Island of Eagles, and their Ancestors

Sitting beside my computer on a blue but chilly January day in the wilds of Essex, I cannot help but cast my mind back one more time, to Scotland, and its wildlife spectacles. In particular, to Emma and my trip to the Isle of Skye, its bays and Cuillin hills, the ragged mountains plunging into the, under an intemperate, grey and angry sky around the time of the Autumn equinox.

The East Coast of Scotland, where Skye sits, is something of a haven for Raptors, but they are not always as conspicuous as one might hope. At first glance this rugged place seems birdless. A couple of days into the trip, avoiding the near constant ribbons of rain which drench the dramatic landscape on Autumn days, we got our wallets out and paid a guy to take us to the birds. Andy of Skye Wildlife Tours took us on a day long van tour of the island, using his expert local knowledge to show us some of the birds which make this island famous. From our first stop, we watched a white-rumped ringtail Hen Harrier coast along a rain soaked glen, scanning for prey before disappearing from sight. Pairs of Golden Eagles floated above the moorland, dark against the grey sky during gaps in the rain. Rain isn’t good for raptors, preventing the thermals on which they ride from forming.  Perversely well camouflaged on the ground, despite the golden shawl of feathers around their nape, in the skies of Skye they are unmistakable, floating on long, broad wings. In their pairs, the size difference the sexes show is remarkable. Females are huge. Males are somewhat smaller, by up to a third, it seemed. This is a characteristic shared by many raptors, which perhaps allows some niche differentiation, minimising competition for food resources between the sexes as the females pursue larger prey, or else simply maximises the surface area the female can offer to her eggs for incubation. Sparrowhawks and Goshawks show this dimorphism even more markedly. Persecuted and revered, often at the same time, down the centuries, the West Coast, where deer stalking is a far more popular pastime than grouse shooting which dominates in the Eastern Cairngorms, offers some sanctuary from the residual persecution which some Golden Eagles still face. Across the Northern Hemisphere, the Golden Eagle remains one of the most successful large birds of prey, taking mammals off mountains and in winter, eating carrion at carcasses, including those of deer felled by ‘sportsmen’ and deer managers. Where the RSPB engages in deer control to protect early regrowth of Caledonian pine forests, they still leave the gralloch and some of the carcasses as a winter food source for these extraordinary, semi-mythic birds.

White Tailed Eagle, Isle of Skye

 

Historically, the impact of persecution was even worse for Scotland’s other Eagle species. The White Tailed Eagle has faced local extinction. Sometimes called the White Tailed Sea Eagle, it is another year round resident of this unforgiving coastline. It enjoys, but is not tied to the coast, quite capable of hunting and thriving inland. It became extinct around the turn of the 20^th century in Scotland, but a successful reintroduction programme using individuals from Norway, along the coast of which they can be surprisingly numerous, has enabled it to approach its historic numbers. We saw no less than 14 of these magnificent birds, huge outstretched wings resembling doors, the fabled flying barn door no less, on our van safari through Skye’s hills, a juvenile, identified by his not having a white tail, passing confidently just a few metres over our heads as we stood on one of the small piers there, on slow flapping wings, waders and ducks erupting in panic to keep away from this great predator. In more recent years, a reintroduction to the Isle of Wight in Hampshire has led to these birds soaring once again over Southern England, indeed, I have seen such an individual drifting over Essex, and famously one overflew the March for Nature in London in 2022. One hopes they will eventually look as at home on the South Coast of England as they do on the West Coast of Scotland.

White Tailed Eagle, Isle of Skye

Our van day was completed by a range of waders, waterfowl and distant seabirds, as well as the obligatory red deer, watching us curiously from high hills, the inaccessible, to all but the most seasoned of human mountaineers, Black Cuillins, huge basalt Munroes plunging into the glens and into the wild Atlantic Ocean.  Our closest encounter with White Tailed Eagles came on a boat trip from Portree, where we embarked on the Stardust despite the rain and tall sea, with remarkably low expectations.  First, just a few minutes out, we met with another giant, the huge arching back of a five or so metre long, juvenile Minke Whale, who broke the surface a couple of times to the gasps of assembled onlookers before disappearing beneath the waves, disappearing into the murky depths. Gannets and Great Black Backed Gulls excitedly snatching the fish stunned by the wake of the mighty beast.  But the boatman had another spectacular in store, as he threw a couple of dead fish, fishmonger discards, from the back of the boat. The birds reaction was not instant, the adult White Tailed Eagle waiting on a cliff, perhaps reluctant to get his feathers too wet in the rain and spray, but after watching the Gulls grab a couple, jealously kicked in, and down he came, stooping, wings swung back, on these easy pickings. He swung his big yellow talons forward and grabbed the fish off the water surface, easily, before climbing off, back to his clifftop perch. What a magnificent bird, and a magnificent encounter. The behaviour may not be fully natural, an opportunistic reaction to human activity, White Tailed Eagles do not typically grab fish off the sea like Ospreys, but it was certainly spectacular, to see such an awesome predator, and so close!

