Tag Archives: greenfinch

Bad birdwatching

Posted on March 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

The title of this post is unashamedly borrowed from the book “How to be a bad birdwatcher” by Simon Barnes (The Times sports writer and RSPB columnist), which I started reading today while I was waiting for my son to finish his swimming lesson. Having discovered what was meant by ‘bad birdwatching’ I can’t think of a better way to describe my fascination with birds and wildlife:

“…the first aim of being a bad birdwatcher: the calm delight of the utterly normal, and the rare and sudden delight of the utterly unexpected”. Genius.

I’ll write a review of the book when I’ve finished it, but please don’t hold your breath, reading a book is a fragmented and necessarily slow process these days.

Please forgive my rambling but there is a point to this. This morning I was planning to head to the lake beside the A14 between Histon and the northern edge of Cambridge to look for grebes, geese, ducks and cormorants. However, in the course of the last week I’ve seen green woodpecker on several occasions in and around the carpark at work on Cambridge Science Park. As I still don’t have a good photograph of a green woodpecker I reasoned an early morning stroll around work may enable me to put that straight. So that is where I headed.

Initially there were no woodpeckers to be seen but on a dull grey morning the trees and bushes were alive with birdsong:

Robin singing his heart out in an alder tree. He wasn’t alone, plentiful dunnock and wrens were doing the same…

…as were numerous greenfinch, but this one clammed up as soon as I tried to photograph him. (Whilst taking this picture I was approached by a security man who said my camera looked like a shotgun. With the lens hood on at full zoom maybe a blunderbuss… but not a shotgun, surely!)

Cambridge Science Park is located on the northern edge of Cambridge bordered by the A14 to the north and the A10 to the east, it is around 1km in diameter and in keeping with the rest of this part of Cambridgeshire is as flat as a pancake. It was created in 1970 and some of the old trees and scrub remain between the buildings and the landscaping. These, along with small lakes and streams in drainage ditches form a good variety of habitat which is generally undisturbed.

I’ve worked on Cambridge Science Park for 15 years but I had no idea this WWII pillbox was tucked away in the undergrowth until yesterday. (The pole in front of the dog has bat boxes at the top so I was very pleased to see the proactive approach to conservation).

Consequently there is alot of birdlife, from kestrels and sparrowhawks to water birds – ducks, coot, moorhen – and songbirds – greenfinch, goldfinch, great tit and I’ve seen goldcrest and lapwing on rare occasions. There are plentiful rabbit too and as a result it’s not uncommon to see foxes out the window hunting for a meal.

The Science Park was vibrant with birdsong during my walk and as time progressed the sun came out and it got warmer. I didn’t see any unusual species but the sheer numbers and volume of sound made for a very enjoyable walk.

One of numerous dunnock livening up the Science Park with their Springtime singing…

…and one of a flock of long tailed tit

A male great tit feeding on one of several bird feeding stations

… a magpie

…and a moorhen

Lots of birdlife to be seen, and all within a 500m radius of where I work. But I still hadn’t seen a green woodpecker. So I decided to head over to the lake within 500m of the Science Park where I know there are waterfowl including greylag geese… and green woodpeckers.

The lake didn’t disappoint. There were moorhen, mallard, greylag geese, great crested grebes – and even a single green woodpecker which was flushed up from the ground and disapperad into some distant and inaccessible trees.

Male, left, and female mallard

Greylag goose

The greylag goose is the bulkiest of the Anser goose genus and is the species (Anser anser) from which domesticated geese originate. Studies of greylag geese led the zoologist Konrad Lorenz to rediscover the theory of imprinting – the phenomenon you are probably familiar with, of baby nidifugous birds (those which leave the nest at a very early age) imprinting on their parents, which can be a human being if that is the first creature they encounter after hatching.

