Sunday, March 16, 2008

Ah, The beautiful sparkling healthy spa water of Bath

In Avon.

For I change, todayI *wasn't* enjoying the beautiful sparkling healthy spa water of Bath. In Avon. I was in sunny/rainy/hot/cold 4-seasons-in-20-minutes Newtonhill, where only the chilly north-east breeze and the depauperate (is that the word?) (is that any word?) bird life remained a constant. And yet, it could have been so different. I'm not talking about a train ticket to Bath and a bottle of beautiful sparkling healthy spa water (amoebic dysentry free with every purchase). Mmmmmm amoebae. I'm talking about missing a potential garden tick. As St Vitus was raising me from my coffin first thing, and the wreckage of Saturday was disappearing down my corpse chute (whoops, I mean Tube of Innocence (c) Mr Burns), our neighbour rang to tell Diane there was a Common Pheasant (potential garden tick) in our front garden. I had a look out the window, but couldn't see anything, so of course decided that she was probably just drunk (Hi Liz!) and let it go. Frustrating. I went out birding, and came back 3 hours later to hear wondrous tales that the rest of my family, even the one whose brain has been addled by computer geekiness and Playstations, had had marvellous views of the Pheasant feeding along our back fence.

Usual stuff around the village - European Greenfinches singing and displaying (and eating my Pheasant food in the back garden), White-throated Dipper in position at last year's nest site. Two yellow-billed male Common Eiders with 5 green-billed ones, and some girls, offshore. Auks-a-go-go, with 150 Razorbills and Guillemots off the cliffs, another 100+ on the cliffs, and a constant back-n-forth of aukitude offshore. Also a single Red-throated Diver just off Fraggle Rock, where a single pair of Great Cormorants are in residence. Couple of pairs of Rock Pipits along the cliff tops, but last week's littoralis has gone, which just goes to show that there is some migration going on under the radar.
I walked the coastal fields, looking for a bit more migration - i.e. thinking a Northern Wheatear might pop up. Nae wheatears, but a single Northern Lapwing up from what, if it wasn't so pollluted with dogs, would be a good nest field.

Aha. Under the viaduct at Water Valley, my first kill, eerrr... I mean find... of the year. This whopping male Short-tailed Vole. Phew, what a beast. If only he hadn't entered my sphere of death.

Live fast, die young, leave a comedy corpse.

Sooo.... see this bit below. Hands up if you believe this could be true.

observations for passage of the Slender-billed Curlew (Numenius tenuirostris) in southern kyzylkumy in spring 2006

O.V.Mitropolskiy, M.G.Mitropolskiy, V.A.Soldatov

On water body Ayak-Agitma with escaping water, situated in Ayak-Agitma hollow (Southern Kyzylkumy), in spring 2006 observations for the passage of the Slender-billed Curlew were continued, discovered here in spring 2005 (Mitropolskiy et al., 2005; 2006).
The short-term observations were conducted in the period 30 April – 4 May, when quite cold, windy weather was established.
The passage of the Slender-billed Curlew was begun 1 May, when three records with 1, 3 and 3 birds (in the same day 9 Curlews (N. аrquata) were registered too). In subsequent days the following number of the Slender-billed Curlew was registered:

2 May – 8 records with 85 birds, by groups in 1 – 47 specimens;

3 May – 4 records with 54 birds, by groups in 5 – 26 specimens;

4 May – 2 records with 25 birds, 2 and 23 specimens.

5 May in morning we have left Ayak-Agitma. Totally during 1 – 4 May 170 birds were recorded and at the same time 32 Curlews.

The Slender-billed Curlews are well distinguishing from Curlews by smaller sizes and bill and especially by voice in flight. Both species often occur in joint groups during feeding and on clayish saline soils on the banks of lake and on shallow waters. Large flock under observation consisted of 47 birds in evening (at 19 o’clock) has landed in saline soils, and in morning on the next day (at 8 o’clock) has flown away, even without approaching water.
All flocks of the Slender-billed Curlews under observation have arrived to Ayak-Agitma from southern directions, and started almost strictly in the northern direction. We think, that the next point of stop-over for this species should be vast shallow waters on saline soils of Minbulak depression (hollow) in Central Kyzylkumy that are situated at 300 km N of Ayak-Agitma and they are practically unstudied in ornithological aspect.



4 comments:

Alastair said...

Martin,
Hope you don't mind, off topic just looking for a bit of clarification. In
Taxonomic recommendations for British birds:
Fourth report
you and your co-authors recommend that L cachinnans is considered to be a species. Has this recommendation been accepted? Is L.cachinnans now officially a species as part of the british list? The online species list does not include L.cachinnans. This is all further clouded for me by some authors referring to L.michahellis as L.cachinnans michahellis. I'm trying to write gulls for the YNU 2006 and thought the best route to clarification was to ask yourself - if you want to reply by email birdsvc62@gmail.com will get to me. TIA Alastair

Alastair said...

Oh yes my hand is up, ever the optimist :-)

Martin said...

f you want to reply by email birdsvc62@gmail.com will get to me

Better than that, as a public service, I will reply here... Caspian Gull went onto the British List with the publication of the BOURC 36th report in January (Ibis(2008)150, 218–220). It's available as a free download from http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/ibi/150/1 and contains many other interesting snippets.

The British List of gulls is now


Ivory Gull Pagophila eburnea;


Sabine's Gull Xema sabini;


Kittiwake (Black-legged Kittiwake) Rissa tridactyla;


Slender-billed Gull Chroicocephalus genei;


Bonaparte's Gull Chroicocephalus philadelphia;


Black-headed Gull (Common Black-headed Gull) Chroicocephalus ridibundus;


Little Gull Hydrocoloeus minutus;


Ross's Gull Rhodostethia roseus;


Laughing Gull Larus atricilla;


Franklin's Gull Larus pipixcan;


Mediterranean Gull Larus melanocephalus;


Audouin's Gull Larus audouinii;


Great Black-headed Gull (Pallas's Gull) Larus ichthyaetus;


Common Gull Larus canus;


Ring-billed Gull Larus delawarensis;


Lesser Black-backed Gull Larus fuscus;


Herring Gull Larus argentatus;


Yellow-legged Gull Larus michahellis;


Caspian Gull Larus cachinnans;


American Herring Gull Larus smithsonianus;


Iceland Gull Larus glaucoides;


Glaucous Gull Larus hyperboreus;


Great Black-backed Gull Larus marinus.

Alastair said...

Martin,
Thank you. I'm sure i looked at the Excel list last night - I think by that stage I was getting delusional - having written herring Gull the previous night and then attempted first Caspain and then Yellow-legged at one sitting it was all getting too much, I must have misread it.

The list at http://www.bou.org.uk/recbrlst1.html which is up to date at 31-01-08 excludes Caspian Gull. I think maybe that's why i was confused. I've now downloaded the excel sheet list and the paper you pointed me too in Ibis which does include some interesting stuff as well as Caspian Gull as a full species. How i will remember the new scientific name for Black-headed Gull I'm not sure - it doesn't easily roll of the tongue does it?

Thanks again for sorting me out with this - I do like to get the details right.

Alastair