The call of a cryptic Bittern hidden in a reedbed is one of the most evocative sounds of nature at this time of year. The sound is known as booming, but it’s more like the sound of someone blowing across the top of an empty drinks bottle. Earlier in the season, the frisky males started warming up with some guttural grunts, progressing to the full bottle when they sense the females might be receptive.
Eurasian, or Great, Bittern, Botaurus stellaris
If you were out and about in the fens not twenty years ago, chances of hearing a booming Bittern were very low as the bird was all-but extinct in England. Habitat creation and other conservation efforts have led to a resurgence. So, most walks we take at this time of year among our fenland reserves, many of which are essentially repurposed and planted gravel pits, will reward us with a few booms and an occasional flypast.
I was walking at RSPB Berry Fen this morning. I’d picked up a whole lot of different warblers – Chiff Chaff, Reed Warbler, Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Blackcap, and Garden Warbler [What’s a warbler, anyway? Ed.] and a few Great White Egret, Little Egret, and Grey Heron as well as the usual ducks, crows, gulls, and cormorants. I was at the most northerly part of the fen close to one of those repurposed gravel pits known as Barleycroft Lake (part of RSPB Ouse Fen) and just about to head into the lake area when a male Bittern, appeared, flying low from the lake area. You can tell it’s a male from the pale blue marking on the lores. In ornithology, the lore is the patch between eye and bill on the side of a bird’s head. It’s usually featherless and sometimes coloured, as is the case with male Bitterns.
There are reeds on the edge of that lake, so presumably that’s this male’s usual patch, but it flew out over the dry edge of Berry Fen, sortied a rather brief reconnaissance flight, turned tail, presumably when it realised there was no reedy cover when it saw me and quickly, flew back into the lake area. Luckily, I had a few seconds of its U-turn to grab a few snapshots as it flew past silently. No sonic boom.
The bittern, Botaurus stellaris, is grouped with the herons, storks, and ibises, but obviously most closely resembles a heron than a stork or ibis.
The RSPB highlighted its latest UK Bird Crime Report in this month’s magazine and urged members to help spread the word.
The report covers the illegal persecution of birds of prey (raptors) between 2009 and 2023, revealing routine and widespread criminal activity—much of it linked to the gamebird shooting industry. Beyond the ecological damage caused by releasing millions of pheasants and partridges into the countryside each year, we must confront the deeper issue: it’s time to stop killing wildlife for sport.
The report confirms over 1,500 incidents of raptor persecution, though the real number is likely far higher due to underreporting. More than half of the confirmed cases occurred on land used for pheasant, partridge, or grouse shooting. Shockingly, three-quarters of those convicted had ties to the gamebird shooting industry, and more than two-thirds were gamekeepers.
It’s a disgrace.
In the not-so-distant past, raptors were hunted to the brink of extinction. Over the last fifty years, dedicated conservation efforts have brought species like the Red Kite and White-tailed Eagle back from the edge, and have worked to protect Hen Harriers and Goshawks. But these efforts are continually undermined by a profit-driven industry that sees birds of prey as little more than a nuisance.
Hen Harriers, Golden Eagles, Peregrines, Red Kites, and White-tailed Eagles are still routinely shot, trapped, or poisoned. Offenders often go to great lengths to destroy evidence, making successful prosecutions difficult.
Most bird crime takes place in remote areas, often goes unnoticed, and is rarely punished. Current wildlife protection laws are inadequate, and the penalties don’t go far enough to deter offenders. Scotland has taken steps to strengthen its laws. It’s time the rest of the UK followed suit.
Occasional visits to relatives who live in the leafy suburbs of Surrey always make me feel a little envious of the habitat represented by their garden and its surroundings. Lots of old oaks and other tree species beyond their fence but plenty of spots for birds (Aves) and invertebrates in their garden.
Scarce Tissue moth
I usually get a few moments to survey the life forms in the garden and among those oaks. It doesn’t take long to build a decent garden ticklist of birds. For a recent trip:
Blackbird, Blackcap, Blue Tit, Bullfinch, Buzzard, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Coal Tit, Collared Dove, Dunnock, Firecrest, Goldcrest, Goldfinch, Great Tit, Greenfinch, Green Woodpecker, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Jay, Long-tailed Tit, Magpie, Mistle Thrush, Nuthatch, Robin, Song Thrush, Stock Dove, Tawny Owl, Wood Pigeon, Wren.
