Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2022 i Birdwatch

Elegant Tern: Lady’s Island Lake, Co Wexford, and Inishroo, Co Galway, various dates from 4-26 July 2022 ELEGANT Tern is now established as a European breeder, with successful nesting having taken place in France and Spain in recent years, and it is no great surprise that British and Irish records are therefore on an upward trajectory. However, any orange-billed tern is still guaranteed to get birders’ pulses racing and the arrival of such a bird at Lady’s Island Lake, Co Wexford, on 4th was no exception. Despite the bill being at the paler end of the spectrum for Elegant (some can show a much richer, orange-red base), the bird was quickly confirmed as that species on a combination of features, including overall size, a shaggy crest, white rump and slight…

An encounter with a Porzana crake will often be the highlight of a birder’s day. Spotted Crake is the most likely member of the genus to be encountered in the UK. Although scarce, many of us will have had the opportunity to see a migrant Spotted Crake in late summer or autumn – most likely a juvenile pottering in and out of the edge of a reedbed somewhere in southern England, where they can often linger and afford good views. Many birders may be less aware that Spotted Crakes breed apparently opportunistically in suitable habitats across the UK, and that an encounter with a breeding pair is an auditory spectacular in its own right – one well worth making the effort to go and experience. Crake ecology The secretive behaviour…

Photos of the Eleonora’s Falcon at Worth Marsh had filled my Twitter newsfeed all week. Dropping everything at the earliest opportunity wasn’t an option this time but the bird’s continued presence and the promise of good views made it tempting. Roll on the bank holiday … The journey began in earnest with the first train to London Waterloo at 5.49 am. This was followed by a sigh of relief when BirdGuides confirmed the bird was still present as I boarded the next train – Kent here I come! I was treated to a brief glimpse of Worth Marsh as the train whizzed past on the approach to Sandwich, and the footpath leading to the reserve began about a five-minute walk from the platform. Straightforward public transport journeys with good links…

We’re now getting towards the peak weeks of autumn, with migration ramping up and a vast array of species on the move. Perhaps this September there’ll be a period of easterly winds, which should mean a good arrival of passerine migrants between Shetland and Scilly. Among the commoner species there will be scarcities, likely including a few shrikes. There are few more exciting families of birds than shrikes, with these ‘butcher birds’ fascinating to watch as they catch and impale prey ranging from wasps and beetles to small mammals and birds. September is peak time for connecting with Red-backed Shrike on our shores – we look forward to seeing your shots of this species for September’s Photo Challenge! Terms and conditions Please email your entries to editorial@birdwatch.co.uk. The competition is…

FIND some migrants … who knows what? You don’t have to see anything rare, but you may find something a little unusual for your local spot and it is always interesting watching the changes from day to day. Just ordinary, everyday birding close to home, but very enjoyable. Find a little sheltered thicket of willows by a stream, or a patch of elder, and look for the yellow flash of a juvenile Common Chiffchaff or Willow Warbler, the white of a smart Lesser Whitethroat or the rufous of a Common Whitethroat. If you see something that doesn’t breed locally, say a Common Redstart or even a Pied Flycatcher, that might feel like quite an achievement. Looking through mixed-species flocks is a great way to locate unusual visitors too (see p32-37).…

SEPTEMBER is a great month for seeing flycatchers and 10 species have been seen in Britain during the month, including four tyrant flycatchers from North America. Here are 10 things you may not know about both Old and New World flycatchers. ■ Pied Flycatcher is one of the best-studied birds in Europe, with ongoing nestbox research which started in 1940s in both Britain (the Forest of Dean) and Sweden. Male Pied Flycatchers will often set up territories for two mates, spending most time with the first mate. Males have been known to kill other males, and even Coal Tits, to obtain a nestbox. ■ There are five subspecies of Spotted Flycatcher, with Mediterranean Flycatcher – found in the Balearics, Corsica and Sardinia – now treated as a full species. ■…

A student at Guangxi University in China has made a surprising discovery about how photographers affect the nesting sites of Nonggang Babbler. While many might assume that any sort of photography close to nesting sites would be disruptive, the research shows that the opposite is true. More often than not wildlife photographers get a bad rep for negatively affecting animals. However, the study into the effect of photographers on nesting sites of Nonggang Babbler shows that the photographer’s proximity to the nests is actually increasing the number of birds that hatch. In 2008, Nonggang Babbler was discovered in a limestone tropical forest region in southern China. Since then, there has been a sharp increase in the number of bird photographers visiting the area and scientists were worried about the effect…

In association with Wherever you may be in Britain, it’s well worth spending time watching the skies on any warm and sunny days this September. As well as the more obvious migrations ongoing at this time, birds of prey should never be ignored. This month is prime time for southbound raptors – and Osprey is a realistic target for just about everyone. Although living near a wetland habitat will increase the odds of adding this desirable raptor to your #LocalBigYear list this September, migrating birds may be chanced upon anywhere. If available, choosing a suitable vantage point is recommended for a skywatching session to give a good all-round view and increase your chances of intercepting an Osprey or other migrant bird of prey over the coming weeks. Additionally, unlike in…

A country estate in landlocked Co Kildare is not the first site birders will think of when mentioning ‘rare waders’ and ‘Ireland’ in the same sentence, yet Cartron House Hotel on the outskirts of Maynooth, 15 km inland from Dublin city, played host to one of July’s outstanding finds. A dry month had resulted in water levels at the estate’s lake falling to particularly low levels, exposing muddy margins which proved irresistible to a mega vagrant from North America. With no significant birds of any kind ever reported from the site before, Ireland’s 15th Greater Yellowlegs was a truly left-field find for Graeme Scott there on the morning of 29th. Happily, the bird lingered throughout the following day, but heavy rainfall saw the River Rye, which runs through the estate…

“But they’ll eat all the capercaillie,” my well-meaning NGO colleague said to me. “The last thing capercaillie need are any more predators.” It’s the kind of conversation that you don’t hear much from conservationists outside of the UK: an argument that to save a species, somehow another species must be bad news. But on the front line of nature restoration (a very different matter to nature conservation), I hear this all the time. The larger predator in question was Eurasian Lynx. And my suggestion was, I thought, very obvious. If you want to save Western Capercaillie in Scotland, in the long run, you are probably going to need lynx. This wasn’t, however, particularly obvious to the zealous, single-species-focused RSPB officer outraged by the prospect of a quiet, tufted-eared apex predator…

It is no secret that Cornwall has a well-founded reputation for being one of the best counties in Britain for attracting an assortment of rare birds. The Cornish coastline spans more than 600 km and has many geographical assets that assist in attracting avian vagrants. Its prominent south-westerly projection stretching far into the Atlantic Ocean means that not only is it in a prime position to draw in migrating passerines, but it also has some of the best coastal and seawatching spots in southern Britain. If you have enough persistence and patience, the birding possibilities are immense. The valleys and headlands of West Cornwall are arguably some of the most famous birding sites in the UK; who hasn’t heard of Porthgwarra, St Levan or Pendeen? However, there are equally desirable…

WELL, it’s fair to say that Birdwatch readers enjoy watching baby birds! We were inundated with all kinds of cute and fluffy youngsters, but none more endearing than this lovely image of a Little Grebe by Brian Cartwright. This brilliant shot shows a cheeky chick playing hide-and-seek, sticking its head out from beneath its parent’s feathers to make for a brilliantly composed winner that is guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Well done to Brian, who must have loved watching this encounter in the field!…

PREENING is an important part of feather maintenance for birds. Most preening is done with the beak, which can reach everywhere apart from the head. So how does a bird preen its head? Well, it uses its feet. The oil used to keep feathers clean and waterproof comes from the uropygial gland found at the base of the tail. It can transfer the oil onto its beak and then directly onto the feathers but for the head a bird must transfer it onto its beak, and then wipe it onto its foot before applying it to the feathers. This is where birds face a choice. Do they turn their head and simply lift the foot to scratch with their beak, keeping the leg below the wing, or do they open…

A new paper has revealed that both Britain and Ireland still have wild Rock Doves surviving on certain islands, but ‘pure’ populations are limited and many face a rising threat from increasing numbers of feral birds. Feral Rock Doves, widely known as Feral Pigeons, originate from escaped domestic birds and can be seen in towns and cities all over the world. These feral and domestic pigeons are descended from wild Rock Doves, which nest in sea caves and mountainous areas. In contrast to the success of Feral Pigeon, Rock Dove has been declining throughout its global range, which once encompassed vast swathes of Afro-Eurasia. Its decline has been hard to study because it has occurred due to extensive interbreeding and replacement by Feral Pigeons. Rock Doves now only persist in…