An Corran Megalosaurus Footprint.

 

Also on Skye, and at Emma’s suggestion, we sought out and found a close encounter with one of the Eagle’s, and the gulls, mighty ancestors. In the mudstone of An Corran beach, we paid a visit to Skye’s Middle Jurassic period, and walked in the 160 or so million year old footsteps of a Megalosaurid theropod dinosaur, traces from deep prehistory. Its three toed footprints were clear, and clearly recalled those of birds in more modern muds. But in Megalosaurus, here was a predator to rival even the Eagles. A toothy biped, six metres nose to tail, and as tall as a tall man, Megalosaurus was quite likely something of an active predator upon the herbivorous Stegosaurs and Camptosaurs with which it shared its environment, it was the dominant predator of its time. The dinosaur-descended Eagles are its worthy successors, and it is sobering to reflect on how close these magnificent aerial hunters so nearly joined the Megalosaurus in extinction. But the eagles are recovering, they are spectacular, we saw them, and they are wonderful.  

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.

Southend meets the Mediterranean.

 Southend Pier stretches over a mile out into the Thames Estuary, from the newly designated City of Southend, on Essex’ Estuary coast.  It was built in the 19^th Century to load and unload deep hulled sailing vessels, regardless of the state of the tide. Today it lives on, and is proudly proclaimed the longest pleasure pier in the world. For those from out of area, the River Thames here is several miles broad, the North coast of Kent sometimes lost in the haze on a misty day, the water is saline, the fish which swim beneath are marine, and the tidal range is substantial, leaving vast mudflats when the tide is low.  On a sunny day, it is a pleasant, if not a short stroll, out along the historic wooden boards, until you can really feel surrounded by water, a long way from the noise and bustle of Southend’s Sea Front, where dizzying theme parks and noisy arcades dominate. It is a place, in winter at least, of unexpected tranquility, and also, unexpected wildlife.

Mediterranean Gull, Southend Pier, January 2023

On the day of our visit frost, and caution had closed the historic boards when we arrived, so we embarked on the new, green, battery-powered train that has replaced the classic blue diesels, which are now reduced to waiting rooms and curiosities at the two pier stations.

Mediterranean Gull on Southend Pier. 

Upon exiting the pier train, we were met by one of our avian stars, an adult Mediterranean Gull (Ichthyaetus melanocephalus) which perched on one of the pastel painted beach huts, no doubt a coffee kiosk in high season. The Mediterranean Gull is uniquely beautiful among British gulls, and, always, in recent years, the most numerous Gull at the end of the Pier. As an adult, it creates the impression of a near all-white bird, its upper wings only lightly shaded in silver-grey.  In winter a black ‘smear’ creeps back from behind its eye, in contrast with the distinct dark ‘spot’ of winter plumage Black Headed Gulls (Chroicocephlus ridibundus), probably the nearest confusion species.  This commoner species was out here too, though in smaller numbers, a little smaller than the Med Gulls, with darker red to the legs and bill

Mediterranean Gull, Southend Pier.

As its name suggests the Mediterranean Gull is something of a newcomer to these shores, having  for most of its known history been confined to a few small colonies around the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea and Turkey. Here they bred in relatively small numbers under the baking summer sun.  The Med Gull was never the characteristic Gull of the Mediterranean region- that honour goes to the Yellow-Legged Gull, essentially, visually at least, a Herring Gull with yellow legs, or a Lesser Black Back with a paler back. Mediterranean Gulls are not your regular holiday seagull- though I did once see a pair drift over a Spanish beach.   Tied to the coast, in winter they seem to wander the Mediterranean outside of their breeding season.  In the latter decades of the 20^th Century, something changed for the Mediterranean Gull, and the species began to establish small colonies in the South of France and in Spain, and later on the coasts of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, on the North Sea coast of Europe.  Now it breeds fairly abundantly in Southern England, along both the channel and the North Sea coasts, the odd pair pitching up at big Black Headed Gull Colonies such as at Two Tree Island, or forming colonies of their own on the shingle of Rye Harbour in Kent.  A spectacularly beautiful Gull in any season, in summer they become even more impressive, sporting jet black heads, with white eye rings, contrasting strongly with the brown hood of the Black Headed Gull, as reflected in its name in several European languages, for example, the Dutch Zwartkopmeeuw, causing consternation for international birders who neglect their scientific names.  Their white wings are all the more vivid in the summer sunshine.

Here on Southend Pier in the vague January haze, their wings still look bright, lacking black tips or contrasting leading edges that most common comparable species possess. But as someone passes, dropping a few chips, the angelic looking Med Gulls reveal themselves every bit as opportunistic and adaptive as their more familiar cousins, and they dive from their pastel beach-hut perches onto the dropped bounty, noisily squabbling among themselves for our wasted food.

Turnstone, Southend Pier

Another bird likes to hang out on the Pier’s end, another confiding opportunist, not afraid to pick up some of our scraps, and this one is adorable. Little bigger than a Starling, Turnstones, or Ruddy Turnstones (Arenaria interpes) as they are internationally known, are world-travellers, some of them crossing the Atlantic to reach our shores from Greenland and Northern Canada. There seems forever to be a population of these impossibly charismatic, charming little shorebirds on the move, and despite not occurring in the British Isles as a Breeding species, they seem to be here almost all year, absent only in May and June.  They can often be found on pebbly shores, turning stones, sometimes, in an unlikely display of strength, quite large stones, to hunt for the invertebrates underneath. They are unfussy about tucking into any sea-washed carcass that may turn up too. But on Southend Pier, running about among the feet of the visitors, and the colourful mini-golf course, they have learned to make a reasonable living from what we leave behind. Leftover fishing bait, chunks of Lugworm or Ragworm, probably extracted locally, seem to be a favourite, but a bit of sandwich won’t go amiss either. Hundreds of them roost on a small, wave-lapped slipway, and can reliably be seen there at high tide.  I suspect these smart little migrants tend to be unnoticed by most of the pier’s visitors,  but I find them extraordinarily photogenic. I have blogged about them before.  Have a browse. It’s there somewhere.

Turnstone, Southend Pier

Birds are not the only wildlife causing a stir at the end of the Pier. Mammals too, are in evidence. A pair of young Grey Seals raise their heads above the surface, and gaze up with appealing watery eyes. Recently afforded full legal protection, these popular piscivores are often encountered in estuaries, and despite the risk of ship collision, both our wild species of seal seem to be thriving, with Common Seals sometimes hauled out and sunning themselves on mudflats right in to Dartford and Rainham, the other side of London’s Dartford Crossing.  Grey Seals seem less abundant locally, but they are capable of travelling substantial distances.  These playful youngsters chased each other about, and eyed with curiosity the humans taking in the winter sun and sea air. I wondered if they occasionally take advantage of the growing popularity of catch-and-release among sea anglers, and how many small fish had been compassionately and carefully released into the green water, still bewildered and gasping, to immediately encounter the toothy and powerful maw of a Grey Seal.

Grey Seals, Southend Pier, January 2022. Photo by Emma Bickford. 

We walked back along the pier, toward the coast, and the noise, leaving these three wildlife stars behind us, as skeins of Brent Geese, another Essex icon, made their way across the cold blue sky.

Southend Pier

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.

Poem for a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker I saw.

 Speed Poem for a female Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.

With a nod to P/O John Gillespie McGee, 1922-41, who described a blue sky far better than I ever could, whose words are borrowed with credit and gratitude.

I gaze into the branches

Of Alders and twisted hornbeams

On a still and sun-drenched winter's day

A glimpse, at first

A nodding back, snow dappled

Pure brilliant, white emulsion flecked

High among the long denuded branches

You reveal yourself, small, elegant

Buff stained white crowned

Picked out against the sky

McGee's long delirious burning

Blue, still, you're winter at its gentlest

Stippled, bright black, ever nodding, busy in the branches

On the move, constant, keeping out the cold,

Up there, mild denizen of the treetops

Then dropping down, light as a butterfly

Parachuting on broad stippled wings

As beautiful as laughter

And out of sight, onto the next grub, the next meal, the next leafless coppice stand

Unreal, enthralled, my neck bent hard toward the sky

I look with longing

To the place where you used to be

A butterfly on Hawk Hardware.

 The long awaited gloom of a July evening on the West Country heaths as the extended summer day draws to a close. Though distant cars can still be heard they have faded into the ambience now, and I am alone on the earth. The damp, grey day of drizzle is giving way to still summer evening evening, though the sunset is still obscured by grey cloud. These conditions are not perfect, but they will suffice. I'd already been dazzled by the song of a Woodlark perched in one of the small birches which dot the heath, by scuttling Tiger Beetles among the eager blooms of Bell Heather, the Calluna yet to carpet the heath in purple. But there is one denizen of these South Western heaths that I am still waiting to see, waiting to hear. And now the light is fading and the distinct sound I am waiting for has not yet broken. I prepare to give up. Perhaps the weather is not good enough for this icon of warm scented summer nights. I dare to glance at my phone to check the England football result. It is good news. I sigh, irritated at how easily I am distracted. Where is my bird? I begin the walk back toward the car, noticing again the sound of traffic. 

