Table of contents for September 2022 in Bird Watching

twitter.com/BirdWatchingMag facebook.com/BirdWatchingMag 1 CRESTED TIT The Crested Tit is an adorable, unmistakable favourite of anyone visiting northern Scotland, especially around the remnants of the Caledonian pine forest. We have our own peculiar subspecies restricted to this ancient woodland (and newer Scots Pine plantations). Other subspecies occur on the continent, where they are more ‘catholic’ in their habitat tastes. In the UK, this part of Scotland is where the 1,500 pairs breed, and also where the up to 10,000 individuals spend the winter. Crested Tits can be hard to locate in the breeding season, but should be easier come the autumn. It helps to learn the distinctive trilling call to locate them. Good luck. 2 PECTORAL SANDPIPER This smallish calidrid sandpiper is a scarce visitor, but still comfortably the commonest wader…

Garden snake One lazy September Sunday, my daughter’s words flummoxed me. “Dada,” she said, “why’s this snake in our garden?” Surging over to check her discovery, I was confronted by a scaly serpent the size of my index finger swaying from the willowy branch of a fuchsia. From its bulbous head swelled two enormous black eyes, each with an expansive catchlight. It was no reptile, but the astonishing caterpillar of an Elephant Hawk-moth. MOTH Camouflage king The very name Tree-lichen Beauty suggests a moth worth looking at – a superlative combination of camouflage and good looks. Prior to 1991, Britain’s experience of this moth comprised just three 19th Century records, rendering it an unattainable creature of the past. Barely 30 years later, it breeds widely across south-east and east England,…

My postage stamp yard was hard gardening through April into May… watering is a pain if your garden is 90% pots and containers. Warm, dry weather is one thing, but add strong winds and everything dries out fast – even our wildlife pond dropped its level daily. Then for a few days in late May, it went crazy. Temperatures soared, the wind dropped and it seemed the rain gods partied every night. My thesaurus was hard put to find other words for verdant, lush, rampant and flourishing. The meagre blooms were replaced by blazes of colour, as spring and summer seemed to happen in a week. Campanulas, Cape daisies, foxgloves, alliums and poppies burst into floral song. Seasonal succession, planned last year, failed as everything flowered in one heated rush.…

SET A TARGET OF SEEING 200 BIRDS IN ONE YEAR! One query we regularly get from readers, and not just those taking our #My200BirdYear challenge, is why certain species can seem to disappear at certain times of year? Take a bird as bright and obvious as the Kingfisher, for example. If you have one on a stream, river or lake near you, you might find you see them pretty much every day in winter and spring, but in summer, they’re suddenly absent. There are several reasons for this. One is that most species moult in summer, including their flight feathers, and so there is at least a short period of time during which they’re vulnerable, so they stay out of sight. A second is that they have youngsters to think…

GET IN TOUCH birdwatching@bauermedia.co.uk facebook.com/BirdWatchingMag twitter.com/BirdWatchingMag Bird Watching, Media House, Lynch Wood, Peterborough PE2 6EA A family affair Here is a Sparrowhawk family I have been following locally in Winchester. Last year, the pair were unsuccessful, after being disturbed, but this year they have reared two healthy chicks. It has been great watching them build their nest of twigs high up in the tree canopy, thankfully safe from harm this year. The female snapped off branches, but the male would collect fallen twigs and raid old nests for building materials, as he was not getting much success with breaking off the twigs with his beak – she is much bigger and stronger! It was so rewarding weeks later to finally see two little fluffy white heads appear over the top…

In association with Q I’d like to start trying out some macro photography with my DSLR (it’s a five-year-old-Canon). Can you recommend some affordable lens options, please? D Whittle, Petersfield A There are many places to start regarding macro photography, depending on the camera you do have, whether it is a crop-sensor or full frame, and the budget you have. A specific lens that is affordable, I’d recommend the Sigma 70mm F2.8 DG MACRO Art Lens. It has a great minimum focus distance of 0.26m, making it an ideal candidate for macro. The Sigma is an affordable option, and has 9 aperture blades which will make your bokeh rounder and your background a lot smoother when shooting at wider apertures. If you’d like to find a lens best for you,…

