TL:DR – The Blackcap, Sylvia atricapilla, is commonly a summer visitor to the UK from sub-Saharan Africa. But in recent years, some birds that spend their summers in the east of Europe and would normally head for the Iberian peninsula or North Africa in winter have reached the UK where they found winter food on bird feeders. There is now evidence that these birds that overwinter in the UK are not mingling with the Iberian or African overwinterers when they go back to their breeding grounds in east Europe.
UPDATE: As of 13th March 2023, the male Blackcap that overwintered since mid-December in our garden is still here. The outside temperature has gone from freezing to about 17 Celsius, but he is showing no signs of departing just yet. He enjoyed mistletoe berries, pyracanthus berries and now most of those have gone, he pecks at suet balls in a feeder right outside our living room window.
It’s no wonder this little fellow looks so grumpy perched next to the mistletoe growing on our rowan tree…most other Blackcaps will be enjoying a much balmier winter on the Iberian Peninsula or even in Africa. We have had Blackcaps in our garden in winter for several years now. Never see them in the garden in summer though. We had a male and a female last winter. So far this winter, just this solitary male.
Blackcap overwintering in the UK
In recent years, a lot of migrating Blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla) have headed west from eastern Europe for the winter instead of turning south. Their compasses seem to have lost calibration, perhaps due to climate change, but other factors may be at play. The species seems to be affected by climate change, a decalibration of their internal compasses, and perhaps moreover by the British wont to stock garden bird feeders and put out fat balls, which is not such a common practice on the continental mainland.
When they head back to their mating grounds in the spring, they are marginalised by the southerners it seems and two distinct groupings are observed. This is an early process in speciation whereby in the long-term we might see a sub-species emerge that no longer mates with the other.
TL:DR – I compiled a sampler for a newbie birding book with ten chapters, but I am yet to write the remaining 90.
Back in August 2017, I was all hyped about putting together a new book. It come up with a title, Chasing Wild Geese, and the plan was to write a short piece about the hundred birds a novice birder might “tick” first in the UK. Each item would be illustrated with one of my photos of said bird.
Chasing Wild Geese, the gosling feather book cover
I put together a taster, with the first ten written and formatted and even did a spoof bio page in the same style about yours truly.
I gave the cover a silly acronym: FEATHER. This stood for “Food Environment Aural Type Habitat Etymology Resemblance” and was a summary of the contents of each page.
I shared the sampler widely on social media and estimate that between six hundred and a thousand people downloaded the PDF file from my website. It’s still available if you’d like to take a look, here. I spoke to my publisher and ideas were batted back and forth. Ultimately though, the likely costs of producing a full-colour photographic book of this sort we agreed were likely to have been prohibitive at the time, so sadly, I put the Geese on the backburner and turned my attention to other writing, photography, and more songwriting.
In the meantime, there have been several similar books on the market from far more expert birders and better photographers than me, any one of which would easily have outsold the honking Geese. I do now have better photos of all the birds in the sampler, and at least a couple of hundred other birds that might have featured in a follow-up…maybe if I stop chasing it, it will come home to roost. We’ll see…
TL:DR – Fundamentally, starlings murmurate because they enjoy it, it’s instinctive behaviour, but there will be reward feedback loops in their brains that drive the behaviour that’s almost beyond doubt. But, the phenomenon is in their instincts to help protect them from raptor predation.
I’ve talked about Starling murmurations several times before here. They are a fascinating, exciting, wonderful natural phenomenon with a lot to teach us about animal behaviour and perhaps even fluid flow! There are two spots on the outskirts of our village here in South Cambridgeshire where you might see a murmuration.
There is a reedbed in the balancing pond that supports drainage from one of the housing estates and then there’s a similar pond on the edge of the local recycling centre (rubbish dump). I’ve mentioned the Red Kites that frequent that site too in an update to an old article. It was while seeking out and finding 20+ Red Kites a couple of weeks ago that I noticed the Starling numbers were building on the same patch, with two to three flocks of several hundred birds swooping around the farmland that abutts the dump.
