Category: VERY BIRDY: birdwatching and birding nattering

I’d be very surprised if your mindset and mood haven’t changed a bit in the last week, maybe particularly in the last 24 hours. The world is a different place. So, what to write about in times of corona? Some of the things that I normally write about won’t happen (my diary is emptying rather…

I’ve been at the races at Cheltenham for the last three days. My first visit to this racecourse was 26 years ago on the Wednesday (at that time, the middle day of three) of the 1994 Cheltenham festival (of racing, I gather there are other Cheltenham festivals). On that day the first race was won…

I have been away from home, on a course at a meeting in the Cotswolds, but on Tuesday morning i was standing outside my home when I heard a strange song. Well, it started strangely, sounding almost like a Sedge Warbler’s stacatto song but it then resolved itself into a melodious Blackcap. I didn’t see…

Forty years ago, in early April 1980 I helped my boss Dr John Krebs (now Prof The Lord Krebs of Wytham Woods, FRS) to finish off a field experiment looking at the function of bird song. Bird song is thought (I would say known, actually) to play important roles in both territorial defence (in birds…

I walked to the postbox down our street the other evening. The post is collected at 9am but so often when I think ‘I’ll pop along in the morning’ I later end up thinking ‘Missed the post again’. So in the evening gloom I strolled along the road past Victorian red-brick houses on the right….

I guess there is usually a Dunnock in my garden, but I certainly don’t see them all the time. Even when they are picking up scraps under the bird feeders, and are in plain view, they seem to be more inconspicuous than other birds. Dunnocks don’t draw attention to themselves and are often described as…

This is a rather prosaic subject but, here goes, what’s the difference between a song and a call? Like many things, it seems pretty straight forward until you get into the depths of the subject. So let’s rise above the detail. Consider the farmyard fowl. A cockerel, cock or rooster crowing is an example of…

Yesterday morning, I filled the kettle but paused, before turning it on, to listen. Outside the back door I could hear a Song Thrush singing. Opening the door, and taking a step outside, this single bird’s song was almost the only sound. About 100m away I could see the bird in question near the top…