Bird Watching の January 2022 の目次

Another year, another chance to kick off the old year list in style. Listing is not everything, but it gives an extra soupçon of motivation to encourage you to enjoy being out birdwatching in the cold weather of mid-winter. How about these five ‘common’ birds to start your year off?. twitter.com/BirdWatchingMag facebook.com/BirdWatchingMag RARITY RATINGS 1 MISTLE THRUSH The large and handsome Mistle Thrush is the least numerous of our regular wintering thrushes, comfortably outnumbered by the wintering hordes of Redwings and Fieldfares from the continent. With more than 30,000 individuals, it is hardly scarce, though. You may be lucky enough to hear the haunting, melancholy song of the Storm Cock this month, despite it being the heart of winter. Delivered from the top of a tall tree, it sounds like…

Find the location closest to your destination and add or subtract the hours/minutes from the high tide time at London Bridge, below. SOUTH WEST Weston-Super-Mare (+5:05) Barnstaple (+4:30) Newquay (+3:32) Falmouth (+3:30) Plymouth (+4:05) Torquay (+4:40) Bournemouth (-5:09)* Portland (+4:57) St Peter Port (+4:53) Swanage (-5:19)* Portsmouth (-2:29) Southampton (-2:53) SOUTH EAST Ryde (-2:29) Brighton (-2:51) Eastbourne (-2:48) Dungeness (-3:05) Dover (-2:53) Margate (-1:52) Herne Bay (-1:24) Southend-on-sea (-1:22) Clacton-on-sea (-2:00) EAST ANGLIA Felixstowe Pier (-2:23) Aldeburgh (-2:53) Lowestoft (-4:23) Cromer (+4:56) Hunstanton (+4:44) WALES Colwyn Bay (-2:47) Holyhead (-3:28) Barmouth (-5:45) Aberystwyth (-6:11) Fishguard (+5:44) Swansea (+4:42) Milford Haven (+4:37) Cardiff (+5:15) NORTH WEST Whitehaven (-2:30) Douglas (-2:44) Morecambe (-2:33) Blackpool (-2:50) NORTH EAST Skegness (+4:29) Grimsby (+4:13) Bridlington (+2:58) Whitby (+2:20) Hartlepool (+1:59) Blyth (+1:46) Berwick (+0:54) SCOTLAND…

It’s a warm but rather misty September morning when I arrive at the lake, so probably not ideal for checking the diagnostic features of unfamiliar birds. Yesterday a Spotted Crake (a what?) was photographed here at the Beddington Farmlands reserve, in south London. It’s 7.45am, so I’m hoping the hide won’t be too busy, and I’m relieved to see only a man and woman here. “Any sign of the crake?” I ask. They show me pictures of a bird which appeared a few minutes before I arrived, but, in the low-angled morning sun streaming through the hide window, it’s hard to see details on their camera screens. Imagine the offspring of a Moorhen and a Starling, with a shorter bill than a Water Rail, and that’s pretty much what we’re…

1 Take part in the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch In 2022, the Big Garden Birdwatch (BGBW) takes place from 28-30 January (and includes live content on YouTube and Facebook). This is a great opportunity to assist in the collection of national data – you can take part by counting the birds you see in an hour in your garden, from your balcony, or in a local green space, such as your local park. It’s also a wonderful opportunity to share information with a wide community of likeminded nature lovers! Last year, in the largest response ever, more than 1,000,000 people took part and counted more than 17 million birds! House Sparrows were the most commonly recorded species, with Robins and Blackbirds showing an increase in numbers; but sadly, recorded numbers…

The chances are that most of us will have been touched by Ian Wallace’s influence, whether through his writing in the pages of this magazine and countless books, by meeting him at the Birdfair, or simply by benefiting from the work he did in the field of ornithology.. In every sport or hobby there are people who are held in the highest esteem and act as spiritual leaders for the rest of us. In sport, you might think of Sir Bobby Charlton or Fred Perry; legends who will be remembered for years beyond their own lifetimes. Now, we birdwatchers have lost just such a legend – Ian Wallace, who died in November, aged 87. Whether you knew him personally, or just enjoyed his writing and artwork, Ian was an enormous…

