Tag Archives: British birds

Choughed

10 Friday Oct 2025

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I heard them before I saw them and, the first time, I only saw them circle overhead before they flew west along the beach and adjacent cliffs, quickly out of sight.

But then I walked around the old harbour and out to the tip of the neighbouring headland, where, amazingly, I heard them calling again. And, incredibly, moments later they flew in and landed on the rough grass not far in front of me.

I managed to get a little closer and quickly snapped off as many photos as I was able, as I could see a couple with two dogs approaching along the headland and knew the birds would fly once they got closer. And that’s exactly what happened, with the birds following the same flight line as when I first saw them.

These are Choughs (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax), Britain’s rarest corvid and the only member of the crow family to have a red beak and legs. Choughs are only found in the western parts of Britain and they’re not a bird I usually see – in fact, it must be several years since I last saw one, so this was a real treat, and most unexpected.

Though I was having a wander around the seaside town of Barry, half an hour’s train ride west of where I live, that is still outside the area where Choughs are normally seen. Maybe their population has expanded, meaning this pair are now venturing outside their usual territory. Whatever the reason, I was absolutely chuffed/Choughed to see them.

Hobbies!!

08 Wednesday Oct 2025

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In recent days, birders and passers-by, who have noticed the birders and asked what they’re looking at, have been treated to the incredible aerial displays of two juvenile Hobbies, expertly catching dragonflies along the River Ely in Cardiff.

I’ve seen Hobbies before but never as close as these birds so watching them has been truly amazing. With their scythe-like wings, they resemble Swifts in flight, though they’re a little larger, more the size of a Kestrel. And they are super speedy; I found it difficult to capture photographs of them in flight. In the end, I put the camera down and just watched, spellbound, as they wove their aerial magic.

The Hobby (Falco subbuteo) used to be quite scarce in the UK but their population has increased in recent years. The fact that these two are juvenile birds means we can probably assume they have bred nearby, possibly in the woodland adjacent to where they have been flying. Fortunately, it is privately owned land, with no footpaths, so wildlife is left in peace amongst the trees, a rare situation these days.

Hobbies are long-distance migrants that arrive here around April and depart again around September-October, heading to Africa to over-winter in warmer climes. Fortunately for them (though not for the dragonflies), these two young birds were finding plenty of prey to fuel the long flight to come.

This year’s Wheatears

04 Saturday Oct 2025

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Judging by the numbers I’ve been seeing in Cardiff Bay during this autumn’s migration, Wheatears have benefitted from a good breeding season.

These birds don’t breed locally, preferring the wide open spaces and heathland in upland areas like the Brecon Beacons National Park (Bannau Brycheiniog) and the Snowdonia National Park (Eryri).

As well as northern England and parts of Scotland, Wales is a stronghold for the British population of Wheatear, together with other members of the chat family, the Whinchat and Stonechat. This was confirmed by a specialised survey conducted by volunteers across Wales in 2012-2013; the BTO website has an abridged scientific paper available on its website for anyone interested in reading further.

We are lucky to see them on passage, as they pause briefly on the south Wales coast before heading across the Bristol Channel en route to their over-wintering locations in Africa.

Did you know their name refers to their white rear end, which flashes when they fly and is one of the best ways to identify a Wheatear seen at distance? Wheat comes from the Old English for ‘white’ and ear comes from the word for ‘arse’.

Three colour-ringed gulls

01 Wednesday Oct 2025

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Though I do sometimes see colour-ringed gulls in my local area, they’re often too distant for me to get photographs that are clear enough to read the details on their rings. So, during a recent walk around Roath Park Lake when I saw three ringed gulls, I made sure to get clear images so I could report my sightings. Not only does this provide valuable information on the movements of gull species, several of which are now endangered, but it’s also fascinating to find out where these gulls have been.

This male Lesser black-backed gull, with the orange ring inscribed R=U, was ringed at 5 weeks old on 5 July 2021 in Cardiff. Most of the subsequent reported sightings of this bird have been at Roath Park Lake, from September 2021 through to my sighting in September this year, but it has ventured much further afield; on 26 October 2022 it was seen in Matosinhos, a coastal city in northern Portugal. From Cardiff, that’s a straight-line distance of approximately 1,445 kilometers or 898 miles though, of course, the bird is unlikely to have flown straight there; it’s more likely that it followed the coasts of England and France to reach Portugal. And it’s also possible that it has been to Portugal or, indeed, other European destinations but hasn’t been sighted there, or hasn’t been reported when sighted.

