When I was about 10 or 11 years old, I went with friends and their family to a free music festival at Druridge Bay in Northumberland. The event was organised as a protest against plans to build a nuclear power station at this site. 40+ years later, there is still just miles and miles of golden sands, dunlin and dunes, and crashing waves and over the road behind the shore a glorious nature reserve full of Black-tailed Godwit, Curlew, Redshank, Merganser, Pintail, Ruff, and countless other birds.
Having already come unstuck in identifying a Redpoll that alighted on our nijer seed feeder within minutes of my hanging the feeder in our beech tree, I’ve now found another issue with this type of bird. It’s not necessarily well known that the Lesser Redpoll and the Common (Mealy) Redpoll and the Hoary Redpoll are actually the same species and that there are also sub-species and hybrids that are genetically the same as each other. Referring to one as a specific type is thus something of a taxonomic faux pas these days based on the DNA. That said, genomics has found differences in gene expression but no genetic divergence, this would suggest that there might be different plumage forms that are fairly recent, but they come from a single interbreeding lineage and do not represent distinct species.
Anyway, I wrote a brief blog about Redpolls in February 2018 and have since seen Redpolls in flocks on several reserves, but none have shown again in our garden.
Most recently, I was photographing the nuthatches, tits, and finches on feeders in the kitchen garden of friends’ smallholding, when what looked like a pair of Redpolls arrived. Except, they didn’t have the familiar red cap. They looked like Redpolls but with a golden cap. My first thought was that they were perhaps juvenile Redpolls or some kind of genetic mutation.
One contact thought, at first glance, that they were Snow Buntings. But, another Jim Welford on the British Facebook Birders group, suggested that red is not a natural colouration in Redpolls and that they can convert carotenoids in their diet to a pigment, but if they lack the appropriate carotenoids or are ill when their moult is underway, the red colouration will be absent or another colour will show. It also seems to be something that can happen with Linnets (Carduelis cannabina) which are also famously flushed red on their breast. Welford pointed me to a useful book by Tim Birkhead, The Red Canary, which apparently discusses the colouration issue.
Birder Andy Warr had this to say about the so-called Goldpoll some time ago:
First-winters and female Lesser, Mealy and Arctic Redpolls generally show a crimson cap, with varying degrees of brightness, though it is not uncommon for some to show orange, copper, yellow, even brownish caps, or any combination of the aforementioned.
Warr adds that a gold cap is quite regularly seen in first-winter birds and adult females.
It wasn’t the brightest of days to visit a nature reserve. In fact, it was grey and grim and pouring with rain. So, while the Pipits and Avocets were showing well, as were the Tree Sparrows and Stock Doves at the visitor centre feeders, we missed out on the Spoonbill that had been sighted. The wetlands of RSPB Saltholme is one of the foremost bird sanctuaries and observatory for migratory and wading birds in the UK. As you might guess from the name, it is was a source of salt for centuries and now sits nestled in the industrial area of Seaton Carew Rd, Stockton-on-Tees, near Middlesbrough (Grid ref NZ506231). It forms part of a wider site of special scientific interest called Seal Sands.
Commonly seen are Common Tern, Lapwing, Peregrine, Yellow Wagtail, Water Rail, none of which we saw on our visit, unfortunately.
Pictured above: Reedbeds in the shadow of the Tees Transporter Bridge. The bridge connects Middlesbrough, on the south bank, to Port Clarence, on the north bank. It is an unconventional bridge in that it has a travelling “gondola” suspended from the bridge, which can carry about 200 people and 9 cars across the river in 90 seconds.
Other birds that were not present included Rock Pipit and Water Pipit, but there were plenty of Meadow Pipits among the rocks and on the water’s edge
Avocets were showing well, sadly didn’t get a snap of anything in a beak other than water
There were a couple of Ringed Plover:
There were also cranes…but not the kind in which bird watchers are most interested.
Also visible from RSPB Saltholme even on a dull grey day is Temenos, a huge artwork by Anish Kapur, close to the Transporter, described as a 21st century landmark to honour region’s engineering and industrial heritage. Its name comes from the Greek “a piece of land assigned to a domain or dedicated to a god”. Looks more like a relativistic wormhole or a femidom:
Finally, back at the feeders, lots and lots of Tree Sparrows (not to be confused with the House Sparrows you’d most commonly see in your garden)
The Waxwing (Bombycilla garrulus) a crested and plump, winter visitor from Scandinavia, smaller than a Starling, with a distinctive yellow tip to the tail and red sealing wax colouration to the ends of its wing tips, hence the name. They will leave colder climes and head south when food is in short supply, in fact its a lack of a decent berry crop in their home territories that drives them south. It seems that they most commonly end up being spotted in flocks in supermarket carparks that happen to be lined with berry-bearing trees. Presumably, they follow the motorways, perhaps harnessing ancient instincts that would have had them following valleys and rivers to find decent berry bushes.
In 2017, I saw a flock of 20 or so at the Cambridge Science Park near the Guided Busway but I was too slow to get a photo before they’d been spooked by dogwalkers and darted off down Milton Road and out of sight.
Winter 2017-2018, I’ve kept track of sightings via the WaxwingsUK twitter feed and attempted to catch up with the birds in a couple of places that Mrs Sciencebase and I happened to be visiting, North Norfolk and elsewhere, although we failed to see them.
A trip to the town of my alma mater (Newcastle) to visit our daughter who was also studying there at the time, brought us our first decent sighting. The WaxwingsUK feed mentioned that a bus stop opposite St Bartholomew’s Church in Long Benton, on the outskirts of the city had been hosting a small flock.
By the time we arrived, I’d got wind of just two still being around but we saw only one on three successive days passing the spot. Passersby almost all seemed to know what I was attempting to photograph and almost all of them had a tale of flocks of twitchers and birders and toggers in previous days! One or two people knew there was a bird of interest but didn’t know specifically what it was.
I don’t think there was a particularly large irruption of this species into the UK that winter, although sporadic sightings of small flocks were noted around Scotland, in Newcastle (Benton), Lincolnshire, North Norfolk, Suffolk, Southend in Essex, Kent, and elsewhere. There are usually lots of notes of them in Scotland. Indeed, it’s worth seeing what level of activity is reported from Shetland as this is the first place that might get an irruption if there has been the opposite of a mast year further north in terms of berries.
If someone refers to you as being “bird brained”, it’s usually to cast aspersions on your mental faculties…and yet modern science suggests the glove is on the other foot when it comes to who is the brightest of them all. To have a “bird brain”, suggests one is stupid, dim, of low IQ, perhaps a bit ditzy and absentminded too, the opposite may be true.
When we look at the mental faculties of the birds, in particular the crows (corvids) and parrots, we see cognitive skills way beyond what we imagine. For an organism that lacks the neocortex of mammals such as ourselves and the other apes we cannot yet understand how these birds can be so bright.
For years (HT Dr Kiki), it has been hinted at that some birds, the above classes, in particular, have cognition on a par with rats and small monkeys. But, seemingly (thank you Mark Changizi for the link), birds are much brighter than monkeys they have intellectual skills that bring them right up to ape level. Moreover, given that the real difference between humans and chimpanzees is really culture rather than cognition, that means the birds are close to our own intellect in many ways. For instance, they have the capacity to:
Delay of gratification
Mental time travel
Reasoning
Cooperation
Mirror self-recognition
Third-party intervention
Problem solving
Counting
Tool use
There are many example and more. Indeed, Changizi is still reeling at the revelation: “Parrots and corvids are basically flying chimps,” he says in jocular mood, “There’s no better way to characterize their biology and ethology.”
Given that all birds descended from the theropod dinosaurs of which T rex was one (you thought they went extinct, didn’t you?), it’s worth remembering next time you accuse someone of being a bird brain that you never know who might be watching…
We don’t lack nature reserves here in East Anglia. Many of the inland ones I’ve mentioned over the last year or so are ex-gravel quarries and the like, managed fens, river flood plains and such. For instance, RSPB Ouse Fen, NT Wicken Fen, WWT Welney, etc. There are also several coastal reserves that we visit from time to time.
Most frequent of those is RSPB Titchwell Marsh. We stopped overnight in the village, so could spend an afternoon and then the next morning on an extended visit. There is almost always at least one species we’ve not had showing well before, or if we had seen it was a BVD, or we hadn’t got a positive ID. (See here for birder terminology).
The list for this most recent visit included the following in no particular order, but with those in bold being first positive IDs for myself and Mrs Sciencebase: courting Marsh Harrier, Grey Plover, Brambling, Cetti’s Warbler (heard but not seen), Chiffchaff, Mediterranean Gull, Hen Harrier (fighting a Marsh), Dunlin, Red-crested Pochard, Linnet, Meadow Pipit, Reed Bunting, Teal, Wigeon, Oystercatcher, Redshank, Curlew, Avocet, Shag, Scoter (the last two far out to see but visible with bins and zoom), Turnstone and Black-tailed Godwit (both of those moulting winter plumage), Bearded Reedling (aka Bearded Tit), Water Rail (seen but not photographed), Brent Goose, Little Ringed Plover, Shoveller Duck, Shelduck, Avocet, Knot, Lapwing.
There were also numbers of more familiar “garden” birds, waterfowl, seabirds, and a non-native: Starling, Robin, Chaffinch, Dunnock, Pied Wagtail, Greenfinch, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Woodpigeon, Wren, Black-headed Gull, Herring Gull, Mallard, Coot, Moorhen, Greylag Goose, Pheasant.
TL:DR – A tongue-in-beak glossary of birding terms and twitching slang in alphabetical order. Italicised terms have a definition in the glossary. This, like my proboscis-in-palp mothing glossary, is a work-in-progress.
Audio Birding – Birding activity that involves listening for or recording bird calls or song rather than visual observation, although can also be part of birdwatching and birdspotting. A useful app for audio birding and birding activities in general is Merlin, which can ID a bird from a photo or from its call or song with great accuracy. Audio Birding at night with a particular focus on migrants is known as NocMig.
Aves – Any of the 11000+ extant species of warm-blooded vertebrates we refer to as birds, all of which have evolutionary ancestry in the theropod dinosaurs.
Barwit – Bar-tailed Godwit, see also Blackwit.
Beardie – Bearded Reedling (Bearded Tit). The species is neither bearded nor a tit.
Bins, binos, binoculars – Usually lightweight and less powerful alternative to carrying a scope. However, many birders will carry both as the wider viewing angle of a pair of bins compared to a scope will allow them to scan the horizon more quickly, for instance, before focusing the scope on a distant lifer.
Birder, birding – Someone interested in watching birds, their avian-related hobby (not to be confused with the raptor known as the Hobby).
Birdy Club – The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). From Tobias Smith.
Blackwit– Black-tailed Godwit, see also Barwit.
Black-tailed Godwit, aka Blackwit
Blind – US term for a hide, commonly a birdhide.
Bonxie – An apt-sounding nickname for the Great Skua, a term used in Shetland of Norse origin, these birds can kill and eat kittiwakes and even juvenile Great Black-backed Gulls.
BTO – British Trust for Ornithology, pretty much just birds, thank you.
BVD – Better view desired, often the result of spending many an hour in a hide while a given lifer is elsewhere on a reserve and only fleetingly seen from said hide.
Chase – US term for a twitch.
Chick – A baby bird.
Comic Tern – Refers to a specimen of Sterna where BVD. Distinguishing Common and Arctic at a distance when the specimen is not showing well will often lead to a Comic Tern being logged. See also, elsewhere, Marlow Tit, Willowchiff etc.
Confusion species – Any pairs or groups of bird that are so superficially similar that they cannot be identified definitively without either an expert eye or other means of more detailed examination. Examples might include various wader species, gulls, warblers etc.
Crest – Referring to either UK kinglet: Goldcrest or Common Firecrest.
Cryptic plumage – Feather patterning that allows it to blend particularly well with its surroundings. Birds such as Snipe have such cryptic plumage camouflage that lets them become almost invisible in their usual habitat.
Digibinning – Taking photos with a camera or smartphone aligned with one of the eyepieces of a pair of binoculars. Many birders will use a special adapter to clip camera and binocular together for this purpose.
Digiscope, digiscoping – Taking photos with a camera or smartphone aligned with the eyepiece of a scope. Many birders will use a special adapter to clip camera and scope together for this purpose. Dip out – To not see nor hear the target of a twitch.
Dirtbird – (Offensive) Any common bird an experienced birder has seen many times before. Of course, every bird one sees is initially a lifer. It is not nice to use this term for any of our feathered friends.
Disturbance buffer – Alternative term for the exclusion zone around a bird that is bound by its FID.
Drift migration – An often happy circumstance in which weather patterns conspire to push birds from one region into another where they are not commonly observed.
Duck’s bottom technique – When birding on a lake or other body of water, it is often worth checking the water of a distant shore for reflections of duck’s bottoms or parts of other species where the bird may well be cryptic or hidden from direct view, but can be seen in the reflection.
Eclipse plumage – Eclipse plumage is dull, female-like feathers that a male bird shows after breeding is over. It is most common in ducks and so we talk of an “eclipse drake”. The feathers “eclipses” the drake’s usual bright plumage, not only making him unattractive to females but also giving him camouflage while he moults and grows new wing feathers.
Exclusion zone – The area around a bird that when breached will spook or flush it and cause it to take flight, closely related to FID. May also be referred to as a disturbance buffer.
Extant – A living species, the opposite of extinct.
Extinct – It has ceased to be, when referring to a species. The opposite of extant.
Fall – Sudden arrival of (sea-going) migrants usually their having been forced to touch down on land because of inclement weather. Sometimes an opportunity for ticking a lifer.
Field Mark – A characteristic, such as an eye ring, feather patterning, curve to the beak, or other such feature that allows one to make a fairly positive ID of an ambiguous sighting particularly when BVD and not showing well.
Flight Initiation Distance (FID) – Approximately as close as you might get to a given species under “normal” conditions before the bird will take fright and thus flight. Some birders talk of exclusion zones,
Flush – A deliberate or unwitting action that spooks a bird into taking flight, allowing a brief sighting for the flusher to the detriment of twitchers and birders who may arrive later and miss the opportunity to tick the species. A polite way of saying “disturb”, best avoided for the sake of the birds, not good birding practice.
Fly-through – A bird only observed in flight that fails to land for a portrait or a better view with one’s bins or scope.
Fudge Duck – Ferruginous Duck, Aythya nyroca, also known as the Ferruginous Pochard, Common White-eye or White-eyed Pochard
Grilling – Observing a bird closely.
Gripped out – Feeling aggrieved that others successfully twitched when one dipped out.
Gulling – To spend time birding at a site attended by lots of gulls, commonly waste tips or adjacent fields and flooded land. Common aim is to spot scarcities or “white wingers” among the more regular gulls.
Hide – A screened area or wooden hut on a reserve, often with narrow viewing windows obscured by raisable flaps to allow birders to remain hidden from the birds they intend to watch. Often the cause of BVD. Known as a blind in the US.
In the bag – a keenly sought bird, ticked at long last.
In-off – A description of a migrant returning from abroad, as in the bird was in-off the sea.
Irruption – Extremes of heat, cold, drought, and food shortages can drive out large numbers of birds from their usual haunts and they might then arrive in another area where they are less commonly, if ever, seen. Conversely, flooding and insect and rodent plagues can attract an irruption of water birds and raptors respectively, for instance. Often leads to lifers, ticks, and megaticks.
Jizz/Giss – The overall impression of a bird based on size, shape, colour, (sometimes plumage), posture, flight, movements, song and call, habitat, and location, awareness of jizz provides for a positive ID even in the face of BVD.
Juvenile – A young, immature bird, usually one that is no longer considered a chick and has fledged.
LBJ – Little brown job, a small bird of bland colouration seen so briefly that a positive ID is not possible. See BVD.
Leucistic – A condition in which an individual bird may lack pigment in its plumage so that it has white patches or is mostly, but not wholly, white. If pigment is missing entirely from skin and eyes it would be referred to as an albino.
Life list – A record of all the birds one has ticked in one’s life.
Lifer – A bird seen for the first time by a birder or twitcher and added to their life list.
Local patch – One’s immediate environs in which need travel only a short distance to built a patch list.
Loon – American term for species of what British birders know as Divers. Members of the genus, Gavia.
Manky Mallard – Anas platyrhynchos can cross breed with the domestic duck (they’re the same species), leading to offspring with wayward markings such as white patches. The term Mucky Duck might also be used. Mega – A bird very rarely, if ever seen on a given patch, one that will be a lifer for almost everyone on the patch who sees it.
Megatick – A really good sighting due to the bird being a mega or otherwise difficult to find because it rarely shows well. Almost always a lifer for most birders that see it.
