Bridled guillemot

TL:DR – The bridled guillemot is a polymorphism (not a sub-species) of the Common Guillemot (Uria aalge) found in the North Atlantic region.


Guillemot is the common name for various auk-type seabirds (Charadriiformes). In the UK, there are two genera commonly seen: Uria and Cepphus. Common Murre, also known as the Common Guillemot (Uria aalge) is a large auk with circumpolar distribution. It spends most of its time at sea. It breeds on rocky cliff shores or islands. The Bridled Guillemot is a polymorphism of the species found in the North Atlantic region.

Bridled Guillemot closeup, showing dark, chocolate-coloured head with white eye-ring and "bridle"

My photo shows a Guillemot at RSPB Bempton Cliffs on the coast of the East Riding of Yorkshire. If I told you that there is a species of guillemot known as the spectacled guillemot, you might imagine that this is she. However, this is actually a bridled guillemot. It’s not a distinct species but a genetic polymorphism of Uria aalge, the common guillemot (aka the common murre). This strain has thin white circles around its eyes that stretch back as a thin white line. By contrast the spectacled guillemot is rather distinct looking and has thick white circling around its eyes and no “bridle” and is Cepphus carbo.

Bempton Puffin

It’s a couple of years ago that we last walked the clifftops along the East Yorkshire coast of the Wolds spotting gannets, guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, and, of course, puffins. The day we arrived coincidentally, RSPB Bempton Cliffs had featured on BBC Springwatch because they were opening their new visitor centre. It’s all well heeled in now and armed with the Sigma, I thought it was time I got some new shots of the seabirds.

First up, everyone’s colourful favourite the Atlantic, or common, puffin (Fratercula arctica). There were a few around but not nearly as many as we’d hoped and I don’t think we saw any chicks. Certainly didn’t see any with food in their mouths for the RSPB’s competitive hashtag, #ProjectPuffinUK. Here’s the shot that was closest I got to one.

The common puffin is an auk, the only puffin native to the Atlantic Ocean, breeding in Iceland, Norway, Greenland, Newfoundland, and many North Atlantic islands, and as far south as Maine in the west and the British Isles in the east. Although it has a large population and a wide range numbers have declined rapidly recently in some parts of its range it is rated “vulnerable” by the IUCN. It swims on on the surface of the sea and dives to feed on small fish.

Two cuckoos flew over no nest

Early evening walk (31st May 2017, farmland south of Rampton, Cambridge, relatively close to the Guided Busway), hoping to catch sight of our local fen edge barn owl (Tyto alba), but could hear a cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) in a field beyond a hedgerow…call seemed to be getting closer…at which point two males flew over our heads calling, each presumably attempting to out court any nearby females. Female song is very different from that of the male and not heard so often. I got a quick shot of one of the two as they passed overhead calling all the while and they separated in their ongoing search for cuckoo nookie.

The male’s call is familiar to many people even if they have never seen this thrush-sized bird that resembles a small bird of prey, but is neither thrush nor raptor.

Eurasian Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus)

I suppose it was obvious in hindsight, it was RSPB Fen Drayton Lakes, there were reeds, there was warbling, it was a reed warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus). Despite his whitethroat and white rings around the eyes, he’s simply not a whitethroat (Sylvia communis). He wasn’t singing the whitethroat tune either.

Bird expert and friend Brian Stone explains: “Subtle but distinctive, the head shape is typical of the Acrocephalus warblers. Rather pointy with a steep forehead. That genus also tends to be very uniform in colour and many species are extremely difficult to separate if not singing. Fortunately we only have two really common species here and sedge warbler looks rather different.

Indeed, I had seen and identified positively sedge warbler recently at RSBP North Warren on the outskirts of Aldeburgh, north on the way to Thorpeness, and had seen said sedge warbler again not a few paces from the reed warbler.  Brian tells me: “Much more streaky and with a very bold face pattern. Reed Warbler goes much more for the no-nonsense brown on top, pale buff underneath approach.”

What birds might you see at RSPB Fen Drayton Lakes?

To me, it will always be Swavesey Lakes, but when the RSPB took on the old gravel pits that lie north of Fen Drayton, south of Holywell and west of Swavesey, they deemed a name change was in order, as I understand it.

The lakes, riverside, traditional meadows and hedges are linked by a network of paths and alongside is the Great River Ouse, which begins in Syresham in South Notts winds its way through East Anglia to The Wash. It’s a lovely site, you’ll see vast starling murmations at dusk in the early autumn, but at this time of year it’s a flutter of activity from countless feathered friends.

