Meme, birds
Jan. 3rd, 2007 10:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sam_tMy surreal New Year's resolution is apparently:
Well, that sounds fun, but is it me or the bull that's in drag?
I opened the front door this morning to a dark sky and the sound of a robin singing. January mornings do have some compensations, after all.
The singing reminded me that I really ought to start paying a bit more attention to the birds (and anything else interesting) I see on the way to work, instead of sleepwalking to the bus stop and burying myself in a book thereafter. So, this morning produced:
I saw one of the robins, singing from the middle of a small rowan tree under a street light. I was puzzled at first by its silhouette but quickly realised that what I had thought was a wide, finch-like beak was in fact the end of a twig.
I'll be getting the bird song CDs out this evening to check the ones I heard but didn't see.
I got some binoculars for Christmas. This is a good thing, although my track record with binoculars suggests that it may mean that I see even fewer birds than usual. I went on my first walk with them* a few days ago with the new binoculars and saw my first ever treecreeper. They're quite engaging little birds, and the guides are quite right: 'mouselike' is an extremely good adjective for them. I also saw the river far sooner than I expected to, as it's over its banks, and a few pied wagtails. I thought at the time that a few of them were female grey wagtails, as they were mostly grey with some lemon-yellow, and by water besides, although I was surprised to see the two species mixing so well. Something wasn't right, though, and checking the bird books afterwards revealed that the yellow was in entirely the wrong place - on the face rather than the underparts - to indicate a grey wagtail. The books were, however, entirely unhelpful about what the greyish wagtail might be. A quick google this morning revealed that the birds I had seen were first winter pied wagtails, which makes more sense than the other options I'd considered (that I'd imagined the whole thing, or that this was something Rare and Exciting). Photos of adult and first winter pied wagtails are linked to from http://www.garden-birds.co.uk/birds/piedwagtail.htm and http://www.cambridgebirdclub.org.uk/photos2003.htm , in case anyone's interested.
*Not counting the Boxing Day walk in sparse deciduous woodland where I saw blue tits, coal tits and great tits in the trees around the car park, but failed to see any birds apart from a distant blackbird for the whole of the rest of the walk. This might have had something to do with the fact that I was accompanied by several people and a golden retriever puppy. After all, if you were only a few inches long and had just spotted something large going 'woof, woof, galumph galumph galumph BOING', what would you do?
|
Well, that sounds fun, but is it me or the bull that's in drag?
I opened the front door this morning to a dark sky and the sound of a robin singing. January mornings do have some compensations, after all.
The singing reminded me that I really ought to start paying a bit more attention to the birds (and anything else interesting) I see on the way to work, instead of sleepwalking to the bus stop and burying myself in a book thereafter. So, this morning produced:
- Two robins, both singing
I saw one of the robins, singing from the middle of a small rowan tree under a street light. I was puzzled at first by its silhouette but quickly realised that what I had thought was a wide, finch-like beak was in fact the end of a twig.
- Several blackbirds, calling or giving alarm calls as I startled them by walking past
- Something with a short, high call; possibly a blue tit or two
- Two singing song thrushes, one each side of a busy road
- Possibly some sparrows - there's usually a noisy flock in a hedge but they weren't there this morning. I think I heard them in the distance, though.
- Something that may have been a chaffinch, singing briefly in trees on the other side of the main road
- Something else that may have been a great tit calling from the same trees. It wasn't the classic 'teacher, teacher' call, but it was a similar pitch and volume and I know that there are often great tits in those trees
- Three crows that flew overhead while I was standing at the bus stop
- A small flock of wood pigeons, seen from the train silhouetted against the lightening sky
- Three unidentified ducks on a flooded field, glimpsed briefly as the train thundered past
- Two birds with calls I couldn't identify.
I'll be getting the bird song CDs out this evening to check the ones I heard but didn't see.
I got some binoculars for Christmas. This is a good thing, although my track record with binoculars suggests that it may mean that I see even fewer birds than usual. I went on my first walk with them* a few days ago with the new binoculars and saw my first ever treecreeper. They're quite engaging little birds, and the guides are quite right: 'mouselike' is an extremely good adjective for them. I also saw the river far sooner than I expected to, as it's over its banks, and a few pied wagtails. I thought at the time that a few of them were female grey wagtails, as they were mostly grey with some lemon-yellow, and by water besides, although I was surprised to see the two species mixing so well. Something wasn't right, though, and checking the bird books afterwards revealed that the yellow was in entirely the wrong place - on the face rather than the underparts - to indicate a grey wagtail. The books were, however, entirely unhelpful about what the greyish wagtail might be. A quick google this morning revealed that the birds I had seen were first winter pied wagtails, which makes more sense than the other options I'd considered (that I'd imagined the whole thing, or that this was something Rare and Exciting). Photos of adult and first winter pied wagtails are linked to from http://www.garden-birds.co.uk/birds/piedwagtail.htm and http://www.cambridgebirdclub.org.uk/photos2003.htm , in case anyone's interested.
*Not counting the Boxing Day walk in sparse deciduous woodland where I saw blue tits, coal tits and great tits in the trees around the car park, but failed to see any birds apart from a distant blackbird for the whole of the rest of the walk. This might have had something to do with the fact that I was accompanied by several people and a golden retriever puppy. After all, if you were only a few inches long and had just spotted something large going 'woof, woof, galumph galumph galumph BOING', what would you do?