Konrad Lorenz was an interesting man and a glance at his Wikipedia entry reveals he was an Austrian biological scientist, born in 1903. He graduated from Vienna University as a medic in 1928 and received his zoological doctorate in 1933. He joined the Nazi Party and indicated his support for their ‘racial hygeine‘ theories (one of the worst obscenities of the 20th century in my opinion), accepted a chair at the University of Konigsberg in 1940, joined the Wehrmacht as a medic and was shortly after captured by the Russians and eventually repatriated to Germany in 1948. He went on to study aspects of animal behaviour, later extrapolating these to apply to humans, and in 1973 he received the Nobel Prize for medicine for studies on social behaviour patterns.

Returning to natural history, there was a pair of great crested grebe on the lake which I were hoping were going to display:

But this time I was unlucky. When displaying, they swim away from each other then turn simultaneously and swim rapidly toward each other and when they meet they rear up in a necking dance before repeating the whole process. I haven’t yet been able to get photographs of this beautiful courtship ritual, but I’ll keep looking.

I said at the top of this post that there was a point to the ‘bad birdwatching’ reference. I set out yesterday specifically to try to photograph green woodpeckers which I think are spectacular. I only caught a fleeting glimpse of a woodpecker, and no pictures, but I had a lovely time looking and seeing all the other wildlife.

So I guess by Simon Barnes definition I’m a fairly shabby example of the birdwatching fraternity! But I’ll live with that.

Histon forays, weekend 5th – 6th March 2011

Posted on March 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

This weekend I’ve been out and about on my regular walks north of Histon. (Click here for a sketch map of the locality). Yesterday I was out around the fields to the north between Histon and Cottenham. It was a cold grey morning and it was noteworthy for several reasons.

The birdlife was plentiful. (Click here for my wildlife diary where I’ve listed all sightings). Just a few minutes after telling my friend, David, that I hadn’t seen a corn bunting for around 6 months but that they frequent that area in numbers during the summer and disappear very quickly after the harvest, we saw one sitting in a bramble:

It was the first one this year and the first of several we spotted yesterday. It was a good morning for buntings in general. Last time I was here, around three weeks ago a mixed flock of reed bunting and yellowhammer were in the east end of the Owl Shed Hedge (see post from 29th Jan entitled “Buntings abound: 29th and 30th January 2011“). They were there again on Saturday and reed bunting were present in most of the hedges and ditches we peered into. Skylark were present in large numbers too, singing up high and darting around low. A look on the floor of the Old Water Pump, which has a platform for barn owls to roost and breed, revealed numerous owl pellets most of which were very old, but some of them looked fresher, possibly from within the last 6 months.

One of the ‘Pump House’ barn owls from three years ago

This is a very good thing as barn owls haven’t bred there since 2008 and I haven’t seen one in the vicinity since last year, and then only a couple of sightings all year.

Other appearances which livened up the walk were a muntjac deer, Muntiacus reevesi, introduced from China to the UK in the first half of the 20th century, which was rooting around at the back of the gardens of the houses on Cottenham Road, and a stock dove was sitting in the trees in the same area. I may have seen these before and mistaken them for wood pigeon, but David’s expert knowledge put me straight on the differences. They don’t have the white neck and wing bands of the wood pigeon and they have a dark eye which is diagnostic – that of the wood pigeon is lighter.

I set off in the other direction this morning to head out of Histon north west towards Oakington along Guns Lane and into Rowleys Meadow. I took a slow walk and was very adequately rewarded. Right at the start of the Lane where it joins Cottenham Road blue tit, great tit, greenfinch, chaffinch, starling and song thrush were present and finches were singing constantly,

Greenfinch male singing for a mate in the top of a tree on Guns Lane

…and a chaffinch male displaying his gorgeous black and white tail in a fan. I’ve posted a few photographs of chaffinch lately, even though they’re common I think they’re spectacular!

A couple of surprises today, firstly the number of bullfinch; I saw a single male in Rowleys Meadow which may have had a female with it but I couldn’t see it well enough to confirm, and another pair of males flew along Guns Lane hopping from hedge to hedge infront of me for 50-100m. And secondly, the number of dunnock. They were present in every bush and bramble in the Meadow and on the Lane singing constantly – if you haven’t heard dunnock song, have a listen here, it’s lovely.

Dunnock sitting on a bramble singing

Dunnock have a rather interesting approach to breeding. They don’t pair off as most birds do, a female will be mated by at least two males who will stimulate the females to eject a rivals sperm from the cloaca with their beak. DNA analysis has shown young in the same clutch can have more than one father. I like dunnock, they look boringly grey/brown when seen flitting around the undergrowth, but when they catch the light they are certainly not drab. And their song and their antics at breeding time are anything but boring!

Just as I was about to leave the countryside and head home I noticed a pair of starling sitting on top of a hedge checking out me and the dog. As I turned to point my camera at them they didn’t fly away but simply kept an eye on me so I could get this picture:

The glorious plumage of the starling!

Spring is well underway now and the activities of the wildlife are reflecting that. It’s a great time to be poking around in the woods and hedgerows.

Buntings abound: 29th and 30th January 2011

Posted on January 29, 2011 | 1 comment

This weekend my meanderings took me to the open fields Histon and Cottenham, an area I haven’t properly explored for quite a long time. As I set off early on Saturday morning the weather was murky and very cold and consequently I was feeling pessimistic about encountering the local wild creatures.

Fortunately I was mistaken. The wild creatures were there aplenty. Flocks of mixed gulls, rooks, Corvus frugilegus, (N.b. I’m planning to make a taxonomic index of Latin names for the species on an adjacent page so I can avoid writing them here), and in particular, wood pigeon, Columba palumbus. Wood pigeon can often be seen in flocks but on this occasion there were many flocks, the largest containing thousands of individuals. They are a farmers curse as they can devastate fields of new shoots, hence the sound of shotgun fire punctuating my progress. My father told me stories of my grandmother being given wood pigeon during World War II – a valuable source of free meat – and when opened up the crops liteally exploded as they were stuffed completely full of fresh green shoots. Multiply that up by several thousand birds and the damage they can do to crops is obvious. Still, they’re impressive to watch in those kind of numbers.

My aforementioned pessimism was tempered by the sight of hazel trees, Corylus avellana, covered in catkins, the first suggestion of approaching Spring time.
Hazel saplings festooned with the first catkins of 2011 – Spring is imminent!

And indeed, a friend told me on Monday morning she had seen daffodils shooting in the village. So I reckon that makes it official. In the same hedgerow as the catkins – the Merlin Hedge – (click here for a sketch map of my walk route), were a flock of greenfinch, Carduelis chloris, and a small group of fieldfare, Turdus pilaris, feeding on the ground. The greenfinch were manic, chasing each other as a flock around the fields either side of the hedgerow.

Turning right at the end of the hedge heading past the Yellowhammer Hedge – which didn’t contain any yellowhammers, or indeed any other birdlife – a big fox, Vulpes vulpes, was standing in the middle of the field beyond watching me and the dog:

A fox taking a keen interest in what me and the dog were doing

The fox was around 300m away and the quality of the image gives a good idea of the murky grey weather condiitions. Doesn’t convey how cold it was though! This one has a distinctly grey coat and I’ve seen foxes in this area before with similar coloration, so it could be the same one or one of his offspring. He’s close to where foxes reared a litter of cubs last year so he could be one of that family. After the excitement of seeing the fox, I was scanning the adjacent field for any other signs of life and spotted a second fox – it could have been the same one but he’d have had to move very fast to get to the second location. And as it disappeared through a hedge a group of three roe deer, Capreolus capreolus, entered the same field.

Roe deer bounding across a field – and a bird taking to the air somewhere between me and them

The dog spotted the deer as soon as I did and immediately pricked his ears up, he was around 25m away from me and in order to avoid any dog/deer interaction I called him and the deer instantly turned to look even though they were around 300m away. They have incredibly acute hearing.

