Articles

Notes from Mill Street, Elsing.

On the 7^th April whilst perusing a written document indoors I became aware of a strange sound coming from the driveway just outside the back door. I tentatively approached the door which was open and was surprised to see a Pied Wagtail perched on my wife’s car. As I watched it flew down to the wing mirror and proceeded to hover in front of its image and peck the mirror’s surface. It repeated this behaviour for several minutes before flying off. Apparently males especially are highly aggressive towards rivals in defence of their territory or food and are often reported attacking their own images in window panes, or even the wing mirrors of Nissan Micra cars!

A Short Story by Avril Dalton

During the recent very cold weather I was on holiday in Bourton-on-the-Water, quite a busy little town. Late one afternoon I was browsing near the door of a busy newsagent when a movement caught my eye. To my astonishment in walked a gold crest. Its feathers were all puffed out but it didn’t appear injured or concussed. I was concerned that it would be trod on and shoed it gently outside whereupon it headed for a dark corner, making no attempt to fly. I picked it up and held it up but though it flapped its wings again it did not fly. I soon had an audience of passers by most of who had never seen a gold crest before. Luckily I found a local lady who fed birds, including gold crests, in her garden. Hopefully it could feed up and recover. The incident reinforced for me how vulnerable such small birds are to adverse weather conditions; it was probably too weak to fly.

Tags: birding, bird watching club, bird races

Bramblings (Fringilla montifringilla) are the northern counterpart of the chaffinch and have a long history as a winter visitor to our shores. Thomas Bewick (1753-1828) referred to Brambling as the “Mountain Finch” and noted that it made better eating than the chaffinch although he found it to be rather bitter in taste. Three hundred years earlier a William Turner referred to it as the “bramlyng” which suggests a connection with bramble. The real derivation of its name could be “brandling”, an old word for an animal of brindled pattern i.e marked with spots or streaks. Certainly its non-breeding plumage gives this impression as the dark underparts become frosted with a series of pale crescent-shaped lines.

The Robin first appeared on Christmas cards in the 1860s and was often illustrated carrying an envelope in its bill. It has been suggested that the bright red coat worn by Victorian postmen gave rise to their nickname of Robin. A former post office employee and writer by the name of Trollope once wrote, “come in, Robin postman, and warm theeself awhile”.

Our local flock of Black Headed Gulls which arrived at the middle of October have now been joined by a common gull. Every winter we have a small flock of Black Headed Gulls which hang around perching on roof tops and T V aerials looking for scraps in back gardens. Every year they have been joined by one common gull which makes no attempt to search for food itself but watches the Black Headed Gulls and tries to grab any food that they find in much the way a skua behaves.

The Fieldfare

The Fieldfare has been described as “a classic herald of winter” and their routine arrival each autumn has been recognised in Britain since Chaucer’s day (1340-1400).He wrote “Above all the bird’s of winter, the frosty feldefares” which encapsulates the way most Britons think of them.

I found an interesting article on the dangers posed to Kinglets from Common Burdock, not aware of anything similar happening in the UK, read the original article here and article that follows…
Burdock kills birds

Jean Iron

On October 9, 2001 while birding in Brookbanks Ravine near my house in Toronto, another walker told me about the little birds that were “trapped in thistles.” Intrigued, I went to the spot and saw two dead kinglets hanging in the burs of Common Burdock (Arctium minus), one a Golden-crowned Kinglet and the other a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

Questions I’m asked about birds by Alwyn Jackson

Whilst walking in the Derbyshire Dales recently I was asked whether Dippers migrate.

The British races Cinclus cinclus hibernicus; C. c. gularis are sedentary which means they do not move far at any time apart from local post-breeding dispersal. This affects juveniles more than adults and males more than females. However in winter in Wales and elsewhere, mountain streams are regularly vacated in favour of the lower reaches and some birds cross watersheds or in severe weather move to the coast or estuaries.