Creature of the Week – Gadwall

Long time no post! Apologies that I have been a little lax in posting. Life has kind of taken over but I’m back and have some wildlife related adventures coming up over the next few months that I can hopefully share with you!

I’m starting back with a Creature of the Week. I happened to spot this little chap at Wollaton Park in Nottinghamshire. Just this single male from what I could see and he seemed rather too friendly for a true wild bird (he was being hand fed when I first spotted him) so I suspect he is actually an escape that has got a bit lost.

But it let me get a lot closer to this beautiful dabbling duck. Often referred to as a ‘grey’ duck, the male has a glorious array of patterned feathers and seems rather delicate next to the brash mallards. He wasn’t as perfectly preened as I would have expected with his feathers a bit ruffled and the definition between the varying patterns were indistinct and not quite the clean separations you normally see. This is most evident on the white bar or speculum which is normally a clean white block next to the black rump.

He was silent, but as a breed they are fairly chatty with a series of low croaky sounds that make them sound like a chorus of frogs not a flock of ducks.  And during breeding season when the males have a lovely little ‘pee’ whistle when courting a female.
We have a small (790 pairs) resident breeding population but over wintering birds swell the numbers to around 25,000*. They like the shallow vegetation around the edges of lakes and gravel pits and occasionally visit coastal lagoons.
*Breeding figures from the RSPB

Free guide to British Geese

You can now download my free guide to identifying British geese! Great to have on your smartphone or to print out as a helpful addition to your bird guide! Just click on the picture below.

Identifying Swallows, Swifts and Martins

This post about telling the difference between the most iconic summer visitors, the Swallow, Swift and House & Sand Martin. (For the purposes of this basic guide, I have grouped House and Sand Martins together as their outlines are the same, although they are two species)

Generally speaking, most people new to observing nature will notice Swallows, Swifts and Martins in the air. Swifts in fact rarely land at all. They are like little aircraft zooming around, backlit against the sky. Because of this, identifying between the species using their silhouetted outline is often the only clue, other than by listening for their songs and calls. So that's what we have- the silhouettes of Swallows, Swifts and Martins. Click on the images to go to the RSPB page for the bird to find out more detailed information.

 

 Everyone loves Swallows, even if they aren’t sure what they exactly look like. Their tail streamers pretty much give them away though. These are the chaps most likely to be sitting on telephone lines, giving us the chance to admire their beautiful plumage; glossy blue-black on their back, ruby red throat and white under parts. If we carry on the transport metaphor, Swallows would be the classy sailing ships. 

 

 House Martins are cheerful little birds, stouter and more compact than both their similar cousins. They lack the streamers of the Swallow instead showing a shallowly forked short tail, shorter wings and black and white plumage. House Martins would be the plucky World War 2 bombers. Sand Martins have the same silhouette, although are brown and white and more likely to be seen lower down over water than high up in the air.

And the Swift. The most aero-dynamic of all, rarely settling or landing other than to breed. Long, scythe-like wings emphasise its angular shape. In free flight its tail is pointed, with an occasional hint of a fork, but can also be splayed out into a wedge shape to use as a brake or rudder when banking sharply in pursuit of insects. Their dark sooty colouring and eratic flight and definitely make the Swifts the modern fighter jets of the sky's. 

The Unexpected

Generally speaking, blue tits are pleasant garden birds that you tend to overlook when something more interesting comes along. However, I have now found myself in the position of placing the blue tit in the ‘something more interesting’ category. I live on the outskirts of Nottingham City Centre, in Sherwood to be precise (not actually near the forest of Robin Hood fame, that's about 20 miles up the road) and right off one of the main roads into the city. There are very few trees in the immediate vicinity, where back yards predominate over gardens. On my little street all my neighbours have been steadily renovating their tiny front gardens into something more manageable. This involves removing the few trees and decent sized shrubs in favour of hard landscaping and pots of petunias.