Between us and the deer were a flock of skylark, Alauda arvensis, on the ground (it could be one of them taking off in the photograph). It was impossible to count them accurately as they were whizzing around at very high speed close to the ground where their camouflage rendered them almost invisible, but I estimate there were between 10 and 20.

I’d been hoping to see yellowhammer, Emberiza citrinella, and I’d spent some time peering at the Yellowhammer Hedge and the surrounding fields but without seeing many birds at all. Then as I approached the end of the hedgerow leading to the Owl Shed I could see a flock of small birds flitting between the hedge and the Fallow Field and they turned out to be a mixture of reed bunting, Emberiza schoeniclus, and yellowhammer:

Mixed group of reed bunting and yellowhammer

Female yellowhammer
…and a male of the species. What a glorious colour!

Both species were numerous and could be seen flying around the hedge all the way along to the Owl Shed and dropping down onto the ground to look for food and to hide from me.

Reed bunting male

Young male reed bunting

The remainder of my Saturday morning sojourn was not quite so lively but numerous fieldfare, redwing (Turdus iliaca), chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) and a kestrel (Falco tinunculus) were busy around the pig farm.

On Sunday 30th January the weather was brighter and more mild so I set off again towards the Owl Shed to try to get some more photographs. Despite the improved weather there was nowhere near the amount of wildlife around I’d seen the day before, although a hare (Lepus europaeus) appeared in the field where I first saw the fox. And fortunately the reed bunting and yellowhammer were still in the end of the hedgerow where I’d left them on Saturday, although not in the same numbers. So I got my pictures and then had to rush home to get off to my nephews 18th birthday party.

A very enjoyable weekend all round, and in particular the Emberiza species congregated in the Owl Shed Hedge.

1 Comment

Posted in Birds, Buxhall Farm Histon, Deer, Walks around Cambridge and Histon

Tagged birds, Cambridgeshire, Carduelis chloris, catkin, Cervus nippon, chaffinch, Columba palumbus, Corvus frugilegus, Corylus avellana, Emberiza citrinella, Emberiza schoeniclus, falco tinnunculus, fieldfare, fox, Fringilla coelebs, greenfinch, hare, hazel, histon, introduced species, kestrel, Lepus europaeus, Nature, redwing, reed bunting, rook, sika deer, Turdus iliaca, Turdus pilaris, Vulpes vulpes, wildlife, wood pigeon, yellowhammer

Winter garden birds

Posted on December 29, 2010 | 2 comments

The prevailing weather conditions have made me ponder what this post should be about, but a glance out the window made it immediately obvious that the numerous bird species in and around my garden would be a perfect subject. As I’ve mentioned previously, I feed the birds through the winter and as this one has been particularly prolonged and cold, and it’s still only Christmas time, my hanging and ground feeders have been kept topped up with mixed seed, niger seed, peanuts, sultanas and fat balls. There are numerous wild bird food suppliers out there and the one I prefer to use is Vine House Farm in Lincolnshire. The quality of the feed is always good and they take a proactive approach to managing their farm to encourage wildlife. Consequently the food isn’t always the cheapest but I’m happy to pay a little extra to support them.

The variety and numbers of birds visiting the gardens in my vicinity has been remarkable. Within the last week there have been numerous tits – blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus), great tit (Parus major), coal tit (Periparus ater) and long tailed tit (Aegithalos caudatus).

Great tit male eyeing up a meal of seed on a bitterly cold morning

Long tailed tits usually appear over the space of 30 seconds or so, gorge on the fat balls and as rapidly disappear into a nearby tree. Coal tits appear on their own, take a seed and sit in the buddleia bush whilst they shell the seed and eat the contents and then usually fly away. They occasionally stay for more than one seed, but not often. Blue tit and great tit behave quite differently, they are omnipresent and there can be up to 3 or 4 visiting at any one time. Great tits are usually fairly nervous, they take a seed and sit at the back of the buddleia making maximum possible use of the available cover. Blue tits are much less neurotic and whereas they will take a seed and fly off to eat it, they sit in much more exposed locations. They are also happy to take on the resident robin (Erithacus rubecula). He’s a feisty little chap and he takes up position on a plant pot on the edge of the undergrowth and chases off all the other snall birds from his patch, particularly dunnock.

