My lockdown garden bird list has leapt from 46 to 53 species in the last three weeks. The ‘new’ species were Cuckoo, Hobby and Sand Martin (summer migrants) and Mallard, Little Egret, Herring Gull and Skylark. Little Egret was a garden lifer too – but now I’ve seen it three times. Here’s the list (with…
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Bird song (46) – Common Crane
Cranes are now rare breeding birds in the UK having established small populations in East Anglia, the Somerset Levels, Humberside and some parts of Scotland. What amazing birds they are, and they make amazing noises too. Here are some Cranes singing to each other. These are not UK recordings but if you were very lucky…
Hatched!
The Blue Tits in the nestbox in my garden have hatched, judging by the behaviour of the adults over the last few days. There are millions of pairs of Blue Tits in the UK, but these are ‘my’ Blue Tits and are special (to me at any rate). One parent was flying down the road…
And the winner is…
Congratulations to Emma Claxton Russell whose entry to this blog’s Lockdown Nature-writing challenge was voted as your favourite (by a clear margin). There were over 40 entries submitted and I chose a shortlist of a dozen. There were 219 votes cast and Emma’s writing gained 41 of those votes. Congratulations to her! I’ll be sending…
Paul Leyland – Ashy Mining Bee
Social Distancing Week 8. Ashy Mining Bee. Paul writes: One of the good things I’ve discovered about looking for insects closer to home are the unexpected finds. The Ashy Mining Bee ( Andrena cineraria) is my best this spring, it is a first for my local patch, OS square TA0978. It’s a bee that I…
Sunday book review – On the Trail of Wolves by Philippa Forrester
Philippa Forrester, the UK broadcaster, spent over a year in the greater Yellowstone area with her film cameramen husband and their school-aged children. This book chronicles her encounters with wildlife and with Americans. I’ve been to Yellowstone twice and seen Grey Wolves there both times (and Grizzlies and Black Bears and a bunch of other…
Tim Melling – Lapwing
Tim writes: if Lapwings are being watched by a predator (or a human) they sometimes pretend to have a nest in a different area to where their actual nest is. Because of this Lapwings were thought to be deceitful birds and the collective noun is a deceit of Lapwings. Chaucer said that the bird was…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
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Feathers 2
In the previous blog I estimated the number of feathers on living wild birds to be around 420 trillion. Now I’ve had the chance to check a few things I’d like to revise the estimate a little. The logic strikes me as pretty good. How many (wild) birds are there in the world and simply…
Feathers 1
I was sitting in the garden, looking up at the sky, waiting for an exciting bird to fly over, when, as you do, I started thinking about how many feathers there are in the world. Now I’m not thinking about the ones in duvets, pillows or jackets, I’m thinking about live feathers attached to live…