Lesson One: What is bird?

Introduction

One of the fist steps to becoming an accomplished bird watcher is knowing exactly what a bird is and/ or isn't.  You can buy guides in shops that will tell you a lot of what you need to know.  I, personally, use Colin's Bird Guide, and he hasn't even asked for it back yet.  Some of these books are, literally, several pages long and contain all sorts of information about what makes a bird or not.  This first lesson is a crash course in bird identification.  By the end of it you should be able to identify whether something is a bird more than 78% of the time.

What is bird?

Birds are a kind of fancy lizard.  Most, if not all, birds have feathers and beaks and, unlike trombones, many of them can fly. Birds were invented in 1903 by the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur (Orville himself was a bird; a kind of green duckling in a nappy.)  Up until then people used to spot trains instead, but most trees could not support the weight of a perching steam engine so it was decided something smaller and lighter was needed.

The Wright brothers with an early design of the goldfinch.  

A bird is defined as being "a person with warm blood, which lays hard, shelled eggs and, typically, has feathers, wings and beaked, toothless jaws."  Birds constitute the animal class of  'Aves' (as opposed to the 'ave nots') and are further divided into 'orders'.  There are 40 known 'orders' of birds.  The largest order being the passeriformes, which constitutes well over half of bird species and one hundred percent of passeriform species.  Other orders include Psittaciformes (parrots), Strigiformes (owls), Charadriiformes (Shorebirds) and Cuneiformes (one of the earliest systems of writing.)

Birds are, technically speaking, dinosaurs.  Now that you know this you can tell everyone down the pub and they'll all think you're really cool as you belch that fact at them between drunken rants about the EU, or your latest theory about the Catholic church that you learned in a Dan Brown novel.  This poses a very contentious and much discussed question among ornithologists - If science made a T.Rex, like what they done in the movies, would it be permitted on your bird list?   

Birds range greatly in size.  The smallest bird in the world is the bee humming bird.  Males weigh in at 1.95g, which is about the same weight as 1.95g of sugar, but not quite as sweet.  The largest bird in the world is Big Bird, although, this is a human being (homo sepien) in a suit.

There are approximately exactly 10,000 species of birds to chose from, for example, ducks.  Birds have adapted to almost every terrain and weather.  Some have developed funny bits that grow out of their face, whilst others have evolved weird long sections, and other ones have developed straighter, browner parts - but all birds have one thing in common; they are all birds.  This is what differentiates them from most other types of animal, for example ocelots, because almost no other animals, apart from birds, are birds.  The exception to this is the bat, which is the only species of mammal that is also a bird.

Birds, like most other things, are comprised of 'parts' or 'bits', and some of these bits have special names to help us identify which pieces are which.

Where bird?

Since the beginning of time, birds have spread to almost every country on earth.   The only place on earth that birds have not been found to live is the Moon.  Birds live in a wide variety of situations.  Some birds live almost exclusively 'on the wing', such as the swift, which only lands in order to mate.  The ostrich, on the other hand, is the complete opposite, in that it spends all of its time on the ground, apart from when it is time to breed.

The best countries to see birds are countries with what is known as a "sky".  This is a form of bird storage that almost all countries use to some degree or other.  Examples of countries that have birds are France, Tonga and Spain.

Most birds are what is known as "outside birds," meaning their natural habitat is outside.  There are some birds, such as Budgies, which evolved and adapted to 1980s front rooms, but the majority of birds can be found out and about.

Birds are attracted to nests, so if you can find an area with a lot of bird nests, there is a good chance you will find birds nearby.

Birds have also been known to be in two places at once, this is called migration.  One of the most well known and evocative examples of this hobby is the swallow, which returns to the skies above U.K every spring.  It was once believed that the swallow remained in the U.K during the winter, and that they hibernated under water, in rivers and ponds.  Once they invented science it was discovered that swallows actually migrate to Africa every year, where they hibernate in African rivers and ponds.

The Earth is home to almost all bird species known to Man

What bird do?

One of the things birds are most known for doing is their song, with which birds tell each other how horny or how violent they're feeling, very much like in rap music.  Some birds' calls are so distinctive that they have become named after the noise they make, such as the chiffchaff, jackdaw, cuckoo and pied-wagtail.

Another thing that birds do is eat.  This is the process of obtaining energy, in the form of nutrients, from external sources, otherwise known as 'food'.  Bird diets vary widely depending on the species.  Some, like blackbirds and dunnocks will eat worms, finches favour seeds, birds of prey will eat other birds or small mammals and ferral rock doves (the common pigeon, or filth pigeon as it is otherwise known) lives almost exclusively off of human vomit.

Birds reproduce by a process called "reproduction."  They lay eggs, which eventually evolve into some sort of bird or other.  The possession of bird eggs was actually made illegal in the 1950s, which is the reason why so many birds have criminal records.   

Most birds are extremely dangerous and will attack without warning or reason.

Test

Can you tell which of these following items is a bird?  If so, you are ready to move on to Lesson Two...

 

My Wet Patch

Every bird watcher needs a 'patch' and having left the wonderful Wanstead Flats last summer I have been looking for a new patch that I can bird, half-halfheartedly, once every few months.  My one allotted government sponsored hour of exercise a day during lock-down has enabled me to find such a place: the Aire Valley.  The Aire Valley is a big place, so I'll mostly be focusing on the six kilometre stretch of it between Riddlesden and Utley   As this area consists mostly of floodplains I have nicknamed it my Wet Patch. 

The Aire

The main geographical feature of the patch is the Aire river.

Photo Credit: Diego Torres

The Aire runs from Malham tarn to Airmyn, where it joins the Ouse.  It is 92 miles long, which makes it the longest river in the whole of the Aire Valley!  It may, or may not, be the four-thousand-and-thirty-eighth longest river in the world.  If you were to straighten out every bend in the river it would be 92 miles long!  Only much straighter.  That's longer than a double-decker bus!  Six kilometres of the river run between Riddlesden and Silsden, which are precisely the six kilometres we are concerning ourselves with here.  

The river is flanked by fields containing cows, sheep and golfers and it occasionally tries to kill them all by flooding.  Most of the land in this part of the valley is floodplain, or, as it's known locally "prime real estate."

During the cold, wet months, which is quite a lot of months in West Yorkshire, the river floods the neighboring fields to provide habitat for the soggier birds, such as geese, swans, waders and gulls.  In the spring warblers, buntings, finches and thrushes sing from the bushes on the waters edge while kingfishers, goosander and common sandpiper dart up and down the river itself.  This stretch also supports a few sand martin colonies.  The fields on either side often resound with the calls of curlew, lapwing and oystercatcher.

Silsden, Utley & Riddlesden

There are three towns/ villages in this part of the valley which come with their compliment of starlings, collard doves, house sparrows and filth pigeons.

Silsden is a small ex-industrial village, but you probably know it as the location in which the world's biggest onion was grown.  Grown by Vincent Throp in 2010, the mammoth allium was entered into the Guinness Book of Records weighing in at 6.4kg (about the same weight as 6.4kg of butter) and won the town international respect and acclaim.  A statue was erected to the gargantuan bulb and has been a place of pilgrimage ever since.

Riddlesden is a suburb of Keighley that was once a village in its own right and still maintains some of that 'suburb of Keighley' charm.  It was the breeding place for the Airedale Heifer, but so what.  The grounds of East Riddlesden Hall are, I guess, kind of okay.

Utley is in the middle of Silsden and Riddlesden.  People live here so that they can pretend they don't live in Keighley.  In the mid nineteenth century John Stewart Mill divided the village into High Utley and Low Utley, and it is the lower part that I'm including in this patch. This is also where I live.  It is also where my garden is...

Photo credit:  Mark Morton 

The railway that runs past the bottom of my garden, with its line of trees on either side, acts as a green corridor leading into Utley cemetery, meaning my garden is quite busy bird-wise; bullfinch, goldfinch, chaffinch, siskin, lesser redpoll, treecreeper, great spotted woodpecker, goldcrest, curlew and oyster catcher are all regularly seen in or around or over my garden. 