We walked there again yesterday so I could photograph the Red Kites again. We saw at least 20, along with a couple of hundred Redwing and dozens of Fieldfare, and a Buzzard harried by the Red Kites. There were a lot more Starlings, three fluxional flocks of several hundred each. At one point, hundreds were in the hedgerow when a raptor interrupted their chirruping and chatting and they whooshed into the air en masse and murmurated to distract and confuse the bird of prey.
I got a few photos one of which shows a large flock moving in unison. I estimate about 1500 birds in this photo and there were perhaps two other flocks of maybe about a half to two-thirds the size. I’d suggest that this patch has at least 3000 birds. It will be worth another visit towards dusk to see them bed down to roost among the reeds, also might be worth getting up at dawn to see them rise as a single mass from their roost. My estimate of 1500 in this photo was corroborated by a proper birder friend with far more experience of counting than I.
My friend Andy, who, like myself, is a keen amateur wildlife photographer, often asks me questions about the birds and butterflies he photographs. I can usually come up with an answer. But, today, we were talking about Little Owls and he casually referred to the species as the Small Owl. As far as I know, there is no species known as the Small Owl. I pointed this out and he came back with an intriguing question. Why are the birds “Little” but the butterflies “Small”?
The Little Owl species does not have a counterpart Large Owl
For example, among the birds, we have Little Owl, Little Gull, Little Stint, Little Ringed Plover, Little Egret, Little Auk, Little Grebe, Little Tern. But, for the butterflies, we have Small Blue, Small Tortoiseshell, Small Skipper, Small Heath, Small Copper, Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary, Small White.
The Large Skipper has a Small Skipper counterpart
It’s puzzling…there is a subtle difference in our perception of what we mean by “little” and “small”, but it’s hard to define. Small is the opposite of big, little is the opposite of large. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that while little is generally synonymous with small, it can have emotional implications associated with it that the word small does not, I can’t quite put my finger on what those differences are. When we discuss dwarfism, people with that condition are often referred to as “little people” but “not small people”…
Etymologically, the word small, a word of Germanic origin, means “thin, slender, narrow, fine” but also refers to a diminutive animal. Indeed, the true root in proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the prefix (s)melo- used to talk of a “smaller animal”. Little, etymologically speaking, is also Germanic in origin, the PIE root is “leud” meaning small.
So, back to Andy’s question why are the birds “little” but the butterflies “small”? I wondered whether it had something to do with the etymology of the words or perhaps whether the naming happened at different times and one descriptor was favoured for some reason at a given time.
Another possible explanation is that the use of small for the butterflies was done because there is a large counterpart. For the Small Tortoiseshell, there is a bigger but similar species the Large Tortoiseshell. Similarly, for the Small Skipper, there is a Large Skipper. However, there are no pairings among the birds, there are lots of different species of gull, but there is no Big Gull nor Large Gull to be a counterpart to the Little Gull, the same with the Little Owl, we do not have a Big Owl or a Large Owl species.
Often these kinds of differences are related to Anglo-Saxon versus Norman etymology, as in the peasants grow the pigs, cattle, and sheep, while the Norman aristocrats eat the pork (porc), beef (boeuf), and mutton (moutton). Stephen Moss just reminded me that he alludes to this in his excellent book Mrs Moreau’s Warbler: How Birds Got Their Names. “I noted that three groups of birds have Norman French names – ducks and gamebirds, which were eaten by French aristocrats, and raptors, which were used to hunt them. Same principle as farm animals and meat!”
Then there are the Great birds…
Great White Egret, Great Tit, Great Shearwater, Great Black-backed Gull, Great Crested Grebe, Great Grey Shrike, Great Northern Diver, Great Crane. The “Great” also essentially means big and there are “lesser” birds that are generally smaller than the common species: Lesser Redpoll, Lesser Whitethroat, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker…
Moss also points out that in the US there are birds with “least” in their names ‘Least Grebe’, ‘Least Sandpiper’, and ‘Least Bittern’, for instance, we don’t have “least” birds in UK English…which maybe a throwback to US English etymology and the great divide between English and American.
“I have never really thought about why birds are great/little/lesser but butterflies are small/large, and I don’t really have an explanation. I suppose traditions in naming spring up early, and that namers therefore tend to follow an established formula. Some of the small/large butterfly names are 18th century or even, with Small Heath, late 17th century, so it might reflect usage at the time – Georgian vs Victorian? Simple English vs 19th Century elaboration?”
