Month: April 2020

Blackbird

Saltlane

The male Blackbird is matt black with a bright yellow bill and yellow eye ring. In fact, the yellower his bill the more the girls like him. The female Blackbird is a much duller... brown! She also has a yellow beak. The male youngsters are brown, like mum, initially, so they don't get beaten up by dad confusing them for rival males.

Blackbirds make up for being boring black by having a beautiful 'flutey' song that contains many relaxed verses, like a man casually leaning against a wall and whistling away. They are the folk singers of birds. Listen carefully and you notice that the verses begin with flutey notes but end less tunefully with a squeak or chuckle. A Blackbird can have a repertoire of over 90 or more different verses. Some verses are regional, so a Yorkshire Blackbird will have a different set of folk songs to a Rutland one. They learn more verses the older they get so you can tell how old and crusty they are from the number of folk songs they can sing. Blackbirds sing louder in cities than in the countryside so they can be heard above the traffic noise - or they are just loudmouth folkies from London. Individuals have their own favourite spot to busk, so it can be easy to get to know individuals. They like a good sing, being one of the first to start up in the dawn chorus and, like the Robin, sing throughout most of the year. In stark contrast, they have a very loud and explosive alarm call which, once you know it, you can't mistake.

Blackbirds feed under or close to cover (a big bush or hedge), turning over leaves in search of their food. They like insects, snails, worms, berries (they do purple poo in the winter from eating elder berries), and fruit such as fallen apples and pears.

The female mainly builds the nest, the male being too busy showing off his upright tail stance or else out busking. The nest is made of grass, straw, and small twigs stuck together with mud. It is lined with finer grasses. Eggs can be laid as early as February. There are up to 5 eggs which hatch after 14 days. The chicks are then fed for a further 14 days. There can be as many as three broods.

Blackbirds are found just about everywhere with over 5 million birds in the British Isles and even more arriving in winter (which is typical of folk singers). Northern Blackbirds migrate south to join the southerners for a good winter folk festival. They have the Latin name ’turdus merula’ (don't laugh), ’turdus’ means 'thrush' (not poo) and ’merula’ means 'blackbird'.

Chaffinch

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The cricket player of the finches. His song sounds like a bowler running up and then releasing the ball, a series of descending notes with a “ker-pow” at the end which he sings loudly from early spring just to remind the girls what a good cricket player he is. He stops singing around the end of June as the school cricket season finishes. The Chaffinch also has a ‘rain’ call which consists of one “zreep” note repeated once a second for many minutes, just to let you know he is feeling pretty miserable in the wet. The monotony and boredom in this song really stands out.

The Chaffinch is similar in size to a House Sparrow, blue-grey above and salmon pink below with pink cheeks, a white shoulder patch and a white wing stripe. The tail is long-ish with white outer feathers. All the white makes him easy to see when flying away from you and makes the Chaffinch easy to tell apart from the tits. The female Chaffinch is a lot browner and not half as flashy.

They form finch bands in winter with other finches - and sparrows! These flocks are often single sex, as who wants to talk to girls about cricket.

Chaffinches are big seed eaters, though partial to a juicy caterpillar or beech mast (a fancy name for beech tree seeds) when there are lots to go around. Generally it feeds on the ground, but can manage a bird feeder if pushed. They also enjoy picking the ground at a good picnic site or in pub gardens.

The Chaffinch builds a lovely cup-shaped nest in the fork of a tree that has an outer layer of lichen and spiders' webs and an inner layer of moss and grass lined with feathers. About 4 eggs are laid in May. The female alone incubates the eggs as the male is too busy playing cricket. The eggs hatch after 14 days and both parents feed them for a further 3 weeks while teaching them how to bat.

Abundant and very widespread, there are about 6 million Chaffinches. The British Chaffinches generally stay put, but their Scandinavian cousins pop over in the winter for a good chat and boost the numbers further. Their Latin name is ‘fringilla coelebs’ which isn’t frilly celebrity but ‘finch unmarried’ which is what happens if you play too much cricket and flock with the boys.

