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For no particular reason I am feeling the need for some good cheer today, and what better little bird to provide that cheery feeling than a cute wee Robin with its bouncy melody. Happy Saturday, everyone!
A cheery Robin
15 Saturday Mar 2025
Tag Archives: birdwatching
Coot vs Coot
12 Wednesday Mar 2025
It’s that time of year when birds quarrel frequently, over territories, over females, over nest sites, and Coots are the masters of quarrelling.
First, their heads go down and their wings go up, presumably to make their profile look larger and more threatening to the opposition. And then, if the opposition doesn’t back down – and, in my experience, Coots rarely shy away from a fight, they attack.
Things can get very heated very quickly, and Coots use their large feet as weapons, hitting out at each other, latching on and pushing their opponents under the water, sometimes almost drowning them.
Fortunately, the fights rarely last very long, and I’ve never seen any injuries on the birds. So, perhaps their disputes look more vicious than they actually are.
Lunch was delicious
07 Friday Mar 2025
Posted in birds
It always amazes me how flexible birds’ beaks and jaws must be for them to swallow what look like impossibly oversized fish but swallow them they do. This handsome Cormorant, already beginning to acquire the white mane of its breeding plumage, made quick work of consuming this particular fish and one other in the short time I was watching. I’m sure it thought its lunch was delicious.
Male Reed bunting
05 Wednesday Mar 2025
Posted in birds
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve, male Reed buntin, Reed bunting
As the reed beds at Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve are extensive and quite dense I hear the resident Reed buntings more often than I see them so I was charmed, during yesterday’s visit, by the close proximity on the boardwalk and very confiding nature of this handsome male. I can’t help but wonder if he thought I might give him a seed reward as he strutted this way and that, with all the swagger of someone used to performing on a catwalk rather than a boardwalk.
Old man heron
03 Monday Mar 2025
Posted in birds
There’s a particular branch on a particular tree alongside the River Ely where a Grey heron sits and cogitates about life, the universe and, probably, where its next meal is coming from.
The heron is mostly obscured from the view of passing dog walkers by the riverside trees amongst which he sits but at least one keen-eyed photographer (moi) knows this is a favourite spot and looks for him there.
These three photos of old man heron (though it could be a female – I’m not sure how you tell the gender of Grey heron, or even if you can) were taken at the same spot, almost exactly a month apart, on 31 December, 25 January and 26 February.
And, now that I look at them together, I’m not sure if it is the same bird – I’ve always assumed it was because of the bird’s preference for this particular spot. His plumage looks a little different, though there is a pale spot near the end of his beak that is unchanged from one month to the next. What do you think?
Black-tailed godwits
28 Friday Feb 2025
Posted in birds
The most numerous bird species in Monday’s murmuration (see Wednesday’s blog for photos) was undoubtedly the Black-tailed godwit (Limosa limosa). With their long legs, necks and beaks and well-proportioned bodies, these are elegant birds.
We have two species of godwit in Britain, Black-tailed and Bar-tailed (Limosa lapponica), and, at first glance, they can be difficult to tell apart but, as you can see in some of my photos, the Black-tailed have broad white wing-bars and their white tails finish with a black band, hence their name.
Some of these local birds are starting to change in to their breeding plumage of brick-red heads, necks and breasts, which is why the birds’ colours pictured here are so different. Only a very small number of Black-tailed godwits breed in the UK; most, if not all, of the birds pictured will soon be heading north-west to their breeding grounds in Iceland.
And that breeding location is one of the reasons Black-tailed godwits are now on the British red list, as the lowland Icelandic grasslands these birds favour are increasingly being converted to arable production and forestry. Climate change and environmental pressures are also affecting the locations in Britain where the birds over-winter, so they are facing pressure all year round. I feel privileged to have seen so many of these stunning creatures at such close quarters and to see their incredibly well synchronised aerial display earlier this week.
Murmuration
26 Wednesday Feb 2025
Posted in nature
Tags
birding, birdwatching, Black-tailed godwit, British birds, Dunlin, Knot, large flock of flying birds, murmuration
When you hear or read the word murmuration, you probably think of Starlings and the incredible sight of thousands of those birds flying though the evening sky in perfect unison. But it isn’t only Starlings that execute such amazing aerial displays; many other species of bird perform similar feats of synchronised flying and, on Monday, I was privileged to see just such a spectacle.
