Crested Tit and Red Squirrel

 I took a woodland stroll, on one of those rare sunny, early Autumn days in the Highlands, heading to the RSPB’s reserve at Loch Garten, on the edge of Abernethy Forest. Red Admirals basked on a mini digger in the car park, enjoying the warming sunshine ahead of their migration. I take the path past the new buildings, under the dappled shade. Although Garten is a pine woodland, it still takes on autumnal colours, as the birch understory turns to yellow, and the few scattered Rowans take on vivid shades of orange before the leaves drop.

Today was the first day the Visitor’s Centre is closed, and I am not alone, a few tourists wander bewildered in frustrated hope of coffee, and the bird feeders still hang, full of peanuts, against the red pine trunks, among the big plantation trees fringing the paths through the wet bog woodland. Chaffinches and coal tits are in attendance, making use of the provided bounty of peanuts, but there are scarcer, less familiar birds here. I eat my lunch and settle on one of the carved wooden benches.

 

The crested tit is heard before it is seen. They are vocal little birds and their call is distinctive, a high, surprisingly loud, slightly confrontational sounding trill. Then it emerges from the small pine sapling and pecks at the peanuts, confiding as a Robin, and as at home on the feeders as a Blue Tit in a suburban garden.  A tiny bird, only a little bigger than a coal tit, grey and prominently crested, a delicate pattern of black markings picking out the facial features, and distinctly warm, red brown coloured eyes catching the Autumn sunshine.

 

In the British Isles, Crested Tits are confined to the Cairngorms region, tied closely to the Caledonian pine woods there. They are reputed to be shy; though these individuals seemed as bold as any garden bird, happily making use of the peanuts provided for them. They are found throughout Europe, and are not even closely confined to pine woods across much of their range, leading to speculation the Scottish birds may be genetically distinct. Relatively sedentary birds, there cannot be a great deal of gene flow between this population and those separated by the length of Great Britain or the broad North Sea. So they cling on in relative isolation, doing their thing as they have done since the ice age. While in Autumn and Winter they can be drawn down to feeders in the woods, in Spring and Summer, during the breeding season, they are almost undetectable, remaining concealed in the high canopy, frustrating the summer birders who come looking for them, unless they are lucky enough to spot one or more dropping down to a puddle for water.

 

My feeder and two crestie companions draw a small circle of admirers, I am not the only birder with a camera who has noticed the light is good today. And something of a show of woodland wildlife is unfolding, as the low blaeberry shrubs rustle and part, and a young Red Squirrel gingerly approaches. He clambers up the log from which my feeder hangs, dappled sunlight catching his deep russet fur. He knows we are here, and still approaches, nevertheless his approach is far more cautious than that of a park Grey Squirrel with which readers in England are more familiar. He is notably more cautious than his continental cousins, which, somewhat counterintuitively, remain the common parkland squirrel from Paris to Krakow to Korea. He watches the crestie on the feeder, and then, surprisingly, seems to wait his turn on it. I manage to capture a few photos of these two icons of the Scottish pine woods, with the two in the same frame. The Red Squirrel’s story in the UK and its decline, first due to persecution and then to competition with greys, and the squirrel pox introduced with them, is well known, but here in the highlands, though never in the densities that Greys reach in deciduous woodlands down South, they do quite well.

 

They’re not uncommon elsewhere in Europe, where they remain the only squirrel species, and in some places can be found in urban parks, living a similar lifestyle to the greys in English cities. But here among the tall pines they still feel wild, native and exciting. And exceedingly beautiful. The pine woods here are not welcoming to the Greys, failing to offer nutrition in sufficient densities to support these bulkier, lazier arboreal beasts, but there is enough food here to allow the reds, which are by no means a pinewood specialist, the chance to survive and, justabout, for now, to thrive.

 

Puffins- the spell of the Northern Monks.

The little tourist boat out of Ulver Ferry on the Isle of Mull drew towards the towering cliffs of Lunga, largest and northernmost of the Trennish Isles, the chain of rocky little basalt islands in the Inner Hebrides, north of the famous Fingal’s Cave on the isle of Staffa, that great monument to undersea volcanism and geological forces. The water we crossed was crystal clear, and rich in life, fish weaving between fronds of waving kelp beneath the surface, moon jellies, and occasionally more unusual cnidaria, drifting everywhere. At one point even Common Dolphins were leaping beside us.  We docked at a rocky promontory on the island and made our way ashore on the columnar basalt, climbing a short cliff path. The skipper had warned us the birds would hypnotise us, that we’d risk falling into a trance on the cliff path, and would have to come back to the boat without seeing the spectacular heart of the seabird city which lines the steepest cliffs. His warning was spot on, but not heeded.

We sat up on the cliff top, among the wild flowers, the Bird’s foot trefoil and Burnett moths, on the rabbit-grazed, short grass, and watched the comings and goings of the Atlantic Puffins (Fratercula arctica) for hours. Birds flew in off the clear blue water, on wings beating rapidly, with thick, vivid coloured beaks full of silver sandeels.  Adults with food swiftly disappeared into their burrows, even Puffins are not averse to nicking their neighbours’ food, and to the gulls and skuas a Puffin with food on land is an obvious target.  So, they take their food underground hurridly, and unload it for the subterranean Puffling, the single, fluffy youngster waiting in the burrow.  Puffins without bills full of food seemed to enjoy a more leisurely lifestyle, taking some time to enjoy the sun and each other, pairs bill-rubbing and calling to each other, enjoying the bonds which hold them together, companionable, almost romantic. We were, naturally, enchanted by these entertaining little seabirds, and never made the journey across the little island to the spectacular Guillemots and Kittiwakes up on the towering sea stacks.