Migrant – A species that relocates depending on seasonal and lifecycle factors, commonly from one part of the world to another.
Mobile – Refers to the tendency of a putative lifer or indeed any other specimen a birder hopes to see traversing great distances from the site at which you just arrived, to the site you just left or elsewhere.
Monocular – An even lighter-weight alternative to binoculars for use with one rather than two eyes. A mini, handheld scope.
Moult – The shedding of feathers at different stages of the avian life cycle, from chick to juvenile to sexually mature adult, also at the end of the breeding season when an adult has raised offspring and is worn.
Naturalised – The state in which a non-native species establishes itself in a new location and becomes an endemic breeding bird in that location.
NocMig – Listening out for the sounds of migrants flying overhead at night. Often involves recording the calls and using software to extract an ID from several hours of recordings.
Occam’s razor – A useful tool for novice birders to use when reporting a sighting of a rare species whose jizz is very close to that of another species. Occam’s razor suggests that the simpler explanation is more likely than the exceptional. For instance, that Curlew Sandpiper at RSPB Minsmere was more likely to have been a Dunlin, and so probably was, especially if it was BVD. Similarly, in very early spring a Willow Warbler will probably turn out to be a Chiffchaff. Occam’s razor should be wielded in all walks of life. Honest mistakes are not to be confused with deliberate stringing.
Oddie Box – (Enclosed) birdwatching hide, named per famous celebrity birder, comedian, songwriter, and former “Goodie”, the inimitable Bill Oddie. From Tobias Smith.
Ornithology – The branch of the zoological sciences that deals with birds, the endothermic vertebrates known as aves.
Passage – The journey(s) made by migrant species.
Passage migrant – A bird seen in a given location only during its migration from one place to another and does not spend any substantial period in that location.
Passerine – Perching. From the Latin “passer”, meaning sparrow. More than half of known extant bird species are classed as passerine birds.
Patch list – A record of avian species seen in one’s local environs, one’s local patch.
Pec Sand – Pectoral Sandpiper, a bird of the Americas that migrates in the autumn, heading South over the Atlantic but is often blown towards the British Isles by Westerly winds.
Pelagic birding – Observation and recording of birds flying over the open waters of the sea, done from either the shore or from a boat.
Gulls on the boat during a pelagic birding trip
Pish – To make squeaks, tweets or whistles in proximity to a flock of tits or other birds in order to pique the curiosity that they might show well, albeit for only a moment.
Plastic – An escapee from a collection seen in the wild rather than a truly wild bird. A plastic bird may or may not be ringed, but not all ringed birds are plastic.
Plumage – Feathers, critical to a bird’s positive ID. Plumage can vary from mating to non-mating season, between winter and summer, chick to juvenile to adult.
Porn-starring – A bird showing really, really well, its jizz causing all kinds of ecstasy in the hide.
Positive ID – Definitive identification of a bird based on its jizz and other factors. Rarely BVD, except in the context of photography and almost certainly not LBJ or UFR.
Push – Usually a deliberate act of behaving in such a manner that a bird is flushed into a position where a better view can be had, often leads to flushing. Not good birding practice.
Quartering – Hunting. As in the raptor was quartering over its territory.
Raptor – Bird of prey including Eagles, Hawks, and Owls. See UFR.
RCP – Red-crested Pochard, once a newbie-confusing rarity, now increasingly common.
Reed Bunt – Reed Bunting.
Resident – Species that remains in its native territory throughout its lifecycle and does not migrate, although some residents nevertheless do migrate periodically and some migrants may become vagrants or residents depending on circumstances, such as climate change.
Ringing – Trapping and tagging of a bird, usually done by officials from BTO, RSPB or other conservation bodies for the sake of scientific studies of particular species. Also used by people who keep and show birds, such as pigeons. One or more coded or coloured metal or plastic rings are safely and securely fixed around the bird’s leg or legs. Similarly, tagging with plastic tabs can be secured to the wings or larger birds such as raptors for the same purpose as such birds might be able to remove rings from their legs with their beaks or talons.
Rouzel – Ring Ouzel. Ouzel is from the Old English for Blackbird, this member of the thrush family has an obvious ring around its neck, hence the name
RSPB – Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, charitable organisation with an obvious mission statement; also likes nature in general. Sarnie – Sandwich Tern
Scope – Telescope, often referred to as a spotting scope, usually tripod mounted for viewing distant birds. The bigger, the better (usually), although clarity and lack of chromatic aberration are often more important to the view.