As soon as I arrived at the Cardiff Bay Barrage, I saw a large flock of birds flying around the area outside the Barrage, on the edge of the Bristol Channel. Luckily for me, the birds settled on one of the mudflats and began feeding. In my almost ten years of living in the area, I had never seen so many waders doing this; they usually feed on mudflats north of Cardiff.
The flock must have been several hundred strong and consisted of three species of wader, Black-tailed godwit, Knot and Dunlin. For 45 minutes, I watched and listened to and photographed these stunning birds, sharing my delight and wonder with a man who was out walking his dog and who’d never seen anything like this sight in his many years of living locally.
Then, for some unknown reason, the Barrage operations staff opened more of the sluice gates that allow water in Cardiff Bay to flow out in to the Bristol Channel, creating a small wave that swiftly encroached on the area of mud where the flock was feeding, and eventually covering it completely. As the wave reached them, the birds took to the air, creating an ever expanding cloud of flying birds. As one, they flew around the outer Barrage area, looking for another place to land but there was nowhere. For perhaps ten minutes, they swirled high into the air, then back down towards the water, wheeling left and right in perfect harmony, before abandoning their search for more mudflats and heading northwards along the coast. It was a sublime aerial symphony that I will never forget.
Hoovering Shelduck
25 Tuesday Feb 2025
According to a research report* published on the British Trust for Ornithology’s website, the Shelduck (Tadorna tadorna) was ‘one of the most common waterbird species at Cardiff Bay prior to barrage-closure’. When the report was written, in 2003, Shelduck were still using the Bay as a roosting site between tides, albeit in small numbers. Twenty-two years later, the Bay has become so overwhelmed by human water traffic (jetboats, speedboats, water taxis, yachts, kayakers, paddleboarders) that it is rare to see Shelduck within the Bay itself.
Fortunately, there are still reasonably untouched areas of mudflat along the coast between Cardiff and Newport, and Bridgwater Bay, a National Nature Reserve renowned for its population of Shelducks, is a relatively short flight across the Bristol Channel from Cardiff Bay. So, the birds can often be seen, at a distance, feeding on the tidal mudflats outside the Barrage at low tide. And, occasionally, as happened one day last week, a pair will arrive early and wait for the lowering tide along the beach below Penarth Heads or, in this case, in the Barrage basin. This is the only time I get to see these beautiful birds up close so I sat on a rock and watched and, as the mud was exposed, took this short video of them hoovering and filtering the mud for tiny invertebrates.
* S. J. Holloway, N. A. Clark & N. H. K. Burton, ‘The Numbers and Status of Waterbirds using Cardiff Bay from 1999/2000 to 2002/2003‘, BTO Research Report No.319, The National Centre for Ornithology, Norfolk, July 2003.
A Dipper dipping
22 Saturday Feb 2025
Posted in birds
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I heard this Dipper singing before I saw it. With my binoculars, I scanned the stones and small boulders along the opposite edge of the River Taff, near Radyr in south Wales, until I spotted the bird, then stood mesmerised as it sang its sweet melody, presumably hoping to attract a female Dipper.
Serenade over, the bird proceeded to do as its name implies, dipping beneath the fast-flowing waters of the river. This is how Dippers feed, moving along underwater in the search for small invertebrates, though, in this case, I’m not sure whether the Dipper was feeding or washing itself or simply enjoying a good splash. It was a delight to watch so I tried to capture some of the action for you all to enjoy.
Male Bullfinches
20 Thursday Feb 2025
For me the male Bullfinch, with his glorious apricot breast feathers, is the most exotic-looking of Britain’s birds. He looks like he belongs in a tropical rain forest, not in the sub-zero temperatures of a British winter. These two particularly handsome chaps were busily nibbling the new buds from the trees at Forest Farm Nature Reserve earlier this week, which is why these birds are never much liked by orchardists.
There were female Bullfinches about as well, though, for some reason, they tended to be skulking in the furthest reaches of the branches, out of this photographer’s lens range. Perhaps it’s just that male birds in general like to advertise their presence more as we approach spring and the breeding season.
earthstar 
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