Sparrows and buntings are infamously often regarded as LBJs, ‘little brown jobs’. This is mainly because many of them are largely brown and streaky, and they are small birds. However, all species have their own subtle beauty, and some are positively brightly coloured and genuinely attractive birds. That said, most have more toned down colours in winter (compared with the breeding plumage) and, as this is the January issue, we are naturally going to concentrate on sparrows and buntings in winter plumage. Also, that makes the challenge just a little bit tougher... The challenge, of course, is to put a name to the birds featured in the six photographs below. And, once you are happy with your identifications, turn the page to see our answers and reasoning. If you are…

MORE SITES For a full list of the sites we’ve featured, go to birdwatching.co.uk/gbindex COLLECT & KEEP Every month we bring you 10 more sites to build up your GO BIRDING collection HIGHLAND MAX MILES ON FOOT: 2 MIN TIME: 2 HOURS LOCH SPYNIE RSPB Sheltered freshwater close to the Moray Firth While dashing between the Moray coast’s many excellent birding sites, it’s easy to miss this tucked-away reserve, but even a brief visit can be very productive, and it has a good record of attracting rarities and vagrants such as American Wigeon, Ring-necked Duck, Bonaparte’s Gull and Purple Heron. Winter is the best time to go, as there’ll be a chance of all sorts of wildfowl, but it’s well worth calling in at any time of year – you’ll…

POSTCODE: TN29 9BB GRID REF: TR 037 204 MAPS: OS Explorer 125 OS Landranger 179 PARKING: Park on the outskirts of Lydd just off the High Street in Tourney Road and opposite the entrance to the Army camp TERRAIN: A combination of rough tracks and grass footpaths. The section of the walk beside Jury’s Gap Road is along a metaled cycle path and suitable for those with mobility issues ACCESS: Open access on public rights of way throughout FACILITIES: None on site, but toilets, convenience stores and pubs in nearby Lydd…

Iona Chisholm: I celebrate sighting the wonderful Waxwing with its bright striped edges, heavy eyeliner and twitching mohican, feasting on glossy berries. David Lindo: Lapland Buntings remind me of crisp winter days along the North Norfolk coast. Ruth Miller: The Great Grey Shrike is handsome, charismatic, hard to find in the vast uplands of North Wales, but oh so good when you put your bins on one. Ed Hutchings: Brent Goose. The muddled lines and cronking calls of these small, dark geese are the essence of winter on my local East Anglian estuaries.…

WHITE-THROATED SPARROW With 50-odd UK records, this is a rare but not exceptionally rare North American vagrant. Winter birds mainly arrive in the autumn with the potential to linger on, especially in the comforting environments of gardens (and their feeders). ANCIENT MURRELET There has, of course, only been one Ancient Murrelet seen in UK waters, in the period between late May 1990 and late April 1992, off Lundy, Devon. But with a photographed bird in the Baltic Sea off Finland in November 2021, it raises the possibility of another visit to UK waters. We can but dream. NUTCRACKER In the late 1960s there was a huge irruption of Nutcrackers, when the species reached the UK. In the hundreds. There was a mini-pulse in the late 1970s and since then, virtually…

SPOTTED CLUSTER In early winter, it’s not unusual to come across hibernation huddles of ladybirds, such as these 16-spot Ladybirds. Gatherings can easily number several hundred insects, which are thought to find one another by following scent trails (pheromones). Hibernation sites vary among ladybird species, but nevertheless I was surprised to witness this congregation on the northeastern side of a fencepost. MOTH Garden Aussie As you read this, England’s Test cricketers should be in the midst of an Ashes series against Australia. I shall think of them each time I see a Light Brown Apple Moth. This small, fingernail-shaped moth hails from Australia, having hitched a ride on imported plants to reach Britain in 1936. It spread slowly until the 1990s before exploding in abundance and distribution. In my garden,…

