Category: Biology

A recent visit to Aldeburgh gave us a small haul of photographic avian trophies, distant Eurasian spoonbills not least, although friends Brian Stone and Peter Green tell me that what I hoped was a nuthatch was actually a wheatear. There was a sweet tweeter out there too, which I think may have been a sedge warbler.

Meanwhile, the spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia), tall waterfowl with a spatulate bill, hence the name, scientific binomial hints at the broadness of bill and the second part means white heron. Rare breeding pair in the UK dining on the body of water known as the mere the south part of North Warren Nature Reserve (RSPB). There is also a whole colony on the North Norfolk coast at Holkham. Member of the ibis and spoonbill family, the Threskiornithidae.

Squealing swifts, the double vocalisations of the song thrush, the romantic ruminations of the robin, the chiff-chaff of the chiffchaff, the yaffling of the green woodpecker, the startled stutterings of the starlings, the warblings of the warblers, the cuckolding cuckoo. Then, of course, there are the birds called Sylvia, atricapilla and communis, the blackcap and whitethroat respectively.

I don’t think I’d ever seen Sylvia atracapilla (the Eurasian blackcap) knowingly until spring 2017, I’d definitely heard the bird, it is a highly evocative sound of spring and summer. Beautiful, vibrant, warbling (the blackcap is one of the warblers). Often referred to as the “Northern Nightingale”. They usually migrate from Europe (Germany and Eastern Europe, specifically) to the British Isles, but many now over-winter in the UK. The males have a blackcap, the female’s cap is more a chestnut brown (as is that of the juveniles).

Blackcaps eat insects and berries and from my observations (having now seen at least a dozen in various locations), they seem to spend much of their time in the mid-level of the woodland, not seen them near the ground and only once high up in a tree, they’re mostly at about 2-3 metres doing their thing.

Anyway, there seemed to be a few about at RSPB Minsmere in the bluebell wood near the visitor centre. I heard this male first, then saw him darting about, fairly high up. He came straight towards me, not as shy as other ones I have seen. As a bustle of birders tried to catch a glimpse of him where he had been with their bins and ‘scopes, I got my camera up to catch his poses and this shot as he fanned his tail in the dappled afternoon sun.

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.