Category: Biology

We decided to forego the traditional seeing in the New Year for 2019* and had an early night instead so that we could get up to head north for New Year’s Day. By north I mean Norfolk and RSPBs Titchwell and Snettisham, specifically. Arrived at Titchwell at about 10am, lots of the usual garden birds on the feeders at the visitor centre, Water Rail in the ditch, Ring-tailed Hen Harrier along the west marsh and Long-tailed and Eider ducks not too far from the shore.

Apparently, there was a competition underway for someone to tick 100 birds on the reserve, the wardens got to about 72 different species, by the end of our visit we’d clocked a mere 54 or so different species and probably a couple more we simply didn’t recognise, in no particular order:

1. Hen Harrier “ringtailed” meaning plumage ambiguous, female or juv.
2. Bar-tailed Godwit
3. Black-tailed Godwit
4. Teal
5. Redshank
6. Oystercatcher
7. Cormorant
8. Grey Plover
9. Brent Goose
10. Greylag Goose
11. Mallard
12. Wigeon
13. Pochard
14. Shelduck
15. Blackbird
16. Chaffinch
17. Water Rail
18. Goldfinch
19. Greenfinch
20. Wren
21. Little Grebe
22. Blue Tit
23. Great Tit
24. Coal Tit
25. Long-tailed Tit
26. Robin
27. Starling
28. Marsh Harrier
29. Buzzard
30. Dunnock
31. Reed Bunting
32. Lesser Black-backed gull
33. Black-headed Gull
34. Sanderling
35. Long-tailed duck
36. Eider
37. Dunlin
38. Turnstone
39. Lapwing
40. Avocet
41. Curlew
42. Wood Pigeon
43. Knott
44. Stock Dove
45. Little Egret
46. Grey Heron
47. Tufted Duck
48. Ruff
49. Moorhen
50. Pheasant
51. Gadwall
52. White-throated Diver
53. Herring Gull
54. Magpie

Also so Stonechat at Snettisham later in the day having watched huge flocks of Golden Plover (1000s), Lapwing and Oystercatcher (100s) and 1000s of Knott doing their high-tide flocking.

We got wind of Bramblings and Smews in Needingworth, so took a 5-6 mile stroll around RSPB Ouse Fen (Needingworth side and across to the Ouse and back to the car park via the outskirts of Hanson) to see what we could see. No Bramblings nor any Smews.

But, quite a few other bird species evident approximately 42 and we heard (but didn’t see) Green Woodpecker, Wren, Robin, and Jay too.

Fairly common birds you can see in many places across the UK:
Rook
Blackbird
Starling
Mallard
Coot
Magpie
Mute Swan
Woodpigeon
Collared Dove
Stock Dove
Greylag Goose
Black-headed Gull
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Long-tailed Tit
Greenfinch
Chaffinch
Bullfinch
Meadow Pipit

Other birds found or near water:

Goldeneye
Black-tailed Godwit
Cormorant
Wigeon
Gadwall
Shelduck
Tufted Duck
Little Egret
Great White Egret
Grey Heron
Shoveler Duck
Great Crested Grebe
Little Grebe
Egyptian Goose
Lapwing
Reed Bunting

Raptors:
Buzzard
Marsh Harrier
Peregrine
Kestrel

Winter thrushes:
Redwing
Fieldfare

 

UPDATE: I still don’t know if the influx is considered an irruption, but I am yet to see any BWs this season. There are new reports of some lovely scenic places as always with berry-eating birds around: Xercise4less/Sainsbury’s – Wakefield (W Yorks), McDonalds/Shaw Lane Ind Est – Doncaster, Neil Lane Estate – Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Boat club at Pennington Flash, Leuchars Railway Signal Box North, Aldi car park, Hessle, Flitwick Baptist Church, Wilko, Mansfield, Sainsburys, Halifax. There has even been one seen on a nature reserve! The Plens NR in Northamptonshire.

Incidentally, the reason they’re known as “Bohemian” is purportedly with an allusion to their being nomadic, like the Romani. Of course, the word Bohemian was meant to be the place of origin of the Romani, but that is not the case.

The list grows…are we in the middle of a Waxwing irruption? Whether we are or not the three places I’ve tried to see them in as many days (Cambridge Road (the A10), Stretham, Cambridge Science Park, and at two old hawthorn trees at the junction of Rosemary and Dellwood Avenue in Felixstowe have not come up trumps.