Shag – A crested species of seabird, often confused with the Cormorant.
Shag
Shortie – Short-eared Owl, SEO
Showing well – Applies to the relative visibility and activity of a bird at a given site. As in the Beardies are showing well at RSPB Titchwell Marsh.
SOB – Spouse of a birder, a bird enthusiast’s significant other, commonly less interested in our feathered friends than said enthusiast. Often to be seen on reserves lugging heavy bags, coats, flasks, picnic hamper, and other accoutrements, while the enthusiast strides ahead to the likely spot where their lifer is showing well.
Song, call, alarm call – Vocal birds often make different sounds depending on activity, a song may be a territorial or courtship sound, whereas a call may be a more passive sound made while roosting perhaps, an alarm call does what it says.
Species – A term commonly used to refer to birds that are physiologically the same in terms of appearance, behaviour, biology, and genetics. They can breed and produce fertile offspring.
Species, Sub – A population of a species that exists in a different area and might vary in physical characteristics (morphology), but can nevertheless breed with members of any other populations.
Spooked – One explanation for the sudden departure of a putative lifer, just as you arrive to see it. Often due to nearby raptors but more commonly novice birders twittering loudly near a hide or pointing and waving their excited little arms out through the hide’s viewing flaps.
Spoonie – Spoonbill
Sprawk – Sparrowhawk
Sprawk, or Sparrowhawk
Spuggy – Geordie vernacular for House Sparrow or indeed, in ignorance of a bird’s jizz, any LBJ. Spug in Scotland. Northwest England spadger.
Stringing – Deliberately reporting a sighting of an interesting bird in a given location when said bird was most certainly not present, used maliciously by a rare breed of twitcher and birder with the intent of ruffling feathers (see plumage).
Supercilium – Basically, where the eyebrows would be. A distinct colouration, a supercilial stripe in a species could assist with a positive ID.
Talons – The claws of a bird of prey. Usually visible but can also be hidden talons.
Tape luring – The highly unethical practice of playing a recording of a bird’s call or song in the vicinity of where one might expect to see it in order to encourage it out into the open for a “tick” or a photo. At one time, this would have required the lurer to have an actual tape recording and a playback device, today there are countless bird apps that include recordings of birdsong.
Teaspoon – Spoonbill chick
Teaspoon, Flying – Long-tailed Tit
Tick – Whether BVD or showing well, a newly sighted bird for one’s life list or year list is ticked off in one’s proverbial notebook, on the “app” or simply in one’s head.
Tickable – A bird that is definitely the new species you were hoping to see, showing well, giss confirmed. Togger (derog.) – A photographer with a keen and passionate interest in getting the best shot they can of a beautiful avian species. A term often used by twitchers and birders in a derogatory way. Some birders are toggers, some twitchers too. The photos in the bird books and magazines beloved of birders and twitchers will have been taken by a togger, needless to say.
Tower hide – A platform or elevated hide that allows a view of birds obscured by vegetation or distance.
Twitch – The act of twitching or a specific venture aimed at twitching a species.
Twitchable – Able to be twitched. But, also alluding to whether a species one may wish to see and tick is naturalised in that location.
Twitcher, twitching (derog.) – A person who will commonly apply unusual effort or expense to see a rare bird they have not seen before, their hobby. To paraphrase comedian, composer Tim Minchin “Only a twitcher can call another twitcher a twitcher.”
UFR – Unidentified flying raptor, the equivalent of an LBJ but for the multitude of high-flying hunting birds. See BVD.
Undershoot – The behaviour of a migratory bird that settles at a site short of its usual destination either because it finds suitable habitat en route or else weather, disease, injury or other factors lead it to cut short its journey.
Untickable – A bird that is definitely the new species you were hoping to see, but it was not showing well, it was too far away, obscured by foliage or glimpsed only fleetingly and no way of confirming entirely beyond any shadow of a doubt with respect to its giss that it was indeed that species.
Vagrant – Species that is usually thought of as a migrant that is seen in a part of the world where it is not commonly seen.
White winger – Any of the less commonly seen gulls that have completely white wings rather than the black wingtips of the less rare species.