It is as I stroll back that the sound creeps into my awareness. Distant at first, as if in my imagination. A growing, rising purr, perhaps if you had not heard it before you might think it an insect, a stridulating orthopteran of some description. It sounds a little like the tropical frogs you might have heard on nature documentaries, but far longer, uninterrupted, constant. It continues for minutes, rising and falling in volume, slowly but distinctly. The bird who is making it sits invisibly in a birch or one of the feral Scots Pines on the heath, slowly turning its head to project the sound around and about. Then, suddenly, quite unlike how it began, the sound stops. There is a quiet, single clap, and the bird is airborne before me against the sky. Its shape is almost raptor-like, long, pointed wings, a model of sleek grace, but its flight is nothing like a raptor, light, almost floaty, rapid changes of direction, recalling that of a Swallowtail butterfly over the Norfolk fens. A Nightjar! Anything but a Goatsucker, this long range migrant occupies a special place in the UK's avifauna. It is strictly nocturnal, and, by day, almost invisible, roosting stock still, a master of camouflage and concealment, either lengthways on a branch, or down on the ground among the heather. Folk myths give the bird its scientific name, Caprimulgus europaeus, the European Goatsucker. Pure slander, this insectivore has plainly never sucked a goat and never will. It flies like a butterfly with the body of a hawk, and any interest it has in livestock is strictly in the insects they attract and kick up when they move. Perhaps that is the bird's motivation when it approaches me closely, flying around me, and rising up in front of me to take a closer look, before, perhaps realising I have failed to live up to my purpose of attracting flies, he looses interest and flutters on into the rising darkness.

Nightjars are by no means confined to the West Country, though Aylesbeare Common in Devon, where I encountered them last summer, is a prime site for the species, as is lovely Arne in Dorset. They breed in Derbyshire, where their nest sites are kept somewhat quiet to prevent disturbance, and in Nottinghamshire, where they are a popular attraction at Budby Forest, part of Sherwood, as well as in Suffolk, the Brecks and on the Yorkshire Moors. They are, by the relative remoteness of their heathland habitat and their strictly nocturnal lifestyle, often overlooked and quite possibly under-recorded, though the loss of so much heathland over the passing decades has led to serious declines; and was once UK red listed, though it is now on the amber list, as sympathetic management has helped its fortunes. Go out for an evening stroll on open heath or moorland, or even in recently felled forestry habitats, and listen for the magical sound.

The European Nightjar is found in most of Europe and a swathe of central Eastern Asia during the breeding season, and it winters in sub-Saharan Africa. They are among the last Summer migrants to arrive in Spring, often not here until the second week in May. A stroll on the Early May bank holiday is too early, if you hope to catch sight or sound of one. They stay only a little later than the Swifts, and an evening stroll on the August bank holiday is likely to be a fortnight too late. By then they are on their way, flying by night through Europe, feeding and roosting in suitable habitat on the way. I encountered this bird in hand on my first day with the Hellenic Ornithological Society's ringing project on Antikythera in the Aegean. In hand they seem a different bird to the graceful creature on the wing, they have a huge gape, a massive pink maw with which they scoop up the moths and flies upon which they feed, and fringed with sensory whiskers. They have tiny legs, to closely grasp perches to better conceal their outline, and, while entirely without weapons, they hiss and gape, perhaps in imitation of a snake, when annoyed.

 Our Nightjar, Caprimulgus europeaeus, is one of a number of Nightjar species around the world, among the most spectacular is the Standard Winged Nightjar (Caprimulgus longipennis) in which the male trails long, modified feather  flag-tipped streamers behind his wings when he flies. He is resident in the savannahs of Sudan and Ethiopia. In Spain, the Red Necked Nightjar (C. ruficolis) can be found, looking remarkably similar to our, more Northerly species.  The scientific name Caprimulgus derives from the oft-repeated folk myth, that the Nightjar suckles from a goat, but the common name is appropriate, 'jar' being derived from 'churr' a description of the bird's haunting song.

Nightjar in hand in Antikythera, ringed, annoyed and shortly to be released to continue its journey. 

On my walk I enjoy the sound of the Nightjar multiple times, with several churring birds on several perches, and I almost miss a second close approach, within ten feet of my face, fumbling for my phone in the hope of capturing it on video for posterity, though I did record the bird cresting the heather, and its distinctive, buoyant flight.  I did get recordings of the sound and the floaty, butterfly-like flight over the gloomy heath, which I hope are available above if I understand Blogger's video uploading system. I had a truly extraordinary encounter, with a truly remarkable and very special bird. 

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.