This second Lesser black-backed gull, V&Z, a female, was also ringed in Cardiff but much more recently, on 17 July this year when it was just one week old. So far, it has only been reported from Roath Park Lake, on three occasions in September.

Today’s final colour-ringed gull has a very interesting story to tell. This Black-headed gull was initially ringed with a simple metal ring at Roath Park Lake in March 2019. That summer, the bird returned to its breeding grounds in Denmark, where it was recaptured by local bird ringers, who gave it the colour ring 9RK. It’s been reported wintering at Roath Park Lake annually ever since so it’s very likely that it makes the return trip to Denmark to breed every spring/summer.

A Shag even closer

27 Saturday Sep 2025

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog about the Common tern, there was another bird that held my attention during that walk around Cardiff Bay; it was, in fact, the reason I had walked that way in the first place. The previous evening, news reached me of a Shag that had roosted and was fishing in one of the old docks, providing exceptionally close views to those who chose to stop and watch.

After the close views I had enjoyed of the Common tern, I did wonder as I walked in the Shag’s direction whether I had already used up my luck for the day, but no. The Shag was still there, constantly diving for fish, at times surfacing just a few feet away from where I was standing. And, once it ventured out of the water to perch on the rocks for a short time, regurgitated some fish it had just caught, swallowed them again, then returned to its watery home.

As the old dock where the bird was is a relatively small body of water, now permanently closed off at both ends, I was surprised at how many fish it was catching. I was also very relieved to see that the fishing line it seemed to have swallowed was not affecting its feeding. Another wonderful close encounter of the avian kind!

A Common tern up close

26 Friday Sep 2025

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It was Friday 26 September, about 10:15am – a late start for me, and I had just begun walking across Cardiff Bay Barrage when I heard someone call my name. That doesn’t happen very often, so I looked in the direction the shout had come from and saw two chaps standing at the lookout point, gesticulating madly. I knew them, of course, two of my local birding buddies but, for the life of me, I couldn’t work out what they were trying to get me to look at.

Then, as I walked over to them, the penny dropped – there was a Common tern flying around so close to where they were standing that they could almost have reached out and touched it. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration, but this was certainly the closest I’d ever been to a Common tern. The views were phenomenal!

The close proximity actually made photography difficult, as terns are fast and agile fliers, effortlessly weaving and turning, before hovering and plunging to the water to pluck up a fish, all in the blink of an eye. So, I just had to stop and watch, and enjoy the spectacle this bird was providing.

Eventually, we three birders went our separate ways. I walked across the Barrage, spent some time watching the bird that will feature in tomorrow’s blog, then retraced my steps. Luckily for me, the tern had relocated to the northern side of the Barrage, so I plonked myself down on a bench at the water’s edge to watch it some more. I took a few short video clips of it, only one of which was in focus, and was shooting photographs in burst mode, which produced several series of images that show the bird’s flight quite well, so I stitched them all together into one video. If you want to see what had so enthralled me, you can watch it too.

A juvenile Garganey

25 Thursday Sep 2025

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It’s all about the birds at the moment, with autumn migration in full swing and with my local area fortunate to be enjoying visits by some stunning birds, like this one.

The day I saw the three phalaropes there was another cracking bird at Cardiff’s northern reservoirs but it was a bit overshadowed by the three rarities, and I doubt many birders bothered to walk to the far end of the adjacent Llanishen Reservoir to see this one, a beautiful juvenile Garganey (Anas querquedula).

An explanation is necessary here; I actually visited the reservoirs the day before I saw the Grey and Red-necked phalaropes, as one Grey phalarope had been reported that day. But it was literally blowing a gale so I had difficulty staying upright, let alone trying to scan the choppy waters with my binoculars to find a small grey bird. In fact, it was so windy that a marquee, which had been pegged close to the visitor centre, had come loose from its pegs and blown across the path to the reservoir where the phalarope had been reported, so the path had been closed off for safety reasons. Seeing that, I gave up looking but, enjoying the fresh air and wanting the exercise, I stomped briskly around Llanishen Reservoir. And, during that walk, I spotted the Garganey (the photo below was taken that first day) but, as I’m a bit hopeless with female/eclipse/juvenile ducks, I didn’t initially trust my identification skills. Amazingly, I’d got it right this time.

