An alternate view of a Great tit, to show that the subtle shades and distinctive markings of its feathers from this angle are just as attractive as a front view.
Rear end
04 Monday Apr 2022
Posted birds
in04 Monday Apr 2022
Posted birds
inAn alternate view of a Great tit, to show that the subtle shades and distinctive markings of its feathers from this angle are just as attractive as a front view.
22 Tuesday Feb 2022
Posted birds
inFrom Fauna Britannica, some vernacular names for the Great tit (Parus major): Big ox-eye (Angus); black-capped lolly (West Yorkshire); Black-headed Bob (Devon); Joe Ben (Suffolk); Joe Bent (Gloucestershire); Sawfinch & Saw sharpener (Roxburghshire); Sharp saw (Norfolk), and many more.
Author Buczacki explains that ‘the names “Joe Ben” and “Joe Bent” are probably onomatopoeic of the bisyllabic call; “saw sharpener” and other “saw” references are similarly descriptive of the call.’ Many birders describe the call as ‘teacher, teacher’ – I guess we all have our own ways of remembering the calls of birds.
08 Wednesday Sep 2021
Posted birds
inIt’s so lovely to see the little birds out and about again, recovered from the strain of raising at least one, probably more, brood(s) of chicks, and looking spick and span in their newly moulted plumage.
When I was bimbling about in the woods last week, I was visited by a number of Great tits, checking out what I was doing, looking for any insects I might have disturbed. It was a delight!
01 Wednesday May 2019
Posted 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature, spring
inTags
#365DaysWild, bird boxes, birding, birds feeding chicks, birdwatching, Blue tit, British birds, Great tit
I spent some time in the churchyard surrounding St Augustine’s Church today, enjoying the wonderful wildness of this lovely place, which is now being managed in a way that enhances its flora and fauna. And it’s working a treat! The grounds are awash with wildflowers and the bird boxes are full of new life.
I admit I did feel a little sorry for the bird parents though. They have to work so hard to feed their chicks – it’s like they’re stuck in a loop: search frantically for food, deliver food, remove pooh, repeat!
18 Monday Feb 2019
Posted 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature
in‘The laser-sharp chants of great tits’ is how Brett Westwood describes the sounds these enchanting little birds sing out as the fever of spring begins to take hold and they vie with each other to advertise their charms and attract a mate. I think, however, that this little one’s chirping at me today was more about food than anything else.
* The quote is from Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss, Wonderland: A year of Britain’s wildlife day by day, John Murray, London, 2017.
19 Monday Mar 2018
Tags
biodiversity, Blue tit, Blushing bracket, Brittle cinder, coal tit, Elfcups, Forest Farm, Forest Farm Nature Reserve, Great tit, Grey heron, Hairy curtain crust, Moorhen, nuthatch, Song thrush, wren
I’ve blogged about the charms of the Forest Farm Nature Reserve many times before but I thought I’d share some of the highlights from last week’s wander …
Oh, and I will just add that the combination of feathers – me mostly looking upwards – and fungi – eyes down – can be quite difficult. By the end of the day, I felt like one of those nodding dog ornaments you used to see in the rear windows of cars. Still, ’twas a lovely long meandering walk!
04 Sunday Mar 2018
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Buzzard, chaffinch, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Great tit, Lesser redpolls, Malard, nuthatch, Redpoll, Redwing, Reed bunting, treecreeper, Tufted duck
2 February A stride was required so I passed through Cosmeston as part of a longer walk. I did, as always, keep an eye out for unusual birds, though the only bird that fitted that category was a Buzzard in a tree by the dipping pond, exactly where a friend had reported it the previous day.
I scattered some seed around for my small and hungry feathered friends, and I did linger a while by the lake to take some photos of gulls. (I’m attempting to learn to recognise gulls of different ages but I’ll post separately about that when I’ve got more photos and information.)
4 February There are various routes I can take when I walk to Cosmeston; on this day I approached from the north, which produced a couple of Bullfinches near Old Cogan Farm and, further down Mile Road, a couple of Redwing feasting on ivy berries.
To escape the Sunday crowds, I headed off piste and almost immediately spotted a Green woodpecker and, seeing it fly to the ground, started stalking it. It flew off but then a mixed flock of tits and finches flew in, amongst which, to my very great delight, were 3 Lesser redpolls, a bird I’ve only seen once before and which is not often seen in these parts. They were feeding in an alder tree, moving often, doing acrobatics while suspended from cones, flitting from branch to branch, all of which made them difficult to photograph. But what a delightful 30 minutes I spent watching their antics.
9 February I was hoping to spot the Redpolls again today but lucked out, though I did spot a flock of perhaps 8 Redwings in the trees nearby. A handsome male Reed bunting was enjoying the seed a kind passerby had left on a fence post by the west lake, and it wasn’t just me who was finding the winds strong and gusty – this Tufted duck was having a bad hair day.
21 February This was school half-term holiday week in Wales, not a particularly pleasant time to visit a country park to enjoy the delights of nature as the parks are usually full of screaming children and frazzled parents at such times. I managed to avoid most of that by taking the paths less travelled but still found much of the wildlife was being scared away by the noise.
