Posts Tagged ‘Birds’

Birdlog: Saturday 30th March (2)

Posted: January 4, 2019 in Birds, Natural History
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Sometimes you are in the right place at the right time to see something that is unusual and which you may never see again. Continuing our flashbacks to the past, here is a post from April 2013 of a Nuthatch trying to enlarge the entrance to a nest box. Presumably fancied it as his des-res. Not seen since and the box has continued to house a Blue Tit nest each year.

Here are a couple of short video clips of the Nuthatch trying to get into nest box 2

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Birdlog: Blackcaps are back!

Posted: December 7, 2018 in Birds, Natural History
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Continuing my look back over the 5 years of the blog. This was certainly a highlight for our garden (posted April 2013). For a couple of years, we had both summering and wintering Blackcaps in the garden, But sadly none since although I did find a pair by the Tarn in both summer 2017 and this past summer.

April 2013

Following on from my brief sighting of a female blackcap a week or so ago I have had no more summer visitors in the garden. Imagine my surprise this morning when I pulled the curtains to find these two in the bushes. The male was hanging on a branch and then reaching out as far as he could to feed on a flower head below him
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The Blue Tit landing on……

Posted: June 22, 2018 in Birds, Kent, Natural History, UK
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Was videoing the feeder at Bough Beech and managed to extract this set of stills of a Blue Tit landing on the feeder

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Pieds and Starts Llandod.

Posted: May 31, 2017 in Birds, Natural History, UK
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Off to Wales for a few days tomorrow. Hoping to catch up with these beautiful birds.

Radnor Bird Blog

Nice to see the Redstarts and Pied flycatchers raising broods…… 4  lots of each in the bird boxes and possibly one or two in natural tree holes.male Red Start.

Fem Red Start.

Male Pied.

Male Pied…..Hes supposed to be feeding his chicks….”Fatty”.

Female Pied……very wary…not so confiding or should I say “As bold” as the males.

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Deciphering Diets

Posted: December 8, 2015 in Birds, Natural History
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Great Photos and an interesting project

Roads End Naturalist

…during reproduction, arguably the most important weeks of a bird’s life, 96% of North American terrestrial birds eat insects and other arthropods.

~Doug Tallamy

_-11 Prothonotary Warbler with a beak-full of bugs (click photos to enlarge)

During our recent bout of wet weather, I finally managed to do something that has been on my to-do list for awhile – upload images to a citizen science project called What Do Birds Eat? This is a fascinating effort to learn more about what arthropod species are being eaten by North American birds, especially during nesting cycles. The creator of the site, Dr. Doug Tallamy, is well-known as one of the gurus of the native plants movement from his book, Bringing Nature Home – How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens.  He is also a professor and Chair of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. One of the key…

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COLLECTIVELY SPEAKING

Posted: October 22, 2015 in Birds, Natural History
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Really like this blog. Who would have thought of ‘an unkindness of Ravens’

Towheeblog

We all know of the “murder of crows”  and “exaltation of larks.”  Flock is accurate but so general.  There are many fine avian collective nouns flying about in English.

Here are some of my favorites, and suggestions for improvement:

Boblink: chain [get it?  pun on link…hey, I didn’t make this up]
Coot: cover [especially apt when coots are covering the surface of your local sewer ponds in winter]
Cormorant: gulp  [nothing fishy about this one]
Duck: raft, plump, paddling
Dunlin:  fling [so accurate when they are seen in the air]
Eagle: convocation [gives them way too much dignity, a lurk, attack or scavenge might be better]
Jackdaws: clattering [this city-dwelling Euro-corvid is best seen in groups clattering about the rooftops of old town or across Gothic cathedrals]
Mallard: flush, sord, puddling
Ravens: unkindness [Totally misses their co-operative intelligence; I would suggest alliance, conspiracy, clan.   This collective comes from the…

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Red-Headed Woodpecker

Posted: August 20, 2015 in Birds, Natural History
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A widespread species, but my recent visit to St Louis was the first time I had managed to catch up with this stunning bird. With its red head and black and white plumage it is certainly hard to miss.

