273/365 Corn buntings

30 Monday Sep 2019

Tags

birding, birdwatching, British birds, Corn bunting

I’m just back from the annual Glamorgan Bird Club 3-day trip to the Portland Bird Observatory, one of the highlights of my birding year so, be warned, the next few days’ blog posts will be a bit birdy!

190930 corn buntings (2) 190930 corn buntings (1)

En route to Portland last Friday, we stopped for a short time in the car park at Maiden Castle hill fort, near Dorchester. You may well think that an odd place to go birding but we are almost certain to spot Corn buntings there, birds we never see in my part of Wales. And we were certainly not disappointed – in fact, we saw more Corn buntings this year than I’ve ever seen before, and many were enjoying a fun splash in the puddles along the dirt road leading in to the site. A delight to watch!

190930 corn buntings (3)

266/365 The charm of it

23 Monday Sep 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

#365DaysWild, birding, birdwatching, British birds, charm of Goldfinches, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Goldfinch

This charm of Goldfinches numbered at least 60.

190923 goldfinches (1)

They were feeding in the wildflower fields at Cosmeston this morning, plucking at fluffy seedheads, nibbling at the exposed seeds.

190923 goldfinches (2)

They were skittish though, constantly whirling about from one area to another, into the nearby trees and back again, chattering all the while. Such a pleasure to watch!

190923 goldfinches (3)

261/365 Almost ready to go

18 Wednesday Sep 2019

Posted by sconzani in autumn, birds, nature

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

birding, birdwatching, British birds, House martin, House martin nests

Two weeks ago, on 28 August, I spotted these House martin chicks still in their wonderfully engineered mud-built home, gaping greedily whenever their parents returned with niblets of food.

Today they, and the chicks from the neighbouring two nests, were out and about, practising their flying skills and catching their own insects to eat, but returning often to their nests as if not yet quite ready to break their bonds with the comfort and safety and security of home to fly the thousands of miles to over-winter in Africa. Soon though, their time will come …

190917 house martins (3) 190917 house martins (4) 190917 house martins (5)

260/365 Stonechats

17 Tuesday Sep 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, autumn, birds, nature

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

#365DaysWild, autumn migration, bird migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Stonechat

The Autumn migration flow of birds continued through Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, with several species reported: a Redstart, a Whinchat, a Spotted flycatcher and several Stonechats, two of which very kindly popped up in the hedge right in front of me.

190917 stonechat (1) 190917 stonechat (2)

258/365 Staking a claim

15 Sunday Sep 2019

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

birding, birdwatching, British birds, British robin, robin, singing Robin

I’ve been reading a book by a man who has gradually been losing his hearing and, as the book progresses through a year of his life, so he has lost the sounds of certain birds whose songs are no longer within the range of his hearing. I find this incredibly sad but it’s also made me value even more the birds I can hear, like this little Robin. Having finished its breeding and parenting duties and its moult, it’s now singing to stake its claim on a nice bit of territory to see it through the lean months of winter.

190915 robin

256/365 Reed bunting

13 Friday Sep 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, autumn, birds, nature, plants

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

#365DaysWild, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Reed bunting, umbellifers

190913 reed bunting (1)

This is not the setting I would normally associate with Reed buntings – not a reed to be seen – but this little beauty seemed perfectly at home searching for insects amongst the umbellifers in Cosmeston’s west paddock this afternoon, and the colours made for good camouflage as well.

190913 reed bunting (2)

248/365 Baldy blackbird

05 Thursday Sep 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature

≈ 9 Comments

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#365DaysWild, birding, birdwatching, blackbird, British birds, moulting bird, moulting Blackbird

As I’m sure most of you know, birds undergo a moult of their feathers after breeding, which is why everything goes very quiet for a few weeks: they’re vulnerable to predation while their new feathers are growing in. This Blackbird appears to have completed its moult of body feathers but not yet its head. Either that or it has some kind of infection or parasite, perhaps, that’s caused this partial loss.

190905 blackbird (1)

Fortunately, the bird’s baldy look is not affecting its ability to get about or feed. As I watched this morning, it cleared away a big pile of leaves and snaffled down the fat juicy worm it found.

190905 blackbird (2)

243/365 Turn of the seasons

31 Saturday Aug 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, autumn, birds, nature

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

#365DaysWild, autumn migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Turnstone

The yellowing of the leaves on the tree outside my window, my sightings of migrating birds, the cooler night-time temperatures have all been telling me for a couple of weeks that autumn is on its way, something the calendar will agree with tomorrow. But, for me, one of the true indicators is the arrival of the Turnstones, back from their breeding season in Greenland and northern Canada.

190831 turnstone

The five I spotted on the Ely embankment this morning still show some of their summer colouring but those chestnut feathers will soon disappear as the birds complete their moult into winter plumage. Welcome back, my little friends!

241/365 Spot fly

29 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature

≈ 2 Comments

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#365DaysWild, autumn migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, migrating birds, Spot fly, Spotted flycatcher

The day started cool, with a heavy dew and clouds hiding the sun, and I thought I wasn’t going to find a lot during my Cosmeston meander. I was wrong.

190829 spot fly (2)

Once the sun came out so did the creatures: two Green woodpeckers together on the grassy track ahead; two migrating Whinchats, my first this season; a Hummingbird hawkmoth that only hummed a little before landing on the dirt track in front of me – not something I’ve ever seen before; another magnificent Clouded yellow; and, today’s star, yet another Spotted flycatcher, my fifth at Cosmeston in the past week and the most confiding, allowing me to get quite close for photos. It has been a wonderful, and much needed, immersion in Nature today.

190829 spot fly (1)

238/365 Peek-a-bo II

26 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature

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Tags

birding, birdwatching, British birds, fledgling robin, migrating birds, robin

In recent days I’ve been spending some time searching for migrating birds, and I’ve had some success, with several Spotted flycatchers, a couple of Tree pipits, and good numbers of Willow warblers, Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps and both species of whitethroat. Although Redstarts have been seen locally, I haven’t yet managed to find one so, when I caught a reddish flash through the bushes at Cosmeston, I thought I’d got lucky. Unfortunately, it turned out that the flash of red was at the wrong end of the bird – redstart comes from the Anglo-Saxon for ‘red tail’. My little bird had a red breast.

190826 robin