Sommaire pour August 2023 de Birdwatch

AS always in June, we were in double-time mode, starting the day early and finishing late, juggling essential gardening jobs with birding. By lunchtime on 10th we considered having a snooze to get re-energised. However, a long-awaited south easterly wind made it difficult to relax, let alone sleep. We were both keen to get out in the field. The morning had been pretty good – the Blyth’s Reed Warbler from the day before was still at Ham yard, singing with gusto but less showy, while a scattering of common migrants kept us on our toes, interested and hopeful. A walk up the burn north to Bloburn with European Nightjar in mind produced a lone Eurasian Wigeon, though a saunter along Soberlie dyke and coast was productive with more Swallows, a…

Climate change continues apace: temperature records were shattered for June, with the Met Office confirming it as at the hottest on record in the UK. Sweltering sunshine and blue skies coupled with easterly winds combined to create excellent conditions for overshooting vagrants, despite an overall lack of rain to drop anything down. The best birds reached northern and western areas, with Scotland in particular enjoying a prodigious month. Foula, Shetland’s most westerly island, boasted the pick of the spoils, with Britain’s second Amur Wagtail (see page 9) followed by a scrumptious Blue-cheeked Bee eater (see page 8). Additionally, Britain’s first Eastern Olivaceous Warbler since 2019 was on Mainland Shetland at Quendale from 7-9th. As it does with several other warblers, Shetland enjoys a remarkable affinity with this species in a…

On Sunday 28 May 2023, I was undertaking what was a usual visit to my beloved Belvide Reservoir, Staffordshire, until a distant bird found on a hedgerow revealed itself as a female Red-backed Shrike. This was significant – it was the first-ever Red-backed Shrike for Belvide and was also my 250th species seen at the site. The air was punched and handshakes were made with the two pals with me who were in on the find. It was a landmark bird. You have to go back 39 years, to 10 March 1984, when a 12-year-old me was introduced to Belvide Reservoir on a YOC field meeting. That was the day that kicked off a lifelong passion for the site that gets stronger and stronger each time I visit. Belvide Reservoir…

LIFE is astonishing; the natural world is frequently astoundingly beautiful. When I read something by an author who appreciates this and describes wildlife and places so eloquently, so deeply fascinated by all their intricate detail, I wonder if we are not just a tiny minority in a world in which few people really notice, or even care. After decades and decades of campaigning, the state of the world’s rainforests is far worse than ever before. A local authority near me says “If there is land to develop, we will develop it” – expand, dig it up, build on it, destroy it. At best, just exploit it. This book echoes a great deal of loss, linked with personal tragedies too, but searches, nevertheless, for the good things in life in a…

AUGUST can be an exciting month for bird photography in the UK – but it can also be hard work! It’s a fine time for seabirds; a pelagic trip may well yield superb views and photographic opportunities of species that many of us don’t often see. Easterly winds can bring falls of migrants to the east coast in particular, and return wader migration often turns up rarities. One wader that’s likely to feature on many August lists is Common Sandpiper. Some birds will still be on their breeding grounds on the lochs, reservoirs, coasts and rivers of the north and west, while the rest of the country can expect migrants to be passing through. Common Sandpipers can seem quite skittish, but they will often come very close to a photographer who…

AUGUST’S digital edition has plenty of bonus content, including: • Sound recordings of Aquatic Warbler; • Film of White Storks at Knepp; • Footage of waders at Frampton Marsh; • Video of August patch targets; • Film of rarities and scarcities from Britain, Ireland and the wider Western Palearctic. The digital edition is available for PC, Mac, iPhone/iPad and Android. Sample issues are free, and subscriptions or single copies can be purchased. Visit www.pktmags.com/bw-digital to find out more.…

IT is a common sight to see Pied and White Wagtails in spring and summer along the Ham burn on Foula. On the morning of 30 May, during our regular circuit of Ham, I spotted one along the burn which, oddly, looked too black and white. As I reached for my camera it was off – chance gone, I thought. Was it just an aberrant alba? It had looked interesting. Later that afternoon I caught up with it briefly and this time managed some distant record shots before it disappeared once again. On the evening of 2 June I transferred my camera memory card onto the laptop and came across the wagtail photos. I reached in the bookcase and pulled out Britain’s Birds. There, in a small inset on the…