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World shorebirds day

Posted: September 5, 2014 in Birds, Natural History
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I only found out today that Saturday has been designated World Shorebirds day. A chance to focus on and celebrate this magnificent group of birds. They are my favourite groups of birds for photography.

Oystercatcher

Oystercatcher

Redshank

Redshank

Avocet

Avocet

Greenshank

Greenshank

They can congregate in large numbers especially on migration and in the winter and in flight they can produce a real spectacle as seen in this video from the US Nature Conservancy

So if you have the chance tomorrow get out and down to your local estuary or wetlands and enjoy those shorebirds

Naturelog: Tuesday 10th November

Posted: December 10, 2013 in Birds, Natural History
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Yesterday was a pretty good day and today was almost as good. All 4 Thrush species were back in the garden and this time I managed to get a picture of the Redwing

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The other highlight was the appearance first thing of 2 Blackcaps, a male and a female. They made their way across the garden going from bush to bush for 5 minutes and then disappeared from sight. This small warbler which used to only be a summer visitor now regularly overwinters in Southern England. The latest RSPB estimate is that this wintering population now numbers around 3000 birds. It has been suggested that these are in fact not British breeding birds but birds which have bred further north and have come south to England for the winter.

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Male and Female Blackcap photographed in the Spring when a pair visited the garden

Black-headed Gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus)
Common Pigeon [sp] (Columba livia)
Common Wood Pigeon [sp] (Columba palumbus)
Rose-ringed Parakeet [sp] (Psittacula krameri)
Eurasian Magpie [sp] (Pica pica)
Carrion Crow [sp] (Corvus corone)
Great Tit [sp] (Parus major)
Eurasian Blue Tit [sp] (Cyanistes caeruleus)
Eurasian Blackcap [sp] (Sylvia atricapilla)
Common Blackbird [sp] (Turdus merula)
Redwing [sp] (Turdus iliacus)
Song Thrush [sp] (Turdus philomelos)
Mistle Thrush [sp] (Turdus viscivorus)
Common Chaffinch [sp] (Fringilla coelebs)
European Greenfinch [sp] (Carduelis chloris)

Naturelog Monday 9th November

Posted: December 10, 2013 in Birds, Natural History
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Working at home although it was a surprise that any work got done given the activity in the garden. All the usual residents paid a visit and for the first time I managed to get all of our 4 Thrush species (Blackbird, Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush and Redwing) in the garden on the same day.

Blackbird
Eurasian Blackbird
Photo by Simon Elkjær Sørensen (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jipe_dk/)

Mistle Thrush
Mistle Thrush
Photo by Sergey Yeliseev (http://www.flickr.com/photos/yeliseev/)

Song Thrush
Song Thrush
Photo by Sergey Yeliseev (http://www.flickr.com/photos/yeliseev/)

Redwing
Redwing
Photo by Sergey Yeliseev (http://www.flickr.com/photos/yeliseev/)

The day was rounded off by 2 Little egrets flying over the garden at 3pm (first record for the patch) and over 100 Ring necked parakeets, going to roost at Hither Green, in 5 minutes over the station around 4pm as I waited for a train

Little Egret
Little Egret
Photo by Sergey Yeliseev (http://www.flickr.com/photos/yeliseev/)

Little Egret [sp] (Egretta garzetta)
Lesser Black-backed Gull [sp] (Larus fuscus)
Common Pigeon [sp] (Columba livia)
Common Wood Pigeon [sp] (Columba palumbus)
Rose-ringed Parakeet [sp] (Psittacula krameri)
Eurasian Magpie [sp] (Pica pica)
Western Jackdaw [sp] (Coloeus monedula)
Carrion Crow [sp] (Corvus corone)
Great Tit [sp] (Parus major)
Eurasian Blue Tit [sp] (Cyanistes caeruleus)
Common Blackbird [sp] (Turdus merula)
Redwing [sp] (Turdus iliacus)
Song Thrush [sp] (Turdus philomelos)
Mistle Thrush [sp] (Turdus viscivorus)
Common Chaffinch [sp] (Fringilla coelebs)
European Greenfinch [sp] (Carduelis chloris)

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