Driving back from a pleasant morning’s autumnal birding, I pulled tight over to the roadside on hearing a siren and seeing flashing blue lights approaching. Traffic parted like the Red Sea, and without exception, drivers moved aside to let the ambulance though. Pulling into town I let a number of cars into the traffic... 90% signalled their thanks. Hawkeye popped into the supermarket, while I watched shoppers using their escalator. 80% had the courtesy to wear face-masks. Why have some people stopped wearing masks just because it’s no longer a government diktat, despite it protecting the vulnerable? In ‘Lockdown’, 70% of us stayed at home except for essential journeys, the rest exploited the empty roads, presumably thinking we were mugs for obeying a regulation designed for our collective safety. Most…

Want to see more birds in 2022? Sign up for our #My200BirdYear challenge, and start watching! A New Year’s Day ‘Big Day’ is a great way to begin, but see next month’s issue of Bird Watching for lots for tips on exactly how you can reach that 200-species target in 2022. ● Go to: birdwatching.co.uk/my-200-sign-up ● Complete the form there, and you’re signed up ● Keep an eye on our website: birdwatching.co.uk for regular updates, tips and advice ● Join our Facebook group: facebook.com/groups/My200BirdYear to exchange sightings, photos and birding knowledge etc ● Buy Bird Watching magazine for monthly features on the which species to look for, when, and where, and how to identify them when you do see them ● Download our target list at: birdwatching.co.uk/target-list…

Dawn Balmer As a young birdwatcher I loved reading Ian’s column in Bird Watching with tales of birds I’d never heard of, all beautifully illustrated in his wonderfully unique style. I’ve been lucky to get to know Ian a little over the years. He was a believer in ‘purposeful birdwatching’ and took pride in contributing just shy of 5,000 records to Bird Atlas 2007-11. David Lindo Through his writing and artwork I learned the real meaning of watching in the term ‘birdwatching’. DIM Wallace was from yesteryear, but was still as relevant now as he was back then. It was an honour to have personally known him. Stuart Housden I met him as a young teenager at Dungeness in the 1960s when he picked up a ‘hippo’ flying at 50m…

POSTCODE: LE6 0HE (Newtown Linford entrance) GRID REF: SK 530 110 MAPS: OS Explorer 233, OS Landranger 140 PARKING: Three large car parks, at Newtown Linford, Hunts Hill/Old John, and Hallgates/Cropston Reservoir. Parking charges apply: bradgatepark.org/parking-charges TERRAIN: Wide tarmac track runs from Newtown Linford to Hallgates car parks. Off that, can me muddy and slippery. ACCESS: Opening hours www.visitleicester.info/see-and-do/bradgate-park-p721211 FACILITIES: There’s a café, visitor centre and toilets midway between Newtown Linford and Hallgates, and Newtown Linford itself has shops, pubs and cafés…

GET IN TOUCH birdwatching@bauermedia.co.uk facebook.com/BirdWatchingMag twitter.com/BirdWatchingMag Bird Watching, Media House, Lynch Wood, Peterborough PE2 6EA Albania love I really enjoyed the feature on Dalmatian Pelicans in the December issue of Bird Watching magazine. For me it immediately linked back to your ‘Bird the World’ feature in the previous issue when Albania got a rare mention as a birding destination. This is a country I have grown to love after several (work) visits, starting after the fall of communism in 1991. Post retirement and pre Covid I finally managed an actual holiday when I was able to organise a three-day birding trip with prominent ornithologist Mirjan Topi. One of the locations we visited was the Vjosë-Narta Protected Landscape. In the salt lagoons we were treated to a brilliant display as Dalmatian…

Edward Lear is known throughout the world as the author of the ‘best’ limericks (he virtually invented the form) and nonsense rhymes (e.g., The Owl and the Pussycat) in English literature. Yet the earliest years of his career were devoted to quite a different creative enterprise – a series of extraordinary bird paintings of a quality and style to rival the work of even the great John James Audubon. Each of Lear’s best plates embodies the sense of movement, colour and design that led Sir Sacheverell Sitwell to call him “perhaps the best of bird painters”. Ducks, eagles, owls, parrots, toucans – however exotic or familiar the subject, his magnificent portraits capture not just the characteristics of a species, but the character of the individual bird. The parade of illustrated…

