Woodpecker, blackbird on balcony

This is a video about a juvenile great spotted woodpecker, eating peanuts at a feeder. It is still a bit clumsy at it; so, its mother comes to help it.

Squirrels and birds at British feeders (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
Woody’s nuts (ja2da.com)
How to attract birds into your garden this winter (telegraph.co.uk)

Great spotted woodpecker on the balcony

Posted on October 28, 2012 by petrel41

This morning, the usual bird species around and on the balcony feeders.

Like blue tits.

Many great tits. Some of them, the radio said, may have come all the way from Russia. There is unusually big great tit migration from eastern Europe to western Europe now.

A wood pigeon. A couple of magpies. A jackdaw.

Then, a first for the balcony. A male great spotted woodpecker!

This video is about an adult great spotted woodpecker feeding its young in a garden.

A bit later, a male chaffinch looks for seeds on the balcony floor. Only the second time that I saw this species here.

How to attract birds into your garden this winter (telegraph.co.uk)
Ecologists preparing for boom in urban wildlife ‘invaders’ (guardian.co.uk)
A Visitor at Dawn (amras888.wordpress.com)
Nuts (ja2da.com)
20 October 2013 (cotswoldwaterpark.wordpress.com)
Great tit on my balcony (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
24 October 2013 (cotswoldwaterpark.wordpress.com)
Woodpecker stories (lathallaneco.wordpress.com)
Collared doves on my balcony (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
A Greater Spotted Woodpecker and Continental Blackbirds (parrotletsuk.typepad.com)

Dutch waders photos from Breebaart

Posted on July 31, 2012 by petrel41

On 23 July 2012, I was in the hide of Breebaart nature reserve in the Netherlands.

These wader photos were taken then.

This is a common sandpiper.

This is a redshank.

This is a bar-tailed godwit.

Also Breebaart bird photos: here.

Waiting for godwits (nzherald.co.nz)
Overwhelmed By Waders (birdsofpandimakati.wordpress.com)

Woodpecker, reed buntings, wren and plants

Posted on March 24, 2012 by petrel41

This August 2018 video is about the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen.

18 March 2012.

After we went to the sea through the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen nature reserve, we returned.

We pass a bunker in the dunes. During the nazi occupation, it was used by Hitler’s Wehrmacht. Now, by wintering bats.

A bit further, a dunnock singing on the top of a bush.

Near a canal, a pied wagtail.

A magpie on the footpath.

A woodlark singing.

Arrhenia spathulata fungus growing on star moss.

A stonechat on a branch.

A little grebe swimming. A buzzard flying.

Sphaghnum palustre moss.

A robin.

On the footpath, five male reed buntings and a female search for food.

A great crested grebe in a canal.

Near the exit of the reserve, an old Calvatia utriformis fungus.

Lophocolea heterophylla liverwort.

Orthodontium lineare, a moss originally from the southern hemisphere.

Metzgeria furcata liverwort.

A female great spotted woodpecker, feeding on a big branch.

On the ground level, a wren plays hide and seek between tree trunks and fallen logs.

Wren sounds: here. Another wren photo: here.

A male chaffinch looks for food between fallen leaves.

Great spotted woodpecker on the balcony (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
Woody’s nuts (ja2da.com)
First godwits, redshank of 2013 (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
Garden birds (radnorshirebirds.wordpress.com)
Cefnllys etc. (radnorshirebirds.wordpress.com)
Woodpeckers on Belfast city outskirts (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)
Reed Buntings Lake. (radnorshirebirds.wordpress.com)

Bluethroat and reed buntings of the Naardermeer

Posted on December 11, 2011 by petrel41

This is a bluethroat video.

12 May 2008, to the Naardermeer nature reserve.

In the marsh on the opposite side of the road: many shelducks; grey lag geese; northern lapwings; mallards; gadwall.

And a female reed bunting.

A bit further in the Naardermeer reserve, grey lag geese and barnacle geese, both with goslings.

Redshanks on the mud.

Pied wagtail.

A male shoveler swimming.

One of many singing male reed buntings of today.

A bit lower in the vegetation, a male bluethroat.

Cuckoo and reed warbler sounds.

From a hide, great egret and female mandarin duck.

We go to the next hide, De Wijde Blik.

Sedge warbler and grasshopper warbler singing.

Egyptian geese and great cormorants.

We walk on. Brimstone butterfly and buzzard flying. A juvenile edible frog in a ditch.

Then, back to the Wijde Blik.

A speckled wood butterfly between the trees.

On the water, coots and male tufted duck.

Mating dragonflies. A fine view of singing reed bunting and sedge warbler.

At the next hide, shelduck and little grebe. A bit further, a roe deer.

Finally, a small tortoiseshell butterfly on a yellow flower.

FEMALE LARK BUNTINGS—medium-sized sparrows that breed throughout the Midwest [in the USA]—show strong preferences for males with certain physical traits: here.

18th September 2012 (cotswoldwaterpark.wordpress.com)
Kihnu bird survey : Cranes are leaving and swans are coming (shaan.typepad.com)
Birdwatchers at Dawn (dianajhale.wordpress.com)
Lake early morning start. (radnorshirebirds.wordpress.com)
Stonechat and Reed Buntings on Woodbury Common (parrotletsuk.typepad.com)
Cyprus Birding Tours Trip Report, Paphos 11th November 2013 (cyprusbirdingtours.com)
Photo of the Day: Reed bunting perches on a reed in the marshes (treehugger.com)
Weekly Photo Challenge: Unexpected (mikehardisty.wordpress.com)
7 November 2013 (cotswoldwaterpark.wordpress.com)
Trip report – Morning’s guiding in Akrotiri, 26th October 2013 (cyprusbirdingtours.com)

Grey wagtail and gulls

Posted on January 22, 2010 by petrel41

Today, temperature a bit above freezing. There is still ice on small canals, but not on the river.

Tufted ducks diving near the river Rhine. A great cormorant.

On the river bank, and sometimes on a small boat moored there, a grey wagtail. This species is unusual for a city. A grey wagtail photo is here.

Grey wagtail in Tunisia: here.

My feeding of water birds attracts scores of black-headed gulls, one common gull, and a few coots and mallards. Fish-eating great crested grebes keep their distance from the melee.

Muscovy ducks and hares (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
Which thrush is this? (radnorshirebirds.wordpress.com)
Goosanders, mandarin duck and robin (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
The Tale of the Citrine Wagtail – Terry Thormin (vancouverislandnature.wordpress.com)
Birds of Vlieland island (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)

Noisy grazing sea urchins

Posted on July 17, 2008 by petrel41

This video is called Sea urchin flipping.

From New Scientist:

Grazing sea urchins create reef cacophony

* 16 July 2008

AMPLIFIED chewing sounds from ravenous sea urchins create a dawn and dusk chorus beneath the waves.

The ambient underwater noise on rocky reefs becomes a hundred times louder just before dawn and just after dusk. To find out why, Craig Radford and his colleagues at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, recorded the sounds made by individual reef animals in the lab, and then compared them with the dominant sound in the natural reef din.

Listen to a recording of the sea urchins in the lab.

Unfortunately, that link does not work.

They found that grazing sea urchins produced the noise as they scraped algae off rocks. The hard, dome-shaped bodies of the animals act like resonance chambers, amplifying the sound of their chewing (Marine Ecology Progress Series, vol 362, p 37).

Odd-Looking Marine Animals: here.