Marren points out that there are a few ‘little’ moths eg the Little Thorn – named later, perhaps. But again more usually large/small. He adds that “Great’ just seems the wrong word for a British butterfly or moth, somehow, but not sure I could explain why. ’Large’ is often (usually?) used where there is also a ‘small’, eg Large and Small White, Large and Small Blue, Large and Small Tortoiseshell. But I guess the same pairing is true of birds.”
A pub conversation with a retired friend who was an English teacher, had me saying “All creatures great and small”, which is almost a crossover usage…the hymn should perhaps be “All creatures great and lesser” or “All creatures large and small” but neither would sound quite so poetic as the original hymnal words by Cecil Frances Alexander.
TL:DR – The Bearded Reedling, Panurus biarmicus, was formerly known as the Bearded Tit. It is not a type of tit, although it has a passing resemblance to the Long-tailed Tit. It is the only species in the genus Panurus.
THE best photo I ever got of a Bearded Reedling (formerly known as the Bearded Tit) was from a hide WWT Welney. That was about a month after I’d bought the Sigma 150-600mm zoom for my old Canon 6D camera (March ’17). I’ve been chasing a better shot ever since.
Now there are record numbers of Beardies at RSPB Ouse Fen (I saw more than a couple of dozen of them last week at the Earith side right next to the car park). But, there are no hides so no real chance of getting as close as I was in a hide to that first one at Welney.
Incidentally, the name change from Tit to Reedling isn’t some kind of political correctness gone mad, it’s simply that although superficially, the shape of this species resembles the Long-tailed Tit, they are wholly unrelated to any of the Tit species. Indeed, they are the only known species in their genus! Personally, I think it should be the Moustached Reedling as those black facial markings on the male are more ‘tache than beard!
TL:DR – The Bearded Reedling, Panurus biarmicus, was formerly known as the Bearded Tit. It is not a type of tit, although it has a passing resemblance to the Long-tailed Tit. It is the only species in the genus Panurus.
Lots of Beardies, Bearded Reedlings, Panurus biarmicus, at the Earith side of RSPB Ouse Fen, the site represents a nicely growing colony of the species.
Bearded Reedlings
I counted at least a couple of dozen today. I’d first heard a lot of pew-pewing (or ping-pinging) in the reeds close to the car park. The sound is reminiscent of a low-power sci-fi B-movie laser gun or a twee little ringing bell. But, when there are lots firing off it once it’s quite wonderful, like a live-action video game in the reed beds.
Beardie is an affectionate nickname for the Bearded Reedling, formerly known as the Bearded Tit. It was misnamed on account of its passing resemblance in shape to the Long-tailed Tit, but the two species are not related. Indeed, the Bearded Reedling is doubly misnamed as those black markings on the male’s face might be, at a stretch, perceived as sideburns or moustaches, but definitely not a beard. But, while changing from tit to reedling is happening, it’s unlikely to lose its beard.
Meanwhile, taxonomically, the species (scientifically Panurus biarmicus) is the only one worldwide in the Panurus genus. A truly unique little bird living almost on our doorsteps…well…if your doorstep is lined with reeds, that is.
TL:DR – We finally caught up with White-tailed Eagles on a trip to Dorset in September 2022 after seeking them out in various places over the last couple of years.
We took another trip south in September. Stayed some way inland in the historic town of Corfe Castle but couldn’t keep away from the coast and visited RSPB Arne, RSPB Lodmoor, RSPB Radipole Pond, NT Studland, and took a boat trip in Poole Harbour up the Wareham Channel, and a train journey from Corfe to Swanage where we were plagued by Geography Fieldtrips measuring the groynes on the beach.
White-tailed Eagle
RSPB Arne is the English homeland of the Dartford Warbler and plenty of other wildlife, although we saw very little of it on our visit for some reason, apart from some “wild” pigs and distant waders. We also missed, by just a few minutes, a White-tailed Eagle fly-by and also failed to see an Osprey way over the moor towards Corfe itself. We didn’t see any Dartfords there either, that would wait until we got to the moors behind Knoll Beach at Studland.