RSPB POCKET GUIDE TO BRITISH BIRDS MARIANNE TAYLOR AND STEPHEN MESSAGE, BLOOMSBURY, SB, £7.99 As it says on the label, this is a small book, but it still covers more than 300 species, so it’s ideal for taking with you wherever you are. The writing is rather small, but you have between one and five images of the species being described, and there’s a distribution map of the species, too, detailing breeding, wintering and migration. The species accounts give you all the normal features such as plumage details and where to see them, but a nice touch is that at the bottom of each there are ID pitfalls, which gives you even more ways of making the right decision as to what you’ve seen. Every casual birder should have one.…

SOUTH WEST In association with Highlights The Channel Islands hosted the rarest bird in the region, this month: a Bridled Tern, which appeared on 9th on Jersey (at Les Ecrehous) and remained in and around the Common Terns there, until 15th (after which it flew to France). There were reports of a possible Long-legged Buzzard (again) in Cornwall, as well as an apparent White-crowned Sparrow photographed in a garden in Devon. AVON CLEVEDON-WESTON-SUPER-MARE: Clevedon-Yeo had 36 Curlews and three Whimbrels (by 30th), and four Great White Egrets (15th). SEVERNSIDE: Pilning Wetlands had Avocets, Little Ringed Plovers, a Little Stint, Snipe, Spotted Redshank, Greenshank, Wood Sandpiper, five Mediterranean Gulls and a Spoonbill. Severn Beach logged 20 Manx Shearwaters (4th) and a Fulmar (8th). A Great White Egret spent most of the…

I have a couple of bits of wisdom to impart. Firstly, and most importantly, never get osteoarthritis in your knees. I have it in both of mine and it is no joke. I blame lockdown and working from home: sitting for too long at my computer in our kitchen and getting progressively fatter have done my knees no favours! Secondly, if you get an opportunity to see a shrike, take it. A couple of weekends ago, I cadged a lift with my good friends Will and Ray Bowell, who were heading up to Bempton for the rare Turkestan Shrike, which had found a patch to its liking (and for a chance to revisit Albert the Black-browed Albatross, at the nearby cliffs). We arrived at the Bempton Cliffs RSPB car park…

Warbler decline The decline of Willow Warblers in England may be linked to climate change, according to a study published in the journal Ibis. BTO researchers used volunteer bird counts and habitat data from the BTO/ JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey to separate the impacts of climate change and habitat change on Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff populations. The study revealed Willow Warbler numbers across the UK fell by 41% (1994-2018), while those of the Chiffchaff grew by 133%. In Scotland, Willow Warblers increased by 77%; Chiffchaffs 244%. In this time, the mean breeding season temperature was 12.7°C in England and 10.2°C in Scotland, close to the optimum breeding temperatures for Chiffchaff (13.5°C) and Willow Warbler (11°C). Algarve event The 13th Birdwatching & Nature Activities Festival in Sagres, Algarve, Portugal, takes place…

I confess I’m feeling very pleased with myself. I’ve organised an early meeting with the manager of Walthamstow Wetlands shop in north east London so that I’ll have time to squeeze in some birding before I have to get back to south London. It’s a perfect day for it – sunny with a gentle breeze – and I’m looking forward to revisiting one of my favourite urban reserves. With business concluded, I emerge from the visitors’ centre into bright sun and set off round the reservoirs, with a spring in my step. A Cetti’s Warbler immediately demands my attention with its rapid-fire call, while Reed Warblers scratch at each other like competing DJs. Common Terns are on patrol, their heads swinging from side to side as they scan the water,…

There is no doubt that world-famous artists such as Vincent van Gogh and John Constable developed styles that can be immediately recognised across the floor of a gallery. I would say that the same is true of Robert Gillmor, arguably our most successful and respected bird artist of the last 50 years. Very sadly, Robert passed away in May, aged 85, leaving a legacy of bird art that may never be surpassed. Nobody has contributed as many illustrations to bird books as Robert, and I would argue that nobody will ever achieve his reach in terms of public awareness. People may not realise it, but they have posted letters with his stamps on, ticked off dates on one of his calendars and put their coffee cups down on his coasters.…

