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| Tree Pipit |
My friend and black belt birder, Jeremy from Oxford, came over on Friday for a day out to sample the birding delights on offer in Worcestershire.
We started with the local Nightingales and found just one singing male. This was notably down from my last visit when there were 4 or 5. The song was also much more fragmented into short bursts rather than the longer melodic song of the past couple of visits, probably indicating that they are now paired up and concentrating on breeding so I don’t plan to visit again this year.
We then went to Wyre forest where we spent the bulk of the day. The highlight for me were the Tree Pipits which I had not managed to see on my previous visits. We, or rather I should say Jeremy, managed to find 4 or 5 singing males. I would describe the Pipit family in general as birders birds. The mostly brown plumage with varying amounts of spotting and striping is far from flamboyant but to me holds a simplistic beauty all of its own. They can be quite challenging to identify, for example the plumage variation between the common Meadow Pipit and Tree Pipit is quite subtle. The song and call, however, is usually quite diagnostic . We have a good population of resident Meadow Pipits in the UK which are bolstered in spring by returning summer migrants from Africa. The Tree Pipit is, however, a true summer visitor meaning that any birds seen in winter will certainly be Meadow Pipits. Plumage differences between Meadow and Tree Pipits are subtle, but key among them is how the breast streaking extends boldly down the flanks. Most significant is that the Tree Pipit has only fine ‘pencil’ streaking on the flanks. This means that, from any distance, it looks as though the underpart streaking is confined to a broad band across the rich orange-buff breast and this contrasts with a whiter belly. Meadow Pipit’s breast streaking extends quite noticeably down the flanks, so it fails to show Tree Pipit’s more discrete breastband. It is tempting to say that any bird in open countryside is a Meadow Pipit whereas Tree Pipits are characteristically birds of heathland, forest clearings and young forestry plantations. This, however, is only a rule of thumb and there are too many exceptions to this rule to rely on it for identification purpose.
At one point a singing male landed on the ground and starting picking up insects which had us wondering whether it was actually a Meadow Pipit but it was in fact indeed its tree loving cousin.
The Tree Pipit has a beautifully melodic song which ends with a flourish not too dissimilar, but far less harsh than, the finale of the Chaffinch. Tree Pipits usually sing from the tops of trees or when they are parachuting down into them.
I often think that the relationship between the quality of a birds song and the flamboyance of its plumage is a constant, i.e.,
quality of song X flamboyance of plumage = Jim’s constant.
In other words duller birds tend to have more beautiful songs and vice versa. Almost as though a male trying to attract a partner only needs an attractive song or colourful plumage not both!
We visited a forest valley that is good for Wood Warblers where it took us quite some time to hear and eventual see one or two birds. The singing was again quite fragmented with more calling and less singing than on previous visits.
We had a look for Dippers along the stream but dipped (!) them on this occasion. Garden Warblers were very noticeable and we had at least 5 males hammering out their rather shambolic and discorded song from the trees. The short rather monotone song of the Pied Flycatcher is ubiquitous in the forest in May and we heard and saw a number of attractive males dressed in their black and white dinner suits. We also heard a couple of Redstarts but could not lay eyes on then in the dense undergrowth.
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| Pied Flycatcher |
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