The Standlake Birder -

One thing you can guarantee with twitching is the unexpected will always happen! . This was never so much the case as on this Sunday when a family day was planned. We were looking after our two eldest grandchildren with their parents picking them up in the evening and joining us for a meal. But the gods of birding had other ideas for me  as at 09:14 an alert of a Leach’s Petrel inland at Mission hit the bird alert services. This is a bird that I have some history with having missed a bird at Cheddar last year by 10 minutes. I reconciled myself that this was going to be one that got away and carried on with jobs around the smallholding. I came back inside around 11:00 when my long suffering wife greeted me with those wonderful words, “do you want to go and see your bird?”. Almost before she had drawn her next breath I was in the car and off on the two hour twenty minute drive to Mission.   This was a twitch with considerable jeopardy as this is a strictly pelagic bird outs...

  I started off another spring days birding at Wyre forest this week. The plan was to spend the first couple of hours after dawn looking for Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers again. After last weeks visit I decided to adopt a different strategy. Rather than chase the drumming, when the bird has often moved on before you can get there, I decided to stay put near some promising drumming trees in a known territory and see what happened. Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers drum on dead trees primarily to communicate, using the hollow dry wood to create a resonant  loud sound that travels far. This behaviour is used to establish territory boundaries and attract mates, acting as a substitute for birdsong.   This was partially successful as I heard a lot of drumming which I didn’t chase and was treated to two brief views. Again, I didn’t get any photos worthy of keeping. So here is the best I’ve achieved in the Wyre Forest from a few years back. Drumming mostly occurs in the hour afte...

  I took advantage of the lovely spring weather last week and visited my local happy place, the Wyre forest just 30 minutes from home. I arrived just after dawn and was greeted by a glorious dawn chorus in full swing. It was very obvious that the Chiffchaffs had arrived back from Africa on mass as they were very vocal. Some people find their Chiff-Chaff song monotonous but I love it (!), it almost feels to me that they are shouting “spring is here!”       I spent the first couple of hours looking for Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers. To cut a long story short, I heard drilling and was treated to one very brief view that did not trouble my camera. Not to worry, that’s better than nothing and I will almost certainly be back very soon!   Around mid-morning I relocated to Dowles Brook to look for Dippers and immediately spotted one looking very chilled out and inactive on a branch over the stream. Dippers are small, chunky, stout, short-tailed, short-winged, strong-legged...

      I like to try and find a sunny still day in March to go looking for two heathland specialists, Dartford Warbler and Woodlark. My go to place for this is Thursley Common in Surrey, a 325 hectares National Nature Reserve featuring extensive areas of open dry heathland, peat bogs, pine, and deciduous woodlands. It is famous as the summer residence until a few years back of Colin the incredibly confiding Cuckoo. The site is extremely well managed by Nature England and is perfect for heathland specialists.   I’ve always found it a very peaceful, and in the midweek when I go at least, a comparatively quiet spot for Dartford’s. This year, however, I decided to try another  site first in Berkshire which had the advantage of being 40 miles closer to home.   I spent a couple of hours at this new site for me on a sunny but cold morning this week. While there were lots of Stonechats and a few Woodlarks there I failed to either hear or see Dartford’s. To be h...

  My recent experiences with the hummingbirds of Costa Rica led me to ponder the why and how of the dazzling phenomena of Iridescence. As a recap, look at the two pictures of the Fiery-throated Hummingbird above.  From sideways on this Hummingbird appears emerald green but front on it is truly transformed into a veritable artists pallet of colours. To see the Fiery throat you have to be essentially face on, a few degrees either side and the fiery iridescence disappears. You would certainly be forgiven for thinking these were two entirely different birds.   I guess it’s fairly obvious that the colouration is not your run of the mill pigment colouration. In fact Hummingbirds are coloured by what’s known as structural colouration. This is a similar effect to how a prism splits light into its constituent colours. The Hummingbirds feathers have specialised pancake microscopic structures called melanosomes.  These contain little air bubbles that refract the light...