01 Monday Jul 2024
Posted in birds
It looked nothing like you would expect a Robin to look – where’s the famous red breast? But as soon as this little fledgling began to hop along the lane in front of me I knew it was a young Robin from the way it moved, and bobbed, and turned its head. It’s the jizz, as we birders say.
08 Thursday Jul 2021
Posted in birds
One of the things that makes this time of year special is all the young birds that are about, newly fledged but still clad in their teenage threads; learning to fend for themselves but still squawking at their parents for handouts; finding their way in the world, as this young Robin was yesterday.
26 Monday Aug 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature
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.
19 Monday Jun 2017
Let me introduce you to Mr and Mrs Robin and their two children. They live at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park. Mr (or Mrs – I can’t actually tell male and female robins apart) came to greet me when I was standing by one the lakes yesterday, watching the ducks. He (or she) hopped over to within inches of where my hand was resting on a railing and looked at me with something akin to desperation. “Do you happen to have any food, lady?” Then, Mrs (or Mr) Robin popped up on to the closest fence post and also gave me a pleading look, “Please!”.
Luckily, I did have some seed in my bag so spread a little on top of another fence post. They were there immediately, picking up two or three seeds and flitting into a nearby tree. And then I saw the reason for their desperation – two ravenous fledglings were nagging them for food. Truth be told, the fledglings were probably old enough to feed themselves and did, in fact, pop down and peck around a bit. But Mum and Dad obviously still felt obliged to feed their youngsters if they could. I was very pleased to help out.
earthstar 
You must be logged in to post a comment.