Visiting Female Blackcap

 

Blue tit and female Blackcap

Last year we felt very privileged to have Blackcap visitors in the garden, and once again we have been delighted this week by the presence of a female. I wonder if there is a male waiting in the wings. What beautiful birds these are, and what fine bills they have. We have clocked up February and March sightings in previous years, but this is the earliest by a good few weeks.

New Garden Visitor

We have been delighted this last week by the arrival of a new garden visitor: meet the Blackcap!

In fact, we have two for the price of one as a female (see below, 3rd and 4th pictures) has joined the male who features in the top two photos. If, like us, you spot these birds in the UK over the winter months, your sightings can be logged here. Since the 1960s more and more Blackcaps have been staying here all year round.

These photos were taken through glass on a dull day, but I think you can easily see that the male has a black cap. Well, no surprises there. The female, on the other hand, has a rich chestnut top to her head, so it is easy to distinguish between the sexes. 

Blackcaps are not rare: they have been awarded Green Conservation Status. However, it is always a thrill when a new species of bird is spotted in our home patch. As you can see below, the Blackcap is 'our' 27th bird to date. It is also our 1st new species for 2020. Blackcaps are members of the Warbler family. The RSPB site describes their song as 'fluting'.

The male Blackcap in our garden bides his time in the ivy around the coconut feeder, then when he feels the moment has come, he moves in and asserts his position in the pecking order. The female seems less feisty: she oftens waits to appear until the Great tits and Robin have stepped back. 

Avian sightings in our home patch: unlike the rules for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, a bird seen clearly from the house or garden counts for my purposes. We have, for example, yet to see a Grey Heron landing in our home patch, but I have had good sightings of these birds flying over in the direction of the local nature reserve, one road away, and perching on a neighbour's roof. We have often heard the local Tawny Owl, but I am not counting 'birds heard' (unless they are also seen) at present. [R] indicates a regular visitor and [O] an occasional one.  

• HPb1   Great Spotted Woodpecker [O] [2019]
• HPb2   Great tit [R] 
• HPb3   Long-tailed tit [R] 
• HPb4   Blackbird [R]
• HPb5   Song Thrush  [27 April 2019 - a pair]  
• HPb6   Blue tit [R]
• HPb7   Robin  [R] 
• HPb8   Magpie [R] 
• HPb9   Wood Pigeon  [R] 
• HPb10 Dunnock [R] 
• HPb11 Starling [R] 
• HPb12 Carrion Crow [R] 
• HPb13 Goldfinch  [R]
• HPb14 Jay [O]
• HPb15 Green Woodpecker [O]
• HPb16 Wren [O]
• HPb17 Bullfinch [19 January 2017]  
• HPb18 Sparrowhawk
• HPb19 Mallard 
• HPb20 House Sparrow [1 June 2019] 
• HPb21 Chaffinch 
• HPb22 Grey Heron
• HPb23 Collared Dove [R]
• HPb24 Coal tit  
• HPb25 Redwing [20 January 2017] 
• HPb26 Kestrel  [8 June 2017]  
• HPb27 Blackcap  [30 January 2020 - a pair]  

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:

Snipe | Dunnock | Nuthatch | Teal | Redstart | Shoveler
 Treecreeper | Little Grebe

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  . . .

1. JANUARY Feral Pigeon (USA and Suffolk, UK)
2. Starling (Liberty Island, NY, USA) Jan 2012 [red conservation status in the UK]
3. Egret (wetlands outside New York, USA . . . hard to tell which species, I think 'Little') 
4. Red-tailed Hawk (NY, USA) [L]
5. House Sparrow (Liberty Island, NY, USA) [red conservation status in the UK]
6. Mute Swan (Mistley, Essex, UK)
7. Shelduck (ditto)
8. Bar-tailed Godwit (ditto)
9. Common Sandpiper (ditto)
10. Carrion Crow (ditto)
11. Ring-billed Gulls (rivers Hudson and Delaware, USA) [L]
12. Canada Goose (river Delaware, USA)
13. FEBRUARY Blue-tit (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK)
14. Goldfinch - a flock (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK)
15. Moorhen (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK)
16. Rook (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK) 
17. Buzzard (Suffolk, UK)
18. Red Kite (Kirby Hall, Northants, UK)
19. Long-tailed Tits (Suffolk, UK)
20. Robin (Suffolk, UK)
21. Redwing (Suffolk, UK) red conservation status
22. Fieldfare (Suffolk, UK) red conservation status
23. Mallard (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK)
24. Blackbird (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK)
25. Great Tit (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK)
26. Coot (Flatford Mill, Suffolk, UK)
27. Magpie (Suffolk, UK)
28. Greylag Goose (Shotley peninsula, Suffolk, UK)
29. Cormorant (River Orwell, Suffolk, UK) 
30. Pied Wagtail (Ipswich, Suffolk, UK)
31. Black-headed Gull (Ipswich, Suffolk, UK)
32. Herring Gull (Ipswich, Suffolk, UK) red conservation status
33. Lapwing (Orwell Bridge, Suffolk, UK) red conservation status
34. Oystercatcher (Orwell Bridge, Suffolk, UK)
35. Lesser Black-backed Gull (Suffolk, UK)
36. Wigeon (Suffolk, UK)
37. Red-legged Partridge (Shingle Street, Suffolk, UK)
38. Pheasant (Shingle Street, Suffolk, UK)
39. 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?

Garden Birds (1): January 2011

January 2011: my Garden Bird Wordle

We were surprised how few birds we saw in our garden during the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch last week. I thought it might be interesting to log the species seen each month from our home here in South Wales, UK. This will just be the result of 'casual' observations - nothing very scientific, but it will be interesting to see whether the variety of species noted increases as the weather improves. The larger the size of the word in the Wordle above, the more birds of that species it represents. My only guidelines have been as follows:

1] To record birds that are seen from the house.
2] These birds must land (e.g. on the lawn, in a tree, on a fence or roof).
3] If I know that a pair of birds (e.g. the male and female Blackbird) are regular visitors, I will only count them once for a particular, even if I notice them most days.

In case you are interested in the actual numbers, well, here is my estimate (based largely on our RSPB Birdwatch hour, since the idea of a monthly round-up for January only came to me retrospectively):

• Starling - 21 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  (Red Conservation Status)
• House Sparrow - 4  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Red Conservation Status)
• Chaffinch - 4   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Green Conservation Status)
• Magpie - 2  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   (Green Conservation Status)
• Blackbird - 2 regular visitors, a male and a female . . . . (Green Conservation Status)
• Dunnock - 2  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Amber Conservation Status)
• Great Tit - 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  (Green Conservation Status)
• Song Thrush - 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Red Conservation Status)
• Robin - 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  (Green Conservation Status)   

N.B. the RSPB site says that male and female Robins look identical, with only the juveniles lacking the fine red colour. I had always thought that female Robins were more muted than males.

Robin (Erithacus rubecula)