Dartford Warblers
While at Arne, missing the Osprey and WTE, we spoke to various people one of whom recommended a visit to Lodmoor and Radipole Pond (spotted a Clouded Yellow butterfly there) and those sites were generally much busier in terms of birdlife, Great White Egret, Grey Heron, Oystercatcher (dozens), Avocet (hundreds), Curlew, Black-tailed Godwit, Great Crested Grebe etc.
We were lucky enough to see dozens and dozens of House Martins and Swallows when we climbed East Hill in Corfe. Seemingly, Monday the 19th September was a good day for seeing hundreds of departing migrants. Also towards the top of the hill, a couple of Clouded Yellow butterfly.
Osprey
The 2.5 hour boat-trip with the charity Birds of Poole Harbour was much more of a success than the trip to Arne. We had sightings of Shag and Sandwich Tern within minutes of setting sail and a large flock of Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis, the Chinese Cormorant sub-species, which is much more gregarious than its relative the Common Cormorant.
Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis, “Chinese” Cormorant
One of our incredibly well-informed guides (Paul) spotted an Osprey perched in a dead tree on the non-public edge of RSPB Arne, then the other equally well-informed guide (Liv) spotted a White-tailed Eagle (turned out to be the juvenile female with the radiotag ID G801). She was perched high in a pine tree a little further up the channel. It was hard to get clear photos through the heat haze and at a distance of several hundred metres, but worth a try. When the eagle took to the air, I got a reasonable shot at it before a second (a juvenile male) was sighted.
Dutch Spoonbills (some of 60+) and Oystercatchers (100s)
These eagles and the ospreys are both part of reintroduction programmes on the south coast to bring back raptors to this area that were persecuted to local extinction. Unfortunately, there are rich landowners with a vested interested in breeding and killing millions of game birds (pheasants, grouse etc) for a very lucrative sport. They claim the birds of prey are a threat to their industry. The birds are no threat to this vast industry given the huge numbers of game birds involved. The raptors may eat dead game birds, but the industry dumps most of the birds that are shot for sport. Farmers often protest that eagles could take valuable lambs and counter the awarding of reintroduction licenses, they know full well that this is an incredibly rare happening and it’s just an excuse to protect their game birding, which makes them thousands of pounds per person. Eagles will find plenty of carrion and smaller wild birds to eat without needing to tackle lambs.
Interestingly, the eagles, which we used to think needed high mountain and moor, seem quite happy to live in this coastal zone. So, ultimately, translocation schemes will hopefully be successful. We’re still hoping that the Wild Ken Hill licence will be allowed in North Norfolk.
Sika Deer
Meanwhile, back on the boat, we continued to add many more species of bird to the boat trip list (which ultimately amounted to 48 bird species) before heading back to the harbour and the lagoon on Brownsea Island where 60+ Spoonbills were feeding.
One of two Spoonbill at RSPB Lodmoor, NC4P, ringed in Netherlands in Jun 22
The Spoonbill is another growing success in England where once the bird was eaten to extinction in the 17th Century. There is a breeding colony in North Norfolk, but dozens are now seen in Dorset and Somerset. The flock we saw on Brownsea is mostly comprised of visitors from The Netherlands. Also had a flyover of Dunlin and sighting of at least one Curlew Sandpiper, Redshank, Greenshank and more. We have seen Spoonbill at various times over the years, but usually only one or two together and perhaps three; there were two at Lodmoor even.
We “twitched” the juvenile Red-backed Shrike and first-winter Citrine Wagtail mentioned in BirdGuides that and previous days. The Citrine made an appearance close to where birders told us it would be. There was some initial doubt that it might have been an Eastern Wagtail, but an expert who heard it call, pinned it down to Citrine.
Juvenile Citrine Wagtail
The juvenile Red-backed Shrike took a lot more hunting down as it was on what local birders know as the old dump, not the Lodmoor reserve itself. BirdGuides was pretty close with its grid reference from earlier in the day. There are usually only a couple of breeding pairs of RBS in the UK each year, and it is essentially extinct here. However, a couple of hundred migrants do skirt the east and south coast of the UK on passage. They’re often known as butcher birds because they hang their prey on thorns or even barbed wire to eat later.
