Tag Archives: British birds

Interesting snippets about Swallows

27 Saturday May 2023

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My Fauna Britannica tells me that:
— Swallow ‘is an ancient name, traceable back to Middle English and possibly originating in an earlier term for a “cleft stick”, a reference to the forked tail.’
— ‘In the south of Scotland … many a gardener will not sow peas until the Swallow has arrived’
— if Swallows ‘fly high, fine weather is assured’, so says ‘many a country sage’
— ‘to destroy a Swallow’s nest or kill the bird has been widely thought to bring ill luck’ – and, these days, is also illegal.
I hope you have Swallows soaring in your skies above!

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May curlew

27 Thursday Apr 2023

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I seem to have a habit of biannual posts about the local Whimbrel migration – see Whimbrel passing, 3 May 2021 – so, today, rather than the migration, let’s talk about some of the names for the Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus), courtesy of the writing and research of Stefan Buczacki in his massive publication Fauna Britannica.

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Some of the vernacular names reflect the time of year these birds pass through on migration: May curlew, May fowl, May whaap (Ireland) and May bird (East Anglia); others their resemblance to their cousin, the Curlew: Curlew Jack (Yorkshire), Curlew knave (Cumberland), Curlew knot (Lincolnshire), and Half curlew (Norfolk, Suffolk).

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The name Whimbrel itself comes from the bird’s call, something of a whimper. Another version of this is, in fact, ‘Whimperel’, a name once used in Durham. Whatever you want to call it, this is a beautiful bird well worth spending time watching if you get the chance.

Reeling Grasshopper warbler

25 Tuesday Apr 2023

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I might have stubby legs but they can move quite quickly when the need arises. And, when I got a message that there was a reeling Grasshopper warbler at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park while I was walking along the local coastal path, the need to move quickly was strong. Luckily, I made it in time to hear, and even more luckily, see this visibly unostentatious little bird (the typical ‘little brown job’), though, as you can see from my photo, it was always partly obscured behind foliage.

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If you’ve never heard a Grasshopper warbler reeling, I made a little recording of this one. The reason for the bird’s name will immediately become obvious. And, something I discovered while watching this one, while its mouth was gaping wide uttering its unique song, its tail was quivering in time to the reeling.

Welcome, Whitethroats!

22 Saturday Apr 2023

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I love this time of year, when our migrating birds wing their way back to our shores for the breeding season. The latest migrant to arrive locally has been the Whitethroat (Common whitethroat, if you prefer) (Sylvia communis). I heard my first four days ago, on the 18th. It showed briefly, on a tree branch, but fairly quickly ducked back down into the scrub below. Then, yesterday, I heard three Whitethroats during my five-mile walk – they will continue to arrive for a few weeks yet, some passing through to other areas, some remaining to breed locally. The handsome little chap in my photo seemed to have found his happy place, a large area of impenetrable (to humans) trees and scrub. He was singing and songflighting, both claiming this location for himself and announcing his presence and many impressive qualities to any passing females. If I’d been a female Whitethroat, I’d certainly have been interested.

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Two Jays

20 Thursday Apr 2023

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I was just leaving the local country park yesterday when these two Jays flew across my path and in to the trees and scrub behind the boundary fence.

Surprisingly, they weren’t bothered about my presence, continuing to flit about the branches and ferret about in the undergrowth. As they had a somewhat frantic air about them, I suspect they were searching for titbits to feed young ones nearby.

Arctic tern

17 Monday Apr 2023

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Terns of any description rarely visit Cardiff Bay but, if they’re ever going to, now, on Spring passage, is the time of year for it to happen … and it did, for two days at the end of last week. (Terns do sometimes pop in on Autumn passage as well, depending on the weather.) The Bay has some very keen and knowledgeable resident birders so when one of those, Gareth, put out the word that he’d seen a tern in the Bay, thought it was an Arctic tern but didn’t have his ‘scope with him, other locals quickly headed down with their equipment to check it out. Arctic tern it was! (Common and Arctic terns can be tricky to tell apart, and the term ‘commic’, a combination of their names, is used by birders when uncertain.)

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Unfortunately, I couldn’t get there that afternoon so imagine my delight when word came through from Gareth again the next day that the tern was still showing. Though rain threatened and did, in fact, interrupt play a couple of times, I managed to find the tern. Sadly, it wasn’t giving the close views it had the day before and was mostly a small dot on the other side of the water until, when it decided to fly onwards, it flew almost directly over my head. A head-terning moment!

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