Recent sightings in those most boho of places, the MacDonald’s car park in Blaydon, Sainsbury’s Middlesbrough, Grinkle Lane (Easington), Stockbridge Market in Edinburgh, Clifford’s Tower, York.

First time I saw Bohemian Waxwings  (Bombycilla garrulus), a flock of 80 or so were in trees at the parking area on the Cambridge Science Park. I heard their unmistakable tweeting first but didn’t catch a photo before they flocked off down Milton Road. After that, I kept my ear to the air (well the UK Waxwings twitter feed) in the hope of more sightings as the winter went on. Never did see them again to photograph…

…until we were visiting Newcastle and I heard that there were apparently a dozen or so in berry-rich trees opposite St Bartholomew’s Church in Long Benton. The trees are in the gardens of the houses opposite the church…at the bus stop.

 

What is it with Waxwings, other birds you hear about and fancy twitching tend to be on nature reserves, remote hillsides, far-off stretches of coast? But, the Waxwings, which head South from Scandinavia, Iceland, and Scotland seem to congregate in the most mundane of environments: an Aldi car park, a bus stop, the perimeter of a business park, a closed campsite, a B&Q car park, a Lidl car park, a Tesco car park…you get the picture.

Well, escapes the colder climes when the going gets tough up north, and seeks our berry-laden trees. High concentrations of such trees are often to be found in the islands between parking spaces and decorating the periphery of garden centres, and such, so that’s where the birds congregate. It makes twitching them so much easier, as long as you’re willing to hang around with a long lens or bins at Morrison’s or Sainsbury’s while everyone else carries on with their shopping oblivious to the charming aves in their midst.

 

Case in point are the recent winter 2018/2019 sightings that have begun to be mentioned on the UK Waxwings twitter feed:

Dundee Street, Edinburgh, rowan trees just west of Fountain Park

Wrens Kitchens/Asda at the Chester Greyhound Retail Park

Tesco Roundabout, Calder Road by the junction with Westerhailes Road, Edinburgh

Home Bargains car park, Nelson, Lancashire

Kingsway East/Cutty Sark Pub/Asda, Dundee

etc

Incidentally, although we saw one last winter, haven’t seen any this far south yet, and it may not happen. There are suggestions from some experts that we are actually overdue an irruption, however, so fingers crossed.

UPDATE: Katie, known as bogbumper on social media asked me for more information about the ringed Peregrine in my photos. Unfortunately, I had none. But, she investigated further and discovered that the ringed bird I snapped over King’s College Chapel had come to Cambridge from Belgium, where it was originally ringed at a nesting site in May 2017. Details can be found on the BTO site, this isn’t the only Belgian Peregrine to reach our shores, as you can see. My photo will now be assimilated into the BTO database for the entry on this bird. #CitizenScience.

When (if) you ever stop to chat with the people on a city’s streets, the homeless, the buskers, you will often hear sorry tales of woe, but also great joy. Give someone the time of day and they will tell their tale and you will feel the richer for having listened and for having heard it.

Paul is one such character walking the streets of Cambridge in his brown leather porkpie hat, waterproof jacket, Xmas jumper, and baggy grey pantaloons. He pulls along behind his bicycle a metal trailer the contents of which you might be surprised to learn are a sitar, a music stand, and a perch for his Saker Peregrine falcon hybrid, Daffy. So named because she makes a quacking sound, the facially hirsute Paul told me.

Mrs Sciencebase had spotted Paul with his Peregrine on a previous visit to Cambridge, but it was just by chance that I saw him in between my loafing around outside shop doorways while Christmas shopping was being done. I spoke to Paul and inquired about the raptor. Apparently, the bird is 20 years old, is well trained and jessed up, and Paul used to use Daffy in his job in pest-bird control on a waste dump for 22 years. Until redundancy made him and Daffy…well…redundant. He presumably had another bird before that or was just confused about the chronology. Never mind.

