Super Shovelers

It's been a fairly mild week which means our winter visitors are likely happy with their choice to spend the season in the UK. This week I paid a visit to Blashford Lakes which is probably at its busiest time of the year in terms of bird life.

I was lucky to get very close to one of the trees cormorants like to perch in and this resulted in a photo I'm really pleased with.

The UK has an internationally important wintering population of these birds, some 41,000 birds1.Unlike other birds they are not too particular about their habitat and will happily go to freshwater lakes like at Blashford, estuaries or the coast- anywhere with a good supply of fish is OK with them. 

I also saw a few of what is becoming my favorite waterfowl, shovelers. 

These birds are so odd-looking. Females look much like female mallard only with an enormous bill whereas males have a beautiful green head. They use their remarkable bill to forage for aquatic invertebrates2. The bill has 'lamellae' on the edge which are comb-like structures that act as sieves- this allows the birds to skim invertebrates from the water's surface. This adaptation means they don't have to compete with food resources with other ducks. 

Again the UK is an important place for these birds as 20% of North West Europe's population call it home3. 

Another spot was this lovely little grebe. 

Little Grebes are superb swimmers and pursue fish and invertebrates underwater up to a depth of one metre4. They are buoyant due to not having a tail and reappear from dives like a cork. Like other grebes though they are not good at walking and nest right at the water's edge for this reason. 

It's not all waterfowl at Blashford of course- I also spotted this green woodpecker. 

This bird was almost certainly feeding on ants here, which take up the vast majority of their diet5. It probes it's long beak into the ground and licks up ants and their larvae. Their tongues are long, about 10cm- so long in fact that they have to wrap around the skull in order to fit in the head6!

Moving elsewhere, I spotted a pair of goosander when I was walking past the River Avon this week. 

These birds use their long serrated bills to catch fish- they especially like trout and salmon7. They also have been known to eat virtually any other aquatic creatures they can find from molluscs, crustaceans, insect larvae and amphibians to small mammals and birds on occasion8. 

When walking in the New Forest this week, I came across a sizeable herd of fallow deer which included one white individual. 

Normally fallow deer are light brown and spotty but they coat does darken in the winter. Even so, you would normally expect to see pale spots on these deer but this does vary between populations. It's only the distinctive tails that tell me these are definitely fallow deer. 

You might imagine the white deer to be an albino but actually white is fairly common in deer as it's simply natural variation9. I suppose it's similar to humans having ginger hair in that it's a less common variation but a still a relatively high proportion of individuals have it.

That's all for today but I hope you have a good Christmas and I'll be back next week with my end of year round-up.

1: RSPB- Cormorant

2: Ducks Unlimited: Northern Shoveler

3: RSPB- Shoveler

4: BirdsUc: Little Grebe
5: RSPB: Green Woodpecker
6: Robinson, R.A. "Green Woodpecker" BirdFacts. BTO
7: RSPB: Goosander
8: del Hoyo, J. Elliott, A, Sargatal, J (eds) (1992) Handbook of the Birds of the World Vol 1. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. pp. 626
9: BDS: Fallow Deer

Midsummer Wildlife

I'll begin today with a pretty poor photo. This bird simply wouldn't keep still for long enough for me to get a clear shot of it. 

I'm sharing this with though because it's quite an exciting bird: a spotted flycatcher. These birds are summer visitors to the UK and are in decline. Fortunately for me the New Forest is one of the best places to see these birds. They are fairly drab looking but it's their fly-catching which is great to watch. They fly from a high perch, dash out to catch a fly and then return to the same spot. That's exactly what this individual was doing at this moment. 

On the same New Forest visit I was delighted to stumble across this enormous fungus.

It's by far the largest fungus I've ever seen and is a puffball, probably even a mosaic puffball. It's a magnificent specimen. 

Via the Brownsea Island Lagoon webcam, I was able to observe an even more unusual bird this week, an elegant tern. 

This species breeds on the the Pacific coast on America yet occasionally terns up (pun intended) here in the UK. This one was around the lagoon all day and eventually roosted there. I think terns are magnificent birds anyway but this species with it's incredible spiky crown is really something. Thanks to the webcam I could watch it from the comfort of the sofa too!

Over the last few weeks I've seen a lot of house sparrows fledglings in the garden, always squawking and flapping their wings for food. Usually the parents are quick to oblige.

I've noticed that there have been egyptian geese on the fishing lake regularly over the last week or so, likely taking shelter from the high temperatures. 

