Category: Birds

The common chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita) is a widespread leaf warbler. It is very similar in appearance to the willow warbler (P. trochilus) mentioned previously on Sciencebase. The chiffchaff’s legs are dark rather than pale, it is a slightly more compact bird than the willow warbler and has a more rounded head and shorter wings. It is their songs that sets apart these two avian cousins. Whereas the willow warbler warbles with a melodic, song, the chiffchaff makes an almost metronomic “chiff, chaff, chiff, chaff, chiff, chaff” sound…to my ear it’s actually more of a regular “t’ss, t’ss, t’ss, t’ss”. Not to be confused with the two-tone (but not metronomic) call of the great tit (Parus major).

There are lots of chiffchaffs around in the summer adding their song to the leafy symphony of many a woodland. They are quite hard to spot and unless you hear them sing (which you will) you might mistake a willow warbler (see above). They’re often perched high up, but this one was at head height in Rampton Spinney darting back and forth and singing loudly when it sat still for a moment or two and posed for photographs.

The common or garden house sparrow (Passer domesticus) or in the parlance of my home town – the spuggy. Here pictured a female with a mouthful of insects plucked from our patio and readying herself to head back to the nest in a nearby shrubbery. The word sparrow derives from the Greek, spergoulos, which means “small field bird”, although that “g” is lost en route to English from Proto-Germanic sparwan (Old Norse spörr, Old High German sparo, German Sperling, Gothic sparwa) to Old English spearwa, so not sure how the Geordies kept it in their vernacular, spuggy (or spuggie). Mentioned frequently in the writings of Scott Dobson concerning the Geordie vernacular.

House sparrows are common and like other Passeridae family members considered to be LBJs, little brown jobs. The family split into the species we know today as recently as 25,000 to 15,000 years ago and their family tree, the taxonomy is quite complicated as such. To our eyes they may seem dull and brown, but the facial patterning of each is individual and allows them to recognise each other and to know who is who in the sparrow social heirarchy. Oh and just to prove that house sparrows are relatively omnivorous, here she is again on our seed-dispensing bird feeder (mixed seeds, including sunflower; never opts for the niger seeds, which are the favourite of the goldfinches).

 

The Eurasian bittern or great bittern (Botaurus stellaris) is a heron-type wading bird. Unlike the little egret and the grey heron, it’s a more camouflaged mix of speckled browns. Rarely seen, but often recognised across a reed bed or watery habitat by its low booming call (sounds a bit like somebody blowing across the neck of a bottle). The bird was essentially extinct in the UK as a breeding species in the UK by 1900. It recolonised in the 1950s with several dozen males counted. Currently, numbers are not too bad with 600 individuals at some 400 sites, according to the RSPB. However, it is still considered to be a threatened species (on the amber list) because of the threat to its wetland habitats from development and climate change as well as its relatively small population.

We visited RSPB Minsmere in the middle of May (2017-05-14) and was hoping to catch sight of a bittern and many other birds from the various hides. On arriving at one particular hide I was lucky enough to spot a bittern landing in the reeds about 500 metres away before I’d even entered the hide. At first, I thought it was a marsh harrier (Circus aeruginosus), there had been three or four of those around that patch. I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo of that particular bittern, but turning around to enter the hide saw another flying fairly low towards the shoreline and fired off a few shots. The one above is the sharpest and best represents the bird’s shape in flight and that speckled brown mottling.

The common tern, Sterna hirundo, fast moving and almost totally white (apart from the black skull cap). Very difficult to photograph on a dull day. According to RSPB web site, migratory species, breeds on the coast where there are shingle beaches and rocky islands or on rivers with shingle bars, also on inland gravel pits and reservoirsrivers and over freshwater. Migrating birds can be seen offshore in autumn. This one of a pair snapped at Bottisham Lock, Waterbeach in South Cambridgeshire, on the river Cam, a few miles north of the city of Cambridge itself.

I need to get a second shot of a tern, of course…one good tern deserves another, after all.

Yet another haul of great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major) photos today. The best of the bunch has to be this one of an adult (the male of the pair nesting in this tree, his name is Jarvis) returning to the chicks with a beak stuffed with juicy grubs. These birds breed in holes excavated in trees, as you probably guessed, their nests are unlined apart from a bit of wood chip. It is rare that woodpeckers are ever called Deborah, although, the female pictured below is for obvious reasons.

The female (which lacks the scarlet patch on the back of its neck will usually lay four to six glossy white eggs and both parents incubate the eggs, feed the chicks once hatched, and keep the nest clean (more about that in a later post). When the chicks fledge the adults will continue to look after them for about ten days, with one parent taking responsibility for one part of the brood, the other the remainder.

Earlier in the year, I snapped and blogged about the great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major) in local woodland. Recently, there has been a lot more activity and there are at least two pairs around. I suspected one pair was using a dead tree with lots of big holes in its trunk and by chance spotted one bird clambering up towards one of those holes before disappearing inside. It emerged a few seconds later after peering cautiously from the hole before darting across the field and beyond the tall hedgerow, presumably in search of more food for its chicks. Meanwhile parent two arrived a few moments later, at some times the pair were both in attendance.

A couple of weeks ago I spotted a pair of grey wagtails (Motacilla cinerea) feeding at Bottisham Lock on the river Cam at Waterbeach, a few miles north of Cambridge. I was rather pleased to have snapped them in the evening sun. Several weeks later I saw the female foraging a few hundred metres further down river at the pumping station that helps control the flow of water along the lode there to the village of Bottisham itself. She was flitting about on the accumulated debris at the smaller lock on to the lode where river plants and detritus at accumulated, snatching at invertebrates, flies, mayflies, beetles, crustacea, and molluscs. The male will also assist in caring for chicks, although I didn’t see him on this expedition. Interestingly, the female may also lay a second clutch, leaving the male to look after the first brood.

Presumably she has chicks to feed now and was hurriedly stuffing her beak ready to head back to her nest. The species always nests among stones and roots on the embankment of moving water, rivers, streams, but might also exploit man-made structures too, such as locks and canals.

I’m endessly amazed at just how many different birds there are around if you care to look and have the patience to prowl around woodland, fen, mountain and moor, and the coastal margins. Of course, there are endless sparrows and chaffinchs, starlings, blackbirds, thrushes, robins, goldfinches, collared doves, wood pigeons and the like in our gardens. But there also wheatears, meadow pippets, cormorants, swallows, house martins, sand martins, swifts, sparrowhawks, willow warblers, chiffchaffs, jays, whitethroats, kingfishers, turnstones, stonechats, redwings, fieldfares, wagtails (pied and yellow), redstarts, buzzards, red kites, kestrels, mistle thrushes, marsh harriers goldcrests, lapwings, dunnocks, swans (mute and whooper), mallards, pochards, jackdaws, rooks, egrets (great and little), reed buntings, linnets, grey herons, and so many more…

Check out my British Bird gallery here. I usually manage to add at least a couple of new species each week and if not new species then at least a new angle on an old favourite.

Pictured below is the second Garrulus glandarius I’ve snapped recently…jay 2 oh, you might say…

Most of these were photographed with a Canon 6D sporting a Sigma 150-600mm zoom lens. Some of the earlier ones were snapped with a Canon 20D with various slightly less prominent lenses.

On a visit to WWT Welney, Welney Wetland Centre, at the beginning of the year Mrs Sciencebase and I, we were introduced to a couple of new bird species by more experienced birders there: the reed bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) and the bearded tit (Panurus biarmicus). I don’t think either of us had knowingly seen these species before. Picture directly below are a female (left) and a male (right) reed bunting. (July 2017 UPDATE: That said, there are reed buntings on the cornfields adjacent to where we often walk the dog, so we may have seen them over the last 10 years without really noticing them).

We were in a hide at the centre watching the reed buntings flitting about and I was trying to get a decent snap of both male and female, when a new entrant in the hide pointing out a male kestrel perched on a post outside the hide, said: “Oh, you want to get a shot of that one!” It was the bearded tit…also known as the bearded reedling, it was hard to home in on him, but after several attempts he stopped for a minute on his vertical asymmetric bars and let me get a few shots.

According to Wikipedia, the bearded reedling is a small, sexually dimorphic reed-bed passerine (perching) bird. It does have some resemblance to the long-tailed tit but its “bearded” is more like a pair of front-facing sideburns (mutton chops) rather than a beard as it doesn’t join under the birds beak. Oh, and it’s also sometimes called a bearded parrotbill.

July 2017 UPDATE: I’ve seen and photographed endless reed buntings over the last few weeks and months at various reserves and just in open countryside too (and in the marginal wooded area along the fen drains). Apparently, there are bearded tits at NT Wicken Fen, we’re yet to see any others than the ones we saw at the beginning of the year in WWT Welney.

UPDATE: 2019 discovered that quite a few Beardies at RSPB Ouse Fen (also known to be at RSPB Fen Drayton)

Sylvia isn’t a communist, as far as I know…she’s a wee bird…yes, I know another one. More to the point, this Sylvia is a male. Spotted him darting around the reeds on the Cottenham Lode. Made the dog sit still and then stalked him so I could get a better shot…several snaps, none great, one in flight then he was up a tree away from the reeds and wondering what on earth I was up to.

Medium-sized warbler, sam sort of size as a great tit (Parus major), summer visitor to the UK; spending the northern winter in sub-Saharan Africa. S communis avoids urban and mountainous areas (so unlikely to see it an a city of the Scottish highlands.