Lunar Marbled Brown moth
I only heard and Goldcrest and it was the Merlin app that picked up the Firecrest. The Tawny Owl was a nocturnal caller, of course. Merlin claimed a Willow Warbler, but I didn’t pick that up aurally or visually. Out on a walk up to and along the Wey River added Canada Goose, Greylag Goose, Mallard, Red Kite. Was half expecting to see House Martin and Swallow, and perhaps Kingfisher, but no such luck with those.
Great Prominent
Meanwhile, I’d brought my Skinner moth trap with me and put that out for a couple of sessions. Unfortunately, it got very cold (near freezing) during the first couple of nights and there were just a Brindled Pug (NFM) and an Early Grey. Third night was a lot warmer (10 Celsius) albeit rainy, but it brought in a much bigger moth haul. I was very pleased to see a few species I’d not seen before, NFM (new for me) moths. Data for the lighting-up session now with Surrey County Moth Recorder.
Frosted Green
Brindled Pug (NFM)
Frosted Green x3 (NFM)
Great Prominent (NFM)
Grey Pine Carpet
Lunar Marbled Brown x3 (NFM)
Muslin
Purple Thorn x2
Red-green Carpet x2
Scarce Tissue x2 (NFM)
The Streamer
Brindled Pug
First Streamer of the year for me in Surrey, and also appeared in our Cambridgeshire garden the night we came home.
The Streamer, so-called because of the streamer-like markings on its forewings
Went for a brief butterfly walk in our local woodland, Les King Wood. Saw my first Speckled Wood of the year, lots more European Peacock, Whites (Small and Large), and numerous male Orange Tip. No Brimstone nor Comma on this outing.
Male Bullfinch perched on an overhead power cable
Just as I was about to head home, I heard a Bullfinch making its plaintive call. Couldn’t see it, so walked along one of the footpaths to bear round the patch where it seemed to be. Still no sign. And, it sounded like it flew off. So, I did a U-turn and headed back to the gate to leave. As if to taunt me, it seemed to come back, calling closer than ever, so I turned again and slowly walked towards where I imagined it was perched. It flew out, perched on an overhead power cable and looked down disgusted at the togger on the ground below.
Not the most evocative photo. The bird looks fine. But, that cable! So, over to a photo algorithm that claims to be able to replace objects. I selected the cable in the app and prompted it to replace the cable with a branch. I had to edit the claws on the branch to make them look slightly more realistic as the app had generated some weird artefacts that weren’t really claws at all. I’m sure there are other apps that do the same job, but this one will do for now as a demo. It’s called photo.ai, by the way.
Male Bullfinch perched on an overhead power cable, replaced with a branch using AI
There had been a very obliging Linnet and some Long-tailed Tits along the edge of the wood earlier.
Today, we got to a local site about 20 minutes after the pair of Peregrine Falcons that live there had gone off hunting…at least according to one birder who was leaving as we arrived. We trekked on and awaited the raptors’ return and in the meantime watched several Red Kite, some Common Buzzard, and a couple of nesting Kestrels.
Peregrine Falcon in flight
The Peregrines turned up about an hour later, preyless. They darted back to their nest site in the chalk cliff. Travelling fast, but not quite at their stooping speed which can be up to 200mph. One of the pair then zoomed off again to look for lunch, leaving the other to stare at us quizzically.
Peregrine on a chalk cliff, angling its head upwards, I suspect it was getting a clearer view o me, rather than looking at anything in the sky
Peregrines often look at you from odd angles…this is perhaps because they have two sharp central focus points in each eye (the fovea centralis), rather than the one we have for each eye. In the Peregrine, one is for long-distance sharp vision that allows it to pinpoint prey from at least a couple of miles away. The second focus point is for shorter distance vision to help it see its prey clearly as it approaches during the stoop.
Peregrine basically means from abroad/foreign. In Latin per is away and egrine from agri meaning field, so “away field” = abroad. Perhaps it is suggestive of the bird somehow being a wanderer, the etymology is unclear.
Peregrine on its nest site staring directly at the photographic intruder some distance away (big zoom lens)
Falcon comes from Latin falcis, meaning curved blade/war sickle, and may allude to the curved beak, the talons, or the wing profile…again, the etymology is somewhat lost in the history of falconry.
