Who lives in the roof?

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Suburban birds

I spent the Jubilee weekend and bank holidays at my parents' house while they were away enjoying themselves in France. Eventually it stopped raining and I did a bit of ringing...

Collared Dove

It's pretty difficult to catch Collared Doves in mist nets; being a bigger and faster-flying bird, they tend to bounce out easily or can wriggle their way to freedom. So I was lucky to get my hands on this male.

Male House Sparrow

Juvenile Starling

Adult male Starling

Goldfinch

Juvenile Dunnock

Moulting adult Blue Tit

The shortest day

Like last year, I spent 21 December on the farm trying to catch some birds. 21 December 2010 was cold and snowy, we caught lots of birds and had a big jar of Quality Street to devour. Sadly 2011 was not quite as successful.

But we caught a few birds around the farm orchard.

male House Sparrow

female House Sparrow

'Fascinating' fact: Both adult and juvenile House Sparrows do a complete moult after the breeding season (though obviously not all at once - that would be silly). So once that's complete you can't tell how old they are. But you can tell whether they're male or female.

Coal Tit (sex unknown)

Coal Tit was a good catch for the farm, with only a couple ever caught there before.

'Fascinating' fact: You can tell how old Coal Tits are at this time of year (though I forgot to photograph the relevant bit). Young birds don't moult all of their greater coverts, so if you look carefully you can see  difference in colour between the old ones and the new ones.

photos taken with Apple iPhone 4S

Wicken Fen

My first visit to Wicken Fen proper today (after a pre-work twitch of the displaying Buff-bellied Sandpiper there a few years ago).

In summary:

Squacco Heron: hiding
Little Egrets: grumpy
Konik ponies: fighting
Weather: hot
Hairy Dragonflies: everywhere
Painted Ladies: migrating
House Sparrows: tame, and dining on a superior standard of discarded sandwich and cake crumb

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM or  Canon Powershot A640

Garden tick

Tree (left) and House Sparrows. Note how colossal the HS looks by comparison

Tree Sparrow!

Male House Sparrow

Exciting times in the garden over the past couple of days. Yesterday, D was at home feeling ill. He happened to glance out of the window and saw a Tree Sparrow sitting in the bush! That came as a bit of a shock as we didn't know of any others nearby.

We invited Mark round today to catch and ring a few garden birds, as there are quite a few around at the moment. He put up a single net between the bush and the two feeders and in a couple of hours we were quite successful: the expected Blue, Great and Coal Tits, Robins, Dunnocks, House Sparrows, Chaffinches and Greenfinches. Oh, and a Tree Sparrow!

We were probably unlucky not to get a woodpecker (one Green seen this morning, and three Great Spots all at once this afternoon), or a Sparrowhawk. I think the Jackdaws (which have been using both peanut and sunflower feeders) might be too canny to get caught. Perhaps we'll get them next time.

It will be really interesting to see whether the Tree Sparrow stays for the winter. Steve says it's typical for them to wander about at this time of year. This area has a number of features which should be good for them and we'll be getting some nestboxes in place for next spring.

Fingers crossed. Maybe this is the start of a new colony?

Totals:

• Blue Tit, 16
  
• Great Tit, 6
• Greenfinch, 6
• House Sparrow, 3
• Chaffinch, 2
• Dunnock, 2
• Coal Tit, 2
• Robin, 1
• Tree Sparrow, 1

photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995

Sparrows

Rock Sparrow, Ipsilou monastery

Female House Sparrow, Skala Polichnitou

We saw two species of sparrow on Lesvos: House and Rock. The former is extremely common, even in unpopulated areas (in sharp contrast to the UK); the latter we only saw around the buildings at Ipsilou monastery, where they were clearly breeding.

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM