On a fine is rather breezy day I paid another visit to the excellent RSPB Reserve at Burton Mere. It is just beyond Chester, alongside the River Dee and at the base of the Wirral.
Not many young geese present. True migrant geese will be away until late October. This pair of non-migratory Canada Geese have four juveniles, well-grown and in what I call ‘fuzzy’ plumage.
A Shelduck having a bathe. Note the pale around the base of the bill and the general washed-out look. As it has a chestnut breast band it must be an adult starting its annual moult. All these birds go to the Heligoland Bight to moult during which time they are flightless. This was the only individual noted on this visit.
It is amazing to think that it is less than 30 years since birdwatchers were still ‘twitching’ Little Egrets in the extreme SW of England. Here are 18 ‘off-duty’ birds from the now regular nesting colony here.
Highlight of the visit for me was a small party of summer-plumaged Spotted Redshank – six of them here along with a lone Black-tailed Godwit. In winter plumage these birds look very different – pale grey – and that was how I saw them when I spent many years doing most of my bird-watching in Devon and Cornwall.
Zoomed in a bit with three of them no longer preening we see a rather longer bill than on Common Redshank with a distinctive pink base. This is a year-round feature. Again the lone Black-tailed Godwit gets in on the action.
Flying back after a panic are six Spotted Redshank and one Common Redshank. The Common Redshank is second from bottom on the left, showing its unique upperwing pattern with extensive white on the trailing edge. Note the difference in bill length compared with the Spotted Redshank above it. All the spot-shanks are canted the wrong way to see their upperwing pattern here: they would show pale rather than the white shown by Common Redshank. Note too their legs are longer and project more beyond the tail. I am surprised to see their legs are so red already – on the breeding grounds the legs are noted as ‘black’.
Here are three of them with a juvenile Black-headed Gull and a Black-tailed Godwit.
There were very many Black-tailed Godwits present and this was the result of a panic due to a passing Buzzard. They are very distinctive with jet black tails with bright white upper-tail coverts and a broad white wing-bar. There are two interlopers in this shot. There is an Avocet amongst the group at the top right. And in the bottom centre there is a juvenile Black-headed Gull.
The Avocet more centre-stage here.
From the underside the pattern is very similar. (Two juvenile Black-headed Gulls in the water).
A group of Black-tailed Godwits in various plumages. The back right bird is almost certainly an Icelandic race bird (ssp.
icelandica) in breeding plumage – the rufous extends further on to the belly and the bill is slightly shorter than birds that breed elsewhere in Europe (ssp.
limosa). The front bird shows very little rufous and is more the colour of winter-plumage birds. This species takes several years to mature and until then birds have a variety of plumages in summer.
A mixture of plumages here (as well as a gull).
Black-tailed Godwits have a very characteristic feeding action, standing belly-deep in the water with heads and bills underwater, probing the mud.
When they locate prey they lift their head out of the water to toss the prey-item along their bill and down their throat.
These really do not look much like gulls.
(Ed Wilson)
