Pipits feeding their families

22 Friday May 2026

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birding, birds feeding young, birdwatching, British birds, Meadow pipit, pipits feeding young, Rock pipit

As I mentioned in Tuesday’s blog (Skylarks and Stonechats), the area around the Ferrybridge Wild Chesil Centre is rich in birdlife at this time of year, the lush wildflowers and thick scrub obviously providing a rich diet of lurking insects for breeding birds to nourish their young. As well as the Skylarks and Stonechats, a healthy population of Meadow pipits also breeds hereabouts, and I caught this adult with a beak full of foraged food, just waiting for me to pass by before heading in to the undergrowth to its nest.

Later that day, as I sat on a boulder eating my lunchtime snack at Portland Bill, I was entertained by another member of the pipit family busily gathering titbits to feed its family. This Rock pipit looked gorgeous as it sat on a rock, surrounded by the delicate pinks of the lush flowering Thrift, waiting for a family of humans, who were clambering around the remains of a former quarry, to move away before flying down to its well-concealed nest to satisfy, if only momentarily, the hungry tummies of its chicks.

Skylarks and Stonechats

19 Tuesday May 2026

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birding, birds at Wild Chesil Centre, birdwatching, British birds, juvenile Stonechat, Skylark, Stonechat

The area around the Wild Chesil Centre at Ferrybridge in Weymouth is alive with small birds in the spring and summer months. As soon as you arrive, your ears will be filled with the joyous sound of displaying Skylarks, the trills and warbles of their lengthy song flights audible even above the almost constant sound of cars passing on the busy road to the Isle of Portland. And, as this area is also busy with human traffic, the birds are more tolerant than usual of approaching people walking the tracks behind the Centre’s car park and on the opposite side of the road, along the well-vegetated edge of Hamm Beach. In fact, the colours of the Skylark pictured below blended so well with the stony path that I was almost upon the bird before it scuttled a few yards ahead of me, its close proximity providing a nice photo opportunity.

The Stonechats in this area were also a delight to watch.

Mum and Dad Stonechat (that’s the male above) were perched up on the tops of low shrubs, making their usual contact calls (like two stones being knocked together, hence their name), and, when I spotted them, I also noticed these two youngsters, sitting watching the goings on. These, presumably, were the first brood of the year, now fledged and able to fend for themselves, which means the parents will be able to move on to raising another one, possibly two more broods before the summer ends. Busy little chats!

Little tern courtship behaviour

16 Saturday May 2026

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Chesil Little Tern Project, Little tern, Little tern courtship

The only time I get to see Little terns is when I visit Weymouth, in Dorset, during late spring and summer, as these stunning little birds spend their winters in west Africa and only return to Britain between April and August to breed. Chesil Beach is the furthest south west Little terns breed in England and is home to the Chesil Little Tern Project, which aims to monitor and protect the Little tern colony during their breeding season. A temporary electric fence is erected around the breeding area, and over 60 volunteers assist RSPB staff in engaging with and educating the public about the birds, and protecting the colony from predators, people and their dogs.

I didn’t visit the breeding colony itself – I figure the fewer people who go near them the better – but the birds can be seen flying over and fishing in the waters of the Fleet lagoon from the roadside at Ferrybridge so I found a handy boulder and plonked myself down to watch. And it was fascinating!

What I saw was the Little terns’ courtship behaviour. The male bird catches a fish and flies around calling, in the hope of attracting a female; I presume the fish is his way of advertising his ability to provide for his mate and any chicks they might have. If the female likes the look of him, she will chase and fly with him before both birds descend to the beach, or, in this case, the small buoys in the water. If the female accepts the fish the male offers then the courtship has been successful, and the breeding process gets underway. Do I detect a rather smug look on the male’s face in this last photo?

Sunning

11 Monday May 2026

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature

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bird cleaning behaviour, birding, birdwatching, blackbird, Blackbird sunbathing, Blackbird sunning, British birds

It’s an interesting way to get yourself clean but I’m sure you’ve all seen birds sunning themselves like this Blackbird, head up and beak open as if panting with the heat, body close to the ground with wings outspread. The BTO website gives two reasons for this behaviour:

It helps oil from the ‘preen gland’ to spread across the feathers, keeping them healthy and in good condition. It also drives parasites out from within the plumage. Some of these parasites feed on the feathers themselves, degrading their quality and function, and all are highly specialised, with many only found on a single species of bird.

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The Fox and the crow

02 Saturday May 2026

Posted by sconzani in birds, mammal

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, British mammals, Carrion crow, fox

I don’t know why this Carrion crow died. It certainly wasn’t the Fox that killed it; it may just have been natural causes. I was alerted to its presence, laying by the woodland edge below my window (I live on the second level of our building, on a steeply sloping site, so I was essentially looking straight down at this scene), by the local Magpies making a lot of noise. Half a dozen of them were standing around the crow, squawking loudly, hopping a little closer, then hopping away again. After about 5 minutes, they seemed to reach a consensus that the crow was dead, and they all flew off to their respective parts of the garden (they’ve paired up now and each pair seems to have established its own territory within the grounds).

Later, in the evening, Mr Fox found the crow and it was interesting to watch his behaviour. He was very gentle, sniffed and nuzzled the bird a few times, presumably making sure it was dead, then sprayed it twice, from different angles, with urine, before trotting off. I’ve since read that this is quite normal behaviour for Foxes; they will spray their prey to mark it as theirs, so that other Foxes leave it alone. The next morning the crow was gone, presumably retrieved by the Fox sometime during the night or in the early morning on its way back to the den.

Cute cootlet

30 Thursday Apr 2026

Posted by sconzani in birds, spring

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Coot, Coot chick

Though I’ve been hearing the hungry cheeping of tiny baby birds in nests obscured deep within dense vegetation, I’ve not seen a lot of chicks yet this year. I did see the first local Moorhen babies three weeks ago, on 8 April, but they were, wisely, mostly hiding amongst the reeds and my photos weren’t share-worthy. So, when I was walking along the boardwalk on the edge of Cosmeston’s east lake on Tuesday and heard a low peeping, I was delighted, when I cleared the dense reeds, to spot this well-grown Coot chick feeding with its parents. And just look at the size of that foot!

Nesting material

28 Tuesday Apr 2026

Posted by sconzani in birds, spring

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bird's nesting material, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Great tit, Great tit with nesting material, nesting material

When, from a distance, I first spotted this Great tit, I wondered what on earth it was doing.

It was plucking constantly and vigorously at something on the ground that it was holding down with its feet.

The bird was so focused on what it was doing that it wasn’t bothered about my approach and I was able to get a series of photos before the bird flew off with its prize.

Reviewing my photos, I realised that the object the tit was plucking at was part of a tennis ball, most probably an old dog’s ball that had fallen apart and been abandoned. At least now it was proving useful to the Great tit as nesting material, and I rather liked the idea that the bird and its nest would be colour-coordinated.

The return of the Willow warblers

23 Thursday Apr 2026

Posted by sconzani in birds, spring

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, spring migration, Willow warbler

Just before I heard my first two Willow warblers this year, I was attacked by a stray Bramble branch that somehow managed to wrap itself around my left ankle without my noticing so, when I kept walking, its grip tightened, and, despite my attempt at some fancy footwork to try to free my foot, I went crashing down hard on to a tarmac path. I was the April Fool, or at least I felt that way!

Fortunately, two passing cyclists helped this old lady up – getting up is the hardest part, I find, as I get older, and I began to hobble home. I’d only taken a few hesitant steps when I heard the birds, belting out their song from vegetation on one side of the path. It was as if Nature was giving me a little present, something to smile about, and a very welcome distraction from my rapidly swelling left knee and the pain that was starting to spread through my body.

Not surprisingly, the photos shown here were not taken that day but a week or so later, when I heard another Willow warbler singing at Cardiff’s Grangemoor Park, at a spot where a bird – the same bird? – had held a territory during each of the previous few summers. Their distinctive song is one of my favourite signs that the long fine days are returning.

Recent Reed buntings

17 Friday Apr 2026

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birding, birds in reed beds, birdwatching, British birds, Reed bunting

The Reed bunting is a handsome species, beautifully marked in various shades of brown, a bird that I hear more often than I see, except at this time of year, the start of the breeding season, when the males in particular are more evident and more vocal as they search for mates – not that I’ve managed to get any good photos of males lately.

Of course, even when birds do show themselves a little more, they can still be difficult to photograph, obscured by twigs and branches and burgeoning leaves, as happened with the Reed bunting above. I was more lucky with the bird shown below that was feeding on the tiny seeds in the flower heads of a reed species. Now to find a co-operative male!

Chiffchaffs chiffchaffing

04 Saturday Apr 2026

Posted by sconzani in birds, spring

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Chiffchaff, spring bird song, spring migration

Here’s another bird that seems to be singing its onomatopoeic song from every tree at the moment – there’s even one flexing its vocal muscles in the garden as I write this.

With numbers of over-wintering Chiffchaffs increasing, it’s not always easy to tell which birds are new arrivals, though, from social media and the blogs of places like Portland Bird Observatory, I think a lot of the birds now singing have recently completed their inward migration journeys.