Tag Archives: British birds

Little grebe on a mission

07 Saturday Nov 2026

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During a recent walk around the parks of north Cardiff, I took a turn around Roath Park Lake. The lake is home to a large population of birds; some – Canada and Greylag geese, Mute swans, Coots – are resident year round, others appear in the autumn to over-winter at the lake, so I always like to check on any new arrivals at this time of year. This particular day was warm and sunny, and I was leaning on the railing at the southern edge of the lake, where a wide bench-lined path runs across the top of the embankment dam, when I spotted this Little grebe. These birds usually shy away but this little one swam straight towards me, intent on checking out the water at the edge of the embankment, presumably having had luck with its fishing there before. And, as I watched, I was pleased to see it was lucky with its fishing again that day.

A Scaup flies in

04 Wednesday Nov 2026

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While I was away in Eastbourne, the first Scaup of the winter, a drake, turned up in Cardiff Bay. Though I was busy catching up on various chores on my first day back at home, fortunately for me, this handsome duck lingered long enough for me to see it the following day. As it was fraternising with a small flock of Tufted ducks on the River Taff approximately 20 feet (6 metres) below the A4232 road bridge, the Scaup wasn’t at a location where it was easy to photograph. And, to make matters worse, it was a bright sunny day, which is always challenging when you’re trying to capture images of a bird with a lot of white/light grey plumage. I hoped the bird would stay a few more days so I could try again but it flew away before I could revisit the location.

First Firecrest of the autumn

02 Monday Nov 2026

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The day before I headed off on my Eastbourne holiday I managed to find my first – quite possibly my only – Firecrest of the autumn, and, amazingly, this was at my first attempt. Maybe I’m slowly getting better at this birding lark! On this occasion, I went looking in a local park where Firecrests were seen last year. It took about an hour of watching, waiting, walking a little way along the path, more watching, more waiting, moving to another part of the park where I’d had lucky previously, watching, waiting … then, ta-daaaah! Not the most crisp of shots, I’ll grant you, but certainly recognisable as a Firecrest, so I’ll take it.

Herring gulls

30 Friday Oct 2026

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As you might expect, given I was staying in a town by the seaside, the most numerous bird species I saw during my week in Eastbourne was the Herring gull, through all its juvenile stages to white-and-grey-plumaged adult. So, of course, I took photos of some that caught my eye.

One of the juveniles was gracefully sipping a drink of relatively fresh water from a puddle along the Eastbourne seafront.

Lifeguards might not have been on duty at Eastbourne beach but the many Herring gulls were always keeping an eye out.

This adult was sitting on a rooftop on one of the buildings on Eastbourne pier, hoping one of the many visitors would accidentally drop some morsels of the food they all seemed to be eating.

During my second day at Birling Gap, the weather was quite wild, with occasional driving rain and constant strong winds. The gulls were loving the wind, cliff surfing along the coastline, 30 feet (9 metres) above the beach for them, eye level for me. I loved watching them and took a lot of photos, though the combination of me trying to stand still and the birds’ movement meant most turned out a little blurry.

On the final day of my holiday, spent meandering around the Seven Sisters Country Park, one of the last birds I saw as I headed for the bus was this Herring gull. Though I might be guilty of anthropomorphising the scene, I detect a satisfied grin on the bird’s face as it bashes the crab it’s caught on a rock to break it in to edible pieces.

A pair of Ruff

29 Thursday Oct 2026

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On my last day in East Sussex I returned once again to the Seven Sisters Country Park, the place that had drawn me back to this stunning part of England’s southern coastline, and walked out to the sea and back along both sides of the river, hoping, though not really expecting, to find one last birding surprise before I had to return home. There were Curlew and a couple of Bar-tailed godwits, Brent geese and Wigeon, a few Greylags amongst the big flocks of Canada geese – all lovely to see, of course, just not that something special I was wishing for. And then, when I was almost back at the carpark of the Cuckmere Inn, a little thought popped into my mind – maybe I should take one more quick look along the path out to the western side of the river.

And there they were, quite close to the path, browsing amongst the vegetation of the saltmarsh. Now, I have to admit that, as I don’t see them very often and have never seen a male and female in winter plumage together before, I didn’t initially recognise these waders, and I actually thought they were two different species. Given the substantial difference in their size and colouring, I think you can probably see why.

