watching these Coots falling out I became fascinated by their behaviour
Sunday, January 22, 2006
green winger
Wayne Gillatt found a drake Green-winged Teal at the western end of Read's Island today--as usual the bird was distant--digi-scoped at about 800m range
Saturday, January 21, 2006
more xbills
a party of crossbills at Walesby were enjoying the sun which much song and conversation---note the tongues on the pair exchanging nibbles and the differing bill sizes of the different males
waitng species
while waiting for crossbills etc managed to bag the odd Long-tailed Tit, Goldfinch and a fine swarm of midges
Friday, January 20, 2006
mundane Mallard
with so little happening birdwise I ended up trying to make something of the local Mallards
last resort coots
dull dull weather again this week and so few photo subjects I fired off a few at agitated Coots
Thursday, January 12, 2006
crossbills again
the crossbills were pretty active again today--females were bark stripping on the oaks
more bills
a second sunny day after such a gloomy start to the year encouraged more attempts at the Walesby xbills---
more bull
I am still thinking that 4 or so of the Bullies at Walesby are probably Northern birds 2-3 males and 2 females) but I have heard no truly identifiable call apart from one from a male and a female which sounded like some of the 94 coastal birds---looking at the BB paper which some people may have received recently, and all should subscribe to!, these photos show birds with a few features associated with Northern but which are not diagnostic though in combination may mean more than just the odd solo feature--upper edge to greater covert bar with saw-tooth effect--little contrast between upper and under in females (note one of the females photod is clearly a british bird, sharp contrast between pink (reddish) cheeks of males and blue tinged grey uppers, large and bulky looking appearance (very subjective), and note in one of the female shots a white wedge on the inner web of the underside of the outer tail feathers--this is a feature I have never seen on a UK bird but did note on a bird at Pyes Hall in Oct 1994--it is mentioned in the BB paper where it states that 18% of males and 26% of females in Finland and Sweden showed white in the tail and 17-20% of 1100 birds trapped in central Norway had some white---initially I was told that this was never shown by UK Bullfinches but I see that the BB paper mentions 2 of 30 in the BM examined by Martin Garner--it would be interesting to hear if any ringers in the county have ever found a Bullfinch with white in the tail and this may give a better representation of whether this is a feature of British birds and how common it may be---
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