Q I was on Anglesey in July 2021 and came across groups of terns. They appeared to be mainly Sandwich Terns with some Common Terns mixed in, so I took a few photographs. Recently, on looking through some of these shots (one of which is above), I have noticed one that looks like a Sandwich Tern, but has an orange-yellow bill. The quality is not great, since I have had to magnify the image to show it. It was seen near Cemlyn on 30 July. Do you think it is just a freak or possibly something like a Royal Tern (wishful thinking!)? Doug Yardley, via email A Andy Stoddart, Birdwatch’s Identification Consultant, replies: “This is a lucky shot indeed! The orange-billed tern photographed here shows a long, slim, slightly decurved orange…

Cape Gull: Grafham Water, Cambridgeshire, from 2 August 2022 “THIS is going to sound very stringy and probably is … possible Kelp Gull on the dam.” Those were the fateful words I typed to Steve Cooper, a longstanding friend and expert ‘guller’. He is my sounding board for identification of rare gulls or for scarcer taxa of common species, and he has commented on many unsolicited photos I have sent him over the years. The site in question was Grafham Water, Cambridgeshire; hardly the first place that would spring to mind for this potential first for Britain. Given Steve’s gull pedigree and the fact that he lives a good 40 minutes away, he got the first message. What’s more, he promised to bring the excellent Gulls of Europe, North Africa,…

Late August and early September is a lovely time to be in the field, as summer formally meets autumn. Misty, dewy mornings with the first whiffs of ripening fruit in the air offer a sign of things to come, but often the weather is settled and even warm with insects still on the wing in decent numbers. It’s an exciting period to be out and about on your local patch, whether on the coast or inland. Post-breeding dispersal and birds moving through the countryside at this time means species, whether of regional scarcity or merely locally surprising, can appear anywhere. Indeed, any marginal piece of countryside habitat can produce the unexpected. Many migrants latch on to roving mixed-species flocks, themselves symptomatic of this time of year. These varied squadrons always…

Trace the lineage of House Sparrow back and you’ll find yourself in Africa, gazing upon a bird bearing the fundamentals of this species and the grey-headed sparrows, which have an airbrushed monotone palette of subtle greys and browns. Described by ornithologist James Denis Summers-Smith, these sparrow ancestors would have occurred as far back as 2.6 million years ago, frequenting savannahs, eating seeds and stitching together intricate grass nests, not unlike modern-day weavers. About one million years ago populations of these birds began diverging. One, with the males donning black bibs, trekked north into new territory in the Middle East. Their route followed that of early humans, Homo ergaster, half a million years earlier, and it is possible that the presence of hominids may have enticed the sparrows to make the…

A major genetic study focusing on the genus Tarsiger has suggested that two new species should be recognised. Based on comprehensive sampling of all 11 subspecies of the six currently recognised species of Tarsiger bush robins, Chentao Wei and his colleagues combined multilocus, acoustic, plumage and morphometric analyses. The open-access paper, recently published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, reveals that the isolated northcentral Chinese populations of Red-flanked Bluetail T cyanurus, described as the subspecies albocoeruleus but usually considered invalid, is distinctive in genetics and vocalisations, but only marginally differentiated in morphology. Furthermore, the formosanus subspecies of White-browed Bush Robin T indicus, which is endemic to Taiwan, was found to be distinctive in genetics, song and morphology from the yunnanensis and nominate indicus subspecies of the Sino-Himalayan mountains. The researchers propose…

OUR EXCLUSIVE PROGRAMME OF READER HOLIDAYS OUR World of Birds reader tour programme has been long-established and popular. Working in association with a select group of specialist birding tour operators, we offer destinations and departures with the promise of some fantastic birding and, importantly, excellent value for money. With travel becoming easier again, we have started to put together another exciting schedule of holidays for this year and beyond. Our nine-day tour of the West African country of Senegal in October this year features a wide range of avian possibilities. In addition to encountering many new and exciting bird families, we should also see good numbers of more familiar Palearctic migrants that make the Sahel region their home during our winter. Arabian and Savile’s Bustards, Goliath Heron, Saddle-billed Stork, Scissor-tailed…