My favourite avians

05 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, nature photography

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birding, birds, birdwatching, blackbird, Blue tit, British birds, bullfinch, dunnock, Forest Farm Nature Reserve, Great tit, robin, thrush

In spite of occasional hail showers and a biting cold wind, yesterday was another magical day at Forest Farm Nature Reserve. I was serenaded by robins, I laughed at the antics of the cute little blue tits, was entertained by the thrushes and blackbirds performing acrobatic stunts in search of the tastiest ivy berries, and enjoyed the most wonderful privilege of a great tit perching on my hand to eat the seeds I was offering. Here are a few of my photos.

A little timid, often overlooked, but very lovely dunnock

Both the thrush (above) and blackbird (below) were feasting on ivy berries

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A great tit

Always so cute, a little blue tit

A male bullfinch – such stunning colours

No visit to Forest Farm is complete without a robin or twenty!

Conversation with robins: 4

04 Friday Mar 2016

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birding, birds, birdwatching, British birds, conversations with robins, robin, singing robins

Forest Farm Nature Reserve, one fine February day …

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Me: ‘Hello, dear little robin. Got a song for me today?’
Robin: ‘Sure, lady. You know us robins love to sing. I’ve been learning a new one about an outlaw.’

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Me: ‘Really? Okay, let’s hear it.’
Robin: ‘Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen.’

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Robin: ‘Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men.’

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Robin: ‘Feared by the bad, loved by the good.’

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Robin: ‘Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood.’

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Robin: ‘Well, what d’ya think? I’d like to be an outlaw like Robin Hood. He’s my hero.’
Me: ‘You sang brilliantly. Well done! And, as a reward, here’s some birdseed you might like.’

Great Crested Grebe

28 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, nature photography, spring

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birding, birds, birdwatching, British birds, Great Crested Grebe

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I’m always delighted to witness the mating display of the Great Crested Grebe (Podiceps cristatus). They make a rather noisy but thoroughly entertaining exhibition of head shaking and neck swaying and bill touching that is a joy to watch, especially with their vibrant neck plumage highlighting their every move. It comes as no surprise that those pretty plumes were once prized by early Victorian milliners to decorate their more extravagant creations. That usage, and the fact that the fine soft feathering on the bird’s body was also valued for costume adornment, meant the Great Crested Grebe was one of Britain’s rarest breeding species by the mid-1800s.

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Luckily, laws were enacted to protect Britain’s water birds but their recovery can also be attributed to mankind’s activities – and not in the way you might imagine. The massive increases in both road building and house building following the Second World War required enormous amounts of gravel, and the grebe was one of the birds that benefitted from the gravel pits once they had been abandoned and filled with water. It’s a fitting testament to how well nature can recover from man’s interference in the landscape.

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The highlight of today’s long walk was to witness a grebe sitting on a nest. It seems very early in the year and the nest was in rather an exposed position so I do hope the bird doesn’t get disturbed. It was wonderful and, indeed, a huge privilege to see the results of all that head shaking and neck swaying!

Walk like an Egyptian

27 Saturday Feb 2016

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African birds, Alopochen aegypticus, birding, birds, birdwatching, British birds, Egyptian Goose, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

It might look like a goose and be called a goose but the Egyptian Goose (Alopochen aegypticus) is not really a goose at all. It’s more closely related to the Shelduck and occasionally shares that duck’s habit of nesting in a burrow or hole in the ground, though it has also been known to build a nest as high as 80 feet above the ground in a tree. The bird was introduced to Britain as an ornamental wildfowl species, for the king’s collection of birds in St James’s Park in London in 1678, but has since established itself in the wild, though it does still have a penchant for the grounds of large halls and estates, with their perfect habitat combination of old woodland and extensive areas of water.

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My first photo here was taken at just such a place, the wonderful Tatton Park Estate, near Knutsford in Cheshire. But the second photo was taken in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. Although it’s called an Egyptian Goose, it is actually native to Africa south of the Sahara and the Nile Valley, but it was considered sacred by the ancient Egyptians, which I presume is how it got its common name.

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White- & brown-headed black-headed gulls

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

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birding, birds, birdwatching, black-headed gulls, British birds

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The scientific name for the black-headed gull is Chroicocephalus ridibundus: Chroicocephalus is a combination of the Greek choria meaning colour and cephalus meaning head, and ridibundus is derived from the Latin ridere which means laugh. So, its head colour is laughable?

Well, someone was certainly having a laugh when they named it the black-headed gull. In the summertime – or, to be more precise, during the breeding season, its head may look black but is actually a dark chocolate brown. At the end of the breeding season, the feathers moult, leaving the bird’s head almost completely white, except for two small dark patches behind the eyes on either side of its head.

Along with many other things in the natural world, these gulls are confused by this year’s mild winter weather and have begun their change to breeding plumage. These photos, taken over the last couple of weeks, show that change.

Leucism in birds

21 Sunday Feb 2016

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birding, birds, birdwatching, blackbird, British birds, crow, jackdaw, leucism, leucistic jackdaw

Little did I realise that I was stepping into a definition minefield when, after finding an oddly coloured jackdaw earlier this week, I decided to find out more about leucism. The word is a relatively new one – it isn’t, for example, included in the online Oxford Dictionary, and scientists seem to disagree about its actual meaning and about what causes the condition.

a leucistic crow. It had more white patches not visible in this photo.

