Naff pic but nice surprise at Broom GP this morning, third site record.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
'Super' patch tick !
Imagine my surprise when I pulled up next to Buckton Pond early on Saturday morning and after scanning the margins for waders then realised that the nearest duck wasnt just a Mallard !The bird remained throughout the weekend and represented the fourth site record, the last being a drake in 1979 seen by Dave Wardby. It was yet another Buckton duck tick for me, hot on the heels of Shoveler, Goosander and Gadwall. These are hard fought patch ticks ! Pochard next !
Other weekend birds included 4 Whinchat, Spotted Flycatcher, Greenland Wheatear, Common Sandpiper, Greenshank - which appeared on the scrape after a heavy downpour, Marsh Harrier, ringtail Hen Harrier, Hobby - Dave on 15/5, and a good Swallow passage (100 an hour south along the cliff top on 16/5). Highlights on Flamborough included 7 Dotterel and a singing Icterine Warbler which sounded a bit like 'Sooty and Sweep' talking to each other !
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Ready for action !
After nearly three months of hard work the Buckton scrape is finished and the viewing screen constructed and operational. The view from the screen, which is positioned about 50 metres up Hoddy Cows Lane is brilliant, looking down on the scrape from an elevated position. The water levels are looking good especially considering just how dry the surrounding farmland is, the levels being fed by the underground spring. The scrape was buzzing with birdlife last weekend from gadwall to yellow wagtails, this is going to make a real difference. Not only providing habitat for passage species but also the breeding migrants and resident farmland birds such as Tree Sparrow and Corn Buntings. A big thank you to all involved including Sue Ogilvy at Natural England, Richard Baines at Wold Ecology, Chris and Jack for expertly carrying out the work and not least the Leeson family for allowing it to go ahead on their farm. Don't forget to click on the images for detail.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Gadwall delight !
Marsh Harrier and a pair of Gadwall on the new scrape at Buckton - the latter a site tick.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Rennaisance
With SW winds for the past week birding has been far from inspirational, attention has slipped to photographing farmland birds. Infact things have got so bad that even the most hardy of 'broomites' have been missing on some mornings - unheard of in early May! Today it took a sharp eyed visitor to raise us out of our stupour with the discovery of a Sanderling. However once on site we pulled out a Whimbrel and 3 Black-tailed Godwits - Broom is dead, long live Broom !
Monday, May 04, 2009
yellow peril
Surrounded by this plague on all sides at home.
Did find a passage Whinchat in it this morning but have been suffering all day.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
What's in a name ?
Edward Blyth (December 23, 1810 - December 27, 1873) was an English zoologist and pharmacist. He was one of the founders of Indian zoology.Blyth was born in London in 1810. In 1841 he travelled to India to become the curator of the museum of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal. He set about updating the museum's catalogues, publishing a Catalogue of the Birds of the Asiatic Society in 1849. He was prevented from doing much fieldwork himself, but received and described bird specimens from Hume, Tickell, Swinhoe and others. He remained as curator until 1862, when ill-health forced his return to England. His The Natural History of the Cranes was published in 1881.
Species bearing his name include Blyth's Hawk-eagle, Blyth's Reed Warbler, Southern Blyth's Leaf-Warbler and Blyth's Pipit.
Edward Blyth wrote three articles on variation, discussing the effects of artificial selection and describing the process of natural selection as restoring organisms in the wild to their archetype (rather than forming new species). He however never used the term "natural selection".
These articles were published in The Magazine of Natural History between 1835 and 1837.
He was among the first to recognise the significance of Wallace's paper "On the Law which has regulated the introduction of Species" and brought it to the notice of Darwin in a letter written in Calcutta on December 8, 1855: "What think you of Wallace’s paper in the Ann. N. Hist.? Good! Upon the whole! Wallace has, I think, put the matter well; and according to his theory, the various domestic races of animals have been fairly developed into species. A trump of a fact for friend Wallace to have hit upon!"
There can be no doubt of Darwin's regard for Edward Blyth: in the first chapter of The Origin of Species he writes "...Mr Blyth, whose opinion, from his large and varied stores of knowledge, I should value more than that of almost any one..."
"The leading tenets of Darwin's work – the struggle for existence, variation, natural selection and sexual selection – are all fully expressed in Blyth's paper of 1835". He also cites a number of rare words, similarities of phrasing, and the use of similar examples, which he regards as evidence of Darwin's debt to Blyth. "Blyth's theory was clearly one of elimination rather than selection. His principal concern is the maintenance of the perfection of the type. Blyth's thinking is decidedly that of a natural theologian..."
Like the other proto-evolutionary biologists, Blyth grasped part of the story, but he rejected the critical part, the production of new species.
Loren Eisely wrote: "But let the world not forget that Edward Blyth, a man of poverty and bad fortune, shaped a key that dropped half-used from his hands when he set forth hastily on his own ill-fated voyage. That key, which was picked up and reforged by a far greater and more cunning hand, was no less than natural selection."(20)
When Blyth died in London on December 27, 1873, found among his papers was a fragment of an old manuscript that he had once been preparing, titled "On the Origination of Species".
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Friday, May 01, 2009
Riding the wave of a crest !
April 30th 2009 - what a brill day ! A 3am start saw Ed Taylor and I at Dungeness Bird Observatory just after dawn, the 'thumbs up' from Franco indicated the Crested Lark was still present. Twenty minutes later it was flying all over the place and then finally gave itself up on the deck. Although this is a common species in Europe and occurs just across the Channel in northern France it stubbornly refuses to turn up with any degree of frequency in the UK. What made this bird even more special was that I had missed the last one in 1996 by just 15 seconds, the time it took to get out of the car and join the other birders to be precise, it flew over a wall and was never relocated. The bitter disappointment had just been lifted !
The real icing on the cake was to be provided by another Bird Observatory - for so long the centres of migrational excellence, this time at Portland Bill in Dorset where a stonking male Collared Flycatcher had taken up temporary residence in a small garden with beautiful blossoming apple trees. More at home in a damp eastern European woodland this splendid bird provided the near mythical delight of a 'two-tick' day !
Collared Flycatcher
After a detour home to collect the family we did the second Bird Observatory of the day and scored with the brilliant male Collared Flycatcher in gardens at Southwell, Portland, completing my first 'two-tick' day since Short-toed Eagle and Siberian Thrush in October 1999 ! Thanks to Jen for sharing this drive, Ed for his enthusiastic company and Blyth for the scenic nappy change experience in the lighthouse carpark, the first of many BTA trips !
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