Good Weather for Ducks ...


... not quite so good for this Wood Pigeon:

As the wet weather continues, these two images taken at South Lake, WWT Slimbridge, today give a good demonstration of the water-proofing qualities of a duck's plumage. Water is sitting in round droplets on the Mallard's head and body, whilst the poor Wood Pigeon is looking more like I was at that point, complete with slightly despondent countenance. Also on South Lake were two Oystercatchers, an adult Common Tern with two chicks, 80+ Black-headed Gulls, a Teal, several Shoveller, a female Mandarin and around five House Martins.

Earlier in my garden, there were a number of birds taking advantage of the newly replenished feeders including immature Great Tits (five), Blue Tits (three) and House Sparrows. I like to think at least some of these birds were raised in my nest boxes. In this photo of one of the the House Sparrows below, the remnant of it's yellow gape is still just visible.

(Photos: © Paul Masters).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gran Canaria

Image
Saturday 1st - Saturday 8th October 2016 Hoopoe - Maspalomas A week in the hot sunshine of Gran Canaria at the start of October produced some good birds despite this island not getting much representation in the available range of published bird guides. This isn't surprising since it doesn't hold any populations of the endemic Canary pigeon species which can be found on Tenerife and La Gomera, and Blue Chaffich is much easier to find on Tenerife; next to impossible on Gran Canaria.  Based in Maspalomas at the southern tip of the island, my birding was incidental, or confined to the occasional short solo exploration on foot, in between simply being on holiday. A brackish lagoon, La Charca, stretches behind the beach at Maspalomas, cut off the sea by the beach, and with the dunes along one side. La Charca was always interesting to visit and turned up some good birds. The highlights included (no particular order): Canary Island Chiffchaff - common and vocal virtually ever
Read more

Todd's Canada Goose

Image
Saturday 16th January 2010 The Canada Goose showing characteristics of the race Branta canadensis interior , commonly known as Todd's Canada Goose , was in the Rushy Pen at Slimbridge WWT this morning (photos in poor light above and below) , before flying off with other Canada's at 9:40am. This is a very interesting bird, showing several features which together set it apart from its feral counterparts. My observations of the differences are: it is slightly smaller with a more slender neck; shorter bill; narrower white cheek patch; the black on the chin is linked to the black of the neck; at the bottom of the neck at the back, the black joins the brown of the mantle, with no white in between; the pale fringing on the scapulars etc. is much less distinct; the tertials are more contrastingly paler, giving the effect of a pale wing panel; it has a pale eye-ring; and if these features don't help - it has a limp! Other sightings this morning included: Sharpness Docks A female/imm
Read more

Storks, Spoonbills, Orchids and Oversley Wood

Image
Friday 15th June - Friday 6th July 2018 White Stork, Zwin Nature Park, Belgium I'll start off with some photos of White Storks taken on my recent holiday in Belgium and the Netherlands. Based in Bruges, we encountered Storks nesting near the city in the pretty small town of Damme, and at Zwin Nature Park in Belgium, and also over the border in the dutch town of Sluis. Sluis is a picturesque town, and the Storks we saw here were clearly very used to humans. White Stork, Sluis, Netherlands Zwin Nest with young, Zwin Stork nest in Damme This nest in Damme was on the historic St John's Hospital Museum, currently being renovated I didn't see a Spoonbill during the whole of 2017, and hadn't seen one in 2018 until arriving at Zwin Nature Park and seeing one in flight over the centre. This was probably one of two I saw together from the main hide. This is a fantastic reserve with great facilities. Situated in the north-east corner of Belgium, j
Read more