Hungry Marsh tits

11 Monday Jan 2021

Tags

birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cogan Wood, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Marsh tit

On my Christmas Day walk I wanted to spread some good cheer to my fellow creatures so, with humans being off limits, I went bearing seed to the small hungry birds in Cosmeston’s Cogan Wood. And I was delighted, and more than a little amazed, when the first bird to appear, before I’d even spread the seed about, was one of the resident Marsh tits, which came and sat in the bramble bush just a foot from my hand, waiting impatiently for me to back off. So, I was able to get probably my best photos yet of this charming little bird.

210111 marsh tit (1)

And, though I missed seeing a Marsh tit on my first visit to Cosmeston for 2021, I did see one on my second, and, once again, it was the first bird I saw when I got to one of their regular feeding spots. In fact, this tit was poking around for seed at the bottom of the tree stump, and then perched up on the bushes until I had sprinkled the stump top with seed. What a little star!

210111 marsh tit (2)

141/366 A Buff-tailed bear

20 Wednesday May 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

British hoverflies, Buff-tailed bear hoverfly, bumblebee mimic, Cogan Wood, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Criorhina floccose, hoverfly

Bear? There are bears in south Wales? No, don’t worry, this Buff-tailed bear is a hoverfly (Criorhina floccose), a new find for me, from my first visit to Cosmeston Lakes Country Park in weeks (due to the Corona virus, the park was closed from 23 March until last Saturday 16 May). I initially thought this hoverfly was a variation of one of the other bumblebee-mimicking hoverflies, Merodon equestris, as they can be found in a wide variety of colours. But my record has been corrected by Mr UK Hoverflies himself, Roger Morris, and I now know the tufts of pale hairs at the sides of its abdomen are one of the main diagnostic features.

200520 Criorhina floccose (1)

These hoverflies are fashioned to mimic Common carder bees – see comparison photos below, hoverfly on the left, Common carder bee on the right. I think the hoverfly deserves an A for effort!

Criorhina floccose is usually found in woodland – I found this one in a sheltered clearing in Cosmeston’s Cogan Wood, and there’s only been one previous record in my local 10-kilometre square. Now I know what to look for, I’ll be keeping an eye out for more.

79/366 The twister

19 Thursday Mar 2020

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

bird with deformed beak, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cogan Wood, European nuthatch, nuthatch, Nuthatch with deformed beak

During a recent wander through Cogan Wood, after a spell of nasty weather, I was dishing out sunflower seeds to all the small birds, the tits and Robins and assorted others, when I noticed this Nuthatch with an elongated and twisted beak. The deformity wasn’t stopping it feeding or carting away and stashing two or three seeds at a time.

October 2017, the twist is not very pronounced

I had a nagging feeling that I’d seen the bird before and, sure enough, when I checked my photos, I had images from two previous sightings, the first in October 2017, the second just a couple of months ago, in January 2020, always in the same spot in the wood. The twist was minor in the first photo but appears to have got worse as the beak has grown longer.

January 2020

Apparently, the Nuthatch lives about three years on average. Obviously, I don’t know how old this particular bird was when I first saw it but it will be interesting to keep an eye out for it to see how long it manages to survive. I hope it lives long and prospers!

March 2020

34/366 Clever tit

03 Monday Feb 2020

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cogan Wood, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Marsh tit

My walk through Cogan Wood this afternoon was punctuated by stops, at tree stumps, a sculpted dead tree known locally as the dragon tree, by benches, and at particular shrubs and bushes, where I dispensed seed to the hungry small birds that immediately mobbed me.

200203 Marsh tit (1)

I was delighted that one of those hungry small birds was the resident Marsh tit, as I hadn’t seen it for a few weeks. And I was very impressed with its intelligence – whereas the myriad Great and Blue tits flit in, grab a single seed, and flit away into the bushes to eat it, the Marsh tit has learnt to grab at least two, once three seeds in its tiny beak before flying quickly off. What a clever little tit!

200203 Marsh tit (2)

341/365 Marsh tit

07 Saturday Dec 2019

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, winter

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cogan Wood, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Marsh tit

Having stocked up on bird seed yesterday (the littlies are rather partial to sunflower hearts, I’ve found), I was delighted today to tempt out one of the resident Marsh tits in Cosmeston’s Cogan Wood.

191207 Marsh tit (1)

Actually, it wasn’t all that difficult. I was mobbed by Great and Blue tits as soon as I began sprinkling the seeds on an old tree stump, with one particularly cheeky Great tit grabbing a seed from my container before I’d even started tipping them out.

191207 Marsh tit (2)

I wasn’t sure the Marsh tit would come but it soon appeared and, although initially a little hesitant to compete with the other birds, it didn’t take long to summon its courage and was picking up 2 or 3 seeds at a time before flying off to find somewhere quiet to eat them.

191207 Marsh tit (3)

We’re lucky to have this bird at Cosmeston as it’s now an ‘uncommon and thinly distributed resident breeder’, according to the Glamorgan Bird Club’s Eastern Glamorgan Bird Report No.56, and these tits were only recorded in 8 locations in our county in 2017.

18/365 A slimy Friday

18 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, fungi, nature, winter

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

#365DaysWild, Cogan Wood, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, slime, slime mould, slime on ivy leaf

It’s been wintery today, with a chill wind and frequent showers, but I rugged up and headed out for a stomp for the air and exercise. Cosmeston was almost empty of people and dogs, something unheard of on warmer days, and any wildlife was also keeping well under cover. So, I enjoyed a bimble in Cogan Wood, picking up logs, looking for insects and fungi, and I found this interesting slime mould growing on an ivy leaf.

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Under the log

29 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by sconzani in fungi, insects, molluscs, nature, slugs, winter

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

#7DaysofWildChristmas, brain fungi, Catinella olivacea, Cogan Wood, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, earthworms, Harvestman, orange slime, slugs, snails, turning over logs, woodlice

The weather was back to grey and drizzly again today so I donned my wet weather gear and headed to Cogan Wood to spend part of day 5 of my #7DaysofWildChristmas challenge turning over a few rotten logs and branches. And what did I find lurking there?

Woodlice; snails both long and rotund; earthworms; luscious balls of orange slime; tiny globular balls that looked like the eggs of something or other; pale little lumps of White or Crystal brain fungi; slugs brown and black; a stripey legged Harvestman; miniscule white mushrooms adorned with drops of water; a young centipede or millipede – I can never be quite sure which is which; dark little cup fungi, black with olive rims (Catinella olivacea) – very pleased with that find; and various other things, the photographs of which were either out of focus or too grainy due to the poor light conditions in the woodland. There’s nothing quite like getting wild and muddy – it was fun!

181229 under the log (11)

A slimy Monday

27 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by sconzani in fungi, nature

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Cogan Wood, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, fungi, slime, slime mould

Cosmeston was relatively quiet yesterday. A few Redwings flashed their rusty flanks at me, indignant that I had interrupted their grazing in the west paddock, and a pair of Mistle thrushes screeched their football-rattle call from the tree tops as the Redwings flew up to join them. Carrion crows and Grey squirrels hovered on the periphery, watching as I fed seed to a posse of passerines in Cogan Wood, but the hoped-for Marsh tit did not appear. So, I abandoned the birds, headed up and along the muddy woodland tracks where few people venture, eyes down and searching for fungi. Within minutes, my hand was scratched from reaching too carelessly through brambles, my fingers were filthy from picking up rotting wood to examine more closely, my camera was speckled with dirt from being plonked on the ground for better close-ups, but my reward was this most wonderful slime mould. I don’t know its name but I am a huge admirer of these enigmatic organisms, and this one was a beauty!

181127 slime (1) 181127 slime (2) 181127 slime (3) 181127 slime (4) 181127 slime (5)