I’ve just finished a book about Peregrines. You may have heard of it, it is called On The Wing by Alan Tennant. I don’t know why (and I’ve tried to work it out) but I found it incredibly hard going. The subject matter (two blokes following tagged Peregrines in a beat up Cessna) was interesting but I just couldn’t get on with the style of the writing, and for once it was a relief when the book was finished. The author can write and as I will show below has no problem connecting with nature and describing it with some merit, but the whole I found bitty. As I paid full whack for it though I felt that I should finish the damned thing. The Glasgow Herald is quoted on the cover as saying that it is an 'Ornithologist’s On The Road'. Why? Because it was hurried? Because the author bumbled about and around the subject? Becuase there are two blokes in it? Because the follow up (The Dharma Falcons perhaps) was absolute drivel? I don’t know.
The previous post on here was regarding Swifts and their return, and I found a passage in the book that evoked similar feelings when the author talks about cranes.
Instead, I’d yearned to live out there on the vital, scary edge of the lives they led. Lives larger, older, more vital than those of the people I know, and during years when the northers [sic] held off past when the leaves had changed, and the sandhills were slow in coming I worried. But then, on some ordinary sunny day I’d hear what no one else heard – a faint, musical bugle drifting down 2,000 feet. Looking up, I’d pick out ten or twelve gray specks dotted against the blue and feel my heart clench, and soar, and make me yearn not just to go with the cranes but to be one.
The choice at the weekend was simple. Drive like an eejit to tyneside to see a small greeny bird that was proper rare. Or pop off to Staines to see a small brown bird that is proper rare, but I had seen already. Or go to a patch. Guess what won?
The patch of course! What exactly did you expect? Wasn't the longest visit, but it was worth it as there was a very showy Jack Snipe at Brent Res. I say very showy but this is by Jack Snipe standards. I explained to Mrs Thing that the normal view of a Jack Snipe is of one flying away from you. This one however was so comfortable that it was even sleeping in the open. Cracking little bird. London tick. There were also lots of ducks (Wigeon, Teal, Shoveler, Gadwall, Mallard), a fair few Little Grebes and loads of Coots. Bloody hundreds of the things. Was hoping to hear a Cetti's Warbler that had been there earlier in the week but if it was there it kept very quiet, or more accurately - silent.
You would of course like a picture the Jack Snipe wouldn't you. I didn't take one. It would have so blurry and small as to make it pointless. With hindsight that wouldn't have made much difference to the quality of the blog would it?
'Biodiversity is an unequalled entity, found to derive positive benefits from people when they are in contact with it’. Rohde & Jendle 1994.
A Canada Goose doing digimonned close up
Fancy title, exciting post - honest.
It’s been a while dear reader, so let’s have some more behavioural observations of Coots! These shots are taken from a local park, which is bisected by the elevated M4 and is also under the flight path to Heathrow, but it’s nice enough. It ticks the small local park boxes and is enjoyable. And it is popular with rats. Lots of them. Hopping about in the daylight without a care in the world, getting fat on the discarded bread that is left out for the ducks. And the pigeons. And the Geese. And the Coots!
A Coot doing standing.
A coot being a fledgeling.
Now when the humans come along and feed the birds, there is a fair bit of competition and the pecking order is in place, getting quite forceful at times, with the Canada Geese at the top of the order pecking anything that comes close to them including ducklings which suffer the most. The goslings and ducklings are brought into this melee to almost fend for themselves.
Two Coots doing agression
The coots however are much more diligent. The three pairs have reasonably well defined territories, which the adults meet at the edges of and have a bloody good scrap from time to time (well, they are Coots) but the young stay in the respective territory, away from the big food fight and away from any mental rival Coots. Which could drown them. The parents join in the food fight, but only for long enough to grab some food and then swim back to the respective territory to dispense the food before returning to the aforementioned melee. Thus they swim out to the pond, feed young, swim back, get food, swim off, feed young, etc etc. Mrs Thing was particularly taken by this persistence, and not surprisingly either.
The Coots on the Wandle may have been labelled as retards, but this bunch are far from it.
A Coot doing floating.
A quiet bird weekend a chez Thing, so here is an update on the breeding Anseriformes on the Thames.
A pair with 3 young.
Another pair...
...who present 4 young
Goslings eating a wall.
And er, that's it.
Have a picture of some Brent Geese that I didn't take in Fulham.