These are Ruff (Calidris pugnax). As you would expect, the male is the larger bird, coloured in shades of black, white and grey, and the female – actually known as a Reeve – is the smaller, buff and brown coloured bird. Both were beautiful, and I was overjoyed to find and then to spend quite a bit of time watching them. Seeing these two stunning birds was the best possible finale to what had been a wonderful week in East Sussex.

Flighty Golden plovers

27 Tuesday Oct 2026

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, there were two birding highlights during my day at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. One was the surprise find of a Dartford warbler, my second for this trip. The other was the enjoyment I got from spending quite a lot of time watching the huge flock of Golden plovers (Pluvialis apricaria).

These birds seemed particularly unsettled, frequently rising up from the mud to fly around the waterways before settling back down again. I couldn’t spot anything in particular that might be disturbing them; maybe they just like to fly.

I’ve never seen the Golden plover in my part of south Wales. In the summer, they are upland birds, breeding mostly in Scotland, in the highlands and on the islands of the Outer Hebrides and Shetland. In the winter, they move to southern Britain, spending time on farmland and in coastal estuaries, and can be seen further west along the Welsh coastline from where I live.

Having followed local social media reports before my visit, I knew I would see these birds at Rye Harbour NR and had hoped for closer views but they were always distant. Though you probably can’t tell from my photos, many of the Golden plovers were still in the speckled black-and-gold summer plumage that gives them their name. As the winter progresses, they will moult to look more black and white, with a delicate sprinkling of light brown replacing the summer gold on their backs. I admit to a little disappointment at not getting a better look at these beautiful birds but they were still a delight to watch.

Rye Harbour Nature Reserve

26 Monday Oct 2026

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On Wednesday 14 October I ventured away from the Eastbourne area, taking the train to Rye to visit the magnificent Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. And it was just as good as I remembered, though a dry summer of heatwaves has led to severe drought across much of southern England and this was very apparent in the low water levels at the reserve, meaning the birds were even more distant than usual. Also, I hadn’t realised that the northern half of the reserve was closed due to a deadly combination of bird flu, avian botulism, and periods of blue-green algae in the waterways. Not surprisingly, this rather restricted where I could walk, but it’s a huge reserve so I still managed to clock up several miles and saw some very nice fauna and flora during my visit.

As the Glassworts (Salicornia species) lose their chlorophyll they change to vivid shades of red and purple, rust and terracotta making the autumn colours of the saltmarsh just gorgeous.

There were two birding highlights for me during this visit; the first will be revealed in tomorrow’s blog, the second was the wonderful surprise of finding another Dartford warbler (you’ll recall I also found one at Belle Tout). This little one was rather more of the skulking type, and only allowed me to get a couple of distant photos.

Redshanks were abundant. This one was grabbing 40 winks in a quiet corner.

Wigeon were also plentiful. Snoozing, cruising, and munching on vegetation – such is the life of this handsome duck.

A sprinkling of wildflowers were still in bloom on the shingle; this lovely Viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare) was one.

I was also delighted to see this new-to-me Twiggy Mullein (Verbascum virgatum), a very pretty wildflower with quite tall stems covered in lovely yellow flowers, another locally common shingle-growing plant.

Dartford warblers

24 Saturday Oct 2026

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Though I see a lot of very fine birds during the hours I spend walking in Nature, I don’t often find them myself – I have usually heard about them through my WhatsApp group or my contacts on social media – so there is something especially rewarding and satisfying about finding a special bird myself.

And that’s what happened twice during my recent week in East Sussex, the same bird species both times. The birds were Dartford warblers (Curruca undata), and I found the first in scrub below the former lighthouse at Belle Tout.

These birds are frequently found in the company of Stonechats and often seen perching on the tops of Gorse bushes. Both Stonechats and Gorse were abundant in the area of scrub where I was walking, and I had just been thinking that, given how many Stonechats there were and how much Gorse, there really should be a Dartford warbler, when … boom! I heard its distinctive call from the bushes down the slope from where I was standing, and then up it popped.

These warblers are notorious for skulking in bushes, frustrating bird watchers by their teasing behaviour, giving tantalisingly brief views before disappearing for long periods into the undergrowth (and that’s exactly what happened when I spotted my second Dartford warbler of the trip at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve a couple of days later; blog about Rye to follow).

So, I was exceedingly lucky that this first Dartford warbler showed well for me. I even saw it interacting with other birds, first with the Stonechats and then, as you can see from my sequence of three photos here, with a male Blackcap that was probably about to head off on its migration journey.

