14 Sunday Jan 2018
I haven’t tried using one of these Google maps for a blog post before – not sure I will again as they’re quite labour intensive (and this one is very simple!), but it’s good to try something different. If you’ve not seen one of these maps before, you can click on the little bird markers to see a photo and some text about the bird I spotted there, and the red line shows, very approximately, my walking route.
08 Monday Jan 2018
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Jenny Wren, Troglodytes troglodytes, wren
It’s not easy to get a clear crisp photograph of Little Jenny Wren as Wrens flit so quickly through the undergrowth. But, yesterday, at Cosmeston, I got lucky, as this charming little creature popped out on to a branch right in front of me and I managed to fire off several quick shots before it disappeared again. I think, in fact, that the fifth photo below is probably my best Wren shot ever!
04 Thursday Jan 2018
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Carrion crow, Corvus corone, leucism, leucism in birds, leucistic crow
I posted a photo of this splendid leucistic Carrion crow (Corvus corone) on my new ‘Birding 2018’ page, after seeing him for the second time on a recent walk around Cardiff Bay, where he appears to frequent the area around the Norwegian Church.
I write ‘he’ but ‘he’ may well be a ‘she’, as I’m not sure how to tell the gender of crows. It’s certainly a handsome creature and I decided it was worth a post of its own. As you can see from my photos, the leucism seems to be restricted to its wings.
(If you’re not sure what leucism is, I wrote about it in an earlier blog post here.)
01 Monday Jan 2018
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops – at all …
~ from the poem ‘Hope is the thing with feathers’ by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
31 Sunday Dec 2017
Tags
Avocet, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Great tit, robin, Sand martin
Neither my age, nor my weight, nor my height (though that comes closest), one hundred and sixty-three is my birding total for 2017 – that is, the total number of species I managed to see in Britain.
This was the first year I’ve kept a count, and it was just out of interest really but, as my more dedicated birding friends post their totals on our Facebook group page (one has 223, another a whopping 252) , I’ve decided to try for a 200-bird year in 2018. That doesn’t mean I’m going to become a mad twitcher or go haring off all over the country to see rare birds. I’m just going to make more of an effort to see as many as I can because I love them so!
And my favourite birding moments in 2017? There were too many to recount, from marvelling at an encounter between a Bittern and a Marsh harrier at RSPB Ham Wall to my frequent local conversations with Robins and chuckles at Tufted ducks, from the joy of watching Avocets with their chicks at Rye Harbour on my birthday to the thrill of seeing feeding Gannets crashing headfirst into the ocean off Dawlish beach, from the lovely little Turnstones than bumble along the embankment in Penarth Marina to the Sand martin that sat and chattered away to me on a railing at Cardiff Bay.
Why just yesterday I had a Great tit land on my hand to grab itself a piece of the flapjack I was sharing with the hungry birds at Cosmeston! Every moment like that, every second spent watching and hearing my feathered friends is joyous!
30 Saturday Dec 2017
Tags
birding, birdwatching, Black-headed gull, British birds, Cardiff Bay, Ely embankment, Great Crested Grebe, Grey wagtail, River Ely, Turnstone, wren
My first embankment stroll this month was on the third and I saw not a single solitary Turnstone – that hasn’t happened since I started doing a regular weekly count along this embankment back in September. The only birds on the stones were three Grey wagtails, and, though there were two Little grebes in the water, even the numbers of Coot and Mute swan were much reduced.
The 8th of December was a bitterly cold day, with the wind so strong it was whipping up small waves against the stones of the embankment. I’m sure that’s the reason I saw so few birds – a single Grey wagtail flitted back and forth, and only six hardy Coots braved the chilly waters, a tiny number compared to usual. There wasn’t a single Mute swan or Mallard or Turnstone, and even gull numbers were low – those that were about were flying quite low around me, as if hoping for food. I had none to give but I did try to grab some flight photos, this Black-headed gull being the best of a blurry bunch.
The 16th was cold but not sub-zero so relatively pleasant, and perhaps that’s why the Turnstones had returned – well, two of them had, and it was lovely to see them foraging along the water’s edge. I didn’t think there were many gulls about until a Black-headed gull about 50 metres from me found some food and then gulls flew in from every direction – 37 Black-headed and 5 Lesser black-backs, all wheeling and screeching and squabbling over one slice of bread.
Apart from those, there were two Mute swans, 3 Mallards, about 6 Coots, 3 Great crested grebes and 1 Grey wagtail. Oh, and I mustn’t forget the littlest of all, a tiny Wren bopping in and out of the rocks in search of insects.