He was very much into his music and took to busking with Daffy alongside to try and pay his way. I don’t imagine there was much of a golden handshake from the dump when he was laid-off. He seemed not in the slightest bit bitter, although when I asked him whether the police ever bothered him, he was quick to point out that they’re simply a corporate entity beholden to the state. They apparently have no real power over him or anyone and the individual officers themselves are also entirely unaware of the smoke and mirrors by which our nation operates without its populace ever understanding.

At this point, a chill wind had picked up around the Monsoon shop corner and Paul was worried that Daffy’s feathers would be somewhat rustled by the breeze. So, I never did get to hear the end of his conspiracy theory nor hear him play his homage to Ravi Shankar.

So, as Paul trundled away up Market Street to find a more sheltered spot, I myself headed up Sidney Street and then back along St John’s Street to King’s Parade on the off-chance that the wild pair of Cambridge Peregrines were at one of their favourite haunts: King’s College Chapel.

Peering skyward as I reached the corner at Great St Mary’s Church, I could see that something was spooking the local stock doves and feral pigeons, they were swooping around the rooftops. A high-pitched squeal, not a quack, could be heard, there was a raptor around. Quickly spotted a female ducking and diving among the Chapel spires and scattering the pigeons and then a second raptor also in and out the turrets until both came to rest, argumentatively on one tower.

They departed heading south to their nearby nesting site and leaving a Magpie who had been hiding in the tall tree in front of the Chapel to nip in and out to the tower and nick scraps from the food cache the Peregrines had presumably made there. I alluded to how all birds had evolved from dinosaurs to Tanya and James who witnessed this and were selling Jehovah to passersby, they were interested to know more about the birds, and admitted to a belief of sorts in evolution…an intriguing nature documentary on the city streets and then back to the Christmas shopping.

Watching the Starlings murmurate over Broad Lane balancing pond, I estimated that there were 3-4 large flocks of about 1000 birds each and then maybe a dozen smaller flocks of 50-100. But, then I found an interesting image analysis tool called Dot-Count into which you feed a photo with objects you wish to count that you have made monochrome and boosted the contrast. I used a cropped version of the above photo:

You set a threshold for the smallest object and the largest object (dot) and a threshold for contrast and ask it to “Count Dots”. It reckons there were 1291 “dots” in this image, but a quick look showed it had missed a few overlapping birds. So, let’s just guesstimate there are 1300, so my 1000 guess wasn’t too far off.

Three or four similarly sized flocks were wheeling around the sky at the time as well as those smaller ones. I reckon the Broad Lane reedbed roost is host to a staggering 4000-5000 Starlings each night.

Interestingly, the Dot-Count page at the Reuter Laboratory at MIT, uses Starlings as one of its examples. The first photo they show has roughly the density of my flock and a count of 800, so same ballpark figure. They reckon you can count lots of other types of object in a photo as long as they’re non-contiguous and you can increase the contrast sufficiently to allow the software to do its job: windows on a skyscraper, eggs in a basket, nanoparticles and neurons, freckles on a face etc. Presumably, you could even use it for counting crows…

In case you missed it, you can watch my documentary about the Cottenham Murmurations narrated by Sir David Attenbradley here.

UPDATE: March 2024 – My estimates of the various and vast Starling murmurations at RSPB Ouse Fen (Earith) would suggest there were around 500-750k birds!

Whooper Swan (Cygnus cygnus) photographed over RSPB Ouse Washes, five of thousands that arrive from Scandinavia to overwinter in The Fens.

If you’re wondering about that scientific binomial, it’s a tautonym, the same word used twice to indicate that this species “cygnus” is the “type” of the genus Cygnus. It’s worth noting that not all genus types names are tautonyms.

There are dozens of example Buteo buteo (Common Buzzard), Carduelis carduelis (Goldfinch) Bufo bufo (common toad), Cricetus cricetus (hamster), Lutra lutra (European otter). There are many more, some are given in triplicate Gorilla gorilla gorilla (Western lowland gorilla).

There’s another I could add: Grey Partridge (Perdix perdix)

Then there’s the seemingly nonsensical sentence: “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.”

It does make sense. Google it. You’ll see.

Some birds have several names (think Peewit, Green Plover, and Northern Lapwing, all Vanellus vanellus). The scientific binomial is usually the definitive name, but even that can change especially in the age of DNA analysis. Either way, there are common names, colloquial names, and others that can add to the rich tapestry of birding life. I asked the members of the UK Bird Identification group on Facebook for a few of their favourite examples, having myself offered Bonxie (the Great Skua), Yaffle (Green Woodpecker), and Spuggie (House Sparrow), as some of my favourites.