By the end of the holiday, we’d almost forgotten about trying to spot Dartford Warbler (we had seen them at Dunwich Heath on a Suffolk trip earlier in the year). However, after visiting Old Harry Rocks, we headed through Studland and up on to the heather and gorse encrusted dunes behind Knoll Beach and saw perhaps half a dozen, as well as numerous Wheatear and Stonechat.
For those who like lists, these are the 74 or so bird species we saw* and noted during our September 2022 week of birding and sightseeing in Dorset:
There were probably a few other species we saw but didn’t note bringing the total for the week to at least 60. Oh, we also saw quite a few Sika Deer and I did a bit of mothing in Corfe with the LepiLED and added L-album Wainscot and Ruddy Streak (Tachystola acroxantha) to my moth life list.
The stunning L-album Wainscot, seen only on the south coast
TL:DR – There was a sudden influx of more than 100 Common Buzzards (Buteo buteo) on farmland after the hay was cut and baled. This species is a type of hawk, not a vulture.
When you get wind of something unusual in the birding world, the temptation is often to head for the site as quickly as possible binoculars slung around your neck and camera in the rucksack on your back. It’s often not the best strategy, birds fly and even if you think you’re being quick off the mark, often the update you saw may be out of date within minutes or hours of it being posted.
Common Buzzard zoomed through the heathaze
So, when I heard there was a large number of Common Buzzard* (Buteo buteo) gathered in a field not 20 minutes’ drive from home, I didn’t jump into the car and slam the pedal to the metal. I waiting until the next update to see how things might be changing over the hours from the first sighting to the next.
The initial report had said there were some 56 Buzzards in a field where the farmer was moving hay bales. The rodent population would have been on the run and it was presumably this that drew the avian crowd, which was apparently joined by a Marsh Harrier, Kestrel, and several Grey Herons. There were several more Buzzards in the adjacent field, apparently. This is an unprecedented number of this species in Cambridgeshire, a county record. Usually, they seem quite solitary and might gather in thermal-circling groups of three or four.
Four of at least 100 Common Buzzards on local farmland
Most I’ve ever seen in one place was directly above our house when there were six riding ever upwards on the thermals. More than sixty in one place seemed bizarre…something you might see in some remote Eastern European valley or flying over Gibraltar Point, perhaps.
Anyway, I still didn’t dash. I was dithering. Worrying about the spiralling cost of diesel, for one thing, but also with the thought that by the time I get to this distant field, Sod’s law would dictate that they would have all departed. The next report came in and said there were perhaps eighty, the one after that told of at least 100 and maybe more in the trees and the fields beyond. So, with a rather pessimistic hat on and in no great rush, I made a coffee in a travel mug, grabbed my camera and binoculars, and headed for the fens.
I pulled up in a layby at the grid reference where all the reports said the Buzzards were to be seen. Pulling on the handbrake I glanced across the fields, they look bare but for grass slowly recovering after successive heatwaves. But for a Kestrel faffing with a vole and a couple of Black-headed Gulls, there seemed not to be much in what had temporarily been Buzzard country…
Not wanting to give in to the disappointment, I got out of the car and focused the binoculars into the middle distance, about 150 to 200 metres, I’d say. First one, then two, three, four Buzzards popped into existence, scattered randomly across the field. As my eyes shifted gear from fenland driving mode to birding mode, I scanned the field and started a more singular count…I got to 26. 26 Common Buzzards, more than I’d ever seen in one place before.
Not bad, a nice number. It was at this point that I trained the bins a little farther into the agricultural distance and realised the field behind and the one to the side had a lot more Buzzards than the nearest. I counted seventy for sure before a flock of them took to the air from the overhead wires, the trees and the hedgerows making a definitive total harder to count. It’s hard to know for sure, one report had indeed said there were 100+, I suspect I saw that many, maybe more this morning. On the other side of the road behind me the fields there had just two or three more Buzzards, another Kestrel, or perhaps the same one relocated, and a Red Kite overhead.
The Common Buzzard is, despite its name, is not particularly common, a few tens of thousands of breeding pairs in the UK. Much maligned and persecuted through ignorance like so many raptors (birds of prey) through the years, there was a time in recent history when you might live a country life and not see one. It’s a protected species now and no longer considered to be under any great threat from those that might have trapped and killed it in years past. The biggest threats today for the bird and pretty much every other species on earth is habitat loss, desertification, and climate change.