One source says the plumage of leucistic birds is pale or washed out though the normal pattern and colour is discernible, another reports that the cells of the affected plumage lack the ability to produce melanin and the lack of melanin produces white feathers, and yet another states that leucism is caused by a reduction in several types of pigment, not just melanin. The researchers at Cornell Lab of Ornithology even devoted a whole web page to citing the literature of disagreement.

Leucism is very common in blackbirds. This bird only has very small white patches.

So, rightly or wrongly and very simply, I’m defining my leucistic birds as those whose feathers would normally be black or some other colour but are actually white (but they’re not albino, as they have their normal eye colour). And here they are …

The star of the show – a beautiful leucistic jackdaw

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More feathered friends from Forest Farm

19 Friday Feb 2016

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birding, birds, birdwatching, blackbird, Blue tit, British birds, bullfinch, chaffinch, dunnock, Forest Farm Nature Reserve, little grebe, long-tailed tit, nuthatch, robin, wren

Many birders ignore what they consider the ordinary birds, the backyard birds, in favour of the rare and unusual. To me, that’s a bit like only being interested in famous movie stars and ignoring all the supporting actors, the bit players, the extras. I adore all birds but I am particularly charmed by the ordinary birds – every day they make me laugh and smile, their gorgeous colours and intricate plumage delight my eye, their melodies are better than any man-made music. So, for me, yesterday was another magical day with these beautiful extra-ordinary birds at Forest Farm Nature Reserve.

a male bullfinch, such a handsome chap

a little wren foraging in the undergrowth

another handsome fellow, a male chaffinch

Mr Blackbird keeping an eye on me

a dunnock – such a darling!

one of the cutest of them all, a blue tit

Mr Greedy, the nuthatch

a Little grebe is well camouflaged amongst the reeds

another cutie pie, a long-tailed tit

no day’s birding would be complete without a robin or three

The Grey Heron

18 Thursday Feb 2016

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Ardea cinerea, birding, birds, birdwatching, British birds, Grey heron

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The Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) is the most widespread large predatory bird in Britain and it’s flourishing, with an estimated 12205 occupied nests in 2010. Herons nest communally, usually in tall mature trees, and some heronries are known to have been in continuous use for hundreds of years. The largest in Britain is in a private wood on the north side of Budworth Mere, in Cheshire, though I saw very few heron during my frequent walks along the southern shores of that lovely lake last winter.

160218 grey heron flying

This is a bird the Brits used to eat – from the early medieval period right through to the nineteenth century it was an important and relatively expensive table item. Historically, the heron was a favourite victim of falconry and, so that the wealthy could enjoy their sport, its protection was enshrined in law (being found guilty of a second offence could result in the loss of the right hand, a third in death!). Once falconry lost its popularity, the heron lost its protection and, in fact, now the bird often gets persecuted by fishermen who accuse it of taking ‘their’ fish. Personally, I think it’s the heron’s fish.

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Conversation with robins: 3

15 Monday Feb 2016

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birding, birds, birdwatching, British birds, conversations with robins, robin

Forest Farm Nature Reserve, a few days ago

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Me: ‘Hello, robin. Nice to see you again.’
Robin: ‘Hello, lady. It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?’

160215 robin conversation (2)

Me: ‘It sure is. And before you ask, I’ve run out of bird seed.’
Robin: ‘Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat???’

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Me: ‘I’ve been walking for a couple of hours, and I’ve already given my seed to other birds. I’m sorry.’
Robin: ‘But it’s cold and I’m starving and I’m such a cute little robin.’

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Me: ‘Yes, you are. And I’m sorry you missed out.’
Robin: ‘But I haven’t eaten anything all day.’

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Me: ‘You pooped! Right in the middle of our chat, you pooped!’
Robin: ‘So? A bird’s gotta do what a bird’s gotta do!’

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Me: ‘I guess you had had something to eat after all.’
Robin: ‘Oh … well … maybe something small … hours ago.’

Eight interesting facts about blackbirds

11 Thursday Feb 2016

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birding, birds, birdwatching, blackbird, British birds

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1 The oldest ringed blackbird to have been recovered in Britain was more than 20 years old.

2 Blackbirds most often sing after it has rained.

3 In the Roman Catholic religion, St Kevin of Glendalough is the patron saint of blackbirds. The legend goes that a blackbird laid an egg in Kevin’s hand when his arms were outstretched in prayer and he remained in that position until the baby bird hatched.

4 Albinism and leucism are common in blackbirds, and many birds have small white patches of feathers.

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5 The blackbird is the national bird of Sweden.

6 The blackbird is the most numerous breeding bird in the British Isles, with a population of around 6 million pairs.

7 The song Sing a song of sixpence (a pocket full of rye, four-and-twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie) was not a coded message used to recruit crew members for the notorious 18th-century pirate Blackbeard. That was an invented urban legend that many people now believe. The true meaning of the rhyme is much debated.

8 Vernacular names for the blackbird include colly (in Gloucestershire), merle (Ireland and Scotland), Zulu (in Somerset) and ouzel.

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