Wednesday 19 January 2011

New Crow Species?

Crow (c) 2011 Aileen Urquhart
Crow
Long-tailed Tit (c) 2011 Aileen Urquhart
ditto
'Plastic' Barnacle Goose & Greylag
Goosander [female] (c) 2011 John Sparham
Goosander [female] (c) 2011 Aileen Urquhart
ditto
Goosander [drake] (c) 2011 John Sparham
Goosanders (c) 2011 John Sparham
Redwing (c) 2011 John Sparham
Tufted Duck
Pochard (c) 2011 John Sparham
Coot - pretending to be injured
Moorhen (c) 2011 Aileen Urquhart
Mistle Thrushes (c) 2011 Aileen Urquhart
Common Gull (c) 2011 Aileen Urquhart
Today, saw another trip to the local park. Of course the usual suspects were present, but the Goosanders were harder to photograph now all the ice had melted. There were plenty of Carrion Crows with a striking pied look - I believe this is caused by an over-reliance on bread when the birds are moulting. If they subequently eat a higher protein diet when moulting these white feathers will be replaced by the more usual black ones! Star birds were the 5 Bramblings which dropped in for a couple of minutes before flying off north. Other excellent finches were the 5 Lesser Redpolls and c10 Siskin. Long-tailed Tits were nest building, Stock Doves were displaying, while Mistle Thrushes were singing & Great Spotted Woodpeckers were drumming for the first time this year. The plastic Barnacle Goose was enjoying a sit-down with Grey Lags. The flock of Redwing had increased to 12, but it was much more difficult to estimate the Goosander numbers, but they don't appear to have increased significantly now the ice has melted.

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