Warm, high-pressure conditions can make June one of the more interesting months in the regional birding calendar, for example providing the ideal circumstances for long-distance overshoots from Central Asia. Finland was the beneficiary of such a bounty this year, with a Blue-cheeked Bee eater at Kajaani on 5th amazingly followed by an Asian Desert Warbler on the edge of the Arctic Circle at Tauvo on 25th. Even further north was an immaculate breeding-plumaged Stilt Sandpiper discovered at 70°N near Skallelv, Norway, on 28th, while a Short-toed Snake Eagle also inside the Arctic Circle at 68°N over Værøy on 26th is likely the northernmost record of this warmth-loving species. Also in Norway, an adult Laughing Gull visited Kvilijooden and a drake Baikal Teal was on Røst. In neighbouring Finland, a Griffon…

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ON the exterior, The Book of Wilding looks like the perfect coffee-table book. With its sleek and modern design, it is bound to fit nicely in at home – but you soon discover how much engaging and insightful content is packed between its covers and that this new title is every bit about substance as it is style. In modern society it is so easy to feel overwhelmed by the many issues of biodiversity loss and climate change, but Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell’s guide offers some comfort, demonstrating just how versatile and resilient nature can be. I was initially sceptical about tackling such a large book, with the view that good swathes of the content just wouldn’t be relevant to me. However, even if the only chapter that feels…

THE north-west Highland coast between Torridon and Ullapool, with its extraordinary views west to a panorama of beautiful islands, is a wonderful place. This book centres on the Gairloch area with its moors and phenomenal peaks, rivers and beaches, its bays and headlands, villages and crofts and still-exciting wildlife. It is a much-depleted region, most of its natural vegetation long gone, but it deserves the best descriptive writing it can get. Annie Worsley gives her best, most inventive, most deeply considered evocations of the place and its constantly changing conditions. Yet, to me, the density and sheer extent of the pages of description, description and more description overwhelms the narrative and I often resort to enjoyable dipping – but somewhere in there is a story worth discovering. More info ■…

A new study has found that when pigeons sleep they may experience visions of flight. The research, published in Nature Communications, looked at brain activation patterns in sleeping pigeons, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. It found that, in the pigeons tested, most of the brain was highly active during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, similar to mammals. During sleep, the brain experiences a complex set of processes to ensure we wake up feeling refreshed. In humans, the different phases of sleep – REM and non-REM sleep – are associated with distinct changes in physiology, brain activity and cognition. The research aimed to discover whether similar processes also take place in birds. The researchers used infrared video cameras and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to document the sleeping and wakeful states…

Scottish Crossbill: to tick or not to tick? IN the May issue of Birdwatch you juxtaposed two challenging articles: Ron Summers’s summary of his exhaustive research on Scottish Crossbill, followed by Richard Bonser’s examination of the ethical lister’s dilemma: to tick or not to tick? Between them, the authors raise several pertinent issues. As Bonser rightly observes, ‘identification and taxonomy can be sources of much contention’, and for British listers nowhere is this more fraught than in the case of Scottish Crossbill. Indeed, Summers concedes that arguments for classifying Scottish Crossbill as a species ‘have not been accepted by all’. In particular, the recent discovery that birds in France use the ‘Type C’ excitement call, hitherto considered exclusive to Scottish Crossbills and a clinching feature in their identification, raises rather…

There’s been a lot of chitchat recently (well, a couple of surveys and the odd article, including Keith Betton’s excellent contribution in Birdwatch) about bird clubs and, specifically, their role and viability. Many of the reasons why bird and natural history societies were founded – for example, to create communities of like-minded people, to share sightings and meet to listen to talks – have been largely negated in the 21st century, most dramatically since the COVID-19 pandemic. Rightly or wrongly, in a digital world where many aspects are replicable online, do bird clubs still serve a point? Over the past few years, I have sat on two different bird club committees: Leicestershire and Rutland Ornithological Society (LROS) and the Isles of Scilly Bird Group (ISBG). Both operate in different ways…

I often think about how I ended up as a birder, and the factors that led me down that road. Many birders have a eureka moment story of an encounter with a bird or birds that triggered their interest. While there is such an event for me – not long after the birth of my eldest son in the summer of 1988 was when I picked up my father’s old binoculars in earnest – I think the origins of my interest go back much further. Before I watched birds I had a field guide. To be precise, my father had a copy of The Observer’s Book of Birds. I have a vivid memory of being given the book to entertain me during a bout of chickenpox around the age of…

AS a few recent extreme vagrants and firsts for Britain have shown, among the most difficult identification challenges in birding are the ‘empids’ – the small American tyrant flycatchers of the genus Empidonax. Their brownish-green body plumage colours and prominent wing-bars are similar for almost all species – and they’re very similar to the peewees of the genus Contopus. To date, five species have occurred in the WP: one Contopus (Eastern Wood Peewee four times in the Azores) and four Empidonax (Acadian with single records in Iceland and Britain, Alder in at least four countries, Yellow-bellied once in Britain and Least once in Iceland). Most are migratory and others are likely to occur. Almost every time one appears on this side of the pond, its minutiae are debated at length…

OUR EXPERT PANEL AMY ROBJOHNS is a patchbirder, ecologist and Assistant Recorder for the Hampshire Ornithological Society. MATT PHELPS has spent the best part of 15 years working in various forms of land management, including as a head gardener. KIT DAY is a Suffolk-based birder who has been photographing wildlife at home and abroad for more than two decades. CHRIS HARBARD spent many years at the RSPB and is now a tour leader, writer and editor. He lives in Arizona, USA, and travels widely. BEHIND THE LENS Correct exposure SELECTING an ‘exposure mode’ or ‘shooting mode’ is a fundamental choice for the photographer. This dictates how much and which parts of the exposure process you control. A dial or button offering you a choice between these modes is often a prominent…

“DESPITE all our accomplishments, we owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact it rains” – Paul Harvey. After an exceptionally wet April and early May here in the South-East, as I write this in mid-June it has hardly rained for somewhere in the region of 40 days and everything has got very dusty and brown again. Such prolonged dry spells in late spring and early summer really test the mettle of plants when they are most in need of a steady intake of water and, of course, you don’t need me to remind you we are experiencing more intense and frequent spells of hot and dry weather these days. Within reason, native plants are equipped to withstand periods of extreme weather and can tolerate not…

BIRDS have a wide range of feather types, with a variety of functions. Body feathers are used for warmth, and wing and tail feathers for flight, while others are used in courtship, some of which are quite specialised. But there is one group of strange, hair-like feathers which we know fairly little about: these are generally known as rictal bristles. These are located around the gape and bill, especially along the upper mandible. There are several groups of these: narial bristles (covering the nostrils); lorial bristles (in a line along the edge of the beak, in front of the eye); upper and lower rictal bristles (above and below the gape); and interramal bristles (at middle of lower mandible). These come in several forms but are distinguished from other feathers by…

Receive a FREE paperback copy of Collins Bird Guide worth £19.99 When subscribing to BirdGuides or Birdwatch today This introductory offer* is back by popular demand! When you take out an annual subscription to either Bird News Pro, Bird News Ultimate or Birdwatch between now and 31 July, 2023, we will send you a paperback copy of the bestselling Collins Bird Guide worth £19.99. This offer is available online now and at Global Birdfair so be sure to visit our stand – S104 Swallow Marquee. Either scan the QR code or visit www.bit.ly/birdguides23 to claim your free copy of Collins Bird Guide. Start your FREE 30-day trial to the UK’s #1 birding website and sighting service Whether you’re the keenest of twitchers, a devout local birder or someone with a…

■ Cryptic woodpecker One of the most charismatic and popular migrants to reach Britain is Wryneck, a species that once bred here but is these days best found in early autumn. Ed Stubbs looks at its status on our shores and how to go about finding one. ■ Head to the coast With the seawatching season upon us, Mark Newsome offers tips on the best conditions to encounter seabird passage on the east coast in autumn, profiling some of the hot-spots to try. ■ Oceanic treasure Most British birders know Leach’s Storm Petrel as a scarce autumn migrant, but it also breeds at several remote Scottish outposts. The RSPB’s Zoe Deakin provides an update on how this elusive seabird is faring and what is being done to protect it. ■…