgy, less defined markings on the breast of this particular bird point to it being a juvenile.
The Lesser yellowlegs is native to the Americas, spending its summers breeding in the northern forests that lie between Alaska and Quebec and its winters on the United States’ Gulf coast and in parts of South America.
The birds we see here in Britain are vagrants, birds that have strayed or been blown off course during their migration. On average, about ten birds are seen in various parts of Britain each year and, amazingly, there was also a Lesser yellowlegs at RSPB Lodmoor when we visited during last year’s Portland trip
Two interesting facts about this bird from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website:
Both the male and female Lesser Yellowlegs provide parental care to the young, but the female tends to leave the breeding area before the chicks can fly, thus leaving the male to defend the young until fledging.
and …
The oldest recorded Lesser Yellowlegs was at least 4 years, 11 months old when it was found in South Dakota in 1965. It had been banded in the Lesser Antilles in 1960.
Back here in Dorset, it was great to get such close views of the Lodmoor Lesser yellowlegs and particularly to see it in close company firstly with two Greenshanks and a Black-tailed godwit (photo above), and then with the same two Greenshanks and a Dunlin (below). This really helped to see the relative differences in size, shape and plumage.
Heck, I even managed to get a short video of the lovely little thing. Enjoy!
22 Saturday Sep 2018
Tags
autumn migration, bird migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Calidris alba, migrating birds, Sanderling, Sker Rocks
Watching these busy little birds scurrying back and forth along the beach at Sker last Saturday was the highlight of my day.
I had walked away a little from the group of birders I was with as I wanted to try to get better photographs of the waders moving along the water’s edge, and I’m so glad I did, as the birds weren’t as bothered about one person standing very still and silent as they would’ve been about 25 chattering people moving about, and so came up reasonably close to me.
Small flocks of Sanderlings (Calidris alba), and other small waders, were flying back and forth from the rocks to the sandy beach to feed, poking their heads right up to their eyes in the soft sand to probe for their preferred food of small crustaceans and molluscs.
According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, the name Sanderling is a combination of the fairly obvious ‘sand’ and ‘erling’, which probably comes from the Old English yrthling, meaning ploughman (from yrth earth and erian to plough). That certainly makes sense when you see these little birds in action.
Sanderlings are passage migrants that move through Britain in spring and autumn on their way to and from their breeding grounds in the High Arctic and their over-wintering sites in southern Europe and Africa.
The birds’ plumage changes for the breeding season, becoming much darker, with shades of reddish-brown on the head, neck and back, and you can still see hints of that on some of the birds in my photos. Also, many of my birds seem to be juveniles, with quite chequered markings on their backs and very clean white under-parts.
One fascinating factoid I discovered when reading up about these birds is that they have only three toes on each foot, with no hind toe to provide balance, and this is the reason for their scurrying motion. If you want to see Sanderlings in action, I uploaded a very short video to youtube.
13 Thursday Sep 2018
Tags
autumn migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, difference between Pied and White wagtail, Motacilla alba alba, Motacilla alba yarrellii, Pied wagtail, White wagtail
It’s taken me a couple of years to find and recognise White wagtails for myself. I would hear other birders talk about them and look at the photos they posted, but not really see any difference between Pied and White wagtails. Finally, I found some and it was immediately obvious they had a different look.
To be clear, these are not two different species of bird: Pied Wagtails (Motacilla alba yarrellii) and White Wagtails (Motacilla alba alba) are different subspecies of the same species, which rather confusingly is known as the White Wagtail (Motacilla alba).
In Britain, we mostly see Pied wagtails, with the Whites passing through during the spring and autumn migration periods, and the White wagtails tend to have a much lighter grey back and a very clean, white belly and flanks.
Thanks to an excellent blog post I found, I discovered the reason why it was easier for me to tell these particular Whites from the Pied wagtails they were with. The blog has much more detail but, essentially, the Whites complete their moult sooner (usually by the end of August) because of their need to migrate in peak condition from northern latitudes (most of our western Britain White wagtail migrants pass through from Iceland to the southern Mediterranean and Africa, and vice versa), whereas the Pieds, being mostly resident in Britain, don’t complete their moult until mid to late September.
So, the plumage of the Whites I saw looked clean and crisp and fresh, whereas the Pieds were still looking rather scruffy, as you can see below.
08 Saturday Sep 2018
Tags
autumn migration, bird migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, migrating birds, Saxicola rubetra, Whinchat
One of the highlights of this week at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park has been watching the party of three Whinchats that have stopped off to feed up prior to their migration to central and southern Africa. I think they’re a family group because this one appears still to have the plumage of a juvenile.
Another (below) is still part way through the moulting process. I read recently that birds don’t usually migrate until after their moult is complete, as the lack of all their proper flight feathers, in particular, can affect their ability to fly long distances. Perhaps that’s another reason why they’ve broken their journey at Cosmeston.
This is the third Whinchat, or Saxicola rubetra, to give it its scientific name.
Their common name, as with many birds, reflects their behaviour – whin is another word for gorse, as these little birds are commonly found amongst gorse and bracken and areas of low shrubs and bushes. Chat relates to their call, which combines the sound of two stones being tapped together with a series of melodic whistles.
01 Saturday Sep 2018
Tags
autumn migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Chiffchaff, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, migrating birds, Pied plycatcher, Redstart, Wheatear, Whinchat, Whitethroat, Willow warbler
My local country park, Cosmeston Lakes, has been awash with migrating birds this past week. And it’s not just me getting better at finding them – according to birders who’ve been checking the area much longer than I’ve lived nearby, this has been a bumper year for sightings.
On 24 August I found two Redstarts, a male and another that may have been a female or an immature bird that hadn’t yet developed its full adult colouration.
Also on the 24th I had a very fleeting view of a Wheatear that popped up from grass to fencepost, then was off in the blink of an eye.
On the 27th my birding friend Della texted me to say she’d found a Whinchat. That was the fastest I’d ever walked to Cosmeston and, luckily, the bird waited for me – and, in fact, stayed around most of the week so I saw it several times.
During my frequent visits to Cossie this week, I’ve seen ones and twos of Whitethroat and Chiffchaff, and tens of Willow warblers. These are the ones I spotted on the 30th.
Also on 30 August, I spotted another Redstart and, from the dark head colours, I could tell this one was definitely a male.
The week ended with a bang! My birding friend, Graham, let me know that he’d seen a Pied flycatcher with a small group of Spotted flycatchers, a most unusual visitor. Luckily, I was on the coastal path heading homeward so was able to divert towards Cosmeston and, with Graham’s help, got distant views of this beautiful little bird catching flies along the tree line. What a stunning week it has been!
27 Monday Aug 2018
Tags
autumn migration, bird migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Muscicapa striata, Spotted flycatcher
The autumn bird migration is now in full swing in south Wales and almost every day migrating birds are being spotted at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, where they’re stopping off to refuel before they tackle their long flights to warmer over-wintering locations in Europe and Africa. One that I find particularly charming is the Spotted flycatcher (Muscicapa striata), which is not really spotted at all, more streaky and stripy. The scientific name is more accurate: Muscicapa is a combination of the Latin word musca, meaning fly, and capere, meaning to catch, and the epithet striata is from the Latin striatus, meaning striated.
I saw my first Spotted flycatcher at Cossie on 7 August.
A week later, on the 15th, I had two sightings.
The 20th was a bumper day, with three birds, two obviously travelling together, and another doing its own thing.
And last Friday, the 24th, a birding friend put me on to a single bird, that was catching flies in the paddock I walked through on my way home. Fingers crossed I manage to see a few more before they all disappear for the winter.