Two Grey phalaropes

24 Wednesday Sep 2025

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This is a follow up to yesterday’s blog about the amazing sighting of three phalaropes on Cardiff’s Lisvane Reservoir last Tuesday – in fact, the birds stayed at the site for several days, giving happy birders from miles around the chance to see them, though, incredibly, there has been a much larger number of Grey phalaropes than normal in the waters around south Wales over the past ten days, driven inland by stormy seas.

North Wales birder, journalist and author Julian Hughes reported on social media on Sunday: ‘With several sites in Wales hosting multiple Grey Phalaropes over the weekend, 2025 is now the best year this century, with 112.’ Surprisingly, this is not the highest number on record; it seems 1960 ‘will take some beating, however. 227 were seen from The Smalls lighthouse alone in just 12 days, during 18-29 September’.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog about the Red-necked phalarope, the Grey phalarope is slightly larger than its cousin, and its bill is slightly thicker. The photo below shows all three phalaropes together, the Red-necked is the bird in between the two Greys.

Although these three birds were mostly foraging along the edge of the reservoir, phalaropes usually feed while sitting on the water and their feeding style is quite unique for wading birds: they often swim round in circles, which disturbs the water, stirring up insects, midges or other water-loving invertebrates. Amazingly, since seeing the three phalaropes on Lisvane Reservoir last week, we’ve had another local sighting, a single Grey phalarope on the River Taff near central Cardiff. This bird was a little more distant but I took a few short video clips of it feeding – not spinning right round due to the force of the water, but actively, constantly weaving from side to side as it picked at tasty titbits.

Lifer: Red-necked phalarope

23 Tuesday Sep 2025

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Last week was a red-letter week for Glamorgan birds. I didn’t get to see all the rare birds on offer but I did spend several wonderful hours at the Lisvane and Llanishen reservoirs in north Cardiff last Tuesday, in the company of smiling birders and interested locals, as we feasted our eyes on the three visiting phalaropes, two Grey (more on them tomorrow) and my first ever Red-necked.

The Red-necked phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus) is a bird of contradictions: it’s a wader that prefers to swim; the female is the more brightly coloured gender; she fights other females for the most desirable males to mate with; she lays her eggs then leaves the male to raise their young, sometimes even finding another male to breed with.

You may notice that this bird has no sign of the red neck it is named for; the characteristic rusty coloured neck band can only be seen on female birds during the breeding season. The presence of yellow stripes on this bird’s back marked it as a juvenile; in fact, looking at the illustrations in my guide book, this looks like a juvenile bird moulting to first winter colouring.

It can be difficult to tell Red-necked and Grey phalaropes apart so it was particularly informative, especially for folks like me who had not seen both species before, to see both species together. The Red-necked phalarope was noticeably smaller than the Grey, and it had a thinner, sharper bill. (There will be a photo of the two species side by side in tomorrow’s blog.)

Due to a significant decline in its breeding population in Britain, where it nests in very small numbers in northern Scotland and on the western isles, the Red-necked phalarope is red-listed. The bird also breeds in Siberia, Scandinavia, Iceland and North America, and the very rare sightings we’re lucky enough to see in southern Britain are birds on migration; apparently, European breeding birds winter in the Arabian Sea. What a wonderful treat it was to enjoy very close views of this rare bird!

Sandwich terns

19 Friday Sep 2025

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These beauties are the last of the birds I’ll share from my recent trip to Weymouth: Sandwich terns (Sterna sandvicensis). Though some tern species can be tricky to tell apart (Common and Arctic, in particular), with their yellow-tipped black beaks, black legs and black-capped heads, Sandwich terns are a bit more straight forward to identify.

~  Sandwich terns seen here with mostly Mediterranean gulls, Dunlin & Ringed plover

As you can perhaps see in my photos, the black cap on its head is not a permanent feature; it is fully black at the beginning of the breeding season but then quickly begins to develop white speckles above the eyes and, by the end of the summer, the whole of the forehead is white, making the ‘hair do’ resemble more of a monk’s tonsure. I guess the stress of raising young will do that, even to terns!

I didn’t know much about these birds but my guide book tells me that Sandwich terns breed in northern Europe (including in colonies around the coast of Britain), Russia and North America, then move south, which is when they can be seen in southern Britain, on passage to their wintering locations, mostly on the west coast of Africa.

If you’re wondering, as I was, about the origin of its name, in Fauna Britannica, Stefan Buczacki tells that ‘Its association with the town of Sandwich on the Kent coast dates back to 1785, when the naturalist John Latham was sent specimens collected from there by some local boys’.