As the name suggests, these species are not native to the UK. They were introduced as ornamental birds but as often happens some escaped and are now living wild. The main population in the UK is in Norfolk but we have a growing population here in Ringwood thanks to the various former gravel pits which are now lakes. 

One final bird today is the Avon grey heron which I have often shared here. This though is perhaps the best photo of it yet. 

There's still been plenty of interesting invertebrates around. Here's a particularly fine example of a dock bug and below that a relative, forest bug. 

I got some great views of some of my local butterflies yesterday, like meadow browns and commas. 

I was really excited to stumble across a less familiar species too, a large skipper. 

This butterfly likes long grass so it made sense to find it on my favourite insect path. The path is narrow at the best of times and not used very much but in summer it becomes really overgrown and the insects take over. Every time I venture down it I come across something new. 

Speaking of which, I also spotted an unusual moth species along the path yesterday, white speck. 

Also a grass feeder, this moth is more commonly found in Southern Europe but it's a migrant and has likely flown North to the UK thanks to the recent warm weather. 

I've shown you a few cinnabar moths over recent weeks so I knew it was only a matter of time before I found some of the species' distinctive caterpillars. 

These caterpillars hatch in huge numbers on ragwort plants. Ragwort is poisonous and is often removed from fields so that horses don't eat it. It's vitally important to cinnabars though and actually the caterpillars can be used to control the plant. The caterpillars end up becoming poisonous thanks to eating the plant but some species do predate them like some ants and cuckoos. 

Speaking of cuckoos, I regularly look at the BTO's Cuckoo tracking scheme. The organisation has tagged and is tracking cuckoos as they migrate to and from Africa. Of particular interest to me is Selborne, a cuckoo who was tagged in and returns to the New Forest. He arrived back in the New Forest on Easter Sunday and spent less than two months here- he's now heading back South and is near Bilbao! 

One final invertebrate to end, and it's the wonderfully named swollen-thighed beetle on a field scabious flower. 

That's it for now so I shall see you in July!

Action on the Avon

It’s been the hottest week of the year so far with temperatures hitting as high as 25° C. The warmer weather has caused plenty of invertebrates to emerge. Yesterday I was pleased to see thousands of common blue damselflies.

It’s still early in the year for dragonflies but I did spot this young female black tailed skimmer.

I really like the fine detail you can see on it’s wings in this photo. This species are common across Europe and Asia but were first recorded in the UK in 1934.

I’ve also seen a few other common insects like a red soldier beetle and a harlequin ladybird.

Today I walked along part of the River Avon and found a particularly rich section for wildlife on one stretch. I was first alerted to it by seeing this black-headed gull perched on the bridge.

This gull was diving into the river, obviously looking for food. What was particularly interesting to see was that large fish in the river were not happy with this behaviour and were actively trying to attack the gull when it was in the water. Fortunately the light allowed me to get some really clear photos of the fish, which are chub.

I don’t know much about fish and finding information about them is hard as most of the information is from an angling perspective. It seems likely that these chub were sat here feeding on small creatures floating their way. The gull was likely looking for the same prey but the chub probably saw it as a threat.

On the same stretch a little egret was hunting, presumably looking for the same prey too.

There were also some mallards pulling at vegetation and there was something of a confrontation when the egret got too close to one of them.

On a different stretch of the Avon this moorhen was feeding.

Moorhens tend to be quite flighty so seeing one feed is not always easy, especially in a place which can often be quite busy. They are omnivores, eating everything from snails to insects, small fish and berries.

A few more birds to finish I think. Here’s a photo of a greylag goose. There’s not much to say about it other than it looks magnificent here.

Finally, here’s a jay feeding at Blashford Lakes Woodland Hide. They are truly beautiful birds.

That’s all for today, I’m off to enjoy this glorious weather some more!

The Hungry Heron

It suddenly feels a lot like Spring. The temperature is booming, around 13 °C here today. There are buds in the trees, recording stations have detected the thrushes starting to head North again and there are Sand Martins in West Africa on their way North too.

You may remember a few weeks I was talked about the grey heron that seems to be spending its time on the grassy floodplain of the Avon rather than on the river itself. It’s now become very clear exactly why it is doing this as I saw it catch and eat a rat.

It’s easy to imagine that herons only eat fish but they are happy to eat any prey they can get their beaks on. This must be a sizeable meal for a heron and it appeared to be an easy find so it’s no wonder the heron is spending it’s time here at the moment! This second photo shows just how big a meal it was as the heron struggles to swallow it.

