Category Archives: Bird Watching

Bee-eaters and Bad Photos

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We went to see the Bee-eaters at East Leake Quarry today. I had been planning a visit to Bempton to see the Puffins but Julia persuaded me that we really should visit the rarities. My experience with rare birds is that they have normally gone by the time I get there, or if they are still there I wouldn’t recognise it if it pecked me on the bottom.

The viewing area with Bee-eater tree in background
An unusual sign
Bee-eaters at East Leake

Take Richard’s Pipit as an example. They turn up regularly and excite twitchers. To me they’re just a brown bird, as are most of the other pipits.

The postcode is LE12 6RG if you want to pop along. Parking is £5, split between farmer and RSPB. The car park is 385 yards from the viewing area, according to the volunteers at the car park. These things are important when you have a bad knee.

The meadows on the way to the viewing area were full of butterflies, including Ringlet (hundreds of them!), Meadow Brown, Comma, Small Tortoiseshell and Large Skipper. There were some Whites too – but at a distance they all look the same to me. I need to get my eye in again. I didn’t manage many photos as they kept fluttering about instead of settling.

Two Large Skippers at East Leake
Large Skipper at East Leake
Comma at East Leake

Eventually we arrived at the viewing point. The birds proved to be very obliging, using a selection of dead branches to perch on when eating bees. Julia managed to watch one eating a dragonfly., which I missed because I was watching one posing in the sunlight.

They are bright and exotic birds, but in truth just a little bit garish, like a bird designed for a Primary School project. Still good to see though.

We only saw three against the maximum of seven that have been seen, but with any luck the others are off nesting. There are records of successful breeding in the UK, as detailed in the links at the beginning of the post, so there is no reason why they shouldn’t be breeding. They like to burrow into sandbanks and this is a sand quarry with an active population of Sand Martins, who also burrow into the banks.

Poppies at East Leake
Meadow flowers at East Leake

Sorry the photos aren’t very good, but the birds were a long way off. It wasn’t just me having problems – the people with the big expensive lenses were having problems too. When the day heats up, things start to get hazy, and this spoils the photo quality. I don’t feel as bad about my photos now…

Book Review – The Most Perfect Thing

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The Most Perfect Thing

by Tim Birkhead

Bloomsbury (2016)

Hardback 220 pp  £18.99

ISBN-10: 1632863693

ISBN-13:978-1632863690

I started reading the book and was instantly taken back to my days producing hatching eggs. Though I’d worked part-time while I was at school, I’d only reared chicks and worked in a hatchery. When I started full time they found me a job on a breeding farm run by a manager who had started working with poultry in the 1930s and had been a lecturer at agricultural college.

While the book taught me about eggs I was drifting back in a parallel world where I was a teenager again, being taught the same things for the first time. I was surprised by how it all came back.

There was also a lot in the book that I didn’t know, which was interesting and wide-ranging, but also possibly one of the faults – in a few places I felt it did get a bit lecturing. It didn’t stop the flow of reading, or detract much from the enjoyment, but it did jar slightly.

Despite this it was easy reading, so I was educated, informed and entertained at the same time and could, if time had allowed, have read it all in one sitting.

I’m happy to recommend it to bird watchers and general readers, with just one proviso – it’s very good, but it doesn’t strike me as the sort of book I could love. There’s just something a little cold in the tone. But that could just be me – don’t let it put you off.

 

A Misty Dream

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Actually, there is no mist involved, but I think I used the days of wine and roses quote as a title before. I also used it in a comment I made on a blog last night, so I don’t want to overdo it.

Yesterday I visited the local duck pond for the first time in months. Even when I’ve been well, I’ve been tired or out of sorts and the trip has seemed too long. Last time I went the yellow flags were just starting to flower. Now they are finished. Being somewhat morose at present, I can’t help seeing it as a metaphor for my life.

A cup of tea soon dispelled that thought (no biscuits – I’m on a diet) as very few depressing thoughts survive tea and sunshine. Even a comparison to the pond couldn’t dampen my spirits – I’m happy being shallow.