My paternal Grandma loved Puffins, and as such I must have drawn and painted hundreds of pictures of them, and bought puffin calendars and birthday cards for her every year. Images of them adorned her home.  They were here favourite bird, and as such have always held a special place in my heart. However I was in my mid-twenties by the time I saw one, on another chain of islands on the West coast, right down in the Scillies.  Puffins tend to live far from us, on rocky offshore islands, like the Scillies or the Trennish, or famously on Lundy, where the Bristol Channel meets the Atlantic.  They visit the coastline only briefly, setting up in April, and gone by the end of July. Their vanishing act is thorough and though wintering puffins were encountered at sea from time to time, it wasn’t fully understood until the advent of geotagging.  Once their Puffling has come waddling out under the sky for the first time, and taken to the sea, the parents remaining tie to land is severed. They shed the bright, temporary sheath which has grown around their bill, and darker feathers grow around the eye, masking the big, white face patches.  They loose the ability to fly during the Autumn moult, and spend the winter upon the ocean waves, living like the penguins of the Southern hemisphere, undertaking deep dives, wings adapted for ‘flying’ underwater. The black and white countershading Puffins, plus several related Auks share with Penguins are an example of convergent evolution, where similar evolutionary pressures lead to similar adaptations.  They retain the ability to fly only because of the need to avoid land predators, and only in the breeding season, to reach their cliff-top nesting sites, and they are at their most graceful underwater.  Then, come March or April, they return to their home island, and reunite with their lifelong partner, smartly attired once again. Some compare Puffins to clowns, given their colourful features and ‘eye makeup,’ and their scientific name compares them to monks, Fratercula arctica means ‘little Brother of the North.’ The name Puffin once applied to any burrow-nesting sea bird, hence the confusing scientific name of the Manx Shearwater, Puffinus puffinus.

Puffins are members of the Auk family, Alcidae, and are related to the Guillemot and Razorbill, as well as the extinct Great Auk. The family resemblance is apparent.  Unlike their relatives, puffins nest not on precarious ledges on the cliffs, but in burrows at the cliff-tops, usually taking advantage of those abandoned by rabbits, though they are capable of digging their own, and often do, take note of the sharp grey claws on their feet next time you are close to one.  A single egg is laid underground, in a chamber carved out for the purpose. The chick remains underground in relative safety, out of the reach of Herring Gulls and Raptors which occasionally prey on Guillemot and Razorbill chicks. Puffins also differ from their relatives in their winter habits. Razorbills and Guillemots can often be seen in winter, forming big rafts just offshore from their breeding colonies, remaining visible to birders onshore all year round, but Puffins are always absent from these agglomerations, preferring to spend the winter in the vast, open Atlantic, the Bay of Biscay and the North Sea, rich fishing grounds to which they have been tracked by modern telemetry techniques.

Puffins have a number of predators, with Gulls and Arctic Skuas all too keen to steal their hard won catch of Sandeels, which the young Puffling relies on almost exclusively, and Great Skuas, Great Black Back Gulls and birds of prey such as Peregrines, will occasionally prey on the adult Puffins. They are even, in some parts of their range, still hunted by man, though not in Britain.  Climate Change, and the loss of Sandeels as a result, and as a result of overfishing remain the biggest threats they face. They are confined to relatively few colonies around the North Atlantic, largely on islands off North America and North-Western Europe, and this reliance on a small number of sites led to the Atlantic Puffin’s listing as Vulnerable by the IUCN, and they are Red-Listed as Birds of Conservation Concern.

Yet at some of their colonies they are thriving, and one of those seems to be that of the Isle of Lunga. Rich, clear Atlantic seas offer them the food they need, and they are bothered little by the tourists who continue to visit their island breeding sites in considerable numbers. They are confiding and allow close approach, and photography. A few nest still at Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire, alongside the Gannets and the occasional visiting Albatross, and though closed this year given the unfortunate impact of the ongoing HPAI epidemic, the Farne Islands still host a healthy population of these charming, entertaining little sea birds. Go and see them.

 

Lapwings

 A light spring mist lies across the lush green grazing marshes of Essex. The tiny herd of cattle stare me down with curiosity as I begin walking across the open field, the morning dew soaking off the grass onto my trousers. A cuckoo calls distantly, one of the closing headliners of the fading dawn chorus. I am looking for something else.  I am alerted to the presence of the bird I am looking for by its alarm call. It lifts into the air on broad, square wings, black and white, climbing quickly and turning sharply, and bears down on me, whistling its curious electronic whistle. The adult Lapwing makes several passes over me, close enough to let me know I am not wanted in its territory, but never close enough that I feel in danger of being pecked.  Its underside is bright white, its wingtips black, its eyes fixed on the potential danger, and its call almost otherworldly, to my mind recalling science fiction ray-guns, or Clangers, perhaps.  To others it may be the archetypal sound of the British countryside in May and early June. The reason for the adult Lapwing not wanting me there, and its reluctance to leave, is close by, at the muddy margin of a small pond, once a creek now cut off from the tidal river, pecking around in the mud. A tiny, awkward, fluffy chick, with a crown of mottled brown and a white collar, it’s one of the few chicks in whose downy plumage one can see the markings of the adult. A tiny, precarious little life, prodding around in one of the few remaining sections of its habitat in the county. The landowners here are rightly proud of their breeding Lapwings, and of the habitat they live in, and go to considerable lengths to protect these birds.

