Monthly Archives: May 2013

Birds in London: Parenting

Mother and baby mallardTwo weeks ago I had the opportunity to take a very nice, if very wet, trip to London. Because of the terrible weather I wasn’t able to do too much birding, but I did manage to spend a morning watching parenting of all kinds in the Wandsworth Common. I only photographed the avian parents, but all the while  a number of humans were engaged in pretty similar activities behind me.

Angry mallardThis mallard mother was mad at the coot for getting too close to her ducklings. The coot was trying to get the best pond slime for its own children, and wasn’t too happy to be pushed around by the mallard. They made a big fuss about the whole thing.

Angry coot

 

This is what an angry coot looks like. I don’t think the mallard was too impressed.

Real Estate: House Sparrows at Home

Sparrow house 6 The male sparrows were busy guarding their property this afternoon in the Tiergarten. The women were either gathering food or busy inside the houses. Look closely, you might see one below.
The birdhouses and the trees are all numbered here, this being Germany. You could probably send a postcard to this sparrow: “Herrn Spatz von Sperlingdorf, Hausnr. 76, Baum 144-15, Großer Weg, Tiergarten, 10557 Berlin”

Sparrow house 4Sparrow house 7 Sparrow house 3Sparrow house 5 Sparrow house 2 Sparrow house 1

Whitethroat and Blackcap

White throatTrying to get a photograph of these lively little birds is an exercise in frustration. They hate to stop in one place for more than three seconds and they flit from tree to tree with very little commotion. One hears only their calls, coming first from here, then from over there, and then from here again, like sounds in a funhouse. But I caught this one! Ha! He is a lesser whitethroat who arrived from Africa a few weeks ago and took up residence near the Spree. Living nearby is his relative, the blackcap, who flits around in the same way but sings a very beautiful song all the while. Here these birds are known as Grasmücke. The blackcap is the Monchsgrasmücke, because of his garb, and the white throat is the Klappergrasmücke, because of the chattery nature of his call.

blackcap

Urban Anomalies

Hopping sparrow Leucistic sparrow This leucistic sparrow was out gathering food in the Tiergarten yesterday. Notice the strange arrangement of white feathers on her head and back. She didn’t want to be photographed and was hopping away from me.

Below is a pigeon with feathered legs and toes running away from an approaching horde of rambunctious teenagers. I was running away from them too, hence the single blurry photo.

Pigeon with feathered legs

Green Woodpecker

Green WoodpeckerI was trying to capture a photo of a mysterious little grey bird in our cherry tree, who wouldn’t sit in one place for half a second, and was going mad with frustration, when this lovely green woodpecker showed up and posed very nicely for me. I didn’t enhance the red on his head, it really did photograph like that. Now the question is: is his tail tucked under him, or is it in fact missing?