Anyway, enough of the introspection, and on with the character assassination.

Canada gosling and parents
Moorhen family
Young Coot

Earlier in the year I mentioned that a woman thought the white ducks were swans. I was, I think, a little critical. In fairness I shouldn’t really have a go at her for being as dim as a 40 watt light bulb, or say that there…

No, I still think there should be a permit system for breeding. Two kids per family and none at all unless you’re smart enough to distinguish a duck from a swan.

While I was reflecting by the side of the pond yesterday a group came to feed the ducks, led by a woman who, to be chivalrous, was older than me. This is old enough to know that geese don’t have cygnets!

The pictures show geese with their goslings, some young moorhens and coots and some ducks in eclipse plumage. Eclipse plumage is the dull, almost camouflaged, plumage that ducks grow when they moult after all the hassle of raising a family. I can sympathise.

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Mallards in eclipse plumage

Later there was a small child called Sam (name changed for Safeguarding purposes, and because I forgot it). His mission in life seemed to be to feed birds and use huge amounts of energy as he ran round saying hello to people. I would have been happier if he hadn’t introduced himself to dogs by holding out his arm in such an appetising manner, but even the Staffordshire Bull Terrier with leather harness and tattooed owner merely licked his hand and allowed itself to be stroked.

 

 

 

 

 

Almost According to Plan…

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Well, it rolled out almost as I expected.

I loaded the pictures, I had lunch and I read a couple of chapters of the book  I’m currently reading. That wasn’t actually in the plan but I like to keep the momentum going.

Things ground to a temporary halt. Just as I entered the surgery some ferrety type slipped round me to beat me to the desk. I hate it when people do that. If they get there first, that’s life, but why treat it as a race? Naturally he had a complicated matter to sort out. I dropped a few hints, like leaning on a convenient pillar and whimpering.

I was just on the point of suggesting (a) he accepted the “wrong” drugs on his prescription and (b) he took them all in one lot when the receptionist called for help.

Shopping was easy enough. The kids like breaded chicken and it’s cheap. Add salad and baked potatoes and it’s easy, cheap and mostly healthy.

Then it was time to get home for Pointless.

You may have noticed a few omissions, but I forgot the ice cream (and the brown sauce) and decided it was too hot for duck ponds.

I see I got my sons mixed up. It was Number Two son I coerced into doing the washing up and Number One who was coming to visit. He made his own way from the station, which was a bonus. We had tea, they mumbled, I dozed off.

It’s comforting to know that in an ever-changing world that some things remain the same.

Nature note: Julia was walking along the embankment in the afternoon on her way between the garden and the office, when she saw a Cormorant catch an eel. It was quite a big eel, and kept thrashing about until it wrapped round the bird’s neck. This is understandable, as things were clearly going to end badly for the eel if it couldn’t escape.

After a certain amount of thrashing about and diving, the bird won. I’m not sure what the diving was meant to accomplish, the eel clearly wasn’t going to be inconvenienced by it. Eels like water.

When I asked if she’d managed to get any photos on her phone…

…well I’d have been too interested watching too.

Tomorrow I will tell you, with photographs, what Number One son brought back fron Vietnam.

More from Bempton Cliffs

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Sorry about the short post yesterday, but I was a bit tired by the time we got home. At just over two hours each way it was a longish trip, but worth it because of the quality of the paths and views of the birds.

Even as we travelled up the A1, under almost cloudless blue skies, I could feel the curse of daytime TV lifting from my soul.

The sun was in the wrong position for photography, with much of the cliff being in shadow so I didn’t get many shots. Fortunately the young Gannets were relaxing in the sun and gave me plenty of chances for photography. I’d have preferred a few Puffin shots but you can only take what’s in front of you.

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Gannets don’t breed until they are about five years old. The ones in the picture are around that age, as they have just about lost all their adolescent black feathers. Next year they will breed, but this year they are practising their bill fencing and preening. It’s not a bad life.

At the end of the summer they will fly as far south as West Africa.