Song Thrush

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The Song Thrush is the operatic tenor of the bird world. Found in gardens, parks, woods, and hedgerows - any stage where they can sing to a good audience. The Song Thrush is stocky with a relatively short tail. It is pale brown above with creamy buff under parts covered in black v-shaped spots (that look like upside down love hearts for all his adoring fans). They show an orangey underwing when flying, with their rapid and direct no nonsense flight, to get to their next concert venue as quickly as possible.

The Song Thrush has a far carrying, musical song that is rich with flutey notes. It sings in short phrases that are often repeated in threes or fives just in case you didn't get it the first time. They can have an extensive operatic repertoire of over 100 songs from Puccini to Wagner. They sing mainly during the day and also at dusk after most other birds have finished, as a good opera can go on a bit. The Song Thrush sings mostly from March to July and briefly in the autumn - for charity concerts. The Song Thrush flicks its wings when excited.

The Song Thrush feeds under trees and bushes and is seldom far from cover. Their favourite food is snails (escargot) which you would expect from such a musical prima donna. The snails are opened by banging them on a rock. They will eat other insects and especially a good juicy worm. They change the menu to more fruit in the autumn and winter when there are fewer insects around.

The female Song Thrush builds the nest in a tree or bush close to the trunk (the male is too busy signing autographs). It is made of twigs, grass, and moss and is lined with mud. She lays up to 5 eggs which hatch after 15 days. Both parents feed the young who leave the nest after 13 days. The youngsters are quickly independent and soon busy signing up for their own record label. The Song Thrush will sometimes have a second brood.

There are 1 million birds in Britain which are both migrant and resident. Many from Scotland and Northern Britain overwinter in Ireland. Some from Southern Britain go to France and Spain. The numbers of Song Thrush are, sadly, falling and they are on the 'red list'. It seems many youngsters are not getting through their first winter because of agricultural intensification and changes in hedgerow and woodland management. Their Latin name is ’turdus philomelos’ where ’turdus’ means 'thrush' and ’philomeos’ refers to a character in Greek mythology, Philomela, who had her tongue cut out, but was changed into a singing bird to make up for it.

Long-tailed Tit

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Long-tailed Tits are only distantly related to other Tits. Their Latin name means ‘tailed titmouse’ which sums up being a 'fuzz ball on a long stick' superbly! Pinkish brown above, pinkish white below with black marks on the side of their head and a white crown. Their tail has some white outer feathers to jazz the plain wings up a bit. Altogether, they are 14cm long of which 9cm is that very long tail. Image having a tail two-thirds of your total body length.

Long-tailed Tits move about in a sociable troop, singing their “Si-Si-Si” song as they fly in single file along the hedgerow. In the winter, they pick up other birds into their gang as they whizz along, as being polite and sociable is their thing. They love calling to each other and rarely shut up, always needing the reassurance of another Long-tailed Tit close by.

They are restless and acrobatic as they feed among the trees and bushes, often hanging upside down while munching on insects, spiders and seeds. They will go on garden feeders, but only if there is a good bush nearby for their mates to wait in.

The Long-tailed Tit does a showing off butterfly display flight in spring to attract a mate before they build beautiful domed nests from moss, lichen, and spiders' webs. They line the nest with as many as 1,500 feathers to make it super soft. They are the real wizards of nest building. The most magical part is that their cute homes are elastic and expand as the youngsters get bigger inside. The nests are built in early April and the female lays up to 12 eggs which hatch after 15 days and are ready to join the troop 14 days later once they have learnt the “Si-Si-Si” song off by heart. Other Long-tailed Tits may help feed the youngsters. With these birds, it is all about family.

Being so small, cold winters can be deadly, though they generally recover numbers quickly. To conserve body heat, they cuddle up together on a branch at night, taking it in turns to be the cold one at the end.

There are about 120,000 Long-tailed Tits in the British Isles and, like other tits, they don’t move about much, keeping to their local patch. Their Latin name is ‘aegithalos caudatus’ (‘aegithalos’ means ‘titmouse’ and ‘caudatus’ means ‘tailed’).

Chiffchaff

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The Chiffchaff is one of the first birds to come back from France and Africa in the spring (though a few stay in southern Britain all winter). They are in a hurry to set up camp and get parade drill underway. They are called 'zilpzalp' in German, 'siff-saff' in Welsh, and 'tjiftjaf' in Dutch, so everyone pretty much calls them by the noise they make.

The Chiffchaff is about the size of a Blue Tit, though not such a snappy dresser, and is a bit podgy, pot-bellied looking. Their upper parts are a dull olive-brown with the rump being slightly paler. The underparts are a dull yellowish-brown (see what I mean - dull as a squaddie). The short, rounded wings are marked with faint yellowish lines. There is a dark line through the eye and a faint pale eye stripe above. Unless you get them in good light, they just look brown (in their fatigues). They are a very restless bird, flicking their wings and twitching their tails especially when feeding - like a soldier constantly saluting. The Chiffchaffs' flight looks jerky. To add to the confusion, they look very similar to a Willow Warbler with their song being the best way to tell them apart.

The Chiffchaff sings like a dyslexic parade ground sergeant major with his "Left, Right!" ("Chiff, Chaff") call, only he gets his feet all mixed up and often goes "Left, right, left, right, right, left, right, left, left, left..." while belting out his marching song.

Chiffchaffs like woods, copses and other shrubby places where there is thick undergrowth and trees, though not pine woods. They feed mainly on insects like midges, aphids and caterpillars. They will flutter out to catch an insect on the wing and sometimes hover to grab one from under a leaf.

The female builds a domed nest with a side entrance (and boot room) low down in the bushes, especially brambles. It is made from stems and leaves, and is lined with feathers. 4-7 eggs are laid in early May, which hatch after 15 days. The youngsters are fed by mum as dad is too busy on parade ground duty. The young cadets leave the nest after 15 days. In places where it is warm, they may have a second brood.

There are about 700,000 Chiffchaffs in Britain. The migrants arrive in late March and leave at the end of September. Most head south to France to join up with their French legionnaire buddies and chat about past campaigns. Some hardy birds stay in the south of England, particularly now winters are getting milder with climate warming. They are mainly concentrated in the south and midlands, getting more scarce in the north and rarer still in Scotland as who wants to sing with bagpipes. Although their marching song is not the greatest of melodies when compared to a Skylark's, it is a joy to hear, as it signals that the year has turned, winter is gone, and spring has arrived.

The Chiffchaffs Latin name is 'phylloscopus collybita' where 'phyllocopus' comes from Greek words meaning 'leaf to look at' (well they are a dull greenish brown) and 'collybita' is a corruption of 'kollubistes' meaning money changer as their song has been likened to the jingling of coins.

Great Tit

Saltlane

This is the bruiser of the Tit family, often pushing Blue Tits, Coal Tits, and finches off the bird feeder. It is the size of a House Sparrow. The Great Tit has white cheeks, a black cap, collar and throat with a black line all the way down its yellow breast and belly - like a long black tie over his bright yellow shirt. The Great Tit’s back is greenish and the wings are blue grey with a white wing bar. The blue-grey tail has white outer feathers, which is how you can tell it from a Blue Tit when it is flying away from you. The male and female look the same but the male has a wider, showing off, kipper tie. In fact, the wider his tie, the more the girls like him!

The signature song is the one that sounds like “teacher, teacher” but the crafty Great Tit also mimics other birds and invents little ditties when bored. You can be in a wood and hear an interesting call, thinking you have found something special, only to find it is a Great Tit having a laugh. Their alarm call is similar to a Blue Tit’s - a ‘mini Magpie’ churring rattle which you will hear on the opposite side of the hedge to where you are.

The Great Tit feeds on insects (especially caterpillars in the summer), seeds and nuts. Being bigger, it is not so acrobatic as other tits and will often feed on the ground.

They nest in holes in trees and buildings, and like a good comfy nest box. The female lays 5-12 eggs in late April to May. The young hatch after 14 days and leave the nest about 21 days later. The teenagers get a further 5 days of family life outside the nest before being kicked out ready for the occasional second brood.

Generally, Great Tits don’t travel far. There are about 2.5 million in the British Isles (except Orkney, Shetland and very rarely in the Hebrides - as they are not into tweed). Great Tits can be found throughout Europe, Asia, and the Far East, which is a long way for a bird that doesn’t like to travel. Great Tits numbers have remained stable, benefiting from people putting bird feeders in their gardens.

Latin for Great Tit is ‘parus major’ which means ‘big tit’, but don’t call him a big tit as it is not kind.

Blue Tit

Saltlane

It is funny, you see them all the time (there are about 3.5 million across the British Isles) but struggle to accurately describe a Blue Tit. They are smaller than a House Sparrow, have a tiny, dark bill, a blue cap, a white face with a black eye stripe, and a yellow chest with a weak dark vertical line down their belly. There is a white wing bar but you will struggle to see it unless they keep very still. Their song often consists of two or three really high-pitched notes followed by two or three lower ones, ‘tzi-si-du-du’ almost sounding like “I am Blue Tit”. You will hear them sing most frequently from the start of the year to early summer (when they are moulting so don’t want to attract any attention). Their little ditty only lasts 1.5 seconds, so not the greatest of the singers in the hedgerow. They sound the alarm with a churring ‘mini-Magpie’ call that is difficult to tell apart from a Great Tit’s so it could be either when you hear it.

Blue Tits are acrobatic feeders and are quite happy to be upside down. They feed on insects, spiders, caterpillars, fruit, seeds, and fat balls. They avoid competing with Great Tits and Coal Tits by feeding on different trees or different parts of trees due to their relative sizes and which part of the tree will support them.

From the rear (as you will often see them flying out of hedges away from you), they have greyish, blueish backs and lack any white sides to their tails which, if you are sharp sighted, is how you can tell them from a Great Tit speeding away. The flight is fast and direct, stopping dead at their destination.

Blue Tits look their best from early in the year when they chase together along the hedgerows. They pair up for egg laying in late April to early May, nesting in holes in trees or in nest boxes (which are important as there often aren’t enough holes in trees to go round). They produce 6 to 16 eggs (wow!) which hatch after 14 days and the young fly about 21 days later. Second broods are rare as it is knackering bring up that many young. They generally stay local and don’t migrate much except their continental cousins who may come over in winter. It may be the same Blue Tit that uses your nest box over several years.

The best way to help Blue Tits is by putting up nest boxes and feeders in your garden and making sure you clean the nest boxes each year to stop the spread of any parasites.

Like most birds, Blue Tits can see ultra-violet (UV) light. Studies have shown that the blue crown on their heads glows brightly under UV light. The brightness of the feathers is thought to provide a variety of signals - for instance: male Blue Tits have been shown to choose females with brightly coloured crowns as they make fitter mothers - and look sexier. Their Latin name is ‘parus caeruleus’ which means ‘tit sky blue ’. Spot on.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

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The Spotted Woodpeckers are the snazzy dressers of the woodland birds. The Lesser ones are very rare and differ only by not having a red bum and being smaller. Let's concentrate on the Great Spotted and their outrageous dress sense. It is called disruptive camouflage. It is not meant to blend in, but to confuse the eye (as opposed to colour matching camouflage where you blend in with your surroundings). You would have thought something that is black and white with a bright red rear end would stick out lick a sore thumb, but they don't. That's disruptive camouflage for you!

The Great Spotted Woodpecker despite the 'great' is smaller than a blackbird. It is just that it is bigger than the Lesser one. The 'great' is just trying to sound more impressive. They are black and white, with a red bum and red on the back of the head, with white cheeks separated from a white throat and neck by black lines, and white spots on their wings. They have large white patches on their shoulders which are most visible when flying.

The Great Spotted Woodpecker has a zooming undulating flight and closes its wings completely every few flaps to look like a smartly dressed flying torpedo in a tuxedo. They climb trees in a series of hops using their stiff tail feathers (coat tails) pressed against the tree for support.

