Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2024 i Birdwatch

HAVE you seen any Waxwings yet? I suspect that if you live anywhere to the north of where I am in south Lincolnshire, you probably have done, although those in southern counties may be getting impatient! This autumn’s influx started early and certainly promised big things, but, dare I say it, isn’t quite living up to hopes and expectations for southern birders. Still, there’s plenty of time yet, and at least the birding seems a little more dynamic this winter after last year’s non-event, with Mealy Redpolls, Short-eared Owls and a decent early arrival of Bewick’s Swans among the recent highlights near me. That said, we’re still lacking in many of the traditional winter staples and, for the likes of white-winged gulls, grey geese, Rough-legged Buzzards, Great Grey Shrikes and…

Improved coverage in recent years has seen Cape Verde’s bird list grow. This severely underwatched southern extremity of the Western Palearctic (WP) relinquished further secrets during November, with the highlight being the discovery of three Red-billed Queleas at Mindelo, São Vicente, from 19th. The first regional record, they shared the site with a Hudsonian Whimbrel and an amazing flock of 25 Sudan Golden Sparrows. The last species has undergone a run of extralimital records in recent months, with a male still on Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, throughout November. Elsewhere in Cape Verde, a Grey-headed Gull was on Boa Vista and the White-faced Whistling Duck still on Sal. After the fantastic October for Nearctic passerines reaching Europe, it is unsurprising that birds continued to be found into November. In Spain, this…

A New Year always sparks life into local birding as new goals, ambitions and lists take form. Despite being in the middle of the winter, January can be a productive month – at least in the right conditions. The winter of 2023-24 looks set to be a little more exciting than usual, too, with some classic winter visitors in play. It’s also the perfect opportunity to explore your local area and consider signing up to the Patchwork Challenge to add more fun. It could also be a chance to rethink and test out different or extra sites close to home. Perhaps there’s a tetrad within easy reach which lacks records? Visiting underwatched sites can yield surprising results, feel rewarding, and provide valuable data for the BTO, county bird groups and…

ANALYSIS of 20,000 recordings of crossbills has rewritten the understanding of variation in the species’ calls, revealing changes in vocalisations over time. Crossbill calls have long been a subject of fascination for ornithologists and birders alike, with the existence of specific populations, or ‘call types’, discovered in the 1980s. Different call types are identified by a unique combination of flight and excitement calls, learned by a fledgling from its parents and generally staying with the bird for life. A number of ornithologists have categorised these call types since the 1990s, but discrepancies between the vocalisations for call types described by different researchers prompted a team from Germany to seek an explanation for the variation. The team, led by Ralph Martin from the University of Freiburg, gathered in excess of 20,000…

It’s midwinter and for one subset of birders that can only mean one thing – gulls. They are the marmite of the birding world, and I confess from the outset that I’m a larid lover. I can hear the groans from those who wouldn’t normally lift their bins to a gull unless their mother’s life depended on it, but hear me out when I say that these are the best of birds. Like most birders I aspire to finding rarities, but I’ll happily admit that 10 g of feathers skulking in a bush that offers a millimetre of view every two hours leaves me a little cold, as does any bird that requires thermal-imaging technology to secure a record shot that looks like something akin to an out-of-focus advert for…

THERE are quite a few books exploring the relationship between birds and poetry, and this one first appeared from Batsford in 1976. I don’t have a copy of that book, but know it was much smaller and perhaps not illustrated. In his time, Samuel Carr edited many poetry anthologies covering all kinds of subjects including the countryside, flowers and cats. He was also the editor of Hymns as Poetry. This latest version has been created using many images by the French-American artist John James Audubon. All of these came from his The Birds of America, produced between 1827 and 1838, by which time he was in his forties and becoming hugely successful. Today his original lithographs are much sought-after, particularly in the US, but his art is widely available in books…

THIS attractive book manages to be different, offering details of 13 species in an imaginative and inclusive way. Each species is dealt with under the subheadings of history and current situation, description and behaviour, habitat and breeding, an individual person’s story and where to see them. It is not intended to be a comprehensive handbook, but to give enough to stimulate further interest and offer plenty of fascinating information, whether on the birds’ place in myths and culture or on their biology and conservation. In fact, the amount of information packed in is impressive. The plentiful photographs include many stunners, too. The stories, some quite long, provided by various contributors, range from watching Peregrines on St Albans Cathedral and observations of Merlins in Orkney to encounters with Eurasian Sparrowhawks in…

SHRIKES are well known for keeping larders of prey, such as large insects and small reptiles, by impaling them on thorny bushes or wires. Scientists have argued over the function of these stores, some suggesting they provide a backup resource during periods of poor food availability, while it has also been postulated that larders are a signal of territory quality by male birds. Red-backed Shrikes mainly keep larders while they have young in the nest, instead of before breeding as in most other shrikes, which tempted researchers to investigate whether pairs with these food stores produced healthier young than those without such a stockpile. Scientists monitored 20 Red-backed Shrike nests near Siedlce in east-central Poland. They found nine nests attended by pairs with larders and 11 without. Blood tests of…

