Snettisham Beach this morning as the mist cleared and the tide rose – brilliant. We didn’t exactly have the place to ourselves as there were lots of people with binoculars and telescopes (maybe 100 or so) but we were all outnumbered by around 100,000 waders or more – probably more than half of them were…
Category: VERY BIRDY: birdwatching and birding nattering
Kingfisher reporting rate
Yesterday’s BirdTrack reporting rate graph was Kingfisher. I’m not sure I would have identified this species from its reporting rate – it’s not a very common/obvious species because its reporting rate is quite low. What happens in June – September? Is this when juveniles disperse and there is more whizzing around and indeed more calling?…
Blackbird reporting rate
Yesterday’s Birdtrack reporting rate graph was Blackbird. The biggest clue is the high reporting rate through the year. As with all the reporting rate graphs (reporting rate is the proportion of all complete lists of birds in which the species is recorded) the shape of the graph is affected by where birders go and what…
Green Woodpecker reporting rates
Tim Melling’s photographs and text on Green Woodpeckers on Saturday were well-timed for me because on my recent visits to Stanwick Lakes, my local patch, I’ve recorded Green Woodpeckers on each recent visit even though I’ve not seen a single one. They are very shouty at this time of year. And I’ve heard some from…
Keeping track after Lockdown
I’ve gone back to look at the BirdTrack reporting rate graphs for two species which I think exemplify Lockdown – House Sparrow and Little Egret. During Lockdown from 24 March until late May there was a big increase in reporting rate (% of complete bird species lists entered into Birdtrack) for House Sparrow. The simplest…
Flying a kite in east North Northants
I live in east Northamptonshire at the moment, in a District Council area called East Northants which is the eastern end of Northamptonshire and is one of seven district councils; East Northants, Northampton, Wellingborough, Corby, Kettering, Daventry and South Northants. But soon Northamptonshire is being split into two new local council areas: West Northants and…
Swifts
My run of seeing Swifts every day above my garden lasted from 1 May until 13 August – I think that is 105 days. They were difficult to get on the last couple of those days – both times it took until late evening to see one. But none on 14 and 15 August and…
The milk of avian unkindness
When I was a kid our milk was frequently attacked by marauding gangs of Great Tits and Blue Tits. For younger, perhaps puzzled, readers this was a long time ago in the days when doorstep deliveries of milk were the norm and milk was full fat and the ‘cream’ was noticeable in floating to the…
An interesting paper
These results show that shooting has a greater non-lethal effect on crows than trapping. While trapping may be a more efficient way of removing crows than shooting, shooting not only reduces the number of nuisance animals directly, but also affects their behaviour and habitat use so that damage is reduced indirectly. https://bioone.org/journals/Ornithological-Science/volume-19/issue-2/osj.19.125/Alert-and-Flight-Initiation-Distances-of-Crows-in-Relation-to/10.2326/osj.19.125.short
Pallids in Pas-de-Calais
I’m interested in Pallid Harriers for a number of reasons; they are very beautiful birds, they are expanding their range dramatically westwards in an interesting manner and I have a bet with my friend Ben Koks (which I will be happy to lose) that Pallids aren’t going to have bred in the UK by the…