Still, I thought I’d make a list of what I did see: Great tit, Blackbird, Dunnock, Robin, Magpie, Goldfinch, Redwing, Carrion crow, Jay, Wren, Blue tit, Buzzard, Jackdaw, Long-tailed tit, Woodpigeon, Mistle thrush, Chaffinch, House sparrow, Starling, Green woodpecker, Reed bunting, Nuthatch, Coal tit, Coot, Cormorant, Mute swan, Black-headed gull, Lesser black-backed gull, Herring gull, Mallard, Tufted duck, Great crested grebe, Canada goose, Greylag goose and Pochard – not a bad list, with 35 bird species, and just one mammal, the ubiquitous Grey squirrel.
28 February South Wales was feeling the brunt of the ‘Beast from the East’, a freezing weather bomb from Siberia, when I paid my last February visit to Cosmeston so it was a short visit, partly for the exercise and I also bought a couple of bags of seed from the Rangers’ Office to feed the birds. You know they’re finding foraging tough when you see a Treecreeper come to the bird feeder – most unusual! And it was also unusual to have the sparse remnants of the previous day’s snow on the ground, so I had to get a few photos of birds (Chaffinch and Mallard) in snow as well. Let’s hope spring (re)appears soon.
01 Thursday Feb 2018
Tags
birding, birdwatching, blackbird, British birds, chaffinch, coal tit, Common Gull, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Gadwall, Great tit, long-tailed tit, Marsh tit, nuthatch, Pochard, Reed bunting, robin, shoveler
7 January Gale-force winds were blasting across the exposed areas around the lake today but, with blue skies overhead, the park was full of people out walking, despite the chill. The wee birds were hungry and I was greeted with much happy peeping wherever I scattered seed and virtually mobbed at the dragon tree in Cogan Woods, by Great, Blue, Coal and Long-tailed tits, Dunnocks and Robins, Chaffinches and Nuthatches, Blackbirds and a Reed bunting were all happy to accept any tasty little morsels.
On the lakes the birds were mostly hunkered down, as it was too windy for flying. Teal, Gadwall, Pochard and a Shoveler were some of the highlights.
17 January After much scrutinising of the huge numbers of gulls that you nearly always find at Cosmeston, I spotted my first Common gull of the year.
23 January A regular Cosmeston-going birding friend had reported an adult Yellow-legged gull the previous day and I fancied a good walk so I headed to Cossie for a look. These was no sign of the gull but I was delighted to see one of the Marsh tits that frequents a particular spot in Cogan Woods, and it became bird number 67 on this year’s list, before I strode quickly home in pouring rain (yep, drenched!).
I’ve been to Cosmeston a couple more times this month but those outings were more about braving the rain to satisfy my cravings for fresh air and exercise than nature-watching, particularly as it’s been too wet to have camera and binoculars out and about. Let’s hope February is a bit drier.
31 Sunday Dec 2017
Tags
Avocet, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Great tit, robin, Sand martin
Neither my age, nor my weight, nor my height (though that comes closest), one hundred and sixty-three is my birding total for 2017 – that is, the total number of species I managed to see in Britain.
This was the first year I’ve kept a count, and it was just out of interest really but, as my more dedicated birding friends post their totals on our Facebook group page (one has 223, another a whopping 252) , I’ve decided to try for a 200-bird year in 2018. That doesn’t mean I’m going to become a mad twitcher or go haring off all over the country to see rare birds. I’m just going to make more of an effort to see as many as I can because I love them so!
And my favourite birding moments in 2017? There were too many to recount, from marvelling at an encounter between a Bittern and a Marsh harrier at RSPB Ham Wall to my frequent local conversations with Robins and chuckles at Tufted ducks, from the joy of watching Avocets with their chicks at Rye Harbour on my birthday to the thrill of seeing feeding Gannets crashing headfirst into the ocean off Dawlish beach, from the lovely little Turnstones than bumble along the embankment in Penarth Marina to the Sand martin that sat and chattered away to me on a railing at Cardiff Bay.
Why just yesterday I had a Great tit land on my hand to grab itself a piece of the flapjack I was sharing with the hungry birds at Cosmeston! Every moment like that, every second spent watching and hearing my feathered friends is joyous!
07 Thursday Dec 2017
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, bullfinch, dunnock, Forest Farm, Forest Farm Nature Reserve, Great spotted woodpecker, Great tit, Kingfisher, long-tailed tit, Moorhen, robin, treecreeper
I had a meeting at Forest Farm last Friday so, of course, I took the opportunity while I was there to have a wander around the trails and along the Glamorganshire Canal. And it was wonderful, though I did come away feeling a little guilty. We’d had a week of low temperatures, with overnight frosts, and there was a bitterly cold wind blowing. It was obvious the wee birds were cold and hungry but I hadn’t taken any seed with me. Here are a Long-tailed tit, a male Bullfinch, a Dunnock, a Robin and a Great tit.
The water of the canal was sheltered from the breeze and very still, making for some stunning reflections (thank you little Moorhen). And I was treated to excellent views of a female Kingfisher, who sat for at least 15 minutes on her branch. From the way her feathers were fluffed up and she was hunched over her ‘toes’, I figure she was feeling the cold as well.
The Great spotted woodpecker was a treat, as were the Treecreepers – at least four of them, perhaps a family group, were actively scuttling up the branches in one small area by the canal. It was a grand day – my meeting went well and the birding was even better than expected!
You must be logged in to post a comment.