Dartford warblers themselves don’t migrate but they do often disperse from their breeding locations during the autumn, and this is probably what was happening with the two I saw, as they are not usually seen in the locations where I found them. As you can imagine, I was over the moon with my special finds.

Corn buntings

23 Friday Oct 2026

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From the social media posts of local East Sussex birders and research about recent sightings, I knew there was a chance I might see Corn buntings near Birling Gap. I was given the following advice: ‘If you park at Birling Gap and head east towards Beachy Head they are often to be seen as you look inland to your left from the car park.’ I was on foot, of course, but the advice was spot on. There was a field full of scrub and bramble right next to the overflow carpark, and that’s where I heard, then thought I saw my first Corn buntings in many years.

I saw ‘thought I saw’, as there were also plenty of Linnets, Meadow pipits and Skylarks in the area, all streaky brown birds that can easily be confused with each other, especially when viewed from a distance. Fortunately, the Corn bunting (Emberiza calandra) has a very distinctive call, which many have described as sounding like jangling keys and that helped me home in on these buntings. (I did take a video of one calling but the sound from the bird was obscured by the noise of passing cars, so here’s a link to the RSPB website, where you can have a listen.)

Sadly, the Corn bunting is now a red-listed bird, having suffered a population decline in Britain over the final quarter of the 20th century of as much as 90 per cent. This dramatic decline is due to changes in agricultural practice; growing crops twice each year, rather than leaving fields fallow over the winter, has meant there is no longer any stubble-field seed available to see the birds through the colder months, and the increasing use of chemicals in agriculture has led to huge declines in the insects these buntings would usually feed to their chicks. Seeing these Corn buntings at Birling Gap was, for me, both a joyful and a heart-wrenching experience.

Birling Gap and Beachy Head

22 Thursday Oct 2026

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Today’s blog is a combination of landscape, and a fraction of what I saw as I walked through that landscape.

We start at Birling Gap, an area that frequently features on the news due to the dramatic cliff falls that have occurred here. (In January this year, nine people and a dog had to be rescued from the beach after the cliff behind the steps to the beach collapsed – details and photos on the BBC website.) My photo shows the view west from Birling Gap, along the Seven Sisters cliffs. Where the land dips down at the end of the Seven Sisters is where the Cuckmere River runs out to the sea. In the distance you might just make out the cottages seen in the final photo from my blog about the Seven Sisters Country Park a couple of days ago, and the chalk cliffs beyond that form the coastline from the Seven Sisters CP to the town of Seaford. The King Charles III England Coastal Path runs along the cliff tops.

All this coast, from Seaford to Eastbourne, is a migration hot spot for birds heading south out over the sea in the autumn, and for species arriving from the south in the spring. My photo shows one of the many Chiffchaffs that were feeding up in the bushes, prior to their migration journey.

The next landmark as we walk from Birling Gap towards Eastbourne is Belle Tout, a former lighthouse, now unique bed and breakfast accommodation (far too expensive for my budget, sadly). You might think that the lighthouse would be unsafe, considering how close it is to the erosion-prone cliff edge. Well, it was once even closer to that edge and, incredibly, was moved back 55 feet (17 metres). (There’s an excellent short video from the Institution of Civil Engineers on YouTube if you’re interested in learning and seeing more of this amazing engineering feat.) My memory of this area will now forever be linked to a special bird I found in the scrub you can see to the right of the lighthouse – blog to follow.

Between Belle Tout and Beachy Head is an extensive area of patchy scrub that is yet  another birding hot spot. As several had recently passed through this area, I was hoping to spot a Ring ouzel but had no luck during my two visits. The only bird of note was this late Wheatear.

Next, we climb up the hill to Beachy Head, at 531 feet (162 metres) the highest point along these cliffs, and off shore, at the base of the cliffs, is the Beachy Head light, which replaced Belle Tout as the fully functioning lighthouse to warn shipping of the rocks and dangerous waters off this coast.

On one of my visits to this area, I walked all the way back to my hotel in Eastbourne, a total for the day of around 8 and a half miles. I was sitting on a bench at the top of Beachy Head having my lunch when a large flock of birds flew over, heading east to west along the coast. I wasn’t sure which species they were but, fortunately, one of my local birding acquaintances, who does a lot of vismig (visual migration – watching, identifying, counting the birds as they move through), was able to identify these as Stock doves. The sight was a wonderful reminder of how special this area is for migrating birdlife.