Some pictures from another visit to the West Midlands Bird Club private reserve at Belvide Reservoir, just over the border in Staffordshire.
Now in full breeding plumage drake Tufted Ducks are ‘black and white’ with exaggerated tufts.
A trio of Tufties here with two drakes vying for the attention of the duck. He looks a bit of a spiv to me! Note the sex-difference in eye colour.
Caught in mid-jump the duck is about to dive for food – these ducks eat plant material not fish.
Two battling Coots once again demonstrate their ability to walk on water.
One of the local Pheasants in stunning plumage well lit by the sun.
An adult Black-headed Gull flying by on a mission.
And the underside of an adult in breeding plumage.
And another.
A pair go a-chasing.
The Black-headed Gull colony is getting paired up and ready to breed. They are a noisy and quarrelsome species and some great shots of flying and displaying birds can be caught. One hovering in ‘full cry’.
Another hovering bird making its presence known.
And about to touch down. I assume that what sound like a cacophony of calls to us enables individual birds to recognise each other.
I'm not sure whether this calling bird is being greeted or told there is ‘no room at the inn’.
Even on the deck all is not calm.
So they have webbed feet then.
Two birds inbound to land. Strange serration effect on the spread primaries of the leading bird.
The primaries are well-spread on this bird too.
This Mediterranean Gull ringed in Poland seems to have settled in amongst the Black-headed Gull community. Here it seems to be collecting nesting material. There are many instances of these species hybridising when no mate is available for a Med Gull.
Perhaps making overtures to one of the Black-heads?
This shot shows the difference in head pattern, head colour – the Med Gull is solid black – and the stouter redder bill.
The bill shown well here as is the complete lack of black in the body and wing feathers.
Stock Dove a species often difficult to approach. It is a smart pigeon with a glossy neck patch and dark spots in he folded wings. No white in the neck separates from the larger Wood Pigeon. Note too the eye does not have the strange-shaped iris of Wood Pigeon.
The neck patch changes colour with the angle of the light
One of the specialties – a fine Tree Sparrow. There are up to 30 of these birds in a small colony here.
It was a sunny day so there were insects abroad – here a bee. It looks like a mining bee and is probably Andrena scotica – no vernacular name.
The harmless Bee-fly (Bombilius major). It uses its proboscis to such nectar from deep in flowers.
Here we see the hoverfly Eristalis tenax or Common Drone-fly.
And a plan view of the same individual.
The markings are variable on this species – here is a different specimen. “drone-fly” because they resemble the drones (males) of hive bees. The short antenna separate hoverflies from true bees.
This one has been amongst the flowers and is covered in pollen. Hoverflies are important pollinators of wild flowers and unlike bees they don’t take it away to make honey.
Another plant I am struggling to ID. The leaves suggest a deadnettle and perhaps Hen-bit Deadnettle. However that has pink flowers. The most common blue flowers in the same ‘Mint’ family are Bugle but the leaves are all wrong and the blue flowers lack the darker throat shown here. I could always lapse back to the ‘garden escape’ catch-all!
(Ed Wilson)
