Category: Science

I haven’t yet been to see the Snipe (Gallinago gallinago) living on the edge of our village pond, but a visit to RSPB Fen Drayton today allowed us good views of a pair roosting and then feeding on the little islands right in front of the Coucher Hide there.

This species is incredibly well camouflaged in its normal environment. I spotted the first of two, Mrs Sciencebase the second. A fellow birder couldn’t quite home in on the places we’d seen them until the birds began to move to feed with their classic sewing machine bill action. Not to be confused with the Jack Snipe, which has shorter legs, a shorter bill, is a little smaller, and has more detailed and stronger markings but lacks the central yellow stripe on the crown of its head.

Here’s a shot from the hide of the more distant of the two Snipe we saw. This image is as it came out of the camera, uncropped, with no sharpening or processing, other than to resize for the web to reduce file load. Spot the Snipe!

The bird gives its name to the term sniper in reference to how British soldiers in the 18th Century used to hunt the species in India.

I made a start on a bird book, but there are so many around, it seemed like a futile effort, once I’d done a bit of due diligence and spoken to my publisher. My plan was originally for a nice, bright and glossy, book of full-colour plates, but they’re expensive to repro in print. The unique selling point (USP), aside from my photos, was to be discussion of the etymology of the different birds’ names, their recognised names, their folk names, and their scientific names. But, then I found and read Stephen Moss’s excellent book Mrs Moreau’s Warbler, which basically covered it.

So, here, in part-work form are the first few chapters from the sampler of what was to be Chasing Wild Geese – Spotting your first 100 birds. Apologies if you put your name down for a more positive update regarding a hardback, unless somebody wants to take up the option this book may never materialise. That said, my list is up to well over 100 birds now, so I could add new chapters over the coming months if there’s enough interest.

Chasing Wild Geese – PDF sampler version with bonus chapter about the author

Preface -  Scopelessly in love with birds
Chapter 1 -  Robin
Chapter 2 -  Barn Owl
Chapter 3 -  Blackbird
Chapter 4 -  Wren
Chapter 5 -  Red Kite
Chapter 6 -  Kingfisher
Chapter 7 -  Mute Swan
Chapter 8 -  Blue Tit
Chapter 9 -  Kestrel
Chapter 10 – Yellowhammer
Chapter 11 – Linnet
Appendix -  Birding Glossary

 

TL:DR – Birds you might see or here in an English country garden. My Cambridgeshire garden ticklist is below.

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Some time ago, my dear friend and fellow bigMouth singer John Stanford asked me to put together an article for our village newsletter about the birds we are likely to see in our gardens here in South Cambridgeshire. Your mileage will vary depending on where you are in the country, what kind of habitat your garden offers, feeders you use or don’t (it’s not essential and not always recommended). But, I do have an article on how to attract more birds to your garden.

Of course, which of our feathered friends turns up in your garden is down to many different factors, the size and layout of your garden, tree and other plant species, the presence of cats, whereabouts you are relative to patches of woodland, farmland, and whether or not the visitors find a useful supply of food in the form of berries on your bushes, seed feeders and bird tables, coconut shells full of suet, and whatever else you might put out to attract them.

Some birds will arrive in great numbers to feast on fatballs for instance. Most of us have been perplexed to see expensive fatballs disappear in a matter of minutes when a flock of starlings turn up. Other food, such as nyjer seeds in a specialist feeder will draw in Goldfinches and occasionally for some Redpolls. Sunflowers seeds with the husk intact, sometimes referred to as black sunflower hearts, will keep Greenfinches, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits, and Long-tailed Tits busy, and if the nyjer seeds run out the Goldfinches too.

Robins, Blackbirds, Wood Pigeons, Collared Doves, Dunnocks, will spend much of their time pecking around under the feeders, although the Blackbirds will join Mistle and Song Thrushes plucking insects from the lawn. And, Thrushes will famously grab snailshells and smash them on the ground to get at the occupant. If it’s very cold out on the farmland, the winter thrushes – the Fieldfares and Redwings – will come into the warmer more urban areas and attempt to snaffle berries from your bushes and trees much to the consternation of the Blackbirds who will attempt to make them flee.

You might also spot Bramblings during the winter. They are another finch resembling the Chaffinch but brighter and more orange colours. I have heard from people living on the edge of our village who see them in their gardens occasionally, but they are more likely to be elsewhere.

Unusual but increasingly common in the winter are Blackcaps, a type of warbler normally considered a summer visitor, but turning up in our gardens from Germany and Eastern Europe rather than heading to the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa. Speaking of summer, by the time you read this birds that you might see above your garden or heading into your eaves may have started to arrive: House Martins first, then the Swallows that don’t necessarily a summer make, and finally the Swifts. Listen out for Cuckoos too. Certainly, houses on the edge of our local village green backing on to farmland have regular cuckoos visiting for the breeding season.

If you have ants among your plants, you might see Green Woodpeckers, also known as Yaffles for their scoffing call in flight. Ants are the staple diet of yaffles, so hold off the powder if you want to see them pecking at the ground in your garden. And, speaking of woodpeckers, there are quite a few Great Spotted Woodpeckers around, which will often come to garden feeders. Of course, if you’re attracting lots of small songbirds to your garden you might also attract predators including Sparrowhawks and less obviously egg-eating Magpies, and chick-chomping Jays. Great Spotted Woodpeckers will also peck into birdboxes to eat baby Blue Tits and the like.

Here’s our garden ticklist of the 70 species we’ve noted sight or sound) during the last quarter of a century, in, over, or very close to our small, relatively “sub-rural” garden:

UPDATE: Early Feb 24 – Merlin picked up a Tree Sparrow and another Hawfinch. I can hear what sounds like the Tree Sparrow on the recording.

UPDATE: Early Jan 24 – Merlin app heard a Black Redstart and days later a Ring-necked Parakeet

UPDATE: Late Oct/Nov 2023 – Merlin app App picking up the sound of Grey Wagtail, Brambling, Ringed Plover, Raven, Waxwing, Marsh Harrier, Meadow Pipit, Barn Owl, Reed Bunting, and Yellow-legged Gull from the garden/house. 67 species.

UPDATE: 2 August 2023 – Mrs Sciencebase spotted a Whitethroat briefly touching down on the previously mentioned front garden firethorn. 57 species.

UPDATE: As of April 2023, 56 species, with a Spoonbill flying past the house quickly at 3-4m above the roofline at about 3pm on 18th. Very surprising!

I could add a lot of other birds to this list if I were to consider my village sightings rather than just my garden sightings: Little Owl, Great White Egret, Kingfisher, Little Stint, Little Ringed Plover, Teminck’s Stint, White Stork etc many of which on the Cottenham Lode or flooded areas of local farmland.

Check out my tongue-in-beak birding glossary here.

I’d consider this a quite rare sighting over our usual Rampton (Cambridgeshire) stamping ground but we saw a large hawk flying over a sheep-laden field adjacent to the spinney. Looked like a big Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) and indeed that is what it is. Not a Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis), wrong underwing patterning, apparently.

One of my RSPB bird books actually describes the Goshawk species as “essentially a giant version of the Sparrowhawk” but also points out that a large female Sparrowhawk would be about the same size as a small male Goshawk. Both birds are adapted for the same niche: hunting prey on the wing in woodland. So, not a new one for us, after all; we’ve had Sparrowhawks in the garden nomming on the tits).