Category: Birds

In the 1990s, East Anglian birders seeing this species locally might have noted it as a mega because it was so rarely seen in the UK, but as with the Little Egret, and more recently the Great White Egret, this ostensibly African species, the Cattle Egret, has spread its wings and found a home here. There are other species, such as Glossy Ibis, that are doing the same to a lesser degree, but may well become as common as those African egrets, given time.

The latter frequents muddy fields inhabited by hooved mammals, the other two the waterways and flooded gravel pits. Part of their spread is down to habitat formation over here but also the shifts in climate that mean they found conditions acceptable as they extended their range northwards out of Africa and then the Mediterranean region.

The Cattle Egret is the archetypal avian shytkicker, it follows cattle, horses, and sheep as they munch their way around fields and picks off the invertebrate life disturbed by the hooves; just as they would’ve done among the wildebeest and zebra in their homeland. They will also eat mice and frogs given the chance. They’re often quite grubby given they’re usually pecking about the mud of livestock farms and paddocks, but as they come into mating plumage they take on some lovely peachy feather shades within their brilliant white plumage.

Great White Egret has taken advantage of the crayfish in the lakes of Northern France. Having range extended to there several years ago, it’s not a big hop across La Manche to reach the Somerset Levels or East Anglian gravel pits.

Cattle Egrets bred in Somerset in 2008, according to the BTO website, with two pairs nesting there. There have been numerous breeding attempts since and the species is slowly expanding in southern Britain. The BTO statistics seem rather out of date, suggesting just 66 wintering birds in the UK. But, there were reports of a couple of hundred on the Somerset Levels and we have seen groups of a couple of dozen in the nearby village of Swavesey. Others report 30-40 in that same village and in and around Fen Drayton Lakes and other local areas. I hope the BTO will be updated soon. Certainly, BirdGuides no longer considers a Cattle Egret sighting as a mega these days.

Our first ever week of winter sun and we headed for Los Gigantes, Tenerife, in the shadow of El Teide. A bit of walking, some birding, whale watching, and a sampling of sangria, paella and the local piscine delicacy, cherne. Oh, and there was music and cocktails (Mai Tai* for me).

We managed the boat trip to see dolphins and whales, not easy to get good shots from a moving boat. We were treated to Short-finned Pilot Wales (pod of 7 or 8 male Globicephala macrorhynchus, the big-nosed globe-head) that hunt for giant squid in the deep waters (600+ metres) between Tenerife and the neighbouring island of La Gomera (beyond it El Hierro). We also saw a pod of Atlantic Spotted Dolphin (Stenella frontalis, narrow-fronts). The swimming opportunity at Masca Bay was short as we’d apparently overstretched our time on the open water; neither of us felt like taking a dip, anyway, given our gastrointestinal status.

It was wonderful to have such long, sunny and warm days on Canary time. While sunrise was close to 8am, sunset was not until almost 7pm and the temperatures were in the low to mid-20s during daylight, so it was perfect in many ways. It’s certainly a tonic for one’s mental health to be able to bask in the sun at that time of the evening in swimming kit. Moreover, it is at a time of year just ahead of our birthdays when we might usually be braced against the Arctic northerlies on the Norfolk coast looking out for Snow Bunting and instead we were listening to Canary Island Chiffchaff and Atlantic Canary from our sun loungers while the countless Yellow-legged Gulls flew to roost among the 5-million-year old cliffs beyond the hotel.

There was always a chance of seeing either a fishing Osprey or a Sea Eagle (White-tailed Eagle) off those same cliffs, but we never did catch sight of either of those sadly rare and endangered species. I had also hoped for the iconic Blue Chaffinch among the pine glades en route to Mt. Teide, but no luck with that species either. Also failed to see Common Hoopoe on any scrubby, ant-ridden patches of bare land, but we did tick several other species and sub-species and a couple that we hadn’t seen anywhere before.

Avian sightings

Atlantic Canary, Serinus canaria (numerous)
Atlantic Yellow-legged Gull, Larus michahellis atlantis (many)
Barn Swallow, Hirundo rustica (on journey to hotel?)
Bertholet’s Pipit, Anthus berthelotii (Mt. Teide and then on derelict area along coast)
Canarian Common Kestrel, Falco tinnunculus canariensis (Mt, Teide and then several on airport return journey or maybe Lesser Kestrel sometimes, Falco naumanni)
Canary Islands Chiffchaff, Phylloscopus canariensis (lots, loud)
Eleonora’s Falcon, Falco eleonorae (to hotel and then at Playa de la Arena)
Eurasian Collared Dove, Streptopelia decaocto (loads)
Eurasian Whimbrel, Numenius phaeopus (rocks before Playa de la Arena)
European Robin, Erithacus rubeculla (cafe with pines up to Mt. Teide)Feral Rock Dove, Columba livia (plentiful)
Lesser Black-backed Gull, Larus fuscus (according to ObsId)
Little Egret, Egretta garzetta (on rocks and once flying off Los Gigantes)
Pied Avocet, Recurvirostra avosetta, a pair, twice flying up the coast
Raven, Corvus corax 1x (cafe at bottom of Mt. Teide and 2x from bus back to airport)
Ruddy Turnstone, Arenaria interpres (rocky coast)
Spectacled Warbler,  Curruca conspicillata (coastal derelict site)
Spanish Sparrow, Passer hispaniolensis (plentiful around hotel etc)
Sparrowhawk, Acipiter nisus,  (possibly sub-species, from return bus)
White Wagtail, Motacilla alba (heard only, over hotel)

Non-avian animals list

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin, Stenella frontalis
Short-finned Pilot Whale, Globicephala macrorhynchus
Mullet (fish)
Honey Bee feeding on palm trees
Emperor Dragonfly x2 (one at pine cafe one in Los Gigantes
Other dragonfly, brown, smaller darter type
Southern Tenerife Lizard, Gallotia galloti galloti (rocky wall after the arena and elsewhere)
Red Admiral x2 (pines cafe)
Female Canarian Cleopatra butterfly (above arena)
Small Tortoiseshell (hotel)
Some big-ish bees, honeybees, grey bees
Monarch, Danaus plexippus (Route 66 cafe near hotel)
Large White (en route back to airport)

That reference to gastrointestinal status? We’d had quite a grim start to our first ever winter sun holiday. I woke on flight day with what I assumed was food poisoning. I was pretty much over it by our first morning on Tenerife. But Mrs Sciencebase succumbed after a short walk to the harbour below the huge cliffs of Los Gigantes, so it wasn’t food poisoning, has to have been viral, whoops. We did our best with the trip, but Mrs Sb wasn’t up to much walking and had to miss out on the trip to the otherworldly volcanic peaks of El Teide.

*Mai Tai – White and dark rum, lime juice, orange liqueur, orgeat (almond syrup), Angostura bitters, ice, and a cinnamon stick.

This species, Panurus biarmicus, used to be known as the Bearded Tit, because of the black facial markings on the male and perhaps its resemblance to the Long-tailed Tit. But, it’s not closely related to and of the birds we call tits and is the only living (extant) species in the Panurus genus.

It lives among the wetland reeds, feeding on their seeds and those of the reed mace/bulrushes. There are lots of them flocking about on our local converted gravel pits.

These days they’re more properly known as Bearded Reedlings, although if they’d wanted to correct the obvious error, they could’ve called them Moustached or Mutton Chop Reedlings. Either, they’re almost always known simply as Beardies among birders.

If you’re wandering about the reed beds of our local reserves, listen out for a pinging sound, that’s the bird’s contact call. You can almost imagine it as being the sound effect for a miniature sci-fi laser gun – peww, peww, peww…

Specific site they’ve been showing well recently is the Earith side of RSPB Ouse Fen (you may recall I’ve mentioned the patch before with reference to starling murmurations and various rarities, including Purple Heron. There are lots all over the fen, but they have been particularly visible, vocal, and close on the shortcut that cuts through the centre between Lockspit’s Mere and Crane’s Fen.

The male pictured  above spent a good ten minutes right in front of us shredding and feasting on this seed head and in his messy haste helping spread the plant’s seed. Most of the seed heads nearby had been ravaged by the flock.

For anyone planning a visit. There are three places to park to visit RSPB Ouse Fen. Needingworth, Over, or Earith. The Needingworth end of the reserve is a long way from the reedbeds, so not the place for the Beardies. Over is accessible via a very rough largely unmade road. There are Beardies there among the reeds in the “canal”. But, Earith, which is disconnected from the other patches is the best place to see them at the moment. The main spot I mentioned earlier is across the middle of that area, but you might hear and see Beardies anywhere among the reeds there.

Best time to visit is when it’s sunny and not too windy. Beardies will hunker down in bad weather, but if it’s calm they will flit about between patches of reeds and hop up and down the steps to feed and drink and interact.

Incidentally, a Eurasian Penduline Tit, Remiz pendulinus, was present on the site recently, this too is also not a “tit”.

I’ve been using the Merlin bird ID app for several years and often recommend it to friends. It listens to the nature sounds around you and uses AI to identify the tweets, chirps, and whistles of the birds calling and singing. I have a garden ticklist to which I add the IDs the app records in a separate list. Merlin includes a bird photo ID component, which works a bit like iNaturalist’s Seek or Google Lens, but just for birds and better. The app works for birds anywhere in the world and is simple to use…but…

Since the app’s last major redesign and update I’ve noticed it seems to ignore some birdsong even though I can very clearly hear them and later on the recording the app saves. So, that’s become rather annoying. I also find that if I let Merlin run past its usual 10 minutes, a much longer recording will usually crash the app when trying to load and analyse the sound file.