There was almost no photographic light left in the sky after sunet last night, but a Barn Owl flew past and I really just had to grab a shot even though I was just about to head home. My Canon R7 set to auto-ISO jumped to 20000, which is very high so the photo was very noisy/grainy. I usually denoise my images with DxO PureRaw 4 and for this one it had to be done. PureRaw drops the ISO by about three stops, so that’s as if the camera had been shooting at ISO 2500.
Barn Owl, image denoised with DxO PureRaw 4 and then gently edited in PaintShopPro
For those interested in such things, ISO ain’t what it used to be as I mentioned before. For film cameras, ISO was a measure of the sensitivity of the film. You used to use a higher ISO if you were shooting in lower light conditions.
For a digital camera, there’s no way to change the sensitivity of the sensor. So, adjusting the ISO does nothing more than turn up the brightness of the image you’ve captured and this brightness control is then embedded into the photo you download from the camera.
At lower light levels, your camera needs to turn up the brightness for the same shutter speed and aperture (f-stop) to get the exposure level you want. This means the noise is turned up brighter too, commonly seen as a purple speckles throughout the darker areas of the photo, but also impinging to different degrees across the whole image.
Now, the noise in a film photo is often referred to as grain (because it’s associated with the grain size of the particles of light-sensitive silver compounds in the film itself) It’s often seen as moody, romantic, and evocative, especially in noir Hollywood photos or the celebrity portrait work of David Bailey etc et cetera. It can be pleasing, just like the crackles and pops of classic vinyl…ish.
But, for digital photos, noise is just noise. It’s not grain, it’s not really romantic, nor evocative, it detracts and distorts the detail in your photo. So anything you can do to keep the ISO as low as possible and any processing that removes the noise without removing detail is, to my eye, a good thing. There are limits, but as regular viewers will know I almost always use DxO PureRaw to do the basic pre-edit processing of my photos. It essentially turns down the digital ISO control by three “stops” but without lowering the brightness.
The Barn Owl was shot at ISO 20000, so DxO is effectively bringing that down to ISO 2500, which is still way too high for a clean photo. But, it beats the RAW image straight out of the camera.
Incidentally, all this pre-processing and processing, is basically the digital equivalent of developing the film and printing from the negative as you would do with film. Some people imagine it’s somehow cheating because there are a lot more options allowing you to adjust levels and other stuff when you process digital negatives (the camera RAW) file, but it’s worth looking at the history of film photography to see how that nothing has changed fundamentally. Photography is not reality, it has always been about capturing a moment in time and developing it in such a way as to make that moment special after the event.
This is the Barn Owl as it looked after processing the RAW file with DxO but prior to adjust levels with PSPThis is the Barn Owl as it looked before processing the RAW file with DxOBarn Owl before and after DxO and PSP processing
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.
Fluffed up Cattle Egret in a field behind a horse
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.
Fluffed up Cattle Egret
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.
Two fluffed up Cattle Egret in a field behind a horse
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.
Great White Egret
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).
Sunset over Mount Teide, TenerifeThe Atlantic, or Wild, Canary, Serinus canaria, is a finch commonly found on the Canary Islands, related to Serins and Siskins. Of course, its name comes from the islands not vice versa. The Romans named the islands “Canariae Insulae”, meaning “Islands of the Dogs” because of the abundant “sea dogs” on the beaches, these creatures were Monk Seals, Monachus monachusIt’s hard photographing Monarchs at the top of a palm treeEven harder catching them in flight. Monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippusSouthern Tenerife Lizard, Gallotia galloti gallotiAnother Southern Tenerife LizardEurasian Whimbrel, Numenius phaeopus
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.
Atlantic Spotted Dolphin, Stenella frontalisShort-finned Pilot Whale, Globicephala macrorhynchusRed Rock Crab, Grapsus adscensionis, I prefer its other name: the East Atlantic Sally Lightfoot Crab
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.
Spectacled Warbler, Curruca conspicillata, on derelict banana plantationBertholet’s Pipit, Anthus berthelotii, saw on El Teide and then on derelict area along coastSpanish Sparrow, Passer hispaniolensis(Feral) Rock Dove, Columba liva, aka Common PigeonCanary Islands Chiffchaff, Phylloscopus canariensis
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)
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.
Male Bearded Reedling, Panurus biarmicus, feeding on seed head
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.
Male Bearded Reedling on seed head, tail pointing skyward
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…
Goldcrest
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.
Great Tit
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.
Nuthatch
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 tripholiday 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.
Jay
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.
