A visit to the RSPB reserve at Burton Mere on the east bank of the River Dee estuary.
Looking NW across some of the pools at the incoming bad weather.
A drake Teal. The light making the green on the head glossing blue.
And here is he is again.
The most elegant and charismatic of all the ducks – a drake Pintail showing why it has that name.
The drake Pintail synchronised diving team.
Again.
Not so synchronised!
And the whole bird.
Again.
Two drakes. I couldn’t find any duck Pintail close-by.
A rather unusual sighting – a whole row of Grey Herons. Seems to be 15 here – there were in fact 27 together. There is a big heronry here, though it was not yet fully active.
This Grey Heron was rather clumsily descending in to the heronry after seeing off a passing Buzzard.
A wader that over winters in some numbers here is Black-tailed Godwit. About three-quarters the size of a Curlew with a long bi-coloured almost straight bill. The black-tail very obvious in flight when a very prominent wing bar is also obvious.
Here we see one alongside a drake Teal.
Common Gull is a species we don’t see too much of in our part of Shropshire. Larger than the accompanying Black-headed Gulls with a slightly darker mantle. The tone of the mantle is between that of Herring Gull and Lesser Black-backed Gulls, both of which are larger. Note the rounded head, the dark eye and greenish/yellow bill with a band across.
Another gull species seen more frequently these days is sleeping here. It is a Mediterranean Gull. Larger than the accompanying Black-headed Gulls. As an adult it lacks any black in the wings. The head is more extensively black and is really black rather than the chocolate hood of Black-headed Gull. Indeed its scientific name
Larus melancephalus translates as ‘black headed gull’. The scientific name for Black-headed Gull is
Larus ridibundus which translates as ‘laughing gull’. The confusion between vernacular and scientific names continues because there is a Laughing Gull which is a rare vagrant from North America whose scientific name is
Larus atricilla which translates as ‘black-tailed gull’. Then there is a Black-tailed Gull (
Larus crassirotris = thick-billed gull) in Asia .....
(Ed Wilson)