I’m not sure what’s going on, Cornell Uni, the creators of the app need to get these issues sorted. Until then, I have sought a replacement and found BirdUp. BirdUp does the same kind of sonogram analysis as Merlin, but seems to pick up more in the tests I’ve run this morning in the garden. Unlike Merlin, it lists in sequence what it hears and doesn’t collate the soundings into a shortlist, which makes the timeline seem fussy.

However, with each sound it picks up you get more immediate details (sound volume, likelihood of that bird being the one it reports, and also details about the sound itseld and the frequencies the birds call or sing at). Speaing of which, unlike Merlin, BirdUp defines the bird sound as call or song and in some cases even offers a description. On one of my long test recordings from a previous Merlin session, it was picking up Robins and labelled the first few sounds as the call, but then a subsequent sound was flagged as a Robin’s alarm call. It picked up the “ping” call of Chaffinch, the “wheezy song” of Greenfinch, and “rattle call” of Great Tit, as opposed to the other types of call and song these birds produce.

Additionally, I’ve been able to run some of those over-long sound files from Merlin using BirdUp and getting a decent list of what was around at the time. Some of those files were from our biology field trip holiday to northern Greece and Lake Kerkini in 2024, so it’s nice to be able to pluck out the Cirl Bunting, Golden Oriole, and Nightingales from those files.

The bottom line is that Merlin doesn’t seem to work as well for me as it had over the years and while I still recommend it, I’m going to switch to BirdUp for regular use and check back in with Merlin periodically to see if there has been a major update to improve the issues I’m experiencing.

In the winter of 23/24 we had a Waxwing irruption. This is a sudden influx in large numbers of a species driven from its usual habitat and habit because of changes in the local conditions. In the case of Waxwings (Bohemian Waxwings, specifically) they spend their summers in breeding grounds in the far north, Scandinavia, largely.

As winter encroaches a few will head south and west and the Scots often report sightings early in the season. However, if there are plenty of berries on the bushes and trees in Scandinavia, the majority will stay put. Each bird can eat dozens, if not hundreds, of berries every day, so there is occasionally a chance that demand will outstrip supply. When this happens the birds, along with the winter thrushes (Fieldfare and Redwing) will be forced to head south to find food.

The birds will occasionally head south in waves. Large flocks might turn up in seemingly unusual places like city parks, supermarket car parks, churchyards, and other urban sites and even gardens. Usually, it’s wherever there are berry-laden rowan trees, although the birds will eat mistletoe, ivy, and any other winter berry they can find. Birders usually report the flow of birds south and it often seems like the Waxwings specifically follow the roads. Roundabouts and service stations often have berry trees, after all!

In the winter of 24/25, we’ve barely had any Waxwings in England. A handful! In early January, 2024, Mrs Sciencebase and myself were watching a flock of 30+ that were hanging around the ivy-encrusted trees near a local railway station and alighting on the rowan trees. This year, there has been a bumper crop of berries much further north and at the moment, the birds have no need to head south.

That said, they will, if there are sufficient birds, eventually eat most of those berries and the birds will then need to head south to feed. I remember about eight years ago a flurry of Waxwing activity on rowans at the bus stop close to the Cambridge Science Park and that was in April…so there is time yet.

Interestingly, BBC Winterwatch had a short piece in episode 1 this season about the species, discussing how the bird’s tongue has a barb to help them gulp down berries whole. The team didn’t mention the fact that we’re unlikely to see an irruption this season, sadly.

If you’ve been captivated by the starling murmurations this winter, you may be wondering how many birds are in those vast swirling flocks. There’s no easy way to count them on the wing, but you if you can get a decent photo with the bulk of them in the frame, there’s a simple technique to get a rough estimate that will give you a good idea of numbers

So, here’s a photo of a small murmuration I took locally. As you can see, I overlaid a grid on the photo. The simplest way to estimate bird numbers is to zoom in on a representative looking square and count them in just that one square. An average looking square in my photo has 70 or so birds in it. There are a few squares that have no birds (ignore those) some that look like they have just a couple of dozen and some that are much denser, so perhaps 100 or so.

So, counting all the squares with birds and multiplying by 70 would give you a rough number. A slightly more accurate way, might be to count only the average looking squares, multiply that number by 70. Then pick a sparse square and do a count, 30, say, multiply that by the number of sparse squares and add to the earlier tally. Then, do the same with the more densely populated squares. You could tally the sparse and dense as an average by counting how many squares and halving it and adding that instead. Lots of ways to do it.

While I was watching this murmuration, I guesstimated about 3000 birds in the flock. Using the method above the number comes out at double that! About 6000 birds, just in this frame. There were actually more that aren’t in the shot!

I did the same sort of counting at RSPB Ouse Fen at Earith in March 2024 where a friend had suggested the murmurations contained about 100,000 birds. The evening I was there the sky was filled with starlings. I took a lot of photos to get all the sections of this vast flock. I then did a grid count as above. I got a much larger number – 500,000 to 750,000. There may have been a few more. That’s the biggesst number of birds I’ve seen in one place!