Wild and Wonderful: Birds of Prey

Showing posts with label Birds of Prey. Show all posts

Thursday, 25 February 2016

Visit from a Sparrowhawk ...

Two amber eyes confronted me this afternoon as I peered out of the window.

The male Sparrowhawk was back.

I believe this species is one of Chris Packham's favourites (and fine birds they are indeed), but my immediate concern was for the small birds that come to our garden to feed - the Long-tailed tits and Blue tits in particular. There is also a Wren, but (s)he keeps a very low profile.

The RSPB have a helpful section on their site for those like me who feel a certain ambivalence over the arrival at close quarters of a 'top predator'.

Sparrowhawks rarely hang around here for long and I was glad that my camera was to hand.

I was separated from the bird by our double glazing,

so the photographs are not the best, but it is always good to have a record.

I can't be entirely sure, but, unlike one of the Long-tailed tits,
I don't think this bird has been ringed.

This seems to be the time of year
when these birds of prey seem most likely to arrive in our garden.

I see previous visits were noted
on 5 March 2015 and 20th March 2013,
though I have also recorded sightings
in the months of May and July.

Friday, 6 February 2015

Tree Following - February 2015


and 2015

This post is the tenth in my Tree Following series, part of a wider project run by Lucy Corrander from the Loose and Leafy blog. I am following a Silver Birch, B. pendula, in Suffolk, UK. You will find the other Tree Follower links on the Loose and Leafy blog ... so do take the chance to catch up with happenings in the arboreal world!

Above and below: my Silver Birch on 6 February 2015

A Couple of Diary Entries

Date: 23 January 2015
Time; 11.30
Weather Cold and bright, blue sky slight drifts of white cloud

I had just walked around the garden in search of Snowdrops (but there aren't any yet) when a large form caught my eye, gliding above the Silver Birch. It was a Buzzard, and the first I have seen over my home patch. Down below, a Robin was feeding among the twigs under the coconut feeders that hand from the tree. A Song Thrush hopped into the frame. The two birds were quite unperturbed by each other's company: they were centimetres apart and yet - apparently - quite uninterested in what the other bird was doing.

Buzzard (though we saw this one on Skye)

Date: 30 January 2015
Time: 12 noon
Weather Cold and bright, blue sky, white cloud and patchy snow on the ground from a heavy snow shower yesterday evening.

I was reading Claxton by Mark Cocker (highly recommended) as I sipped my coffee on a cold January morning. The Long-tailed tits flitted between the Silver Birch branches outside, catching my eye every so often with their airborne antics in a bid to secure a morsel of fat from the coconut feeders. There was a sudden swoop and the Great Spotted Woodpecker flew in. The bird did not stay long on the coconut, but in the few seconds in which I had to admirer this striking creature, I noticed that there was no sign of red on the head or the nape of the neck. This convinces me that the bird is a female, so I'm hoping we may have a resident brood of young woodpeckers come the Spring.

General Observations

We have had some pretty cold weather with showers of large snowflakes, but very little lying snow to date. The cold weather has certainly driven more birds to the coconut feeders on the Silver Birch. The sky has been very dark at times, and I apologise for the quality of the photos.

First there was ONE Long-tailed tit ...

... and then a few seconds later there were TWO ...

... then THREE ...

... then as the snow came down there were FOUR ...

... and soon there were FIVE (and a Blue tit?) ...

... yes, there was definitely a Blue tit ...

... not forgetting the feisty Robin, hopping around at the base of the Silver Birch.

Last month I mentioned the 'forked twig-ends' (in inverted commas, as you see). These have grown and swollen considerably, and there are no prizes for noticing that they are birch catkins. The pollen will be released into the atmosphere in April. I am waiting for new green leaves to unfurl.

Just beyond my home patch there were more signs of spring (I have included these nearby catkins for comparison) ...

... but in our neck of the woods it still felt as if winter had the upper hand.

Suddenly a new bird alighted in the branches of the Silver Birch ...

It looks a bit like a(nother) Robin here, but it was a Redwing.

That's about it for this month. Next time I will post my updated list of species in, on, under and around the Silver Birch. Who knows, by then we may have had some avian migrants passing through. I keep scanning the bird forum posts (and twitter, of course) to see if there have been any local Waxwing sightings. Apparently there was one in the vicinity, but not close enough ...

MY PREVIOUS TREE FOLLOWING POSTS

Thursday, 11 July 2013

Beautiful Birds: Hobby on the Wing (Minsmere again!)

While we were watching the Bittern at the weekend, a Hobby flew right up to the hide, taking us all by surprise. There were a number of dragonflies zooming about, which was probably the reason!

Much to my surprise, the Hobby has been awarded Green conservation status. I say surprise because this is a bird that I have only recently started to see ...

You will find some far better photos of a Hobby at Minsmere here ...

Tuesday, 18 September 2012

Islands and Islets (6): An Inner Hebridean Odyssey - Mystery Bird of Ardnamurchen

We left Fort William after breakfast, and were soon aboard the Corran Ferry bound for the unspoilt peninsula of Ardnamurchen, en route to Skye. Due to adverse weather conditions, it proved to be a very long route to the island, but that's another story! The grey-blue bird of prey above was practically my first avian sighting of the day.

We stopped off briefly at this lovely beach to watch the seals on their skerries and the rafts (or perhaps streamlined 'canoes') of Eiders.

Here are two more hasty views of the bird before it flew off. What fine banding on the tail feathers!

I would be very grateful for an identification: I thought it might have been a Buzzard (too blue?) or a Peregrine (not dark enough round the 'cheek'?). I don't think it was a Merlin ...

You might like to see my previous 2012 Scottish posts, which are here (miscellany) and here (jellyfish).

Later: Thank you to Heather Williams for her comment below. Yes, I think Sparrowhawk may well fit the bill (no pun intended), especially on account of the bird's size and the white stripe above the eye. We have had one of these in the garden in Suffolk, so I suppose I didn't really have to travel so far for a sighting, but who would have missed the chance to see the swathes of Scottish heather and golden bracken at this time of year?

* * *

Postscript . . . off-topic (we didn't see any Badgers in Scotland), but of great concern . . . the plight of Badgers in the face of Bovine TB. I thought this press release from the RSPB (here) was well worth reading, and would commend it to you. For more on Badgers in blogs (as it happens, from my old home area in South Wales - no bias, naturally!), you might like to see 'My Life Outside' (Adam Tilt) for a very informative post, and Jeremy Inglis Photography, for more details of the petition.

Wednesday, 9 May 2012

Home Patch (11): Mystery Bird ...

Who's that hiding on my fence?

It has been an 'exciting' morning in the garden ... probably a bit too exciting if you happen to be a small bird. Not only did we receive a visit from this bird of prey, which I take to be a Sparrowhawk (please confirm or correct!), but I also heard a long burst of Cuckoo song. I have not heard a Cuckoo in England for a long time (or in Wales for that matter), but in recent years we have enjoyed listening to the clarity of Cuckoo song in Scotland above the water between Skye and the mainland.

The photo above was taken through glass on a dreary wet morning. I had seen what seemed to be a Sparrowhawk or possibly a Kestrel a few days ago, so I was keeping a wary out eye for a second appearance. When the bird landed this morning, the shrub was in my way, but there was little I could do with the glass between us! A beady eye has been caught on camera ...

We had three Mallard fly overhead yesterday, so it's time to update my Home Patch bird list ...

Blackbird

Blue tit

Carrion Crow

Chaffinch

Collared Dove

Cuckoo ... heard but not seen on 9 May 2012! RED Conservation status

Dunnock

Goldfinch

Great tit

Greenfinch

Grey Heron (who flew past without landing)

Herring Gull

Long-tailed tit

Magpie

Mallard (these flew past without landing)

Robin

Song Thrush

?Sparrowhawk

Wood Pigeon

Incidentally, on the subject of birds, I have just read that there was a Flamingo (with photo here) at Trimley Reserve, not far my new Suffolk home, and a Hoopoe (a bird I would so love to see ...) at Whiteford Burrows, a few miles from my previous Swansea home!

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

Beautiful Birds (39): 2012 Species List

Mute Swans near Mistley Towers and Manningtree, Essex, UK

I think I won't count numbers so much this year as species. The species marked thus: [L] are my 'lifers' or first (conscious) sightings. There are, for example, so many pigeons outside our window that I have decided to list each species of bird only once at the time of my earliest sighting.

This was my list for January and February 2011. I don't imagine the next couple of days will find me seeing many of the following which were on the list a year ago and which I have yet to see in 2012:

Chaffinch (I might yet see this fellow!)
Siskin | Wood Pigeon | Hen Harrier | Greenfinch

Gadwall | Tufted Duck | Wren
Great Spotted woodpecker
Song Thrush | Greenshank | Redshank

The discrepancy for those who are new to my blog is probably largely due to our move last Autumn from South Wales to Suffolk on the east coast of England. It is partly due to my current 'garden-less' lifestyle, to the fact that I was in America for two weeks in January and then pretty much confined to base by the snow and ice.

