Readers’ wildlife photos

Today we have some UK bird photos by reader Mal Morrison. His IDs and narrative are indented, and you can click on the photos to enlarge them.

A few bird photos for a rainy day. I can’t match the exotic tropical birds that some of your readers have sent in so I thought I would see what I could photograph, commonplace or less so, while walking around a couple of sites in Plymouth in Devon over the last 3 weeks. I went to ‘Jennycliff’, a clifftop overlooking Plymouth Sound and in sight of the Hoe and to ‘Roborough Down,’ a stretch of moorland just outside Plymouth and which is part of Dartmoor.

To start with a couple of very common birds:

This is male Eurasian chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs). The female is a more subdued brown-green colour with a light breast:

A common blackbird (Turdus merula) in a field of buttercups. This is a male again and again the female is not as distinct. Incidentally, this is the type of blackbird in Paul McCartney’s song, or at least this species’ song is on the record:

A European Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis). In this case I don’t know what sex, as the species is monomorphic. This one was so intent on feeding from the ground that it let me approach much closer than I normally could:

This is a Dunnock (Prunella modularis). Wikipedia says that the name comes from the English ‘Dun’ meaning ‘dingy brown, dark coloured’. Both sexes are equally dingy however, despite the bird’s drab appearance, its sex life seems quite exciting. Again according to WP, Dunnock females ‘are often polyandrous’ and ‘DNA fingerprinting has shown that chicks within a brood often have different fathers’ and that ‘Males provide parental care in proportion to their mating success, so two males and a female can commonly be seen provisioning nestlings at one nest.’ I wonder how a male can recognise its own progeny. Wikipedia does provide references for all these facts including that ‘Dunnocks take less than 1/10 of a second to copulate and can mate more than 100 times a day.’:

This is a European Stonechat (Saxicola rubicola) This is a male; the female is less brightly coloured. Readers will be pleased to hear that it is perching on 1 leg by choice rather than necessity:

A Greater Whitethroat (Curruca communis). This was perched on the bushes close to the cliff edge and there were several birds singing vigorously, presumably proclaiming their territory, along this stretch of coast:

The rest of the birds below were photoed at Roborough.

A European Robin (Erithacus rubecula), a very common bird which is quite famous in Britain, having become one of the symbols of Christmas, along with holly and snowmen. It seems to have a shorter disturbance distance than many birds but I can’t find any literature that backs this up, however, my brother swears that one follows him around the garden when he’s digging:

A Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus):

And I think this is a Common Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita). This was how the bird looked, but its yellowness was exaggerated by the early light (it was 06:30). The problem with this identification is the bird’s similarity to the Willow Warbler. The Willow Warbler is slightly longer in body and wing and has lighter legs (Wikipedia says that it has a more elegant shape, whatever that means) but the primary means of identifying the birds is their calls. I did identify the Willow Warbler from its song but unfortunately the other bird has what appears to be a dragonfly in its mouth! I do have some other photos which I think show this bird to be slightly shorter in body and with darker legs, but I’m open to being corrected:

A Long-tailed Tit (Aegithalos caudatus). A strange looking bird with a tiny beak (and a tiny body it’s only 5-6 inches long including its tail:

This is a Common Linnet (Linaria cannabina), a type of finch. This is a male which, in Summer, has a red breast—bright red in some cases. The females lack the red and have white underparts:

JAC: I’d never seen a linnet before though one is mentioned in one of my favorite poems, Yeats’s “The Lake Isle of Innisfree“, to wit:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

And finally this was a snapshot of a Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo). There were a pair flying very low and both were only in sight for seconds. I had been told there was a nest around where I was but this was the first time I saw them. It’s a very common bird throughout Europe: