Exploring the Natural World
Most sparrows are almost here in force, but the Song Sparrows are way ahead. You can’t go for a walk with out finding at least one. Their loud, buzzy song bursts out from every second bush down by the creek.
Here is one of them. There is a second very conveniantly hiding behind the first
Other Feathers on Fridays:
As many of you know, I recently participated in an eBird-run challenge to find the most species in an 80 kilometer circle and the 2015 calendar year. There were three categories: Youth, Beginner, and Experienced, and about 115 participants.
In addition to the main competition, there were three seperate challenges. Early Bird Challenge (whoever finds the most species before March 1), Youth Winter Waterfowl Challenge (the most species of waterfowl found before May 1) and the Latecomer Challenge (whoever finds the most new species for their list after August 1). The Latecomer and Early Bird challenges were for all the participants together (so no specific categories), and the Youth Waterfowl one was for the Youth competitors only.
Out of the four competitions, I came second in two and tied first for one. It was annoying, for I had been leading the race when I left for England, but the very next day, my main compettitor found 6 new species. Six species, even if I hadn’t been away meant a lot at that stage.
The whole year was a fierce battle between me and him, who actually lives in the circle (I don’t). The lead flip-flopped the whole way, most notably when I was in Ontario, then again when he was in the States. I thank him for the competition, but wish he had slacked off a little more!
It was still a great year, and I found 235 species in the circle, including one of my favorites, the Great Grey Owl.
The biggest highlight for me was a Big Day lead by Dan Arndt, which you can read about here. Thank you Dan for that and co-organising this competition!
Black-billed Magpies are pretty common around here, but still, in my opinion, worthy of a post every now and again. Here are two of the neigberhoods’ thirty.
Other Feathers on Friday:
Last week’s bird was not, in fact, a duck, but a Moorhen, an English bird much like our Sora.
I took this photo through the dirty glass window in my lounge. Can anyone guess what it is?
Other What Bird Wednesdays:
My Mum had seen a Barn Owl. My most-hoped-for target species, seen by all of my family but the birders. That was annoying.
Cley dumped rain on us all of Wednesday, but we decided to go out anyway. As we drove down a small road in the dreary grey landscape, something lit up our hopes. Three minutes later, the pouring rain had put them out again.
We had found a beautiful little collection of birds. Pity it was a private collection. There was a Smew, Harlequin Ducks, Mandarin Ducks, Red-crested Pochard and more. It was the Wood Duck and Snow Geese that tipped us off.
The day got better when we reached Blakney Point. At first our attentions were solely on holding the scope steady in the incessant wind, but soon enough we looked at something other than the churning waves. In the fields behind us were Lapwing and something else – European Golden Plover!
We took one last look at the sea, not bothering with the scope because of the wind. Then, twisting and turning, a sea duck whizzed past, hugging the water. Long-tailed Duck!
We drove back to Cley, to go to the visitor centre, hoping to find a map. It was closed until 9:30, so we drove around looking for Stiffkey Fen, but could not find it, so we returned to the centre and waited the five minutes until it was open.
At the building, we found that we could sit inside and watch through some scopes they had there, with which we identified Brent, Shelduck, Tufted Duck and Avocet, to name a few. Eventually the rain lessened and we decided to walk out to the hides on the saltwater marshes themselves. We were hoping for Water Rail and Reed Bunting, neither of which we saw. There were, however, many Avocets, 5 types of Gull, Snipe and a Marsh Harrier.
The light was fading by now, aided by the heavy clouds, so we searched around in the car a little more, finding only a drenched Pied Wagtail to end the day.
And so ended our second day in Cley.
Stick around for the third, and final post on my trip to Cley Marshes!
You can find the first post here.
Three of the 20 Pine Siskins or so that have started coming regularly to my feeders. I no longer have that feeder, though. It fell through the holes in our deck two days ago.
Other What Bird Wednesdays:
Last week’s bird was actually a Little Grebe, or Dabchick. Can anyone find the true identity of this bird?
Other What Bird Wednesdays: