Getting Started With Bird-Feeding 6 and New Photos

Hi. Your in for a tweet! That failed as a pun but I don't care.  1) you are getting the super-fun bit (I have found it super-fun anyway) of Getting Started With Bird-Feeding. 2) you are getting more photos of birds taken by... guess who! ME! 3) therefore you will be getting a Getting Familiar With... post. Yippee! We'll start with the photos. Right. Let's set the scene. It is extremely windy and the wind is icy and it freezes your face off totally. Well it will if you are on top of Portsdown Hill with only a t-shirt, hoody, and some trackys on (I should have worn proper stuff but it looked nice so I didn't). A field has just been ploughed and the Herring-gulls, Black-headed Gulls, Rooks and Carrion Crows are going absolutely nuts over it. Okay. That's enough scene setting. Here comes photos! Yay! Bring me more!

nice view off the top of the hill

the ploughed land

the Black-headed Gulls going nuts on the ploughed land

awwwwwww! it's a Robin

more nice views with a Carrion Crow about to invade the Black-headed Gull party

Well that worked. I nearly got stabbed in the face with a Blackthorn branch and I accidentally took a photo of it. not all bad

a Red Fox run

a European Rabbit warren entrance awwwww bunnies

a Black-headed Gull who is STILL in eclipse plumage!

the "eclipse gull" again. maybe it is Eclipse himself (I'll have to tell you about Warbo Gull Naming some time)

 Next time we will be Getting Familiar With The Gulls And Crows And The Robin. A random mix-up (this one costs your face not 10p) this time not a nice trio from the same family. Ah well. Who cares?

JUMP BREAK! HELL YEAH! never used one before this one!

Getting Familiar With The 3 Geese

On the post "Where There Is Geese, There Is More Geese" we met (or I met in the flesh) three goose species. Brent Goose, Greylag Goose and Canadian Goose. Here we will get to know these three geese a bit more. They're my pals right? They soon will be yours if you come down to Farlington Marshes or another place where these geese flock. You (the beginners I am talking of) will get to know more bird friends as I will do a series of posts (Getting Familiar With The...) about the birds seen and talked about on a previous post.

Greylag Geese fly in a v shape (here not joined up.

The Goose Terms

Goose Groups

The geese (in the family Anatidae, tribe Anserini) are divided into two groups, the black geese (Branta) and the grey geese (Anser). The black geese are geese with areas of solid black plumage and the grey geese are geese without solid areas of black plumage (they look rather grey as a result hence the name). Our three geese here belong to: 

The broad chin band of the Canadian Goose
is conspicuous even from a distance.

Common Name             Latin Name         Group   

Greylag Goose                    Anser anser               grey   

Canadian Goose                  Branta canadensis      black 

Brent Goose                       Branta bernicla          black 

Goose Sexes and Juvenile Names

A male goose is called a gander and a female goose is just a goose, whereas a male and female swan are a cob and a pen and in ducks a drake and duck. A juvenile goose is a gosling but in the field guides chick or juvenile or immature are mainly used. The calls of geese are referred to by most as honking as geese do make trumpeting honks. 

Goose Alternative Names

There are alternative names for many birds. The Greylag Goose is spelt in the United States as Graylag and the Canadian Goose is just the plain Canada Goose in the bird books. Some people call Brent Geese Brant Geese. Be careful with American bird field guides as birds which occur over here in Britain (or if you are American, the opposite) because birds that occur in both countries may be called different things e.g. the Little Tern is called by that name in Britain, but is called the Least Ten in America. 

The Geese

The Canadian Goose

Appearance: The Canadian Goose is a large goose, sometimes described as swanlike, although smaller than a swan. The bill, head and long neck are black, with a broad white chin band, touching the eye and extending to the crown. The upperparts and wings are brown with pale feather edging and the legs are dark. The rump is white and the underparts are pale with no clear definition between the flank colouring and the belly.

a Canadian Goose

Sorry if the labels on this diagram are a bit small. I should have written them bigger.  

The Brent Goose

 The Brent Goose is Britain's smallest goose. It is shorter-necked than Canadian Geese without the striking definition between the neck and breast. This goose too has white on the neck, but it is not on the chin and is not as big or conspicuous. The upperparts are dark grey as are the underparts but the distinctive white rump is still present. The Brent Geese form huge flocks on mudflats in winter feeding on eelgrass, but if there is no eelgrass they will move to fields to graze terrestrial grasses like grey geese.

a very small flock of Brent Geese

 Again, the diagram labels are small but they say the same description as it says above the picture.

The Greylag Goose

The Greylag Goose is not as big as the Canadian Goose but bigger than the Brent Goose. It is grey all over but with pale feather edges and it grazes in fields but never on eelgrass like Brent Geese. They fly in a v shape when migrating. The legs of these geese are pink and the bill is orange and very big and heavy compared to the bills of other geese. 

a Greylag Goose

You can read the writing well on this diagram. Woo! 

Bye

Go out to Farlington Marshes or a place near you where geese graze and see them for yourself! It is spectacular. Make friends with your local geese (not as in go and say hi to them but as in get to know how it is to be around geese)! It is very rewarding. Take some photos and comment on the blog to tell me about your awesome goosey experiences! When I put up a post about another "birding trip" I have gone on, I will put up a post about getting to know the birds from the "birding trip". We will be finding out about lots more bird species and I hope you try to see some yourself then report the experience back to me. Bye! Keep feeding the birds and watching them!

Where There Is Geese, There Is More Geese

Very overcast.

Three Brent Geese flew over.

