Category: Biology

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.

UPDATE: Seen several bullfinches in and around Rampton since spotting this one in May. Saw a pair flitting in and out of the trees along the Lode and on my return home saw one feeding on fluffy ragwort seeds; light was low, but I got a half-decent shot at him:

The male bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) has an almost salmon-pink breast and cheeks, grey back, black cap and tail, and a bright white rump, a plaintive call and a shy demeanour. I’ve probably only ever seen this bird half a dozen times. I spotted this one about a week ago and got a very poor shot, I heard him before I got to his territory this time and crept up to where I imagined he’d be, he still darted away hiding among the rapidly obscuring leaves of the trees. Still got some. A security shot. Proof he was there.

RSPB suggests that you’re most likely to see bullfinches in Woodlands, orchard and hedgerows. Best looked for at woodland edges, as per this shot, although we did see one in our back garden many years ago.

We’ve often put food out for the garden birds. Usually it’s starlings, house sparrows, and wood pigeons that attack the feeders, years ago we may have had one of the local black squirrels having a go. The dunnocks and our labrador hoover up the seeds that fall to the ground. I’d seen goldfinches (Carduelis carduelis, yet another tautonym meaning that this is the “type” of the family) flitting around the houses and occasionally landing on our TV aerial, but never landing on the feeders.

It seems the goldfinches are not so keen on sunflower seeds and other delicacies found in the generic 20 kg bags of wild-bird food one might pick up at a garden centre for a tenner, much preferring the floral embryos of the Ethiopian plant Guizotia abyssinica, commonly known as niger seeds and sometimes nyjer, ramtil, ramtilla, inga seed, and blackseed. There were a pair of goldfinches feeding either side of the niger seed feeder and I snapped them through glass. The seeds are botanically a form of fruit known as an achene. Another member of the Carduelinae, the greenfinch (Chloris chloris) also favours these seeds over the mixed bird food.

 

A meadow pipit (Anthus pratensis) being all pretentious and abandoning the fields in favour of a tree from which to view the photographer. There were at least three or four of them larking about on the lode about half a mile upstream from the Rampton bridge.

It is mainly a bird of open habitats, uncultivated or low-intensity agriculture, pasture, bogs, moorland, and presumably meadows. It can also be seen sometimes on arable cropland. In winter, it might retreat to saltmarshes and open woodlands although it may also migrate to Southern Europe and Africa. Well-grounded bird, always feeds on the ground, but will fly to elevated perches such as bushes, hedgerows, fences, or overhead cables to watch for predators and photographers.

The willow warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus) is common and widespread, breeding throughout northern and temperate Europe and Asia, from Ireland east to eastern Siberia. It is, however, strongly migratory and almost the whole population winters in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is greenish brown above and off-white to yellowish below; the wings are plain greenish-brown with no wingbars. Aside from its pale legs it looks almost identical to the chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita). However, if you think you’ve seen a willow warbler but it’s making an almost metronomically regular t’ss, t’ss, t’ss, t’ss… sound and has dark legs it’s a chiffchaff, the warbler has a much more warbling, melodious song. Here’s a recent photo and a snippet of his song that I recorded in late April 2017 in Rampton Spinney, South Cambs.

The meadow pipit (Anthus pratensis) is a small passerine (perching) bird that breeds across northwestern Eurasia, from southeastern Greenland and Iceland to beyond the Ural Mountains in Russia, from south to central France and Romania. It is generally migratory, spending its winters in Southern Europe, North Africa and Southwestern Asia, but is also resident year-round in Western Europe (heading off higher regions to the lowlands in winter). I photographed this bird on moorland close to the Brecon Beacons, Powys, Mid-Wales, April 2017. Now added to my growing gallery of British birds.

Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus) is, according to the RSPB website, mainly found in the north and west of the UK, with the greatest concentrations in Wales (I photographed this bird on woody encircled moorland in the Brecon Beacons, Powys, towards the end of April 2017). The species particularly favours oak woodlands, hedgerows, alongside streams and parkland. They dine mainly on insects, spiders, worms, and berries and you will spot them from April to September. They are yet another species, like the robin, that were originally classified as thrush-type birds (Turdus) but have been proved genetically to be old world flycatchers, Muscicapidae.

UPDATE: The Red Kite is thriving here in Cottenham and spreading its wings far and wide from the original reintroduction strongholds further afield. We have a small colony (20 to 30 of them as of December 2022) on the outskirts of our village that roosts in the farmland hedgerows and scavenges on the rubbish/recycling tip along with thousands of gulls of various species. By 30th, my birding Brendan counted 40+ and estimated that the total might be around 50.

The beautiful red kite (Milvus milvus) was persecuted to near extinction two centuries ago because of the mistaken belief that they were a threat to livestock. A committee was formed in 1903 to protect nests and eggs from hunters and collectors. The name, incidentally, comes from the Old English word cyta, which is most likely onomatopoeic of its call and the toy kite is so-called after the bird.

In 1986, the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) and NCC (now Natural England and Scottish Natural Heritage), joined forces to tender the idea of reintroducing the red kite to England and Scotland. In 1989, six wild birds acquired from Sweden were released in northern Scotland and four Swedish and one Welsh bird were released in the county of Buckinghamshire. In total, almost 100 birds from Sweden and Spain were released at various sites in the early 1990s. Successful breeding populations established themselves quickly. There are feeding sites in various locations and also in Wales where dozens if not hundreds or birds turn up to take food.

The barn swallow (Hirundo rustica) is the “British” bird with which we most commonly associate a sighting as being the arrival of summer (cuckoos are not so often seen, but heard). Of course, one swallow does not a summer make, as Aristotle (384—322 BC) had it.

It is a distinctive passerine, perching, bird with glossy, dark blue-black upperparts, a ruddy throat, an off-white breast, and famously, a long, forked tail. Feeds on small invertebrates and is often seen swirling in flocks low over water to drink and eat, or gathering on overhead wires. The perching swallow pictured here was photographed on an April evening (very early summer) in Trallong, Powys, Mid-Wales and the pond-dipping swallow on the moor top a few miles from there.

One swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy