12 Monday Aug 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, autumn, birds, nature
Tags
autumn migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Lavernock Nature Reserve, Spotted flycatcher
Willow warblers are peeping from every bush, Blackcaps are chacking, Swallows and martins are swooping low over the fields at Cosmeston for last minute snacks before they cross their first stretch of water on their way south and, today, at Lavernock, I saw my first Spotted flycatcher of the year. Autumn migration is well and truly underway!
27 Monday Aug 2018
Tags
autumn migration, bird migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Muscicapa striata, Spotted flycatcher
The autumn bird migration is now in full swing in south Wales and almost every day migrating birds are being spotted at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, where they’re stopping off to refuel before they tackle their long flights to warmer over-wintering locations in Europe and Africa. One that I find particularly charming is the Spotted flycatcher (Muscicapa striata), which is not really spotted at all, more streaky and stripy. The scientific name is more accurate: Muscicapa is a combination of the Latin word musca, meaning fly, and capere, meaning to catch, and the epithet striata is from the Latin striatus, meaning striated.
I saw my first Spotted flycatcher at Cossie on 7 August.
A week later, on the 15th, I had two sightings.
The 20th was a bumper day, with three birds, two obviously travelling together, and another doing its own thing.
And last Friday, the 24th, a birding friend put me on to a single bird, that was catching flies in the paddock I walked through on my way home. Fingers crossed I manage to see a few more before they all disappear for the winter.
11 Saturday Aug 2018
Tags
Arctic tern, autumn migration, bird migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay, Ely embankment, Little gull, Spotted flycatcher, Turnstone, Willow warbler
It’s that time of year, tinged ever so slightly with sadness but enlivened with occasional moments of great excitement, when bird populations begin their autumn migration. My local Swifts have headed south for the winter and I shall miss their dawn and dusk screaming, the sound of summer for me, and there have been good numbers of Swallows and House martins swirling above Cardiff Bay, in a final feeding frenzy before they too head south.
I’ve spotted small flocks of Willow warblers and Chiffchaffs, moving through my local nature reserves and parks, stocking up on nutrients before they also begin their long flights. And, this week, a Spotted flycatcher became my 186th bird species for 2018, when I saw it passing through Cosmeston.
As well as those birds that are departing for sunnier wintering spots, there are also birds returning from their colder breeding locations to spend the winter in Britain’s relatively warm climes. I saw my first two returning Turnstones, still in their summer plumage, during a wander along the Ely embankment on Wednesday.
Also at Cardiff Bay this week have been a couple of those birds that provide birders, local and distant alike, with a quickening of the heart rate. First, a first summer Arctic tern arrived to join the Cardiff Bay bird population, and then a juvenile Little gull also joined the party, though neither bird has been welcomed by the local gulls.
I saw both birds being chased and mobbed on Wednesday, and a little later that same day my friend John caught some amazing shots of a Black-headed gull almost drowning the Little gull – luckily, it escaped. (Bird xenophobia? No one seems to know why the local gulls are being so aggressive.)
Above, Arctic tern being chased; below, Little gull also being pursued
Let’s hope further newcomers are given a warmer welcome to our local waters and, indeed, let’s just hope for further newcomers – there’s nothing quite like an exciting sighting to quicken a birder’s pulse!
15 Tuesday Aug 2017
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, flycatcher, Muscicapa striata, Spotted flycatcher
There’s a local birdwatcher I follow on Twitter who always makes the most amazing sightings and I read his tweets – 6/8 ‘Spotted Flycatcher, 2 Garden Warblers, 40 Willow Warblers and 2 Tree Pipits’ and 8/8 ‘Grasshopper Warbler, 2 Spot Fly, Redstart, 2 Garden Warbler, 2 Lesser Whitethroat, 25 Willow Warbler, 2 Sedge Warbler’ – with great envy. These particular sightings were all at Cosmeston, one of my local country parks, so I decided to go looking for myself.
Spot the bird
Warblers can be difficult to identify but I’d never seen a Spotted flycatcher (Muscicapa striata) so I made that my target. And it took me three visits and many many photographs of Chiffchaffs before I finally found them, by chance, not in the area where they’d been reported to be.
There were two birds and they were unmistakable as they were doing exactly what their name suggests, catching flies. From a perch in trees, they sat scanning the surrounding air space, then flying out quickly to grab their prey before returning to their perch to scoff it. Spotted flycatchers are migrants, arriving in Britain in April-May and then leaving again in September. It may be that these two birds were stocking up on food before heading off on their long journey to spend the winter in Africa. Intrigued? There’s an excellent article by the British Trust for Ornithology here.