2012 bird species seen to date . . .

JANUARY Feral Pigeon (USA and Suffolk, UK)
Starling (Liberty Island, NY, USA) Jan 2012 [red conservation status in the UK]
Egret (wetlands outside New York, USA . . . hard to tell which species, I think 'Little')
Red-tailed Hawk (NY, USA) [L]
House Sparrow (Liberty Island, NY, USA) [red conservation status in the UK]
Mute Swan (Mistley, Essex, UK)
Shelduck (ditto)
Bar-tailed Godwit (ditto)
Common Sandpiper (ditto)
Carrion Crow (ditto)
Ring-billed Gulls (rivers Hudson and Delaware, USA) [L]
Canada Goose (river Delaware, USA)
FEBRUARY Blue-tit (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK)
Goldfinch - a flock (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK)
Moorhen (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK)
Rook (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK)
Buzzard (Suffolk, UK)
Red Kite (Kirby Hall, Northants, UK)
Long-tailed Tits (Suffolk, UK)
Robin (Suffolk, UK)
Redwing (Suffolk, UK) red conservation status
Fieldfare (Suffolk, UK) red conservation status
Mallard (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK)
Blackbird (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK)
Great Tit (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK)
Coot (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK)
Magpie (Suffolk, UK)
Greylag Goose (Shotley peninsula, Suffolk, UK)
Cormorant (River Orwell, Suffolk, UK)
Pied Wagtail (Ipswich, Suffolk, UK)
Black-headed Gull (Ipswich, Suffolk, UK)
Herring Gull (Ipswich, Suffolk, UK) red conservation status
Lapwing (Orwell Bridge, Suffolk, UK) red conservation status
Oystercatcher (Orwell Bridge, Suffolk, UK)
Lesser Black-backed Gull (Suffolk, UK)
Wigeon (Suffolk, UK)
Red-legged Partridge (Shingle Street, Suffolk, UK)
Pheasant (Shingle Street, Suffolk, UK)
MARCH Brent Goose (a flock on Mersea Island, Essex, UK)

I hope to make a new Wordle list once I reach the end of February.

What else have I seen? Well, not much in the way of mammals or insects.
A quick round-up ...

Seals (two, off Suffolk coast, UK)
Grey Squirrel (New York, USA)
Rabbits (Suffolk, UK)
Molehills - fresh, but no moles seen (Northants, UK)
?Stoat hole (Northants, UK)
Midges (Along the River Stour, Flatford, Suffolk, UK)
?Red Spider Mite (Cambridgeshire, UK)
Snails (Northants, UK)
Slipper Shell (Shingle Street, Suffolk, UK)

Have you had any interesting or unusual wildlife encounters in 2012?

Monday, 23 January 2012

Seasonal Splash (4): Winter Colour ...

We took a stroll around Mistley Towers, part of a ruined Robert Adam church near Manningtree, UK . . .

. . . There were a lot of Mute Swans on the estuary foreshore.

Some were more interested in posing for the camera than others!

A portrait in profile.

These Shelducks were heading for home . . .

I think these are Bar-tailed Godwits . . .

. . . and a Common Sandpiper, in late afternoon light.

We spotted a pair of these Greylag geese at the nearby Alton Water Park.

January: 2012 bird species seen to date . . .

Pigeon (USA)
Starling (Liberty Island, NY, USA)
Egret (wetlands outside New York, USA . . . hard to tell which species, Great or Little)
?Red-tailed Hawk (NY, USA)
Sparrow (Liberty Island, NY, USA)
Mute Swan (Mistley, Essex, UK)
Shelduck (ditto)
Bar-tailed Godwit (ditto)
Common Sandpiper (ditto)
Carrion Crow (ditto)
Assorted - but unidentified - gulls (ditto and rivers Hudson and Delaware, USA)

Monday, 14 February 2011

Beautiful Birds (15): An Afternoon of Swan and Snipe

We visited a new hide on Gower in South Wales on Saturday 12 February, and thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle of three juvenile Swans (I'm not good at identifying juveniles!) as they preened themselves in what seemed to be a courtship display. It certainly appeared to be a case of 'three is a crowd'.

This was the view from the hide at the end of a short boardwalk. The next three photos were taken by David ...

Photo: David Gill

Suddenly there was a flutter in the air as a bird of prey darted through the thicket on the far bank. David managed to take a few quick photos as it flew past. We thought at first that it might be a Kestrel, but have just read that a female Hen Harrier had been spotted in the same vicinity. If anyone cares to confirm an identification for us, we would be delighted!