Here comes the result of another awesome birding day! Geese. Lots of geese. This particular load of geese was at Farlington Marshes, the best option for local birdwatching (for me and others in Portsmouth and Havant). It certainly was very marshy today, with puddles of a size and depth and blackness that you would have thought they were actual ponds. The whole goose thing started when I was watching a Sanderling and three Brent Geese flew over. My gaze followed them (their honking had scared off the Sanderling) and they led it to a goose flock (gaggle).

However, I cast  my eye across to another part of the field and there are Canadian Geese there too!

A gaggle of Brent Geese,

but only a small one.

A break from grazing.

Now it is getting good. So I take more photos. I got some pretty legend close-ups on various individual geese. Here comes!

A Canadian Goose looks me in the eye...

They all honk.

He walks away, still looking at me...

They whisper-honk.

Then another one does it.

This actually happened. Strange birds. It proves they all have personalities like we do! Maybe it was my staring binoculars that look like giant predator eyes that made them nervous. Maybe t was the click of the camera shutter. Or maybe they were just plain cheeky. Or mad. Or weird. But birds are unique. Nought wrong with being different. I know "honk" is a very un-technical word but it does describe well the rrhonk! call of the Canadian Goose. After another long sludge through mud (god bless wellies!)  I came to another reed-bed, a quite large one in fact. What looked like the seed-heads of the Bulrushes (aka Reedmace) was actually another much bigger mass-flock of Brent Geese. Where there is geese, there is more geese. As soon as the binoculars are raised, they take off.

Mass take-off.

Here they come!

Right over me head. Awesome. 

Some Greylag Geese also flew over.

The next post is Getting Familiar With The Geese which lets us get to know our three geese on this post, the Brent (or Brant as some call it), the Canadian and the Greylag. Goodbye! P.S try to go on a "wild goose chase" as lot of birders call watching geese for yourself. The noise is deafening, but the geese are fantastic! Winter is the time to see mass-gaggles of grey geese in fields or black geese on mudflats. Bye!
  

Getting Started With Bird-Feeding 5

Hi again. 2 posts in one day. You're lucky! Did a bird defecate on you? Okay. Today we will talk about live foods. Mmmm.... all those little juicy grubs (or big for small birds) . And for us, all those avian visitors to our birdie restaurant gardens. The most common live food for wild birds is meal-worms. You can buy these dried too if you don't like wriggly creatures.

dried meal-worms, the ones I am using at the moment.

live and dried meal-worms come in different sizes. not to scale thank god.

Meal-worms are also commonly sold for reptiles, caged bird and fish. They come in different sizes like in the scale above. As you can see you can buy pretty massive ones. They contain a high amount of water (good) but dried ones have lost lots of it (bad) but just soak them in warm water for 10 mins to restore the water content. Wax-worms are the larvae of the wax-moth but if you buy them from a reputable supplier they will never pupate(???). These are mainly sold for reptiles and for fishing bait. Some fishing tackle/angling shops sell coloured wax-worms or kits for making them coloured. The food the coloured ones are fed is dyed so it is absorbed into the body of the worm. Colours like red or dark blue are good for getting the birds to notice your food supply but you won't need to provide coloured ones once the birds know they are there. You can't but dried wax-worms.

wax-worms are fat and juicy. nomnomnomnomnom mmmmmmmmm yummy yum yum yum! 

Pet shops sell crickets live for spiders and reptiles but these are also palatable for wild birds. It is best to but near-full-grown crickets or "prewings" as they are generally called, as these cannot fly off. Beware of their hopping abilities though. Feed them in a high-sided tray with a lip over the side.

 Birds should quickly come to your garden, especially in winter when it is really nippy or in the breeding season when there are chicks to feed. Plant wildflowers in your garden to attract wild insects for the wee little feathered buddies (or massive Ravens, Crows, Magpies and Rooks) to eat. Do not be alarmed if a Sparrowhawk comes bombing in and catches a small bird. With all this prey around you can hardly blame it, plus it is a bird too, ans a birdwatcher should like that! Bye, and get feeding! Your bird reserve garden should be coming along nicely now.
  

First Photos

Hey there! I have taken the first (bird) photos with the new camera! They are of Mallards and Coots (as you can probably work out!) on one of the lakes at Leigh Park Gardens. There are also some views and some trees, one English Oak (aka Pedunculate Oak)   in a field and one Scots Pine (also in a field) and another tree in the same field as the Scots Pine that I thought was a Yew but the needles are not like the Yew. Tell me if you can identify it. There was an actual Yew right next to it but the batteries ran out before I could photograph it. Right.... Photos coming up! They have been cropped and enlarged so there could be some pixelated-ness. The Moorhens were too shy and so was the single Little Grebe (aka Dabchick) I saw.

2 Mallard drakes and one duck.

a Mallard duck and drake.

a photo of the lake where the Mallards were.

a different Mallard couple.

I'm Coot. Fat Coot.

a view down the path.

down the hill to the lake.

the old building where the loos were (don't know what was there before that)

an English Oak (nicely backlit huh?)

Fat Coot and his wife.(it was the same Coot believe it or not)

the tree I  thought was a Yew but wasn't.

leaves from the tree I thought was a Yew but wasn't.

a different Coot.

yet another Mallard drake.

a small brook.

the bridge over one of the lakes. 

the same bridge from a different angle. 

That's it so far peoples! Oh, and happy 2013. Get making loads of giant pancakes next week and give the birds a treat too (see Getting Started With Bird Feeding 5). Bye and keep birding!