Worn – In need of a moult. The bedraggled, frazzled look of an adult bird at the end of the breeding season, it having been worn out by the process of raising offspring.
Yaffle – East Anglian vernacular for the European Green Woodpecker on account of its scoffing, laughter-like alarm call in flight.
Green Woodpecker, Yaffle
Yank (derog.) – A North American vagrant seen outside that continent, usually Europe.
Year list, life list – Most birders keep records of the different species they see, often noting jizz and other relevant information. A year list would, as the name suggests, be the birds that person has seen in a calendar year, whereas a life list, obviously, is a list of all the birds the person has seen. Many keep a patch list too, which is a record of birds noted on their local or most frequently visited area or a garden (yard) list. By definition, every bird on a life list is initially a lifer.
Some of the terms are “tongue-in-beak” you might say…bird nicknames can be found here.
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 Bearded Tit is not a member of the tit family Paridae at all. It is not related to the Blue Tit, not the Great Tit, and not even the Long-tailed Tit. There was a time when it was thought to be a member of the Paradoxornithidae, the parrotbills. (Pictured immediately below, well-camouflaged female).
However, the most recent research suggests that it is in a family all of its own the Panuridae. There are no other members of this family as far as we know unless DNA analysis reveals a relative. So, although birders will always know them affectionately as Beardies, the Tit is perhaps more appropriately now replaced with the term “Reedling”, so Bearded Reedling.
The bird is mostly brown with a long tail and the males are striking in that they have to dark marks down their faces.
Now, one might wonder why are they called Bearded, why is it not known as the Mutton Chop bird, or the Sideburned bird, or even the Moustached bird? If you want a reed-dwelling bird with a proper beard (bib), then the Reed Bunting is your fellow.
There are thought to be a mere 630 breeding pairs in the UK. I’ve seen them a couple of times at RSPB Titchwell Marsh, once at WWT Welney, and a large flock at RSPB Minsmere making their characteristic “ping, ping, ping” (or peww, peww, peww) call. They are known to be at NT Wicken Fen, RSPB Ouse Fen, and elsewhere too.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has announced the results of its 2018 Big Garden Birdwatch. The survey which asks members of the public to take an hour of their time to count the birds in their garden on a single day of the year has been running since 1979.
This year, 420,489 people from the UK submitted data, in what is one of the biggest citizen science projects.
House sparrows (Passer domesticus) remain the most common of our feathered friends to visit and live in our gardens, although overall numbers are down. Numbers of winter visitors such as Siskins (Carduelis spinus) and Bramblings (Fringilla montifringilla), both small, brightly coloured finches are on the rise. The number of Goldfinches (Carduelis carduelis), Long-tailed Tits (Aegithalos caudatus) and Coal Tits (Periparus ater) is also up with recorded sightings of Goldfinches having risen by 11% from last year. All in members of the public counted 6,764,475 birds in their gardens.
Greenfinch numbers are also up by 5% on last year although that does not completely reverse the 60% decline since the Birdwatch began almost 40 years ago. Unfortunately, numbers for two of our most well-known and best-loved species, the Blackbird (Turdus merula) and the Robin (Erithacus rubecula) are down; by 18% and 12%, respectively. The RSPB blames the mild winter and poor breeding success in 2017 on the Blackbird’s year-on-year decline. Great Tits (Parus major) were counted in almost two-thirds of all UK gardens.
The Tree Sparrow’s scientific binomial, what people often refer to as a species’ “Latin” name, is Passer montanus, which in literal translation would be something like percher of the mountains (although more obviously passer simply means sparrow. Anyway, they stand apart from the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) having markedly different head plumage, sporting a chestnut-coloured crown as they do, rather than the grey of the House Sparrow. The Tree Sparrow also has white cheeks and collar with a contrasting black cheek spot.
The other thing that sets them apart, unfortunately, is that they’re now quite rare and are listed as being “red” wrt UK conservation status. You’re unlikely to have seen Tree Sparrows in your garden, any sparrows are more likely to be House Sparrow or Hedge Sparrow (Dunnock, Prunella modularis). The latter isn’t a sparrow at all and might better be referred to as the Hedge Warbler, given its melodious song.
In the picture two Tree Sparrows on the left, obvs, and on the right Great Tit (Parus major)