I do have a bird feeder, but its only customer is a fat woodpigeon. There are sparrows nesting nearby and pied wagtails often cheep overhead, but that's pretty much my lot. So imagine my surprise that whilst hanging my washing out, I hearing the sweet yet monotonous calls of blue tits. I am even more surprised to realise they are no more than 3 metres away from my in next doors back yard, hanging around in whatever large leggy plant is growing wild from under the decking. Its a small family group with recently fledged young still begging for food. I stand in amazement that after nearly four years of living in my house this is the first sighting of a blue tit. So much about wildlife watching (bird watching in particular) is about the rare and the extraordinary. Its nice to be reminded of the simple pleasure of seeing the ordinary in unexpected places.

*disclaimer – OK, so I haven’t managed to get a shot of the blue tits at mine yet.  So enjoy this image taken in my parents back garden in Yorkshire!

What does a nuthatch sound like?

Surprisingly loud! My nature mission for 2012 is to make a conscious effort to learn more bird songs and calls. I know what the obvious things sound like, robins, magpies and pigeons etc, but sometimes I hear something and I will know its not a sound I recognise.

So I am listening to the songs and calls and aiming to identify those I do know, but also figure out what is making the sounds I don’t know. Sometimes I just have to write down as much information about the song or call and where I heard it to work out later. But of course the easiest way to figure out what is making a particular song is to find the bird making it! Not always easy, I grant you, but today it worked. I heard a loud, single note, a sort of ‘twee!’ sound, not exactly what you would describe as beautiful and if anything a little shouty. I located the area of trees the shouty sound was coming from then saw some movement. At first I thought it was a lesser spotted woodpecker from the size and the fact it was, well, pecking. But when I looked through my camera lens (didn’t have binoculars with me) it turned out to be a nuthatch! Take a listen to the nuthatch call. The pecking behaviour was the nuthatch chiselling open an acorn or nut that it had wedged in the tree.

I managed to fire off a couple of shots before it flew off, apologies for the quality. Getting a decent image of a nuthatch has always alluded me!

Creature of the Week

I plan on doing some little posts highlighting a seasonal creature that has captured my attention, but also one that you can get out and see too!

The first to take the honour is…….. the Redwing! I remember the first time I saw a redwing. It was about 6/7 years ago in an inner city supermarket car park. Not the most promising of wildlife locations I grant you and it was a complete fluke that I saw them, but they were there for a very good reason. Berries. They love them and supermarkets tend to plant berry-bearing trees and shrubs in their car parks to brighten them up. They are winter visitors to the UK and will venture into towns and cities more when there is cold, frost and snowy weather to find food. Redwing are members of the thrush family, and at first they look a lot like your garden song thrush but are smaller, with the additions of a natty cream eye stripe and a small orangey-red patch just under the wing. Yep, its one of those helpfully named birds that describe itself.

A small flock has been hanging around my local park for the past few weeks, so I went off in search of a photo opportunity. The extremely icy conditions and cold temperatures weren’t the best for wildlife photography, but I managed to get a few nice shots. 

Little Brown Jobs and Large Flapping Things

You like watching the birds in your garden and watching nature documentaries on the BBC, but you still wonder what all the little brown birds that streak in front of your kitchen window are.  You go to the seaside and other than the ubiquitous seagulls, but can't identify what all those long-legged, long-beaked things far out on the shore might be. During a walk in the local park you spot little footprints in the mud but haven't  a clue what might have left them. Sound familiar? You probably grabbed a copy of a wildlife guide or looked on the internet for help, only to realise there are far more 'little brown jobs', seashore birds and small furry creatures than you thought possible.

I literally memorised my bird guide as a child only to find applying the knowledge in the field impossible. Birds and animals don't stand there in a good light, side on whilst you look them up in the book. No, they flit about in bushes, are backlit against the sky or are so far away it could be a stuffed bear for all you can tell! After becoming so frustrated that I couldn't find a book (or website, software even app) that covered British birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians in way that helps both the novice and more experienced wildlife lover identify creatures, I decided to try to create my own....... Stay tuned.