ISO. A way of controlling sensitivity to available light, expressed as a number (eg ISO 500). Low ISO gives slower shutter speeds but less grainy images. High ISO allows higher shutter speeds at the price of grainier images. f-number. A measure, usually expressed as a fraction eg f/8) of the width aperture which allows light into the camera. High f-number means smaller aperture, so slower shutter speed but higher depth of focus (aka depth of field). Low f-number means wider aperture, so faster shutter speeds and smaller depth of field. Shutter speed (aka exposure time). The time (in seconds, so often expressed as a fraction, eg 1/5,000 sec) which the aperture is open, letting in light. Faster shutter speeds can ‘freeze’ the action. Depth of field. The apparent ‘depth’ front…

GIVE YOUR UNWANTED OPTICS TO A CONSERVATION CHARITY The RSPB will take “good working order” binoculars, telescopes and tripods and pass them on to needy conservation or educational projects. Since 1985, more than 12,000 bits of kit have been delivered to more than 90 countries. The BTO takes binoculars and field guides and gets them to young people, schools or university groups that can’t afford them. So don’t just leave your unwanted kit on the shelf or in the cupboard. See: rspb.org.uk/ join-and-donate/other-ways-to-help/second-hand-binocular-scheme/ and bto.org/develop-your-skills/ birding-basics/bto-equipment-donation-scheme. BUY A (NOT QUITE) NEW BINOCULAR OR SCOPE, FROM £LESS THAN YOU MIGHT THINK The greenest way to purchase or upgrade your binocular or scope is to buy second-hand. You’ll save money and could be surprised at the kit that is for sale on…

JANUARY BIRD OF THE MONTH WOODCOCK Here is a fact that may blow your mind. The estimated wintering population of Woodcocks in the UK is an astonishing 1.4 million individuals. This is particularly surprising as it is a bird most of us hardly, if ever, see at all! Yes, if you visit a well-known breeding site (a damp wood for instance), you may, in spring or summer, see silhouettes of ‘roding’ Woodcock flying circuits just above the treetops, croaking and squeaking in proclamation of the breeding territory (incidentally, this will be part of the breeding population of 55,000 pairs). But outside of the breeding season, most birdwatchers’ encounters with Woodcocks are of accidentally flushed birds, bursting forth from a woodland floor, or whizzing by as you drive along. However, the…

Summer 1985. I was wrapped in a sleeping bag, head resting on my rucksack, sleeping on the Brighton-like shingle beach in Nice, southern France. I woke to the sound of approaching footsteps (hard to conceal on shingle). As a hand reached down to gently take my rucksack pillow, I pretended to gently roll in my sleep to face the thief. “Dormi, monsieur” said a soft voice. I got the idea (although I wondered about the grammar), but sleep wasn’t on my mind, and luckily he tramped off over the shingle. Perhaps that incident was the start of my habit of always sleeping with an ear half open (as it were). Three years later, my dear wife Jo (then my ‘girlfriend’) and I were again wrapped in sleeping bags on a…

Couzens honoured Dominic Couzens has been awarded the prestigious Dilys Breese Medal by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). He received his award for outstanding communication of the BTO’s work. He is the author of 40+ books, as well, of course, as a long-time contributor to BW. Dom said: “It is an amazing honour to receive this, particularly from an organisation close to my heart. They do fantastic work in science and in conservation, and I am truly privileged to be able to communicate both of these in my work as a writer.” Red List Increases The Red List of UK’s most endangered birds has increased to 70 species, with Swift, House Martin, Greenfinch and Bewick’s Swan added. The list now accounts for more than a quarter of UK’s 245…

Amanda: When did you start birding seriously? Manda: Eight years ago I moved temporarily to Africa to work and my husband and I both got into birding there, which continued when we returned to the UK. 2021 was the first year I started listing properly. I’ve recorded 241 species so far, and it’s only October. What is it that keeps you searching for rarities? I think it must be the dopamine rush you get when you finally see something you’ve been searching for. I really enjoy chatting to other birders I meet, too, and that’s how I met my birding pal, Peter Grady, when we were on a twitch in Essex. Do you meet many other women twitchers? I do meet a few out there and it feels like numbers…