The resident robin guarding his territory on the flat feeder

The robin also stands on the flat feeder repelling all comers, but the blue tits have devised a technique to deal with this. They hang upside down on the edge of the feeder while the robin is on top and then flip over the top, grab a seed, and vacate quick-sharp to the buddleia bush giving the robin no time to attack.

Finches have also been conspicuous, up to half a dozen chaffinch are omnipresent in both front and rear gardens feeding on the ground. Before replenishing the flat feeder I sprinkle the remaining seed on the grass and under adjacent shrubs for chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs), dunnock (Prunella modularis), robin, wood pigeon (Columba palombus) and collared dove (Streptopelia decaocto) to graze on. There are always several chaffinch of both genders brightening things up:

Cock chaffinch resplendent in the freezing rime

Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) show up every day to feed on niger seed and in the last couple of days an immature greenfinch (Carduelis chloris) has appeared. Other regular visitors include blackbird (Turdus merula), dunnock, collared dove and wood pigeon which feed either on the ground or on the flat feeder and starling (Sturnus vulgaris) which gorge on the fat balls along with blue tit and long tailed tit. Less frequent visitors include wren (Troglodytes troglodytes), rook (Corvis frugilegus), carrion crow (Corvus corone), magpie (Pica pica) and pied wagtail (Motacilla alba).

Pied wagtail visiting during the coldest, snowiest, part of the recent cold snap

On several days over Christmas a flock of gulls consisting predominantly of black headed gulls (Larus ridibundus) has been swooping low over my front garden and the lawns on the other side of the road. I don’t know what’s attracting them but they’re a welcome addition to the roll of birds visiting my garden.

Black headed gull in winter plumage perched on a telegraph pole on Cottenham Road

As well as our resident birds there are lots of Scandin-avian visitors too. Opposite my house is an orchard-garden with lots of fruit trees and taller trees immediately adjacent. Since Christmas Day have been full of redwing (Turdus iliacus) and fieldfare (Turdus pilaris). It’s entertaining to watch when the fieldfare flock are feeding on fruit on the ground and someone walks along the pavement, within a couple of seconds the whole place comes alive with hundreds of birds heading for the perceived security of the taller trees.

Fieldfare heading to the orchard floor for a fruit feast

Redwing are feeding on the bright red berries of an enormous bush whose identity is unknown to me. There are many tens of them and they have been in situ for the last three days in such numbers. The pale face stripes and red patch around the leading edge of the wing are very pronounced and distinguish them from the songthrush which is similarly sized but lacks the stripes and the red patch:

Redwing – one of the sizeable flock surviving the winter in the garden opposite mine

And the other Scandinavian visitor which has descended on the UK in large numbers this winter due to the particularly dreadful weather in Norway is the waxwing. I posted on waxwing (Bombycilla garrulus) a few weeks ago after seeing them for the first time in Brimley Road, Cambridge. There have been several reports of waxwing sightings in Histon on the Cambridge Bird Club ‘What’s about’ blog in the last couple of weeks but despite keeping a look out I hadn’t seen any myself… until yesterday. I took a walk to Narrow Close in Histon with my daughter, Sophie, where we found three waxwing in the top of a tree which were feeding on haw berries. We positioned ourselves behind a road sign and watched them for half an hour flitting between the top of the tree on one side of the road and a hawthorn hedge on the other:

Waxwing sitting in a hawthorn hedge

I think waxwing are absolutely exquisite and I’m immensely pleased they have descended on Histon, within a couple of hundred meters of my house. I planted a rowan tree in my garden three years ago to try to attract winter visitors such as waxwing but after a year or two of weak flowering and fruiting it keeled over and died. I don’t know why it failed but after a succession of very cold winters culminating in a ‘waxwing winter‘ the thought they could potentially visit is making me think I should try again. I took another walk to Narrow Close early this morning where there were 8 waxwing feeding on haw berries in adjacent hedgerows.