Their main call is a distinctive "pic" as in 'picky' or 'take my pic'. Once you recognise it, you will hear this dapper bird of the woods everywhere. The more widely recognised 'song' is the 5 seconds of drumming against a branch with their bill to get a bit of attention. The woodpecker has unique muscles and bones in the head and neck to allow them to use their bill like a pneumatic drill to chisel out nest holes ('drumming'). They can also use their pneumatic drill to hammer open tough nuts.

You seldom see Spotted Woodpeckers on the ground. They feed on insects, nuts, seeds, and berries so you may be lucky and get them on your garden feeder. They have a tongue that can stick out 4cm beyond their bills to get at things in crevices and to blow raspberries at the duller dressed birds. They also pinch eggs and even the youngsters of other birds, which is rather nasty for a swanky dresser. They will even chisel out the hole in a nest box to get in and grab the tasty chicks inside. That is why some nest boxes have a metal plate round the hole to put them off.

In courtship, the love-struck Spotted Woodpeckers engage in noisy chases among the trees. Nesting begins in April. Both parents help to make the nest hole where the average nest chamber is 28cm deep. 4-7 eggs are laid which hatch after 13 days. The young fly after 20 days and stay with mum and dad for 7 more days before going off on their own - to find a good tailor. You are most likely to see them in your garden in June when they bring their youngsters along to teach them to feed on the bird feeders.

Great Spotted Woodpeckers can be found where there are trees big enough for a decent nest hole. So moorland, tops of mountains, and the fens are off the list as trees are hard to come by there. They are generally resident. Northern birds may 'erupt' down south when food is in short supply. There are about 50,000 Great Spotted Woodpeckers in Britain and their population is rising. Their Latin name is ’dendrocopos major’, ’major’ meaning great and ’dendrocopos’ from a combination of the Greek words ’dendron’ for 'tree', and ’kopos’ for 'striking'. So a big tree striker as opposed to great looking in black.

Sparrowhawk

Saltlane

If you find a pile of feathers in the garden, you have probably had a visit from a Sparrowhawk. If you are exceptionally lucky, he may still be on your fence post plucking his victim to bits and having a little dinner.

The Sparrowhawk is one of our smallest birds of prey, the male being about Collared Dove sized. The male is a blueish-grey and has reddish barred underparts that can look orange. He has a grey tail marked with 4 or 5 dark bars. The female is 25% larger than the male and can weigh twice as much – one of the greatest size differences between the sexes in any bird species. She is browner and has dull white underparts with grey bars. She also has a pale stripe over her eye where she has applied her mascara to look fierce. She is not a fatty by being bigger but an Amazonian killing machine.

In flight, the Sparrowhawk has a long slim tail and relatively short broad wings, adaptations for manoeuvring through trees and woodland glades. They fly by doing quick wing beats followed by long glides (flap-flap-glide) unlike a Kestrel (which is bigger and flaps about all over the place). Sparrowhawks are like deadly cruise missiles, flying low over the terrain and looping up over the top of a hedge, inches away from it, and diving down the other side to take their victims by surprise. All you see is a flash of blue-grey wings and the long barred tail. If the hedgerow birds suddenly start making alarm calls, it could be an incoming Sparrowhawk.

They eat mainly small birds like Chaffinch, Yellowhammers, Great Tits and especially (you guessed it) Sparrows. The female will take larger birds such as Blackbirds, Starlings, and Collared Doves. During one year, a Sparrowhawk can munch through over a 1,000 cute little feathered victims. Don't get too upset though as cats, with over 10 million in Britain, kill far more birds than the Sparrowhawk does. Their deadly reputation makes racing Pigeon owners and chicken breeders particularly twitchy, though their claims it was nasty Mr Sparrowhawk that did it have not been backed up by any studies.