Utley cemetery

An operational cemetery where dog-walkers bring their pets to scat on the graves.  A good range of woodland in the trees and you can sometimes witness a good punch-up between a sparrowhawk and magpie.  A little past the cemetery, close to the dual carriage roundabout, where all the road works are, you know the place, is a little nameless pond with, sometimes, a duck.     
         
Keighley golf course

Home to a number of middle-class species of bird.  If you're lucky you might see... wait for it... a birdie!

Keighley golf course sits on the north bank of the Aire and you have to walk through it to get to the canal.  Mistle and song thrush, pheasants (not to be confused with peasants, who you definitely won't find here), oystercatchers, tree-creeper, grey wagtail, roe deer and spotted flycatcher.

Stockbridge nature reserve

Photo credit: Ray in Manilla 

At the eastern end of the Wet Patch is a small wetland nature reserve.  This is owned and maintained by Bradford Ornithological Group.  Only members are allowed in, and you have to know the secret handshake and password to be able to get in.  There's a nice hide facing a lake, reeds, scrapes, islands and a little wooded trail.

In the spring/ summer the reserve attracts reed and sedge warblers and whitethroat, as well as various finches and tits to the feeders.  Waders, such as snipe, common sandpiper and redshank stop over during the winter months.  And all sorts of other things pass over, and even stop to pop out a few kids, throughout the year.

Leeds - Liverpool canal

Mallards, Canada and Greylag geese.  Kingfisher if you're lucky.  Also a great dawn chorus form the bordering trees and fields.

Low wood

Photo credit: Daveynin

A small Yorkshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve along the side of the canal.  Teeming with life.  Treecreepers, nuthatch, jays, pied flycatchers, tawney owls, badgers and roe deer.  Sometimes face eating youths.  Lots of bird boxes around too.  Let's hope the wildlife is as successful at breeding as the local teenagers are.

Low Wood is governed by the mysterious "Low Wood Volunteers."  They live in the many burrows that dot the area and come out at night to have a bit of a tidy up and leave notes asking people not to litter.

Spring Crag Wood/ Alder Carr Wood

Host to strange trees which seem to grow a fruit that looks, and smells, like bags of dog scat.  In actual fact, believe it or not, these are actually bags of dog dirt!  But don't think ill of dog walkers, this is actually an ancient pagan offering to Mother Nature, that is kept alive by dog owners the nation over (who own dogs, so must love nature, right?)  It involves picking up the dog mess in a plastic bag, the responsible thing to do, and then hanging the bag on a tree or bush because, well, it's not their problem is it.  This not only fills an otherwise pleasant spot with stinking turd, but it also stuffs the planet full of damaging plastic.  I mean, the council doesn't put bins deep in the middle of the forest or miles into the moors, so what do you expect them to do?  The circle of life or something will sort it out.  Other variations of this noble practice include flinging your dog muck into a neighboring field, dumping it in the river, or rubbing it in the face of a newborn lamb.

Having said that, there is some great litter in Alder Carr Wood.

Photo credit: me.

Hillside

A steep climb up the northern wall of the valley.  Good views over the river - I can see my house from here etc.  Normally a good spot to see game birds, raptors, pipits and larks.

It's here that the patch boarders Ilkley Moor, so if I fancied making a day of it I could wander on to the moors and see posh people shooting things (or Moorons as I like to call them.)

It's mostly farms, so you're restricted to public footpaths.  There used to be a golf course here too, but it now belongs to the Scouts, which means, instead of dodging golf balls it's now arrows and throwing axes you have to watch out for.  The Scouts are rewilding much of the site, so it's going to be a good place to keep an eye on over the coming years.  Only - be aware - wandering around a children's play area with binoculars and a camera could attract suspicion.       

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So that's pretty much it for the patch.  It's a big old area, about 6km₂, but you can walk to any extreme of it from my house in an hour or less. It also contains a nice range of habitats, and a nice range of birds to go with it. 

Loadabullfinch Corvid 19 response

Here at Loadabullfinch we take the safety of our readers very seriously, so have ensured that this blog is 100% Covid Secure.  Here is our guide to birding during the pandemic period.

1.)  Self Isolate.

Otherwise known as birdwatching, self isolation is where one keeps away from other human beings in order to look at birds instead.  Unlike humans, birds don't mind if you stare at them though binoculars, write their names in a book or take photos.  Birds are also less likely to carry harmful diseases (such a Covid19, SARS or Bird Flu.)

2.)  Wash your hands.

Make sure you wash your hands frequently, especially after every time you handle your binoculars.  If you are birdwatching far away from a sink, and think it will take too long to keep walking backwards and forwards to wash your hands every time you want to reach for your bins, you can make the process quicker and more efficient by walking faster.

3.)  Catch it.  Bin it.  Kill it.  

Always apply the government's recommended actions when out bird watching.  Remember,  "Catch it. Bin it. Kill it."

4.)  Wipe down equipment.

Rinse any birds thoroughly with warm soapy water for at least 20 seconds once you have finished looking at them.  Pay special attention to those parts that are easier to overlook such as the underside of a whimbrel's beak and the knees of barn owls.

5.)  Know the symptoms.

If you, or any member of your family, spot a Chough, especially if it is a continuous dry Chough, then you must all self isolate for fourteen days.

6.)  Don't run with scissors.

7.)  Don't stockdove pile.

Finally, be considerate of others.  Resist the temptation to Stockdove Pile.  If everyone takes only what they need there will be more than enough stockdoves to go around.

8.)  Remain at home

It is important that you remain in your home at all times, so only do bird watching within the four walls of your own house.

 
 * Note:  I will be thoroughly washing my laptop with soap and water after publishing this post, so rest assured this post is 100% virus free.

Leighton Moss RSPB

Having moved to Up North from East London I thought I'd tell you all about it.

It's cold and wet, mostly.  There are more hills per capita, but less Pearly Queens.  Sheep abound, and the air is less likely to kill you.  It also looks nice.

People are much friendlier up here than in London.  Every single person you pass while out for a walk in the countryside says hello or stops for a chat, so there are negatives too.  But, on the whole, its nice up here.

I went over to Leighton Moss RSPB (Royal Secret Society for the Production of Birds) to have a look at what birds they had in stock.  Apart from trying for too long to get nineteen Jackdaws in a single shot (and failing) in order to make a CORVID 19 joke, I had an overall pleasant outing.

There was a good number of people around, and I had to say hello to every one of them.  Apart from one guy, who just grunted at his shoes as he walked past.  It was nice to see a fellow southerner.

I was walking slowly to see if anything might pop out of the reed-beds, and could sense a couple approaching from behind.  I flew into immediate panic, they would pass me at any moment.  Would they attempt a sneaky 'hello' from my blind spot, forcing me to turn around and acknowledge, or maybe they'd try a drive-by greeting as they overtook.  I tensed and prepared for the worst.

The moment came and they sailed past without incident.  But then, all of a sudden, in unison, they both turned their heads and simultaneously went for the aft salutation.  I gave a return volley and they moved on.

Relieved that that ordeal was over I began to relax again and settle back into my stroll, listening to the murmuring whistle of wigeon floating on the the air.  A few blissful minutes passed until I noticed that the couple had stopped a hundred yards ahead.  They were looking into the reeds.

Be calm, act natural, I told myself.  They will probably move on soon.  They'd definitely go by the time you get there.  But they didn't.

As it turns out, they were looking for a Cetti's warbler that had sang as they walked past, so there was no chance they were moving any time soon (as all birdwatchers know, Cetti's warblers are invisible).  My stroll slowed to a dawdle, and then, finally, to pallbearer pace, but there was no sign of them moving on.  I was on a collision course.

"Hello!"  They sang as I walked past.  I repeated the same and sped on.

It wasn't too much further that I spotted some frogspawn just off the path.  I like looking at frogspawn, so I stopped.  There was loads of the stuff.  I got so engrossed in the activity that I didn't notice that they had given up on the Cetti's and were bearing down upon me fast.  It was too late to get up now, it would look too obvious.

"Hi!"  They got me again!

I waited a little longer, strictly speaking a little too long for looking at frogspawn, and eventually went back on my way.  A minute later, they had stopped again.  This time it was a water rail that the couple had stopped to look for.