Another waxwing harvesting haw berries

A green woodpecker (Picus viridis), sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) and grey heron (Ardea cinerea) have also passed overhead in the last two weeks. The best thing about the wintry weather is the abundance of wildlife that can be seen by simply putting food out on a regular basis. Most of the photographs in this post were taken in my back garden, and all of them are within 200m of home.

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Posted in Birds

Tagged biodiversity, birds, black headed gull, blue tit, Bombycilla garrulus, chaffinch, coal tit, dunnock, fieldfare, goldfinch, great tit, greenfinch, histon, long tailed tit, migrant, Nature, Parus major, redwing, rook, waxwing, wildlife, winter visitor, wren

Winter garden visitors

Posted on November 10, 2010 | 3 comments

Redwing and fieldfare have now made the journey south from Scandinavia to overwinter in the fields and hedgerows of the UK and the first frosts have happened over alot of the country. The weather has turned generally pretty cold so it’s time to spare a thought for the struggling wild creatures. I’ve now cleaned and replenished my feeders to help the birds survive the winter months. For example, a blue tit weighs between 10-12 grams so a night spent asleep in sub-zero conditions is an extremely challenging time and they need regular food supplies to keep warm. You’ll notice the photographs in this post weren’t all shot in the cold winter months but all the species shown are regular winter visitors to my garden.

Greenfinch waiting for a vacant space on the seed feeder

I hang bird feeders from the trees in my front garden with peanuts, mixed seed and fat balls in along with a ground station with peanuts, seed and sultanas. There are some good online suppliers out there including the RSPB, Soar Mill Seeds and the one I’ve now been using for a few years is Vine House Farm. This combination of feeds attracts a wide range of birds including starling, blackbird, blue tit, great tit, long tailed tit, robin, greenfinch, chaffinch, rook, jackdaw, carrion crow, collared dove and wood pigeon.

Wood pigeon perched in the cherry tree in my front garden

One of the Churchyard rooks sitting on a neighbours’ TV aerial contemplating a raid on the ground feeder

One of the blue tit pair in my crab apple tree checking for danger before disappearing into the nest box

There are also infrequent visits from great spotted woodpecker, song thrush, wren, sparrowhawk and even a yellowhammer put in an appearance on one occasion.

In my back garden I also hang peanut and mixed seed feeders and a niger seed feeder for goldfinch. I have two suspended seed feeders above ground out of the way of marauding cats and squirrels which work well for ground feeders such as chaffinch and dunnock. A similar range of small birds appear in the back garden but the crows, woodpecker and sparrowhawk don’t seem to venture in there, but dunnock and goldfinch are regular visitors all through the year.

Goldfinch – one of this years offspring. It still doesn’t have the black head markings and the face is pale orange rather than the deep red of the adults.

Adult goldfinch

Dunnock

Living on the edge of countryside surrounded by gardens with big old trees and an orchard is obviously a good place to be to see birds (and bats in the summer), but being in the middle of the village or even in the middle of a city like Cambridge, well away from countryside, doesn’t preclude seeing interesting birdlife. A friend in Histon has seen siskin and redpoll in his garden, neither of which are common garden birds, and another friend in the centre of Cambridge has regular visits from sparrowhawk and jay. So simply hanging up a couple of birdfeeders with nuts and mixed seed can turn an urban garden into a mini nature reserve, and you can sit in the warm with a cup of coffee and watch it all out the window. I’ve been amazed to see what has turned up in my garden in the last few years!