Mick pointed out that his word for a Spuggie is a Spudge and Maggie added that spuggies thrive in Yorkshire as well as Geordieland (from whence I hail and from where Sarah’s family also hail and she calls House Sparrows spuggies too and knows someone who refers to Long-tailed Tits as “flying teaspoons”). Wendy added that an older bird-watching friend calls Great Tits (Parus major) Tomtits. Interesting because tomtit is also Petroica macrocephala, an Australian Robin, endemic to New Zealand. Wendy also revealed that she used to refer to Ring-necked Parakeets as “Marmite Parakeets”, presumably because you either love them or hate them (or maybe it was just the colour, although if your Marmite has turned green, it’s time to get a new jar.

Darryl added that another Yorkshire dialect name is Fleck-lenny for the Chaffinch and his mother called Starlings “Sheps”. While people in The Orkneys call puffins “Tammie Norries”.

Alex pointed out that Kestrels used to be known seemingly rather crudely as Windf*ckers, but, of course, in Old English that modern expletive perhaps meant “beater”. The same bird was also known as a Windhover.

Michael Murphy gave us Tystie, Butterbump, and Sprosser as all brilliant. A quick search on DuckDuckGo (obvs) confirmed those as: Black Guillemot, European Bittern, and Thrush Nightingale. Meanwhile, Lesley tells us that a Dabchick is a Little Grebe.

Stuart told the group that he had a parrot called Neil. I do wonder if that’s fakenews though…maybe not, I knew a black and white cat called Peter once. He adds that Toastie is another name for the Black Guillemot, apparently available in cheese and ham, similar to the aforementioned Tystie. Dave tells us a Stormcock is a Mistle Thrush and Chris says Throstle for Song Thrush. Bob also points out that in Leicester House Sparrows are also Spuggies and highlights Peewit for Lapwing too, although I had already mentioned that in the introduction to this post.

Other nicknames coming home to roost: Robin has Rosy Pastor (Rosy Starling) and Goatsucker (Nightjar), Ginny mentioned how Puffling – describes Puffin chicks perfectly. Les tells us that in Liverpool Woodpigeons are called Wood Micks but says he hasn’t a clue why; I think we might offer a good guess.

A blackwit is Black-tailed Godwit. A barwit a Bar-tailed-Godwit.

Gropper – Grasshopper Warbler.

Oh and for anyone wondering, yes it was Professor Yaffle who was the bookend Green Woodpecker in Bagpuss!

This post is essentially an appendix to my tongue-in-beak birding glossary.

LIFE ON THE FEN EDGE – WITH SIR DAVID ATTENBRADLEY

EPISODE 2: GOLDFINCH DYNASTY

from the BBC, the British Bradcasting Corporation

All the leaves may be brown but the sky certainly isn’t grey It’s early December in this Cottenham garden on the edge of the Cambridgeshire Fens. A family of Goldfinches are keeping the winter chills at bay by eating the abundance of high-energy nyjer seeds from a feeder hanging in the beech tree.

There is a definite avian hierarchy at play with the dominant members of the group perching in prime position to nibble at the tasty but tiny black seeds with their seed-crushing beaks.

As we can see, there is space on the feeder for four birds and yet those lower down the hierarchy seem keen to shuffle up and down nearby branches and make a play for an occupied perch only to be rebuffed by its resident with raucous calling and a great flapping of golden wings. Perhaps there is social climbing involved or maybe the birds simply perceive the occupied perches as being somehow better. After all, those higher up the family tree are feeding well on those. That said, it is rare to see all four perches occupied simultaneously and the sequence of perch occupation changes periodically.

Without extensive scientific analysis it would seem impossible to probe the minds of our feathered friends. But, more to the point, it’s getting rather cold in the garden and it’s time for my morning coffee.

LIFE ON THE FEN EDGE – WITH SIR DAVID ATTENBRADLEY

EPISODE 1: I Heard a Murmur
EPISODE 2: Goldfinch Dynasty
EPISODE 3: Young People’s Beat Combo
EPISODE 4: The Cumulus Dynasty