Tag Archives: birdwatching

299/365 Squabs

26 Saturday Oct 2019

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Squab: it’s an odd word to describe a young unfledged pigeon. The Oxford Dictionary gives its origins as: “Mid 17th century (in the sense ‘inexperienced person’): of unknown origin; compare with obsolete quab ‘shapeless thing’ and Swedish dialect skvabba ‘fat woman’.”

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To me, judging by the behaviour of these two feral pigeons squabs I saw recently harassing their parent for food, squab seems more likely to come from squabble: a noisy quarrel! I almost felt sorry for the adult as it was chased along the pavement by its two young, who then pushed their heads as far down the adult’s open beak as possible, hoping for the ‘milk’ pigeons feed their young.

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294/365 A confusing Goosander

21 Monday Oct 2019

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There were actually 5 Goosanders on the River Ely this morning. Four stayed their distance but this one, paddling alone, came over to investigate me.

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I’ve been trying to work it out. I don’t think it’s a female – though they have reddish-brown heads, they’re more generally grey in the body, without so much black on their backs.

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And it seems that in juvenile Goosanders the separation between the white throat and chin and the brown head is less clear cut, more ragged – in this bird it seems well defined.

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So that leaves me with a male bird in eclipse plumage, i.e. still undergoing the change from its breeding plumage (of black-dark green head and upper neck) to its winter plumage, though that would usually be complete by now, I think.

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Hence my confusion. If any experienced birders reader this, I would welcome your opinions (and explanations). Thanks!

292/365 Goldcrests

19 Saturday Oct 2019

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Goldcrests always look sad to me – something to do with their big eyes and that dark, downturned line at the side of their beaks, perhaps.

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Should they be sad? Being Europe’s littlest birds means life must be quite tough, especially as hundreds of these tiny creatures regularly migrate across the North Sea from Scandinavia to northern and eastern parts of Britain. According to Fauna Britannica, large numbers of Goldcrests used to be trapped in the rigging of North Sea fishing boats, which is why their vernacular names include ‘herring spink’ and ‘tot o’er the seas’.

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I was delighted to see a good number of Goldcrests in trees along the south Wales coast this week. Their constant peeping indicated their presence – luckily for me, I can still hear their calls: the high pitch means many birders ‘lose’ the calls of Goldcrests as their hearing deteriorates with age. I certainly hope that doesn’t happen to me.

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Goldcrests are not easy to photograph as they’re hyperactive little creatures, constantly flitting from leaf to branch and back again in their search for tasty tiny morsels, so I was pleased to get these few images, even though they’re not the sharpest.

283/365 Nom, nom, nom

10 Thursday Oct 2019

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191010 herring gull (1)

It’s difficult to share this juvenile Herring gull’s enthusiasm for the large dead fish it had discovered on the embankment of the Ely River where it flows in to Cardiff Bay, but food is food and the bird’s scavenging was removing a potentially very smelly object from the foreshore. Well done, that gull!

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282/365 How many Shelducks?

09 Wednesday Oct 2019

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One of the reasons Bridgwater Bay is a National Nature Reserve is the Shelduck.

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Due to the extreme tidal range of the bay, at low tide enormous areas of mudflats are exposed and these are teeming with the tiny creatures that Shelducks – and many other species of waterfowl and wading birds – like to eat.

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According to the UK Government website, this reserve is ‘the second largest European moulting ground for Shelduck, with up to 2000 birds present each July’, and rather a lot were still there last Sunday (6 October) when I visited with my birding buddies from Glamorgan Bird Club.

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In fact, I’ve never seen so many Shelducks in my life before. Two thousand almost seems to be an underestimate!

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277/365 Lifer: Great reed warbler

04 Friday Oct 2019

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I’ve left the best till last. We saw a lot of nice birds during our long weekend at Portland Obs but this bird was the undoubted star.