Send your snaps to birdwatching@bauermedia.co.uk to be in with a chance of seeing your photo in print. All images should be high resolution JPEG files. 1 Whitethroat by Lisa Lark Camera: Nikon D500 Lens: 500mm, Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec Aperture: f/7.1 ISO: 320 2 Rock Pipit by Bethan Jones Camera: Panasonic DC-TZ90 Lens: 129mm, Shutter Speed: 1/1,500 sec Aperture: f/6.4 ISO: 80 3 Peregrine by Joanna Hutchinson Camera: Canon Powershot SX70 HS Lens: 247mm, Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec Aperture: f/7.1 ISO: 100 4 Little Owl by Marc Freebrey Camera: Nikon D850 Lens: 500mm, Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec Aperture: f/6.3 ISO: 1,100 WE LOVE… Oh, my word… The photo of the Little Owl……

Over the summer and early autumn, something hugely significant has been happening in the world of birds. And it’s possible that most of us have failed to recognise it. It’s one of the biggest of all annual bird movements, and many people don’t even know that it takes place. It isn’t quite up there with the migration of wildebeest in East Africa in terms of spectacle, but you might be surprised to know that vastly more individual animals are involved, even in Britain. And yet, you might not even have heard of it. It’s called dispersal. And it’s a big deal. It’s like a bomb that goes off in bird populations, scattering individuals in different directions, indiscriminately. Yet the bomb goes off like a whisper, and the feathered shrapnel is…

Swans are universally known. There cannot be a single urban person on the planet who hasn’t heard of a swan, even if they are not naturally found where they live. In the UK, swans adorn the front of some of our pubs, have lent their name to products and to towns like Swanage. They have even found their way into our culture, folklore and colloquial language; ‘swanning around’ being a good example. Indeed, they have been written about and fawned over innumerable times over the ages. Ask anyone to draw a picture of one and the image that you would receive no doubt would resemble that of a Mute Swan. This impressive waterfowl is an instantly recognisable urban bird. As a birder you barely think of Mute Swans as ‘wild’.…

The times below are for high tide, when waders and wildfowl will be pushed closer to dry land… Find the location closest to your destination and add or subtract the hours and 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…

We all know that there is not really such a thing as a ‘garden bird’. There are, though, plenty of birds which like to visit ‘our’ gardens, which in many ways closely resemble the open woodland and glade-like habitats which are the ‘natural’ home to many species. Of course, we can encourage birds to visit our gardens, by providing the essentials of food, water and shelter. Food does not necessarily mean artificially provided ‘bird food’ provided ready-made on birdtables or feeders. It can equally be from growing plants which produce food (seeds or insect life), not poisoning the invertebrates which naturally live in a garden, or actively encouraging invertebrates (insects, molluscs, worms etc) to thrive. Anyhow, here are six ‘garden birds’ in autumn. Please put a name to each of…

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 MORAY & NAIRN MAX MILES ON FOOT: 5 MIN TIME: 5 HOURS CULBIN BAR Wildfowl and waders on the North Sea coast of Scotland The vast inter-tidal slacks to the east of Nairn, with myriad creeks and sand bars, are ideal for a wide range of wintering wildfowl and waders. Culbin Forest boasts Crested Tit and Scottish Crossbill along with Pine Martin. Raptors and owls often winter in the scrubby area between dunes and woodland. The Moray Firth has resident Bottle-nosed Dolphins, and huge numbers of seabirds, including rarities. WHERE TO WATCH 1 Trees near the car park…

In a previous article (BW August), I looked at the importance of backgrounds in bird photography. Paying as much attention to the surroundings as to your subject itself is vital if you wish to consistently produce compelling images and improve your results. Careful consideration to the composition of your images will allow you to produce the overall look and feel you are after with any given subject and circumstance. I have talked before about the relationship between subject and background, and how altering your position can drastically change the emphasis of the image and the look that you are aiming to achieve. If you are after tight portraits with all the emphasis on the subject bird, then get close at a low angle with a long lens and look for…