Today I paid another visit to the West Midlands Bird Club’s permit only reserve at Belvide, just in Staffordshire. Here are some images from my visit
Mute Swans have difficulty breeding successfully here as its size attracts too many non-breeding birds or, as here, post-breeding birds as two first-winter cygnets arrive with a parent. These cygnets show metal rings on their right legs.
Their left legs were sporting blue Darvic rings – just too far to read from the photo. A blue ring means it was ringed in Shropshire (Belvide is in the West Midlands and locally ringed birds would have yellow Darvic rings).
Winter visiting ducks are arriving in good numbers now. This is a party of (Eurasian) Wigeon identified by their white bellies and rather pointed wings. The head shape is unique too though that it hard to discern on flying birds.
A drake Gadwall flying away. The white speculum is very obvious in flight on both sexes of this species. The drake shows a chocolate brown patch ahead of the white, just about visible here.
“Get out of my patch”. Two drake Gadwalls have a scrap.
A drake Mallard preparing to touch down...
... and swinging around to land in to the wind – most birds like to do this as, like aircraft, it reduces the landing speed. Another surprise was the female / immature Goldeneye at the top right. These winter visitors have only just started to arrive.
This one landed down wind. The white surrounding the blue/green speculum and in the tail are clearly shown. Without sun the colour in the speculum is hard to discern.
Touchdown. Note the curly tail-feather – a very dominant gene in drake Mallards and usually present in drake ‘mucky-ducks’ around ponds in housing estates etc.
There has been an influx of Tufted Ducks this Autumn. Over 500 have been present though some have moved on. Not unusual at this time of year. Here are four flying by. I suspect all ducks / immatures: certainly #1 and #4 are with pale showing around the base of the bill.
One duck / immature about to land and one already on the water.
Not quite the same. Look at the bird on the water. It is a winter-plumage Black-necked Grebe.
So here is that Black-necked Grebe. Slightly bigger than a Little Grebe, with a dusky head and face and an almost upturned look on the thinner bill.
And for comparison a Little Grebe, not in the most ideal position. Note particularly the bill size and shape. The tail is more ‘powder-puff’ (does anyone still remember those?). The head here is still mainly all dark from the summer plumage. When it acquires full winter plumage the dark will be confined to a ‘hat’ rather than across part of the face.
Two Cormorants on the hunt – they often do cooperative hunting, driving shoals of fish in to a small area before gorging on them. The back bird is about to dive and the next shot in the sequence showed just the tail. We almost never see the small salt water-loving Shag inland. When that species dives it leaps clear of the water whereas the Cormorant does not.
A look of concentration on this adult winter Black-headed Gull as it looks to land on the pole.
Feet-first and gently does it...
... and try and not fall off.
The start of a trend. If one settles on the pole others have to investigate.
Oops: who left that cross-piece there?
Managed it.
A rather brutish-looking adult Lesser Black-backed Gull. Cannot be a Great Black-backed Gull despite its apparent size and demeanour as that species never shows the winter head-streaking we see here. Note the very wide white trailing edge to the secondaries.
In silhouette a Raven. The large and decurved bill is diagnostic as are the well separated primaries (‘fingers’). Call is usually the first indication this species is around.
With the bill closed it looks even more massive. If you see a ‘crow’ and wonder whether it could be a Raven then my rule of thumb is “it isn’t”. When you do see one you have no doubt.
A speciality visiting the feeders is Marsh Tit. A declining species and none too easy to separate from the even faster declining Willow Tit which is very occasionally seen on the same feeders. Separation is much easier on call (and song) than on plumage. Willow Tit has a more bull-necked appearance – it is the only tit that excavates its own nest (usually in decaying willows). Bird books tell you that the pale edges to the folded wing feathers are diagnostic for Willow Tits but this Marsh Tit shows that feature, albeit rather less markedly than on most Willow Tits. Care!
I do like Nuthatches. Often noisy. Always alert and active. In close up here we can see the rictal (that’s rictal, not rectal!) bristles used for sensing where prey items are around the bill-base when they would otherwise go cross-eyed to see them.
The Wren popped out in front of me, hanging on a vertical post long-enough for me to snap away.
It looked around for some while ....
...and then prepared to dive...
...back in to cover. Makes the blood rush to my head to look at it.
Do you ever get that itching feeling? Do you wish your neck was as flexible as this Blue Tit’s?
Itch gone. Note this bird has a ring on its right leg. There is a very active ringing programme at the reservoir mainly for the smaller birds – warblers etc. They also colour-ring some of the nestling Black-headed Gulls (all with appropriate licences of course).
There is no other word for it: “sweet”!
Admire the back feathers.
Another speciality of Belvide is the colony of breeding Tree Sparrows – another much declining species that I used to see in a number of places in Shropshire (even, once, at Priorslee).
This one tucking in to seed from one of the feeders. Unlike House Sparrows the sexes have identical plumage with a brown crown and the black cheek-mark.
And two birds together among the Autumn fruits – haws for the Redwings.
Belvide is not all about birds. A Common Green Shieldbug (
Palomena prasina) on a bramble leaf – one of few plant species to show much in the way of Autumn colour thus far.
A brief sunny spell was all it took to get this Common Drone-fly (
Eristalis tenax) out for a warm up. Apparently rubbing its back legs together!
I found this fungus in the woodland. The nearest to a ‘mushroom’ I have seen this Autumn, but I cannot provide an accurate identification.
And a different fungus with a distinct ‘hat’”
(Ed Wilson)
