My favourite avians

05 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, nature photography

Tags

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!

Leucism in birds

21 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, nature photography

≈ 8 Comments

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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

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, nature photography

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

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

Eight interesting facts about blackbirds

11 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, nature photography

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

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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