There were other birds too, but they weren’t as interesting.

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That’s a bit unfair really, but I was tired and limping and I can get quite unfair. I can also be quite short with people, as one idiot found when he wandered in front of the car in Bridlington.

We went for fish and chips in Filey and ate them on the seafront. It’s an interesting place, but I didn’t have the energy to take photos. It was a big piece of superbly cooked haddock and took a bit of eating.

There were House Martins nesting under the eaves of the chip shop.

 

Another trip to Bempton Cliffs

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We went to Bempton Cliffs today. It was a testing drive after months of being virtually housebound but it has, we thought, the best paths and least walking of all the places we visit.

We only saw a couple of Puffins which flew directly into burrows, so they were probably males on the way back with food.

I cheated on the Featured Image, as the second picture shows.

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Puffin Poster – Bempton Cliffs

More to follow tomorrow but here’s a video of Gannets…

Yellow Flags, Ducklings and Swifts

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Things are changing in Arnot Hill Park, the shrubbery has finally come to life, and the trees are in bloom. A pair of camera-shy Song Thrushes took cover in a horse chestnut as I approached and the trees were full of annoyingly elusive birds.

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There’s nothing quite like yellow flags for cheering the heart, particularly when you’ve just been confined to the house. I like irises, and I particularly like the yellow ones so it was good to see them in bloom this morning.

As you may be able to tell from the photos, the water has changed colour to an exotic blue-green, while we’ve been away too.

There are ducklings about too – though they are a bit of a handful from the parenting point of view. The first ones I saw seemed to be attached to a pair of Red Crested Pochards but they made a rush for freedom, the adults swam off and the ducklings carried on by themselves. I think they may actually have been Mallards, as they seemed to stay with the adult Mallards.

Round the other side of the pond I found more Red Crested Pochards, this time with four ducklings. I’m amazed by how fast they are for such small things, particularly once you try to get the camera on them.

Incidentally, I’m back on the old camera as it’s easier to slip into my pocket and…well, to be honest, I can’t remember where I put the other one last time I used it. That’s how bad my memory has been during the last few weeks.

Finally, alerted by high-pitched squeaks I found a family of Moorhens with four chicks. Two of the chicks swam across one of the islands and took refuge inside the wire bastions they use for extending the islands. It makes a nice secure cage for chicks, though the other two kept to open water. Typical kids, you have a nice safe cage for them and they make for open water.

There are also two Coots sitting on eggs, so there are more chicks to come.

Moorhen wtih chicks
Mallard duckling – Arnot Hill Park
Moorhen chick in cage – Arnot Hill Park
Duckling in Arnold – Red Crested Pochard

Unfortunately the Mandarin seems to have gone, so no more Odd Couple.

The film clip shows a pair of Mallards feasting on unappetising scum. No wonder they do so well if they are prepared to eat that.

And finally – Julia was out in the street this afternoon when she heard screaming calls, Looking up she saw eight Swifts. Looking down again after a few moments of Swift watching, she found a woman staring at her as if she was mad.

Who can tell?

Rufford at Last!

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I finally managed the trip to Rufford.

The car journey was only the first step, the hundred yards of varied slopes between the car park and the lake was more of a problem.

It was worth it to sit in the sun and watch a pair of Moorhens struggling to build a nest with unsuitably large twigs. (It wasn’t so much the struggle as the persistence that made the watching worthwhile).

Things are very different from our last visit, with fewer birds, more sun and a lack of seating space. Where the winter visitors (the human ones, not the birds) tend to walk round the lake it seems that the summer visitors, who are generally older than the winter ones, like to sit. It was very pleasant to sit out in the sun, and I enjoyed it after all the time I’ve spent indoors recently. My only reservation is that sitting in the sun with a group of octogenarians is a clearer vision of my future than I want.

As soon as I’m out of hospital I’m going to start doing that list of things that’s been at the back of my mind for years.

Fortunately there’s no skydiving or mountain climbing involved.

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Hitler and the Avocets

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“I cannot help thinking that if only Hitler had been an ornithologist he would have put off the war until the autumn migration was over.”

Manchester Guardian”Country Diaries” September 1939

I suppose most readers will already have a view on Hitler, and that it is unlikely to be based on the impact he had on European ornithology. However, as the quote shows, people are able to view major historic events and see them from a very different point of view. They may even find the energy to write to the papers about it.

It also shows that the consequences of major events can be far-reaching and quite significant, even if they don’t involve battles and the fall of governments.

In the case of the Second World War this included bombing my mother, training a new generation of naturalists, and flooding large parts of eastern England to defend against possible invasion.

Another, better known, example features the struggle with malaria. In the war this involved the wonder chemical DDT, which continued to be used in great quantities after the war as the answer to many problems. The inventor even got a Nobel Prize in 1948  “for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison against several arthropods”. It was also highly effective at reducing the viability of birds’ eggs and nearly wiped several species out in the UK.

However, back to the flooded lands. As luck would have it, a party of Avocets drifted across the sea from Holland in 1947, and found conditions that suited them for breeding. At Havergate Island the army had accidentally breached the sea wall during training and at Minsmere the coastal area had been deliberately flooded as a defence against German landings.

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Avocets

 

At that point they had been extinct as breeders in the UK since 1842 due to the pressure from hunting, egg collectors and taxidermists. It seems to be a factor in the decline of rare birds, such as the Passenger Pigeon and Great Auk, that the rarer they became the more desirable the few survivors became to egg and skin collectors.

Gradually the Avocets consolidated their position, becoming the symbol of the RSPB along the way. From four pairs in 1947 we now have 1,500 pairs according to the latest figures.

For another example of how WW2 is contributing to wildlife, see this link.

I found this whilst looking up DDT. The mind boggles.

Thanks to Rodney Read and the Chatburn Village website for the well researched story of the bombing.

Now, where was I?

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Wales, I think.

We’d seen the kites, and we’d ended up eating at Burger King.

Next day we went across Anglesey to South Stack, where I reported unfavourably on the toilets.

The stiff note of reprimand I’d planned for Travelodge has still not been written because, like so many I have planned, I never quite get round to it. My indignation doesn’t last long, which is probably a good thing.

However, I do stand by my original view that a Little Chef (closes 8pm), a Burger King and a petrol station shop do not equate with the words “Guests can enjoy a variety of food and drink choices within easy walking distance from this hotel.”

The choice between Little Chef and Burger King in culinary terms (when you are looking for something nice because you are on holiday) is a bit like the choice between a cystoscopy and a colonoscopy. Obviously my recent hospital experiences have extended my range of comparisons, even if they haven’t done much for my temper.

The trip across was painless, though we did miss using the Menai Bridge. Once at South Stack a cheery volunteer explained what was available, and where to find the Choughs. We soon spotted one flying in and out of one of the sea caves where they were nesting, but it was a long way away and could easily have been a Jackdaw. They were a lot easier to see last time we were there, but that was later in the year.

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Two Jackdaws hung about as we walked the cliff top, giving us plenty of false alarms, but we did manage to see plenty of Choughs too. They obligingly called as they flew over, a softer call than the crisper call of the Jackdaws, and more chuff than jack.

We got some good views of Skylarks and Meadow Pipits and a Whinchat. Best views of the day were a selection of Stonechats that we saw in the field with the Iron Age hut circles. I wonder how it happened that 3,000 years ago someone thought “Let’s build houses on the most exposed and inhospitable corner of the wettest part of the UK.”

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The bird photos were all poor but several flowers,lichen, a lizard and several buildings did stand still long enough for me to get some decent shots, despite the hazy light. It was just warm enough to wake the lizard but cool enough to keep it slow.

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Footprints of a dog

At some point a dog had stood in some wet cement by the roadside. Roadside grit has blown into the prints to give them some form. I was annoyed by missing all the bird photos so I took a photograph.

On the way back we used the Menai Bridge, which was more interesting than the other one.