Birding

Saturday January 30 

We're running a day late with Winterwatch, as a result of watching Man U lose to Sheffield United on Wednesday night. Therefore, I didn't watch Thursday's episode until after I'd posted yesterday's Blog. What came up? A session on virtual birding being a good replacement for the real experience. As I posted earlier, enjoyable, but not a replacement, something stimulating to do whilst in lockdown. 

My favourite live, virtual birding videos, are all found on YouTube. If you ask for nature cams or more specifically, bird cams, a whole host of live feeds come up. There's a particularly good - recorded live - clip of Brown Bears standing on top of a small waterfall, catching salmon in mid leap as they travel upstream. A Waved Albatross sitting on its nest in tall grass was unexpected. A Florida Bald Eagle nest already has two newly hatched eaglets, the slightly larger of the two already attacking the younger at every opportunity. The parent looks on.

The best bird table cams are Climbers Run in Pennsylvania and an Alabama bird table cam. It doesn't get light there until past mid-day our time.

Back to yesterday when we did some local birding. Adrian was finishing the gutter cleaning, so it was late morning before we left in sunshine. The light soon deteriorated as it clouded over, and we drove home in rain. I don't remember ever seeing so many flooded meadows where there have been none before. Small inland lakes. 

Haddiscoe Marshes held the largest flock of Lapwing I've ever seen. There must have been well over a thousand swirling into the sky before re-settling. Add several hundred Starlings, it becomes a monumental storm cloud of birds. One female Stonechat made a brief appearance.

We also added Meadow Pipit to the year list.

Having failed to see the Walcott Mediterranean Gull so far this year, we drove to our favourite spot where there were at least ten, still in their winter garb. Their constant preening, feathers drifting away in the breeze, heralded the spring moult into their black-headed, deep red beak and legs glory. 

Stopping to turn round, Pam hesitated, as there was a gull in the way. She then identified it as a Yellow-legged Herring Gull. Excellent. My snatched photo out of the driver's window does not do the bird justice.

 

One flooded field had four White Wagtails tittuping around the water's edge. I know that this is the nominate race and not always counted on the UK list. They're on mine.....

 Enjoying a hot drink at home, Pam appeared - in a rush. I managed to see the Grey Wagtail as it flew away from the pond. 

Another quick, Pam appearance from the kitchen, added Mistle Thrush to the year list. 

TO-DAY 

We did an hour's garden bird count this morning for the annual RSPB citizen's science project. We had an admirable 17 species of bird visit during that hour, including Brambling, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Redwing and Magpie.