The Sparrowhawk nests in woodland where it can hunt along the edges and clearings or make a short trip to your garden. The nest is made of twigs and sticks in the fork of a tree and can measure up to 60cm (2ft) across. The eggs are laid in late April and the incubation of the 4-6 pale blue, brown-spotted eggs is done by mum while dad gets food by going to the supermarket garden feeder. The eggs hatch after 35 days. Both parents then feed the youngsters who stay in the nest for a further 28 days before venturing out to sit on a nearby branch and be teenagers. (Whatever!) The youngsters finally fly a few days later but still depend on mum and dad to feed them for another 20 days while they finish stealth flying school. The Sparrowhawk is silent for most of the year. Dad only making a rapid "kew-kew-kew" call when bringing in a tasty morsel for mum to eat while she sits on the nest.

The Sparrowhawk is now one of the most common birds of prey in Europe. There are more Sparrowhawks than you think there are, as that flash of grey out of the corner of your eye can too often be dismissed as a Pigeon. There are about 80,000 spread all over the country. They are largely resident and don't move far. Some North European birds may move south in winter and reach the eastern shores of Britain. A few decades ago, the use of chemicals in farming nearly wiped out the Sparrowhawk, but banning these chemicals has allowed them to recover. The English folk names for the Sparrowhawk include 'blue hawk', referring to the adult male's colouration, as well as 'hedge hawk' from its cruise missile tactics.

The Latin name is ’accipiter nisus’ with ’accipiter’ meaning 'hawk' and ’nisus’ from the king of Megara. According to Greek mythology, Nisus, the king of Megara, was turned into a Sparrowhawk after his daughter, Scylla, cut off his only purple lock of hair (which made him invincible but look a bit weird) and presented it to her lover (and Nisus' enemy), Minos (a nasty piece of work who fed young girls to his pet Minotaur). Don't you think being turned into a Sparrowhawk to escape is pretty cool?

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Starling

Saltlane

A lovely star covered bird, feisty and characterful, that is typically dark with a purple-green glossy metallic sheen. This colour is derived from the structure of the feathers, not from any pigment - which is rather cool. The Starling is short-tailed with a spikey beak. The wing feathers have a buff edge and their legs are orange-brown. The Starling's beak is colour coded at the base so you can tell the sexes apart - blue for boy and pink for girl. I wonder if that is where human baby colour coding came from? The wings look almost triangular in flight, and the tail is square ended.

Starlings have a variety of calls. One that sounds like a child's spinning top - a buzzing "churr". Another is a strident "Coo-ee!" whistle that sounds like a call from the Australian outback. Best of all, they are brilliant mimics. Their favourites are electronic sounds like car alarms and mobile phone ring tones which are delivered from the perfect singing perch, a TV aerial. These boys are the TV impersonators of the bird world.

The Starling moults after May with their fresh autumn plumage being spotted, almost star spangled. The head goes a little lighter with a vague dark eye stripe. In the autumn, they gather in large roosts, joined by birds from the continent to put-on the greatest show on earth - the murmuration. This where hundreds of Starlings fly in great pulsing flocks. They also forage in flocks and love a good church tower for the chattering troop to roost in. Their spots wear away during the course of winter with all the TV shows and murmuration appearances.

Starlings are really adaptable omnivores, who will eat just about anything. They probe the ground for worms, snails, cranefly larvae (leatherjackets), and hawk other insects (catch while flying), especially flying ants. They will eat fruit and seeds.

The male builds a scruffy nest of leaves and grasses in a building niche or tree which the female tidies up before laying her pale blue eggs (men, honestly!) Starlings lay up to 6 eggs which both parents look after. The young hatch after 12 days and youngsters stay in the nest for 21 days. They then join the troop to form summer flocks. Starlings usually have two broods. The parents may swap partners between broods, depending on who is looking the best in their shiny lycra.

The Starling is a local common resident with 2 million pairs in the British Isles. There are even more in winter when European Starlings come over to join in all the murmuration fun. Some winter roosts have contained over 1 million birds. That must have been an amazing show! Sadly, there has been a rapid decline in numbers of over 50% between 1970 and 2000. Nobody is quite sure why, but it is likely due to changes in farming (if all else fails blame the farmers). The Latin name for the Common Starling is ’sturnus vulgaris’ where ’sturnus’ means 'starling' and ’vulgaris’ means 'common' (or vulgar).