We parked up at about 10 on the late May Bank Holiday Monday in 2017, and could immediately hear willow warbler, chiffchaff, great tit and a couple of distant cuckoo.

Overhead what I thought was probably a marsh harrier or two, but actually realise now they were red kite. On the “board” promise of a bittern and oystercatchers with young. We saw a colony of greylag geese with goslings on the opposite bank of the River Great Ouse, but no other obvious bird young. The greylag’s had neighbours too: Egyptian geese.

On the pontoons that festoon some of the lakes there were plenty of black-headed gulls nesting and some common tern. On the outcrops into the lakes and the water’s edges: mallard, tufted duck, lapwing, mute swan, great crested grebe, redshank, cormorant, pochard, grey heron, and various others.

In and around the trees: blackcap, sedge warbler, long-tailed tit, robin, blackbird, wood pigeon, chaffinch, chiffchaff, goldfinch, collared dove. And, among the reeds, reed bunting, whitethroat, and reed warbler too. And a pair of nuthatch, based on a fleeting glimpse of two small birds with blue-grey colouring and rusty flanks and a monotonic and repetitive whistling.

Overhead Canada and greylag geese, mute swans, housemartins, barn swallows, and others.

Having heard the cuckoo there was always the hope of spotting one of these rapteurish-looking parasites, but we were not in luck.

I was also hoping to catch a shot at a yaffle or two (green woodpecker, in French: Picvert, “green pick”). As we drove off the site, there were lots of LBJs and we almost ran over a yaffle, which took to the air just in time. The female partridge on the opposite side of the road barely flinched and the female yellowhammer just flew.

I should point out that we were there in the middle of the day, a dawn or dusk visit would be much more fulfilling given the dawn chorus or the twilight hunters and the birds coming home to roost, respectively.

 

Silent wings of the barn owl

Walking the dog at dusk out on the Cambridgeshire fens mid-May, lots of swallows around, meadow pipits, yellowhammers, the inevitable wood pigeons, collared doves, starlings and blackbirds, a few LBJs (little brown jobs), chaffinch, house martins, robins, (barely glimpsed, but certain) goldcrests and more. Heading along the lode thought I saw a little egret out of the corner of my eye, but turned to see a beautiful barn owl (Tyto alba) in the lowering sun circle the fields, hunting small mammals, worrying the skylarks on their nests.


barn owl in flight, closeup
The shot above was the first I captured, it’s often the way, first shot on the reel is the best, the most spontaneous, the one that’s just right, the subsequent photos are as the owl passes by and so mostly rear-end shots. He did bank around again and fly towards us a couple of times, taking no heed of our presence nor of the dog, and not even the sound of the camera’s shutter distracted from his time to pray. Here he is being defined in his nomenclature by the that most obvious of farm buildings, a barn.

barn owl and prey
He circled back around of the field on our side of the lode and we watched as he dived down, emerging from the long grass a few seconds later with a shrew in his talons before heading off in the direction of a patch of woodland (ironically close to where we’d parked the car).

barn owl and barn
It must be ten years since I last got a photograph of a barn owl. We’ve seen a few and certainly enjoyed watching one range alongside the car in the Yorkshire Wolds a couple of years ago, presumably hoping our wheels would disturb the roadside mammalia into scurrying.

Barn owls are well known as silent fliers. Their wings are huge compared to their body size and mass, they are also curved. Both characteristics are evolutionary adaptations to their hunting technique. They can move very slowly with barely a flap even in the lightest of updrafts almost hovering over prey they have sighted. But, it is the structure of the feathers which makes them much quieter than other raptors allowing them to hear prey without the background noise of their own wings.

The barn owl’s wing feathers are soft which smooths airflow, reducing noisy turbulence. In addition, the leading edge of their foremost wing feather (the 10th primary) is fluted appearing to have tiny barbs (that have tiny barbs upon them) that break up the airflow hitting the wing and again reduce noisy turbulence.

It might be that the flutings raise the frequency (pitch) of the sound above that audible to prey and perhaps the owl too. Indeed, the owl’s silence does mean that it can hear its prey in the groundcover whereas other noisier raptors need to rely almost entirely on their sight (viz, the kestrel hovering high above likely targets).

Nice BBC program showing pigeon, peregrine, and barn owl in flight. The sounds they do or don’t make and the turbulence their wings do or don’t generate. It’s worth noting that pigeon wing flaps are thought to be a communication device too. Peregrines stoop on their prey so quickly and aren’t flapping when they do so any noise the make in normal flight doesn’t matter. Also, Barn Owls keep quiet not so that their prey don’t hear them, but so that they can hear their prey and home in on the tiniest rustle of blades of grass or the twitching of a rodent whisker.

Great spotted fledgling

The Great Spotted Woodpecker chick (Dendrocopos major) I have been photographing these last few days is getting very bold and almost bouncing out of his tree house when the adults visit with food.

I am surprised that there is only one chick, maybe nest size limits how many eggs the female lays. Either way, this little fellow with his red crown (does that make him a male?) is clacking away requesting regular invertebrate meals from the male (with the red nape to his neck) and female (black and white, but for her rump). Mrs Sciencebase reckons the clacking of the adults from neighbouring trees is probably encouragement for the chick to fledge (we’ve not heard much calling from them). The chicks head seems at least as big as his mother’s, so presumably he is almost read to leave the confines of his woody abode.

Here are a few more shots of male and female attending to the needs of the chick. That beak is sharp, makes sense for Dad to close his eyes while passing grubs beak to beak.

 

Starling chick waiting to be fed

I’ve been walking past trees with lots of woodpecker holes recently and, as regular readers will know I’ve photographed the great spotted woodpeckers that are feeding chicks in the highest hole. Got some good shots of them flying in and out of the male with a load of grubs in its mouth ready to enter the nest.

It’s always feeding time in a bird’s nest whether that’s a hollow in a tree, a nest of twigs and feathers or a ground nest, which might be a simple depression on a sandbank or in a field.


Starling chicks (Sturnus vulgaris) are no different in their voracity for invertebrates. I was aware of parents flying in and out of a hole in a tree next to the woodpecker residence and caught sight of a chick poking its head above the proverbial parapet while its parent clacked and yacked on a nearby branch. It was only happy to fly in to nest to feed the chick(s) once I’d moved a few metres further away.




The common, or European, starling is a nosy bird with glossy black plumage that has something of a metallic sheen and shimmers with greens and puples in sunlight. It might also be speckled white at different times of the year. The legs are pink and the bill is black in winter and yellow in the summer.

Meanwhile, just been through my photos from Botswana, lots of birds, but no sight of a superb starling, which I remember being particularly fascinated by 25 years ago…just for the name alone.

The baby woodpecker’s divided red crown

Okay, here’s a question for evolutionary ornithologists…or basically anyone who knows the answer: Why do the chicks of great spotted woodpeckers (Dendrocopos major) have a bifurcated red crown? The mother’s head is completely black her red feathers being limited to the underside of her hind quarters (her so-called undertail coverts) , while the adult male has in addition a red patch on the nape of his neck.

I have photographed this family of D. major over the last few weeks coming and going at the nesting site in a tree near Rampton Pocket Park north of Cambridge, England. Saw the chick for the first time on the 20th May 2017.

The lesser spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos minor) and the green woodpecker (Picus viridis) both have red caps. The green, also known as a yaffle, has red bars below the eyes emanating from the rear of the beak, otherwise mostly green/greenish yellow.

First sighting of a D. major this year in Rampton was end of February. This one is nesting at the Cottenham end of Rampton Spinney, I’ve seen a pair there since but not photographed those again. The nesting pair of great spotted woodpeckers I’ve photographed more recently are in a tree on the edge of Giant’s Hill.

Close to the sedge (warbler)

UPDATE: Have a listen to this bird’s “song” via Xeno Canto here. The sound recording was made at Fen Drayton where there are several Sedge Warbles making a racket right now at the Guided Busway crossing to Swavesey Lake.

We often take a walk through RSPB North Warren, the bird and nature reserve immediately north of the Suffolk town of Aldeburgh. There is a fresh water marsh there with quite an array of little egrets, duck, geese and on a recent visit a pair of spoonbills (Platalea leucorodia). Heading from the hide nearest Maggi Hambling’s infamous sculpture Scallop to the hide opposite at dusk recently, we heard a loud warbling song and then spotted a tiny little bird, white eyeband, flitty flight in and out of a tangle of thorny bushes. He sat still and not too far away for me to get a few nice shots of him. It was, I believe, a sedge warbler (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus).


The RSPB website describes this species as “quite plump”, but to my eye it was a rather delicate bird with prominent creamy “eyebrows”. The sedge is a summer visitor to the UK and elsewhere, choosing to spend its winters in sub-Saharan Africa. It commonly picks insects from vegetation while perched or sometimes hovering, which we observed, but there was also a lot of “leap-catching”, in which the bird grabs flying insects as it flies between perches.