Anyway, I was glad a made the effort and used a splash of diesel to see this spectacle. I won’t reveal the location here for obvious reasons, but feel free to email me if you want to see them and wish the birds no harm. I cannot guarantee they’ll still be there by the time you read this, but you never know.
*American readers will be familiar with Buteo species but know them as hawks rather than buzzards. The term buzzard in American English is a colloquial term that oftens refers to the Turkey Vulture, Cathartes aura, which is related to the South American Condor rather than the vultures of Africa, or to the Black Vulture, Coragyps atratus.
The Little Arctic Monk, Fratercula arctica, better known as the Atlantic PuffinRocks and horizon from SeahousesFemale Wheatear, RSPB SaltholmeThe CheviotsArgumentative Sandwich TernsAmerican Black Tern, Long NannyLittle Tern, Long Nanny, over the river sandbankArctic Tern, Inner FarneBridled GuillemotRoss Sands, opposite Lindisfarne, NorthumberlandMale Stonechat, Long NannyGreen Tiger Beetle, Cicindela campestrisDunstanburgh CastleRazorbillMermaids in SeahousesBamburgh CastleLow water, SeahousesSmall Copper butterflyRocky outcrop adjacent to St Cuthbert’s CaveSt Cuthbert’s Cave itselfBoats, SeahousesTurnstone, Seahouses
Puffins, Inner FarneWinging it
Stepping outSanderling, Newton HavenHooded Crow, Corvus cornixLogging on to Dunstanburgh CastleShag, aka Aristotle’s Glutton, Gulosus aristotelisPre-dawn at SeahousesThe Kittiwake Cliffs, SeahousesPiano-winged 4-year old GannetGannet stareCarrion crow chasing Common Buzzard with snake preyFemale Emperor Moth, St Cuthbert’s CaveDual Curlew duelLime kilns and lobster potsMale EiderMorris in BamburghBeadnellBeers in Newton HavenDawn over SeahousesSeahouses SunriseA grey seal called RosieGoooorssssseWall Brown butterflyHow big?Longstone LighthouseBempton CliffsSmall Rivulet moth, Bempton CliffsGannets, Bempton CliffsMr & Mrs Sciencebase
Full list of birds, Lepidoptera, and wild mammals can be found here.
On our recent trip to Seahouses in Northumberland and boat trips to the Farne Islands, we ticked ~83 birds (including two species we’d never seen before, American Black Tern and Hooded Crow), 9 Lepidoptera (including new for us, Wall Brown), and on the mammal-front, a few hares and some distant white-nosed dolphin.
Here’s the complete list of birds in A-Z:
American Black Tern, Arctic Tern, Avocet, Blackbird, Blackcap, Black-headed Gull, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Collared Dove, Common Buzzard, Common Tern, Coot, Cormorant, Curlew, Dunlin, Dunnock, Eider Duck, Fulmar, Gannet, Goldfinch, Great Black-backed Gull, Great Tit, Green Sandpiper, Greenfinch, Grey Heron, Greylag Goose, Guillemot, “Guillemot, Bridled”, Guinea Fowl, Herring Gull, Hooded Crow, House Martin, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Kestrel, Kittiwake, Knot, Lapwing, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Linnet, Little Egret, Little Tern, Magpie, Mallard Duck, Meadow Pipit, Mediterranean Gull (Saltholme), Moorhen, Mute Swan, Oystercatcher, Peregrine Falcon, Pied Wagtail, Puffin, Purple Sandpiper, Razorbill, Red-legged Partridge, Reed Bunting, Reed Warbler, Ringed Plover, Rock Dove, Rock Pipit, Rook, Sand Martin, Sanderling, Sandwich Tern, Sedge Warbler, Shag, Shelduck, Shoveller, Skylark, Song Thrush, Spotted Flycatcher, Starling, Stonechat, Swallow, Swift, Turnstone, Wheatear, Whitethroat, Willow Warbler, Wood Pigeon, Wren, Yellowhammer.
The Lepidoptera:
Cinnabar moth, Garden Tiger larva, Large White, Painted Lady, Red Admiral, Small Copper, Small Rivulet moth (Bempton), Small White, Wall Brown.
