A few photos from my visit to Belvide today.
A trio of Canada Geese skim the water – the back bird apparently just dipping the extreme tip.
Bit far away but well illustrates the strong pattern of drake Shoveler – note the blue inner forewing.
An immature Cormorant. An adult would be very dark with white head-plumes at this date. Unlikely in land is Shag. Shags have a thinner bill and are smaller – more like a large duck as opposed to the goose-sized Cormorant.
What is probably the regular immature Grey Heron in front of one of the hides. It seemed to be just standing around but was evidently carefully watching as it took two steps forward and ....
... got it! Now how do you get it from sideways on to down the hatch.
No problem. Seems it has done it before.
Now for the next meal ...
I enlarged this Snipe shot to examine the end of the bill. Turns out it seems to have a cold! Some waders have an enlarged bill-tip full of nerve-ending to feel for prey when probing deep in the ground. I could not remember seeing this on Snipe so I needed to check. Just a drop of water though.
This is a gull problem – ignore the splendid drake Goldeneye! The mantle of the gull was too dark for an ‘ordinary’ Herring Gull and too pale for a Lesser Black-backed Gull. So ...
Winding the exposure way down to avoid ‘blowing out’ the white bits we see a long bill with a large red area on the lower mandible and significant amount of dark on the upper mandible. More interesting we see an extensive white crescent between the grey mantle and the black folded primaries and very small white spots in the folded primaries.
Helpfully the bird took off and we can see that there is a white ‘mirror’ only in outermost primary and otherwise rather extensive black on the wing tips. We can also just about make out the yellow legs.
And here the underwing. Conclusion: Yellow-legged Gull. Both the wing-pattern and the mantle colour suggest this may even be an atlantis race bird from the Azores area (sometimes referred to as Azorean Gull). That normally shows extensive head-streaking until mid-winter and it seems a bit early for it to look so clean-headed. If so it could well be my first in the UK.
A rather lurid-looking Blue Tit. I can’t actually work out which leg is which! I assume the ring is, as seems usual, on the right leg.
I am assuming this a female Reed Bunting. Separation of sexes, particularly first-year birds, in winter is not too easy. I would expect an adult male to have more of the black-toned bib by now. However a first-winter male might not. Also wearing a ring – on its right leg – proudly.
A different bird.
And another in company with a Tree Sparrow. Very much the same size.
(Ed Wilson)