Lapwing, Speyside, Scotland, May 2023

Breeding Lapwings are not a typical part of the countryside in South East England. They have declined significantly since the 1950s, with the advent of intensive farming, and the loss of grazing marshes. They tend to do well on nature reserves managed for them, with water levels and grazing tightly controlled, and predators controlled or else excluded by metres and metres of electric fencing. Where I am now, a long way from Essex, North of the Border and then some, in the lush, green glens of Strathspey, Lapwings, and other farmland waders, are still a feature of the wider landscape, where lower intensity farming methods persist, though conservation organisations build links with farmers to promote their conservation. Elsewhere, small numbers of dedicated farmers and landowners are supporting the Lapwing’s return to the wider countryside, but they face an uphill struggle. They require very specific management, with grass short enough to allow a nesting adult a line of sight, for early identification of ground predators. They are highly vulnerable to predators, especially where shrinking colonies no longer allow a coordinated mobbing response.  They prefer shallow, standing fresh water in their nesting fields to persist into June and July to allow the chicks to feed, and cannot tolerate complete dessication of the soil, a challenge in times of changing climate.

Lapwing, Speyside, May 2023

To many birders Lapwings are very familiar, particularly from their wintering aggregations, their big flocks wheeling in the sky, turning from green-black to brilliant white as the birds bank and turn to evade a passing Peregrine or a Marsh Harrier. They are one of winter’s great spectacles. I recall immense flocks wheeling skyward against a backdrop of distant skyscrapers and wind turbines at Rainham Marshes on the edge of London many times.  One winter flock might comprise locally bred individuals, alongside birds from the near continent and beyond. A study from the Netherlands found that Dutch birds travelled to England, and to North Africa for the winter before returning to the same Dutch fields in Spring. They are individually faithful, as far as we can tell, to their wintering sites, but sometimes snowfall or other severe weather can displace them, and they need to undertake movements South and West to find food. They are largely short-range migrants.  Sometimes their flocks can be seen overflying even urban areas as they search desperately for a gap in the snow.

Lapwing, Lincolnshire, 2021

They are one of those birds which were they scarce or rare we would look at in absolute wonder. They’re a member of the Plover family, perhaps feral pigeon sized, topped with a smart black crest, over a friendly looking face in black and white, with big dark eyes and a short bill. Their undersides are white, and their back a palette of iridescence, mostly green but with notes of red and purple depending how they catch the light. Back in 2011 and somewhat blasé about Lapwings, given the large wintering numbers at some of my local patches, I was a volunteer at the Gialova Lagoon in Greece, where, one bright September day, in the heat, I encountered a Lapwing on the edge of some scrubland, and told my supervisor, she went running off after it, and came back cock a hoop to have found such a beautiful and unfamiliar bird.

Lapwings, RSPB Rainham Marshes, Greater London, 2011

But again, with such a decline in their breeding population, their wheeling summer displays and territory holding electronic sounding calls in an English, or even a Scottish summer, may become confined to specially managed reserves, or worse, a thing of the past. And, while managing for them is not easy, and can be costly, and thankless, it would be a great sadness not to see and hear that. And some people are investing the resources and energy required for Lapwings to return to the Essex countryside. And indeed, later in the season, when I returned to that site, the chicks had become two flighted juveniles, short crested, scaly backed versions of their parents, and it was great to see them making their way across the sea wall, to the Saltmarsh, to feed up on the wealth of shoreline invertebrates, before moving on, to wintering grounds near or far.

Snospurven! Snow Buntings, Plectrophenax nivialis, and all I know about them.

 At the lower station of the Cairn Gorm funicular railway, just above Loch Morlich, not far from Aviemore and part of Britain’s most noted Ski resort, there is a small, and usually astoundingly busy car park, surrounded by high end tat shops and various small, ski-related enterprises.  Emma and I visited the Cairngorms’ eponymous mountain in the hope of catching up with the confiding Ptarmigan for which the lower slopes are noted. The heavens had, the night before, dumped impressive volumes of snow on the towering landscape, and, though some paths up to the Slopes were already well trodden, the mountains, for miles, were coated in a thick, deep blanket of white, softening their ragged edges. Snow brings a curious sense of silence, and seemed to dampen the hubbub of excited skiers, and we looked down on a winter wonderland, snow hanging in the branches of the pine woods of Rothiemurchus, all the way down to the loch shore and beyond.

Snow Bunting, Cairn Gorm, March 2023

There were, despite this being apparently the only centre of human activity for miles here, special, and especially beautiful, birds here. A small band of Snow Buntings perched on the sloping roof of the ski centre. They fluttered down to pick about in the snow beside the green, angular, corrugated iron structure, flashing black and white wings. They allowed close approach, unafraid of the people around. Eventually a small crowd of photographers, armed with long lenses, gathered, and the Snow Buntings were keen and obliging models. Charming birds of high altitudes and the high arctic, last time I visited the flock, apparently a fairly regular fixture around the lower car park and the higher Ptarmigan restaurant during the winter months, had already melted away to their breeding sites high up in the crags. Flocking, and moving around these lower slopes, and being confiding, are winter behaviours. They nest high in the rocky landscapes, males singing atop deserted and windswept crags, where people very seldom tread. Arctic/alpine specialists, they breed right up into Arctic Norway, Arctic Russia, Iceland and Arctic Canada, places of icy extremes. When I visited Arctic Norway, in high summer, ‘Snospurven,’ a ‘common breeding bird,’ were nowhere to be seen.  Both sexes become whiter in summer, as they feed around the snow line, grabbing the insects which drift up on thermals, to find themselves dropped just above the snow line, an easy meal for the Snow Buntings to take back to their chicks.  During the last ice age they thrived across Europe. What impact climate change will have on such specialists as these remains to be seen.

Snow Buntings, Cairn Gorm, March 2023

Britain’s only breeding Snow Buntings are the few hundred pairs in the highlands, but in winter, more do appear in the country, and tend to choose a habitat which couldn’t be more different to the Cairngorms. They gather in small parties on stony ground, usually on shingle beaches, and are a regular fixture in some spots along the East coast. Here, their white-and-sandy winter plumage provides remarkable camouflage, blending readily with the Carstone and iron stained Hunstanton chalk pebbles of North Norfolk.  Here too they can be confiding, on a recent trip to Titchwell it was a joy to find these small and cheerful little birds scuttling around our feet. They can turn up as far South as Kent and Essex, but favour the North and East, making landfall at night as they cross the North Sea from Scandinavia and beyond, from places which make the North Norfolk winter seem mild.

Snow Bunting on the beach at Titchwell, Norfolk, December 2022

When we returned from our fruitless trudge through the snow on Cairngorm, without having seen a Ptarmigan, and a pair of noisy, cronking Raven the only new species on our day list of two species, we found 30 or so Snow Buntings now gathered, and a small crowd of photographers admired them, from just a couple of metres away.  What a privilege to encounter such charming and special birds, at such close quarters.

Cairn Gorm in the Snow. 

Snow Bunting.

The Magic Of Starlings.

 I remember one winters evening when I was a child, walking through an underpass in Romford town centre. The kind of structure beloved of urban planners in the 50s and 60s, dishevelled by the 1980s and 90s of my childhood and youth. I recall reaching an open space at the bottom end of Romford Market, a sort of roundabout for pedestrians, open to the sky and fringed by small street trees. There was a cacophony in the skies, twittering, and the distinct whirring of hundreds of tiny wings. I was in the shadow of an urban murmuration, a big flock of starlings making their way to a communal roost somewhere else in town. I recall even at that young age, fascinated by anything small and flighted, being wonderstruck by this sensational display. Starlings are still common, but when I was a kid a flock of them could darken a grey Romford sky. Not so now. They have declined and become much scarcer since. While murmurations as big and bigger than that one I witnessed circa 1989 and still in single digits, still exist, they are few and far between, and invariably something of an avian tourist attraction, and very seldom in town centres. The Starling’s decline has been rapid, tragic and transformative.

Starlings in Cromer, spring 2022

Starlings are familiar, if not the most popular of garden visitors, I recall my aunt referring to the small bands of starlings which visited her bird table of a winters morning in the 1990s as a ‘raiding party,’ and even today they make short work of the fat balls and sunflower seeds we leave out for them. A pair attempted to nest in the apple tree in the back garden this summer, a glorious, noisy nest in a natural tree hole. They lack the tidy, hygienic practices of Blue Tits and other small passerines, which carefully move the fecal sacs away from the nest to avoid giving away its location. A static waterfall of white bird poo coated the bark beneath the hole. The adults were noisy too, attacking any magpie which landed in the adjacent trees. Sadly, I fear their efforts were not enough to protect their chicks from the big, mean corvids, as the nest fell silent one day, and no brown coated juveniles were seen on the lawn as I had hoped. I believe the garden nest of which I was most proud was not successful.

Starling in Maldon, Essex December 2022

The cause of Starlings’ decline is not known.   Agricultural intensification has led to shortages of food, especially the ‘leatherjacket’ cranefly larvae they particularly enjoy. They are badly affected by environmental pollutants, including medicines in wastewater, where exposed to them, but precise sources of exposure are unclear. Both the wintering, murmuration-forming populations and the resident population, which is highly mobile but not migratory, are in precipitous decline, with various sources pointing to declines of up to 70% since the 1960s, and 51% between 1995-20006.  They remain abundant in the United States, where they were irresponsibly released in the 19th Century, and have since become an invasive species. 

Starlings at a pre-roost gathering in the rigging of a Thames Barge.

But yet, on a winter’s evening on the Somerset Levels, or at Minsmere or Leighton Moss, murmurations in the tens of thousands are still recorded, big wheeling flocks throwing shapes against the cold sunset sky, descending noisily into the reeds, or onto artificial structures- Brighton Pier used to host a famous murmuration, before taking off again in an audible flurry of wings, until eventually, as darkness falls, they settle down, chattering gently to each other, before falling silent until morning, when they rise again in the dawn light, dispersing in small flocks- raiding parties, perhaps- to feed on whatever they can find, probing for invertebrates with the Lapwings in open fields, visiting and emptying your bird feeders, even raiding bins.  The crowd on the promenade sign pictured, from Cromer on the North Norfolk Coast, were eagerly descending on any dropped human food, and making a fuss around the dumpsters behind a chippy.  Individually starlings are beautiful, star spotted, iridescent, especially in the breeding season, when their bills turn from black to yellow and their plumage, with the protective breast feathers worn away over the hardships of winter, reveal a deep iridescence, of blues, greens and purples. Juveniles are solid brown, moulting into winter plumage in unusual patterns- a spangly starling with a brown head, often confusing inexperienced birders. But it is in numbers that they are most spectacular, and sought after, while barely anyone but little child-me looked up as they descended on Romford Market, the roost on the Somerset levels attracted hundreds of eager tourists, watching the Starlings of Bristol and Western Super Mare descend on the whispering reeds of the levels not far from Glastonbury Tour. Families had brought their kids to see them, and photographers brought an arsenal of lenses to capture the strange forms against the sunset. A group of students from Bristol Uni watched admiringly the psychedelic shapes in the sky, while an elderly gentleman with an elderly pair of swift binoculars watched from his mobility scooter. All left grinning along the banks or the muddy canal, to the car park in the dark.

The Otmoor Murmuration

I most recently watched a Murmuration when my partner, Emma and I headed up to Otmoor, the RSPB reserve near Oxford. Even on a grey Monday evening, the anticipation in the air was tangible as the sun briefly appeared through the clouds as it crossed the horizon, briefly flooding the countryside with orange glow before disappearing. We thought, standing in semi darkness, we might have missed the spectacle. However, we needn’t have worried, as the small, oval flocks began to converge in the sky, just above the treeline, merging into each other to form the big murmuration, which flowed in the air, creating strange forms there, ever growing as stragglers came to join it. After a couple of massed passes the starlings began to funnel down into the reeds, The sound, the whirr of wings, even at a distance, make the murmuration a sensory experience. I’ve never heard the sound of a murmuration accurately reproduced in Springwatch or any similar media documentaries, it seems a thing only to be experienced live. They funnelled into the reeds, the flock separating, as if the back end of it needs to wait in a holding pattern behind the disappearing lead birds, flowing back and forth like a liquid wave, until resuming the descent once the first wave had perched up.

The Otmoor Murmuration

Soon the birds had all disappeared into the reeds, though they kept twittering noisily, and one had to wonder what information was being shared down there. After about 20 minutes, something changed, and to our immense surprise, what seemed to be the entire flock took off, leaving the reedbed at speed for something low down on the other side of the path, leaving the reeds outside the hide once again silent.

And singly, they're pretty beautiful too. Starling in Cromer, Norfolk. 

The beauty of a murmuration is incredible. Inspiring. To all. You should probably go and see one. Before it is too late.

Icon of a British Christmas: Robins (Erithacus rubecula) and all I know about them.

 As the season rolls around, and I expect to get this blog online at some point during the festive period, probably, with my inevitable tardiness, around St Stephen’s Day or New Years, attention inevitably turns to a bird which to many in Britain (though not, perhaps, elsewhere) is something of a spirit of Christmas. The gardener’s friend, the European Robin (Erithacus rubecula).

A Robin singing in an English winter.

Robins are a regular feature of my parents’ Essex garden, hopping endearingly out from underneath the hedge to enjoy the seeds and mealworms left out for them. They are noted for following gardeners as they turn the soil, grabbing what unlucky worms and leatherjackets may be turned out, a practice they may have learned from following Wild Boar when those beasts roamed the Wildwood. On the continent, where humans have been perhaps less kind to small birds down the years, they still do this. However Robins have developed something of a special and unique relationship with humans, or perhaps specifically with the British. At my local RSPB reserve, Robins appear eagerly from the bushes for passing photographers, hoping to be paid in mealworms or cheese for their modelling services. When my father was recovering from illness a few years ago, he took some comfort in sitting on the patio, and enjoyed the company of our breeding pair of Robins and their offspring during the summer. He gained their confidence such that he could hold out a hand with a few sunflower seeds or dried mealworms in, and they would come and perch on it. This communion with nature contributed to his sense of wellbeing, when his family were often out at work and University, contributing in a small but life-affirming way to his recovery, and contributing greatly to my admiration for these charming little hedge birds.   More recently, when Dad put mealworms inside the shed for the robins, they learned to use a small hole he cut above the shed door to access this food supply, while the magpies and carrion crows were effectively excluded, though these bigger birds found rich pickings under the bird feeders still. They can be incredibly confiding, nesting openly in window boxes and even in sheds and garages, perhaps taking advantage of many of their predators natural and justified shyness of people.  In British gardens, at least, ones managed with few chemicals and not to be sterile lawns, they thrive in part because of, rather than despite human interactions.  While we have no ‘official’ national bird, robins were voted Britain’s favourite bird, in polls in the 1960s and the 2010s.

Robins are of course, present all year round, although the UK population swells somewhat in winter as the species undertakes a partial migration, with birds from Scandinavia pouring out to the South and West to escape the bitter arctic winter. Some, but by no means all, of the British breeding population cross the channel to France and the Mediterranean.  The oft-repeated question of whether the Robin in your garden in Summer is the same robin in your garden in winter is one which has yet to be conclusively answered, despite some sources leaning heavily in one direction or other. The best answer seems to be they may or may not be the same individual, perhaps depending on where you live. Certainly, plenty do move into the country in the Autumn, my friend Dave Roche, assistant warden at the Dungeness Bird Observatory, recalling seeing many exhausted Robins perched on the sea wall by the Power Station of a cold Autumn morning, having crossed the channel by night in search of more amenable weather conditions.

When I worked for the HOS in Southern Greece during the summer of 2011, Robins appeared with the other migrants such as blackcaps as the weather turned to Autumn, but always kept their distance from us, retreating into deep cover like all the other passerines as we passed. Although they were frequently in our ringing nets on the Island of Antikythera in the Aegean in the Autumn of 2019, I don’t recall ever seeing the shy, continental Robins out in the open, even as Wheatears and Whinchats, distant relatives of the European robin adapted for sparser habitats, would watch us from their rocky perches.  On the continent, robins have been hunted as a source of food for centuries, a practice which continues, mostly highly illegally, in places like France and Cyprus, an enraging anathema to British birders like myself.  The British have long taken a warmer view of this species, perhaps influenced by tales of Robins giving comfort to Christ when he was dying on the cross, their chests becoming stained with the blood of God, or of delivering water to tormented souls in hell, scorching their chests on their way, and it has never really been exploited in the way it has in other places, even when wild birds were still regarded as a source of food here.  In some countries, the Black Redstart, another member of the chat family, and not the Robin, is the archetypal confiding garden bird.

While friends of humans, and very much loved, Robins have a feisty side to their nature. They are famously territorial, their sweet summer and solemn winter song a warning to conspecifics not to infringe on their territories. Intraspecific fighting is a significant cause of mortality, especially for young birds, in parts of their range. My impression is of fights not usually being to the death, indeed, to waste so much of your population in this way hardly makes evolutionary sense, and while the fights are energetically expensive, they do typically end with one bird retreating to seek territory elsewhere. They breed several times in a summer, and are dedicated parents, with adults of both sexes actively provisioning the chicks in the nest. The sexes are indistinguishable, even in hand, and both males and females sing and hold territory. They are one of the few birds to sing in winter, albeit a more subdued version of their distinctive and beautiful song.

While they have long been associated with Christianity and the church, perhaps building on earlier associations in Norse mythology, their association with Christmas is much younger, and probably related to their association with the Royal Mail, whose red jackets recalled Robins’ breasts, and this led to their depiction on Christmas cards. Nevertheless they have become strongly associated with the season, and perhaps this is appropriate. Their habit of singing through the winter makes them among the most obvious of small winter birds. Cold snaps can make many birds more confiding, and Robins are no exception, as they take advantage of the shelter and microclimates, and our cultivated berry bearing plants, of our gardens to feed.  I love Robins, and a day out birdwatching in the field still feels incomplete unless I have added one to my list, whenever I am out and about in a place where they occur.

Unlike many species of birds in Britain and Europe, the Robin seems to still be undergoing a small population expansion, and the IUCN thankfully considers it of Least Concern. With seven million breeding pairs, the RSPB places the species on its Green List.  In Britain it occurs everywhere except the coldest and remotest uplands and islands, and it breeds across Europe from the Urals to Iberia, though of course its habits, migratory patterns and confiding nature are not consistent throughout its range. And I think, a small hedgerow bird of unusual confidence around humans in these islands, and a cheery splash of colour on the gloomiest, figuratively or literally, of days, it deserves all the love and admiration it gets.  So do offer them nest boxes, they like a low, open fronted box, and do feed them, they have in recent years learned to feed from hanging bird feeders in many areas, despite typically being ground feeders, and perhaps, on a reserve where they are already confident, or in your garden if you have the time and patience to invest in gaining their confidence, try dried mealworm, sunflower hearts or even a little crumb of cheese on your hand, and perhaps this magic little bird will bless you with an unforgettable close encounter.

Gannets. Magnificent Gannets, and everything I know about them.

I recently returned from a trip to Lewis, in the Western Isles of Scotland, a land of plentiful seabird life. One species in particular seemed ubiquitous when scanning the open sea, I don't think, on the ferry crossing, I recall a moment when at least one white cruciform shape, on stiff black tipped wings, was not in view. We'd see them fishing in the bay at Ullapool, taking advantage perhaps of the clear, calm water to better pick out the shapes of fish, diving on swept back wings, a single point plunging like a spear into the sea. We'd see them following the boat crossing the Minch, or, in good numbers, following every passing fishing boat. And during our time on the island, though we saw many other seagoing birds while scanning the horizon, Gannets seemed to crop up every day. And well they might, these magnificent birds have shown a consistent, albeit slow increase in population over the past 30 years (JNCC), and while there are no colonies on Lewis itself, Sula skeir, which takes its name from the Old Norse for 'Gannet Island' hosts a substantial colony, some 42 miles North of the Island. Still more nest on that outermost of the Western Isles, St Kilda, and the birds are capable of undertaking fishing trips of up to 270 miles.

Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus), to give them their full English name, breed only in large colonies, with several of these scattered around the coasts of Northern and Western Britain. The largest is at Bass Rock in the Irish Sea, the largest on the UK Mainland, and also one of the most southerly, is at Bempton Cliffs on the Yorkshire coast (RSPB) an RSPB reserve, where, in contrast to many other seabirds, their numbers continue to rapidly increase. A birder I met during a recent visit to Bempton told me he could recall when Gannets were relatively scarce at this site. Now they cover huge swathes of cliff, and fill the sky. Their fat chicks loafed on clifftop nests, heads lolling awkwardly on the rocks, huge black bills with sagging skin. They are odd, ungainly, and so relaxed many of them could be mistaken for corpses, causing Natty and I had brief anxious moments when we first beheld them in their clifftop domain. Gannet nestlings have a curious habit of looking dead when they are sleeping. Adults were constantly on the move, early in the season they could be seen ripping up grass from the clifftops to build their nests, or moving out to sea gathering fish to feed their chicks growing appetites. Non breeding juveniles share these clifftop nest sites, perhaps to learn the way of life of the colony, to observe the feeding behaviour of the adults, and learn the best fishing grounds.

Gannets are, despite their positive population trend, which defies that of almost all other British seabirds, Amber Listed by the RSPB, though the IUCN and Europe both consider the species 'Least Concern'. Though numerous and increasing, they really are almost entirely confined to large colonies, of several thousand breeding pairs. The nests in the colonies are surprisingly evenly spaced, typically just outside pecking distance, and peck, when faced with an intruder, they do indeed, with surprising brutality, comparable perhaps to Gulls and quite unlike more 'genteel' species like Auks. Wandering Gannet chicks have been seen killed by their neighbours when straying too far from their nests (Nicholson). Sometimes they even peck their partners when they arrive back from fishing trips, before pair recognition occurs and they bond again with noisy displays of bill rubbing, which Adam Nicholson describes as a kind of play fighting. They make very good parents, with two out of every three chicks fledging successfully.

The reasons for their bucking the seabird trend is unclear, but they are adaptable, and more than happy to follow the fishing boats and grab any discards, something they do in impressive numbers. From the shores of Lewis seldom did a fishing boat pass by without a small cloud of white crosses following it. The tourist boat from Bridlington in Yorkshire makes spectacular use of this ability, throwing fish overboard when passing the big colony at Bempton, attracting an enthusiastic following of Gannets.  The ability to feed on a range of pelagic fish of different sizes,  rather than be limited to Sandeels like the struggling Auks, probably makes them relatively resilient to local changes, as does the ability to travel many miles in order to catch them, though as to their breeding colonies they display some considerable fidelity to their fishing grounds during the breeding season. Gannets hunt by plunge diving from heights of about 25 metres, sweeping their wings back, their shape transforming into that of a short spear as they dive into the water, either siezing prey just below the surface, or, remarkably, powering down to depths of 30 metres or so, propelled on folded in wings, turning those supreme works of natural aeronautical engineering into simple paddles.  Their heads and necks are powerful and reinforced in order to survive the impact, and serrations on the insides of their bills grasp the fish they catch.

Gannets have relatively few predators. Among their predators is man, with the colony at Sula Skeir attracting a group of licenced commercial hunters from Ness, near Lewis' Northernmost point, to kill a limited number of juveniles every year. Though it does not seem to affect the Gannet's conservation status, and I'll not dwell on this too much, the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty To Animals (SPCA) have described the hunt as 'Barbaric' and called for a ban. I am drawn to agree with them.  Also among their enemies at sea are Great Skuas, which occasionally kill but more commonly just rob Gannets of their hard won food, and White Tailed Eagles, which are considered important predators of Gannets on the coasts of Norway, where both species are common.

 

There are more than one species of Gannet around the globe. The Cape Gannet (Morus capensis), often featured in documentaries about such phenomena as the Sardine Run, is distinguished from the Northern, our sort of Gannet, by the extensive of black on the tail and primaries. It breeds on six islands off the coasts of South Africa and Namibia, and is considered Endangered by the IUCN. The Australasian Gannet (M. serrator) is common and widespread, and increasing, along the temperate Southern coasts of Australia and New Zealand. The dramatically marked Boobies of Equatorial regions are slightly more distant relatives, retaining the generic name Sula.  The Northern Gannet colonies around the British Isles are globally important, hosting as much as 55% of their global breeding population, and they can be seen, while sea watching, almost anywhere, especially in the Spring and Autumn, and at their colonies, of which Bempton is probably the most visited and most accessible, and, for me, something of an annual pilgrimage. There are not just Gannets to be seen there, but Puffins, Guillemots, Fulmars, Kittiwakes and others, as well as fantastic cliff views. They hang about there well into August, though the site is best visited from April to June for the full show. The photos here were all taken on a recent visit to Bempton, at the beginning of August, where the presence of the Black Browed Albatross, which eluded me, offered me the excuse to head down there and enjoy avian spectacle and some twitcher camaraderie.

Above all, I find Gannets stunningly beautiful. Sharp, pointed, and profoundly wild, but equally stunningly elegant. They are the largest seabirds regularly found around Britain, though their colonies occasionally attract even bigger guests in the form of lost Albatrosses which have ended up on the wrong side of the equator. Their pure brilliant white body feathers, those jet black primaries, the warm yellow ochre of the neck and head, their graceful, long winged glide as they pass by in their small bands, often incorporating both adults and black feathered juveniles. I love the joy of their pair bonding displays. And I find them somewhat hopeful, a rare success story among the troubled guild of piscivorous seabirds of the North Western Atlantic.

Wanderings in the Strangest Summer. Frampton Marsh, Lincolnshire, and Coombes Valley, Staffordshire.

 Frampton Marsh, 8th August 2020

On a bright and sunny day, with a fresh breeze blowing, Natty and I headed to Lincolnshire to join my old friend Brian at Frampton Marsh, the RSPB's fantastic, relatively new and expanding, reserve beside the Wash in Lincolnshire.

Spoonbills, and a Moorhen.

Here we were greeted near immediately by a flock of 17 or so Spoonbills, a sight which would have been unheard of just a few years ago, another brilliant white heron-like wetland bird establishing, or perhaps reestablishing itself,  in British wetlands. The birds largely kept their spoons concealed, tucked under wings out of the sun and wind. The flashes were covered in Knot, Dunlins, Black Tailed Godwits, the latter in all plumages from tango orange to ash-grey, as though dressed for the summer.'s funeral.  Among the waders Brian picked out a couple of Curlew Sandpipers, smart, dunlin-like waders with bold supercilliums.

Spotted Redshanks

We continued to enjoy a veritable late summer wader fest, with so many returning migrants from the far North and East, graceful Spotted Redshanks in their near white winter coats, so different in their movements to their commoner cousins, Common and Green Sandpipers, and a very smart Greenshank, his head nearly pure white. The breeding waders remained too, graceful, long-legged Avocets, brown patches on their wings revealing them to be the very same awkward, gangly chicks hiding from the rain among their parents' breast feathers just a few short weeks ago.

Whooper Swan and Common Tern

 

Shelducks floated about in their eclipse plumage, and a single Whooper Swan which had stayed the summer, perhaps too injured to make it across the North Sea though capable of flying back and forth across the reserve, lounged on an island in one of the freshwater lakes. The Spoonbill flock flew over, magnificent face spatulas forward, out towards the Wash.

Spatulas to the horizon!

There was not an overabundance of passerines, as one would expect at this time of year, with so many lying low to moult and enjoy the richness of the season, but yellow wagtails, in their muddy looking winter plumage, were active around the cattle, and a few swifts zipped about. Swallows and Sand Martins were ubiquitous. Emperor Dragonflies patrolled the ponds, and Common Darters the paths, while Small Tortoiseshell butterflies fed at the Scabious blooms. 

Common Blue Damselfly

Frampton is an incredibly special place. You should go there.

Small Tortoiseshell

 

Birds Seen: Brent Goose, Canada Goose, Greylag Goose, Mute Swan, Whooper Sean, Shelduck, Mallard, Teal, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Pheasant, Little Grebe, Great Crested Grebe, Spoonbill, Grey Heron, Little Egret, Cormorant, Moorhen, Coot, Avocet, Lapwing, Golden Plover, Little Ringed Plover, Whimbrel, Black Tailed Godwit, Knot, Ruff, Curlew Sandpiper, Dunlin, Snipe, Common Sandpiper, Green Sandpiper, Redshank, Spotted Redshank, Greenshank, Black Headed Gull, Common Gull, Herring Gull, Lesser Black Backed Gull, Common Tern, Stock Dove, Woodpigeon, Swift, Kestrel, Magpie, Rook, Carrion Crow, Skylark, Sand Martin, Starling, Yellow Wagtail, Pied Wagtail, Meadow Pipit, Linnet, Goldfinch, Reed Bunting.

Black tailed Godwit

Butterflies: Red Admiral, Meadow Brown, Gakekeeper, Small Skipper, Common Blue, Small Heath, Small Tortoiseshell, Green Veined White.

Ruff

Dragons: Common Blue Damselfly, Emperor Dragonfly, Common Darter.

Cinnabar moth caterpillars were numerous at Frampton. 

 




Coombes Valley, 9th August 2020

Of a warm but slightly overcast afternoon I went to Coombes Valley, in Staffordshire. It was surprisingly quiet, with few of the special birds out and about, perhaps down to the advancing season. However it was pretty, though a family insisted upon throwing pebbles into the stream where they Grey Wagtails breed. At least they were not building cairns and diverting the flow of water in the stream. Such disturbance in a habitat so small can have serious implications for its invertebrate diversity. A wasp was busy on the wood of the small bridge.

Wasp. 

I walked the Valley Woodland Loop, as the map called the circular footpath I wandered, and was surprised by the beautiful sight of three Red Deer- young stags- making their way among the trees. Each wore small, but different antlers in velvet. Deer often make their way through the woods at Coombes, but are seldom seen.

Freaky doll stuck to a Silver Birch tree. 

I picked up what my map called the 'Woodcock Trail' and was surprised to find Ling Heather, Calluna vulgaris once again, growing as an understory plant alongside Bilberry, Vaccinium myrtilis, as these species grow in much of their European range, but here associated with open heath and moor. I also enjoyed commanding views of the valley and the wider Stafforshire moorlands.  Someone had stuck a small plastic doll to a tree. 



The day ended with a spectacular orange sunset. 

Birds Seen: Sparrowhawk, Buzzard, Woodpigeon, Kestrel, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Swallow, Willow Warbler, Garden Warbler, Goldcrest, Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Spotted Flycatcher, Robin, Bullfinch. 

Butterflies Seen: Peacock, Gatekeeper, Green Veined White.