It was late morning, on Saturday 28 September, and a few of us were standing in the Obs front garden, watching for a Firecrest that had been seen there, when keen-eyed Tim noticed a brown bird hopping about in a buddleja right in front of us. It looked like a Reed warbler but was too big, and our experts almost immediately realised it was a Great reed warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus). The bird disappeared for a short time (John raced inside to tell the other birders, and I went in to grab my camera), then, luckily, it reappeared and proceeded to munch on some blackberries growing alongside the garden wall. Unfortunately, it didn’t linger long, soon disappearing along the side of the buildings.

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Several people had noticed the bird had a ring on one leg so this Great reed warbler must have been the same bird that had been caught and ringed in the Obs garden 10 days earlier. Amazingly, it had lingered in the surrounding scrub and bushes without anyone spotting it.

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The largest of the European warblers, the Great reed warbler is only occasionally seen in Britain – it breeds in Europe and Asia and overwinters in sub-Saharan Africa – so, this bird had somehow lost its way during migration.

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If you want to see much clearer photos of this cracking bird, check out Martin Cade’s photos and reports on the Portland Obs blog here (when it was first ringed) and again here (when the bird was re-found, during Saturday afternoon, in the Obs back garden).

276/365 Ruffing it

03 Thursday Oct 2019

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When we spotted this white-headed Ruff at RSPB Lodmoor, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was the same bird we’d seen at this same location on our 2018 trip to Portland. Of course, as the bird wasn’t ringed, there was no way to tell for sure but it certainly was a handsome bird, a ‘satellite’ male as I explained in last year’s post here.


275/365 Black-tailed godwits

02 Wednesday Oct 2019

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For me, the Black-tailed godwits were a highlight of our walk around RSPB Lodmoor. They’re not uncommon birds but I don’t see them on my local patch and don’t often get close views of them.

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There were several at Lodmoor but the little beauty shown below was feeding quite close to the western path. That feeding was a constant repetition of probing the mud to locate some choice morsel, raising its beak from the water and throwing back its head to gulp down said morsel, then plunging its head down into the water again. If its frequent gulps were any indication, the bird was finding plenty of food.

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Black-tailed godwits are handsome waders that can be seen almost year round in Britain. Though local populations migrate to overwinter in Africa, birds from Iceland come to Britain to enjoy our relatively milder winter climate.

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274/365 Egrets and herons

01 Tuesday Oct 2019

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On the way to Portland last Friday our birding group stopped off at the RSPB’s Lodmoor Nature Reserve on the outskirts of Weymouth. It’s a wonderful environment for birds, with small lakes and large reedbeds, open saltmarshes and hedge-enclosed pathways, and it always turns up a good variety of birds.

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Now, I’ve only been in Britain four years so I don’t remember the ‘old days’ when twitchers would race across the country to see a Little egret or a Great white egret, but even I can see how much these birds have increased in number in a very short time.

At Lodmoor, there were several Little egrets (above) – I didn’t count the ones I did see, and I’m sure there were several lurking amongst the reeds that I couldn’t see and, amazingly, there were six (!) Great white egrets (below), for a time all congregated in one spot. Now, that was a sight to see.

I was also impressed by the large numbers of Grey herons, especially those at nearby RSPB Radipole, all lined up along the edge of the reeds, sheltering from the strong westerly winds.

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273/365 Corn buntings

30 Monday Sep 2019

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I’m just back from the annual Glamorgan Bird Club 3-day trip to the Portland Bird Observatory, one of the highlights of my birding year so, be warned, the next few days’ blog posts will be a bit birdy!

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En route to Portland last Friday, we stopped for a short time in the car park at Maiden Castle hill fort, near Dorchester. You may well think that an odd place to go birding but we are almost certain to spot Corn buntings there, birds we never see in my part of Wales. And we were certainly not disappointed – in fact, we saw more Corn buntings this year than I’ve ever seen before, and many were enjoying a fun splash in the puddles along the dirt road leading in to the site. A delight to watch!

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