THE morning of Saturday 11 November had already been great, with an adult Bonaparte’s Gull flying low over my head at Goldhanger, Essex, but frustratingly straight into the sun once behind me – not one that got away, but I would have loved for it to settle. I moved on to Abberton Reservoir, where a post-coffee glance at a raft of Common Pochard out of the visitor centre window with my friends David and Margaret Whitfield changed the course of the whole day. The light was great and although they were a fair way off I thought it was worth a look. I thought I might perhaps luck upon a Ringnecked Duck or a Lesser Scaup given the bumper American autumn we have been enjoying in Britain. My second scan…

November typically marks the passing of the torch from peak autumn to the depths of midwinter, and it was always going to prove difficult to keep up with the heady heights reached in September and October in both quality and intensity. Nevertheless, the best-ever autumn for Nearctic landbirds in Britain and Ireland proved it still had plenty of gas left in the tank. A healthy procession of British birders was attracted to Bryher, Scilly, for the first-winter female Cape May Warbler found there on 10th (see page 9) – only the third for Britain after birds in 1977 and 2013. In Ireland, Co Cork was treated to a couple of late arrivals, with a first-winter male Rose-breasted Grosbeak at Skibbereen on 4th followed by an American Robin on Dursey Island…

I remember a conversation that I had several years ago with a serious world lister and British twitcher. “It’s the ones you don’t see that you remember,” he said, from the confines of a dimly lit tapas bar on Fuerteventura, where the recent discovery of a Dwarf Bittern was the reason for a small gathering of British birders discussing the ups and downs of listing. I’ve remembered that line since – and I think it’s quite true. I love a good list. I think most birders do (even the ones who are too cool for school and claim they don’t). While I enjoy adding to them, I’ve never been majorly fussed by my British or world lists like some hardcore folks are, but I’m super keen when it comes to…

WALKING along the River Nene in Northamptonshire and observing how birds and other wildlife change through the seasons is not something most people would consider a chore. While the mile-long stretch between Cotterstock and Oundle might perhaps seem an undistinguished segment of the English countryside, with the right guide all of life can be seen to be contained within it. That guide has revealed himself in the form of Nick Penny, a locally based musician and sound recordist who has walked the same paths and banks for 40 years or more. Solitary walks by a well-wooded, slow-moving river allow for quiet reflection and intimate encounters with animals, as most birders will know. Penny’s detailed observations and philosophical and historical musings fill this gentle book, which seems to walk at its…

I talked a bit about hedges at the end of last month’s column, so thought I would expand on that this month. January is a time of dormancy and preparation in the garden and so it is the ideal time to think about planting new hedging or enriching an existing hedge. Too often these days, hedging, particularly in residential areas, consists of lifeless blocks of non-native evergreen shrubs like Red Robin (Photinia), Cherry Laurel or Leyland Cypress (Leylandii). Functional though they may be, in terms of screening, the wildlife value of these sorts of green walls is pretty much zero (although I must confess that I have once seen a Firecrest skulking its way through the mixed evergreen hedge we inherited in our new front garden!). While there is certainly…

CITIZEN science has been with us for centuries but the term was first used in 1989. Projects based on citizen science include the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch, the largest garden wildlife survey in the world, which first started in 1979. Over its 45 years it has seen many changes, including declines in some species and increases in others. Last year there were some 540,000 participants and more than 9 million birds were counted. House Sparrow has been the most frequently encountered bird for 20 consecutive years, despite a decline of nearly 60%. Long-tailed Tit flitted into 10th place with numbers up 39% on the previous year. Big winners since 1979 include Woodpigeon, now firmly ensconced at fourth place (more than 1,000% up on 1979), Magpie at ninth (up 20%), Collared…

■ An incredible spell Last year will live long in the memory for British and Irish birders, with an astonishing array of rarities seen, blockers falling and national firsts found. Sam Viles looks back at the countless highs that 2023 delivered. ■ Arctic enigma Many will be vaguely familiar with the goose widely referred to as Grey-bellied Brant. But what exactly is it, and where does it come from? Brian McCloskey provides a comprehensive update on the status of this mysterious taxon. ■ A life of Scottish listing Increasingly, birders north of the border are focusing on their Scottish rather than British lists. Keen Scottish lister Mark Wilkinson looks at why such an approach is becoming more popular and evaluates the pros and cons of birding in Scotland. ■ Scoter…

There are times, as a birder, when a certain species or group defines a period of your life. For many of us, this winter is all about the ‘invasion’ of Waxwings that has gripped the UK. Charismatic, beautiful and from an individual to flocks a thousand strong, there are few species that turn heads and win hearts like Waxwings do. My winter, however, has been defined so far by geese. Not as sexy as Waxwings for sure, but I have shared so many happinesses with geese in the last couple of months that it would be impossible not to acknowledge them. It started with a beautiful moment shared with my daughter. We were in Norfolk in September, combining apple picking, ice cream and birding. Late in the day, an enormous…