28 Thursday Dec 2017
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, brown rat, bullfinch, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Fieldfare, Great spotted woodpecker, long-tailed tit, Marsh tit, nuthatch, Stonechat, Tufted duck
It was fairly quiet bird-wise on my first monthly visit to Cosmeston Lakes Country Park on 2 December, though there were still good numbers of the various thrushes (Mistle, Song, Redwing and Blackbird) around. A Great spotted woodpecker in the west paddock was a nice surprise – I initially thought it a Jay when I saw that peachy belly. The Tufted ducks amused, as always, and, while I sat watching them, the Brown rat I’d seen before at that particular spot came snuffling around for food. There were two more rats foraging by the boardwalk near the café.
It’s a thrush takeover! On 6 December, I’d scarcely left the house to walk to Cosmeston than I was spotting Redwings, Song thrushes, and a Mistle thrush, plus Goldfinches and Chaffinches, in the trees just across the road. And when I got to Cosmeston it was more – much more – of the same, plus the first Fieldfares I’ve seen there. In Cogan Wood, the little birds were hungry so I shared my flapjack with them – there were even two Nuthatches and a half dozen Long-tailed tits picking up the crumbs on the ground. And the prize for the most colourful birds goes to the pair of Bullfinch that were munching on hogweed seeds.
On 15 December, I finally got a reasonable, though not brilliant photo of a Fieldfare – they are very skittish so it’s hard to get close to them. I finally found a spot behind the berry trees they were feasting in, then just had to be patient and wait for one to pop up to the top of a tree.
In Cogan Wood, one of the resident Marsh tits popped out to say hello – first sighting I’ve had since earlier in the year as they seem to disappear during the breeding season. And there was a Stonechat at the top end of the west paddock. There had been a pair of Stonechats in that area in the autumn but they seemed to have disappeared when the park staff mowed that field, so it was good to see one there again.
Something else happened at Cossie during this visit, something that’s never happened to me before. A squirrel climbed up my leg, not once but four times – the first time it grabbed my finger, the second time it touched my camera. I didn’t have food but it obviously thought I did. It certainly made me laugh.
26 Tuesday Dec 2017
Tags
Anthus petrosus, birding, birdwatching, British birds, gutter teetan, rock lintie, Rock pipit, teetan, teetuck
For a relatively non-descript small brown bird the Rock pipit’s alternative names are anything but ordinary. Its Latin name is Anthus petrosus, which sounds for all the world like an incantation Harry Potter might utter against some evil force that was assailing him, and it has a wealth of interesting vernacular names that include dusky lark – understandable; gutter teetan – most peculiar; rock lintie – from Aberdeenshire; from east Yorkshire, sea lark; another from Scotland, sea lintie – is lintie the Scots for linnet perhaps; tangle sparrow, from Orkney and Shetland, as well as teetan and teetuck, also from Shetland.
I see these little birds quite often on the south Wales coast, on the rocks and stone embankments of Cardiff Bay and the rivers that flow into it, and on the sloping stone walls of other dockland areas, like Barry docks. When they’re not perching watchfully on a prominent rock, they’re fossicking busily between the stones for insects and seeds, beetles and, if they’re lucky, small fish.
21 Thursday Dec 2017
Watching me, watching you (ah-haa)
There is nothing you can do
Watching me, watching you (ah-haa)
You just have to face it, it’s time you flew
Waking up is never easy, I know, but you have to go
Watching me, watching you
It’s really time you flew.
(with apologies to Benny, Björn, Stig and Abba)
18 Monday Dec 2017
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Dickie bird, Gilliebride, Oyks, Oystercatchers, Sea nanpie, Seapie
The Oystercatcher is one of the few British waders that I knew well, and whose call I could already easily recognise, before I came to live in this country because we also have Oystercatchers in New Zealand and, indeed, they can be found on coastlines around much of the world. They are not all the same species though – the most common New Zealand species is Haematopus unicolor and the British bird is Haematopus ostralegus.
Those Latin names are a bit of a mouthful so let’s stick with Oystercatcher, though whoever gave them that name wasn’t very observant – they don’t actually ‘catch’ anything and, while I’m sure they enjoy breaking open the odd oyster when they find one, they eat all types of shellfish.
I particularly like some of their vernacular names (listed in Stefan Buczacki’s Fauna Britannica): in Norfolk they’re known as Dickie birds; in Scotland Gilliebrides (the word ‘bride’ is a reference to St Bridget of Ireland who was said to be the patron saint of birds and carried an Oystercatcher in each hand); in Yorkshire they’re known as Sea nanpies; and as Seapies (‘pie’, meaning black and white, just as in the name Magpie), in Lancashire, Norfolk, Gloucestershire and Cornwall; and in northern England, appropriately enough, they’re called Mussel crackers. But, if all those names are too much to remember, we could just call them Oyks, for short.
earthstar 
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