In this issue of Bird Watching, Ian Parsons has written about how the Robin – that familiar and friendly sight from many a suburban garden – is actually a much more complicated, far-travelled character than that. It’s not the only one. Most of us, even before we start birdwatching, know something about migration. We know that species such as Swallows and Swifts arrive in spring, stay here for the summer to breed, then fly south again. Most of us also learn, soon after beginning birding, that the British Isles also attract a large number of winter visitors, birds (mainly wildfowl and waders) that breed in extreme northern latitudes and then fly here to take advantage of our relatively mild, ice-free winters. But, as Ian showed with the Robin, there’s even…

A few months ago, we were birdwatching in East Yorkshire when news of a mega bird made us change our plans for the day. Luckily, our guests Peter and Margaret were up for the challenge and so, abandoning the Yorkshire coast for the day, we headed inland to the RSPB reserve of St Aidan’s. As we drove, we described the reserve to set the scene for Peter and Margaret. The ground drops down steeply from the car park and visitor centre to a series of pools, channels and reedbeds alongside the River Aire, we said, and it is overlooked by a ‘Big Thing.’ That was the only way we could describe the leviathan machine that dominates the scene on arrival at this reserve. Its gigantic ‘body’ set on a turntable…

POSTCODE: LU7 0BA GRID REF: SP 920 293 MAPS: OS Explorer 192, OS Landranger 165 PARKING: Park in the signposted pay and display car park off Brickhill Road, by the visitor centre. If visiting when closed park in lay-byes along Brickhill Road TERRAIN: Mostly unsurfaced paths and tracks, some steep inclines on sandy ground. The track by the lake is accessible for wheelchairs and buggies ACCESS: Year-round access on public footpaths throughout FACILITIES: On site facilities include a visitors centre with cafe, (open 10am-4pm) shop, toilets, etc. There are a number of interpretive boards on site…

1 Greenshank by Rob Porter Camera: Panasonic DC-G9 Lens: 400mm, Shutter Speed: 1/1,250 sec Aperture: f/9 ISO: 1,000 2 Kingfishers by Martin Yelland Camera: Canon EOS 7D Lens: 35mm, Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec Aperture: f/6.3 ISO: 320 3 Kestrel by Paul Coombes Camera: Nikon D500 Lens: 600mm, Shutter Speed: 1/1,000 sec Aperture: f/7.1 ISO: 1,000 4 Cattle Egret by Mark Caunt Camera: Canon EOS 7D Lens: 700mm, Shutter Speed: 1/1,300 sec Aperture: f/7.1 ISO: 200 WE LOVE... They’re all great photos, but those Kingfishers... Wow!…

DAVID LINDO THE URBAN BIRDER During one of the lockdowns, I received a distressed call from a friend. She was a non-birder living on her own in urban Ealing in west London, and was a little freaked out by the creepy screaming noises, as she had described them, that were emanating from outside her window during the dead of night. After a little bit of deduction, I worked out that she was indeed hearing the nocturnal cries of a Tawny Owl. She was bowled over that there were owls in her neighbourhood. However, she thought that ‘owls’ only made ‘tu-whit, tu-whoo’ noises – the utterance of a male and female duetting. This distinctive and secretive owl has been discreetly living among us in the urban areas of England, Wales and Scotland for…

THE SWAN: A BIOGRAPHY STEPHEN MOSS, SQUARE PEG, HB, £12.99 Following on from the books The Robin, The Wren and The Swallow in the same series, The Swan is full of great information, mainly on our familiar Mute Swan, but also those winter visitors the Whooper and Bewick’s Swans as well. There are some references to the Trumpeter Swan and the Black Swan, too, and Stephen Moss’s wide-ranging look at the birds takes in history, poetry and even adverts that have used the swan as an iconic image. He’s certainly done his homework – this is a great read, and springs surprises about a bird you might think you know well. BOOK OF THE MONTH COTTONGRASS SUMMER/ MISTLETOE WINTER ROY DENNIS, SARABAND, SB, £9.99 If lockdown was good at anything, it was…