Nearby on the river itself this little egret didn’t seem to having much luck when it came to hunting.

I haven’t seen much of the roe deer lately- they put in an appearance last weekend and were very busy eating.

Over the last fortnight I’ve seen a few birds which are unusual for my patch. None of them are especially rare but they are birds I’m not accustomed to seeing around here.We do get the odd jay locally but this is the first time I’ve managed to capture a really clear image of one.

Jays are the most beautiful of our corvids, with the lovely pink colour and the stunning blue section on the wing. Like other corvids they are very intelligent and have apparently been recorded being able to plan for future needs and being able to take into account the desires of their partner when sharing food in the courtship ritual.

A more unusual spot was this treecreeper. There are probably a few around in the area but they are a challenging bird to spot.

I watched this individual as it went about it’s usual behaviour. Treecreepers forage up the tree, working in a spiral around the trunk, and then fly to the bottom of another tree to repeat the process.

The biggest recent surprise was when I stumbled across a whole flock of meadow pipits.

Meadow pipits are generally found towards the North and the West of the country but move south in the winter, which probably explains why I saw them here. The name pipit comes from the sound it makes and this species used to be known as things like ‘chit lark’ ‘tit lark’ and ‘titling’.

In pretty much the same place as the pipits I saw a pair of stonechats today. I do sometimes see them towards the east of my patch, close to the New Forest, but they were the furthest west and closest to the town centre that I’ve ever seen them.

I’ve seen plenty of the local buzzards over the last few days. Yesterday there was on it’s usual fence post.

Then today I saw a pair engaged in what I think was a mating ritual. It was very tricky to take photos but you can see the two birds here.

Buzzards engage in their mating ritual ‘before the beginning of spring’ which would today perfectly. It certainly looked like how a buzzard mating ritual is described. The male rose high up in the sky to then turn and plummet downwards in a spiral. Buzzards mate for life so it is likely these are the parents of the young birds which were in the area last summer. It must somewhat ruin the romantic moment when some crows start getting in the way though…

Joyful January Wildlife

The week began rather gloomily here with three days of thick fog smothering the area. I took a photo of the fishing lake to demonstrate:

It has since cleared and the temperature has finally warmed up a little. An interesting new resident, or at least one I haven’t noticed before, is this canada goose.

As you can see, this individual has unusual plumage on its head. On canada geese the black on their necks continues over the top of the head and then connects to the beak over the eye. There’s a hint of black above the eye but otherwise this is a very white-headed goose. It’s possible that this is just temporary but if permanent it’s unusual. It’s possible that this individual may be the result of crossbreeding between different geese species or it could simply be natural variation.

The fantastic BBC programme Winterwatch has been on this week and one of the most interesting features was the amazing starling murmurations over at Studland Bay. Studland Bay is about a fifty kilometre drive from here in Ringwood but as the starling flies it’s only twenty-five kilometres (over Poole Harbour). The BTO’s ringing programme shows us the remarkable distance starlings can travel (see here) so it seems possible that the starlings I see in the garden could well be part of these huge murmurations 25 km away!

Here’s a video via YouTube of the Studland murmuration:

I had a lovely walk by the Avon today and got very close to this grey heron.

I’ve noticed lately that the herons seem to be found on the grass near the river rather than on the river shore. The river level remains very low in places, especially for winter, and I suspect that the herons are struggling to find much food in the shallow water, instead finding things in the grass. There is a lot of rain forecast for this week which might be good news for the herons.

There was also a little egret stood in the middle of the river today. It didn’t seem to interested in hunting though.

You can clearly see here how low the water level is. Usually at this time of year you wouldn’t even be able to see those stones through the water but at the moment they are really exposed.

I also got really clear views of one of the Avon roe deer family. I most often see does but today I saw this buck.

Roe deer have fairly weedy antlers compared to other British deer. It’s still fairly early in the year so it’s difficult to age this buck yet. It’s clearly at least two years old though as the antlers have a secondary branch. Roe deer antlers take around four months to grow so hopefully later in the year I’ll see a fully developed set.

I’ve noticed a few more signs of Spring this week- all over the area hazel trees are producing fresh catkins.

I even noticed some new fern growth on one of the old railway bridges. Being a bridge there are not trees to block out sunlight and the metal probably traps the heat, giving these plants strong conditions to grow even at this early stage of the year.

Finally, here’s a photo of a singing chaffinch that I was pleased with.