I looked back the way I had come and there was a crowd of maybe twenty or so people approaching from behind!  Would I have to say hello to them individually, or just one hello for the whole group?  No, I couldn't go back that way.  Neither could I go forward lest I get sucked into a game of greetings leap-frog with the couple in front of me.  I decided my only course of action was to fling myself off the boardwalk and start a new life among the reeds.

Sure, I would miss my wife and child, but it wouldn't be so bad.  I could find myself a glass bottle and entertain myself by blowing over the opening and mimicking the mating boom of the bittern and watching as the couple who started all of this, who like to look for invisible birds, spent their day searching for me.

In fact, I could sneak around to different parts of the reserve with my bottle and make noises in different areas and double, or even quadruple their count of the species, and thus do my bit for conservation by increasing the numbers of this rare bird.

Leighton Moss have two bitterns at present, one of which saw fit to boom while I was wandering about, possibly constituting the highlight of the visit.  Not a lot of people realise this, but you can change the pitch of a bittern's call by changing the amount of water inside them.

I eventually hid in a hide until the couple were long gone.

Water levels were high, and duck levels were low.  Apparently the unusual amount of rain we've had has depleted the duck numbers.  So, take that Grandma!  It's not good weather for ducks!

Next to a couple of male teal I spotted two brown stripey blobs with their heads tucked into their backs.  I presumed they were female teal, but they seemed a little too small so I kept watch until one of them moved their head to reveal itself as a snipe.  Just at this moment one of the other people in the hide said to her friend that she hadn't seen a snipe yet today.

Being the sociable chap that I am I wanted to alleviate her disappointment.  Now, I thought I had said "If you look to the right of those two teal over there you will see two snipe with their heads tucked in," but what I apparently said was, "there are two snipe over there, but first of all, won't you please tell me about your journey here, where you live and what your grandchildren do for a living, and if you still have time, I would enjoy a lengthy discussion about your coronavirus precautionary measures."

Once she settled down to look at the snipe I decided to count a few ducks before leaving, but, before I could do so the gang of twenty people I had spotted earlier burst into the room and filled the hide with jollity and greetings for all.

I was about to evacuate when one of the gang shouted "Look! A merganser!"  The room fell silent and all binoculars shot in the direction in which she was pointing, right at the great-crested grebe she was indicating.

After a few tuts and scowls the noise died back down, until the same woman spoke up again.  "Is that a scaup?" and we all turned to look at the tufted duck she had misidentified.

I'm sure you all know the story of the boy who called wolf, so it will come as no surprise to you what happened on the third time, when she then claimed she saw a bittern!  That's right, we tied her up and fed her to some wolves.

I decided to make my excuses an venture on to another hide.  As I've already mentioned, the place was quite flooded (Leighton Moss also manages Eric Morecambe bay, but it was closed that day due to the flooding). 

There were signs up warning that some of the hides were inaccessible without wellies.  I was a little disappointed as I had left my wellies at home.  Luckily I was wearing the pair of 70s glam rock platform shoes that I always wear bird-watching, so the deeper puddles were no problem.       
     
In one of the other hides I was surprised to spot a couple of terns perched on a small platform in the water.  On closer inspection I discovered that they were plastic dummies.  I'm often caught out by this kind of thing, like when I spot an owl or peregrine falcon perched on buildings around town, only to discover they're fake ones placed there to scare off pigeons from hanging about on the rooftops.

I can only presume Leighton Moss has a problem with fish hanging about on the islands so use this tactic to scare them off.  Although, a sign did say it was an attempt to encourage terns to come and breed on this sight, I guess in the same way dating apps create lots of fake accounts to try and attract users.

The birds at Leighton Moss are very accommodating...

... possibly picking up on the northern friendliness.  I had great close up views of dunnocks, robins, wrens, chaffinches, green finches, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, pheasants, ducks, collard doves and mallards in the gardens, and some good views of wigeon, teal, pochard, shoveller, tufted duck, golden eye, great crested grebe, little grebe, snipe, oyster catcher, lapwings and marsh harriers from the hides.  I even caught a couple of good glimpses of water rail in the reeds.  Add all of these to the sounds of Cetti's, curlew and, of course, bittern then it wasn't too shabby a day after all.

The reserve is very blessed with volunteers.  Everywhere you looked there was someone in a blue jumper going about informing.

For example, did you know, that eels spawn their eggs in the the Bahamas and then let them drift on the tide over to the UK to hatch?  Apparently under the dark waters of Leighton Moss the place is crawling with eels!  And there lies another difference with where I have just moved from, if this were East London the ponds would be full of hungry cockneys with barrels of jelly.

I stopped off at the visitor's centre to get mugged by the cafe (it's all for a good cause) and then headed home.
      

Fun bonus game:  In the above picture there is actually a dunnock hiding!  Dunnocks are so boring that they are almost impossible to see, making for the perfect camouflage.  Can you spot the dunnock in the picture? 
       

Romance isn't dead at Alexandra lake

As I approached Wanstead's Alexandra pond on my first patch outing of the year I saw three figures standing opposite a clump of leafless willows growing out of the island in the centre of the lake.

 It was here that a Yellow-Browed Warbler had been sighted.  Two of the watchers stood silently next to one another, I didn't recognise either.  The third stood a good ten meters to their left, buried in gore tex and so well hidden that I couldn't work out if I knew them or not.  I decided to stand next to the two and make my perfunctory greetings, to which one replied with a grunt and the other made some comment about his toes.

We stood in silence for half an hour before another birdwatcher joined us, another one I didn't recognise.  He too decided to stand with the three of us and the solitary one remained, un-moving, staring at the bushes.  After an hour we were joined by Bob, a face I recognised, and we stared some more, in our little group of five, at the empty willows. Bob and I tried not to talk too much and ruin the atmosphere.  The silent figure, possibly a mannequin, gazed on.

After more silence, and more staring, one of the original two, the one who had mentioned his toes when I arrived, spoke again.  "Well, I better be getting back to the missus!"  With that he turned around and walked a few steps to stand, in silence, next to the solitary character to our left.

Bob and I then went to look at some other birds and eat bacon.        

Dana dana dana dana BATWALK

As I seem to be working all day every day lately, and not finding the time to go out and look at birds, I decided to participate in the Wren group's bat walk around Wanstead Park in order to get at least some form of nature fix.  I asked whether it would be okay to wear my Batman costume for the event, and permission was granted.  However, when I looked in the wardrobe all I found was a Superman one.  I thought I'd just look stupid if I went in a superman outfit so didn't bother in the end.  Despite it being marketed as a 'bat walk' we didn't see any bats actually walking, but we did come across a number that were flying.

For those that don't know what a bat am...

A bat is a type of mammal that is mostly a bird.  Think upon the bat as a strange demon-rat with wings.  They are to be irrationally feared and persecuted.  Bats are turned to dust by direct sunlight so only come out at night, which is pretty shady.  They are also unable to enter churches or eat garlic. Aesop probably tells us why this is.

Lady bats have boobs, which is the best thing about being a mammal.  Science loves boobs so much that it named the whole order of mammals after it (mamma = boobies in Latin).  What's more, the 'bat-nip' is actually located in the arm-pit, for modesty reasons.  Bats are as blind as a bat, so rely on echolocation and Sat Nav to know where the hell they're going.

On the walk we saw a good number of Pipistrelles, both common and Soprano, and a couple of Daubenton.  Last time, back in July, we had a Noctule as well, but there was no sign of any today.  It was too dark to take pictures, but see below a sketch what I done of the Batwalk...

Hats

Like many other birdwatchers in the summer months, on those long days when there's nothing else to do, I have been thinking about what hats would best suit different species of birds.  Here are just some of my findings...

  

Jay = Victorian Gent Top-hat

Tufted Duck = Fez

Coot - Backwards Baseball-Cap

Heron - Skullcap

Long-Eared Owl = Viking Helmet

Robin goes without saying

If you have done your own research into this subject why not leave a comment below and the team here at the Loadabullfinch Offices will use the information to lobby Chris Packham to do something about it.