Siskins shmiskins

Quite a few Siskins knocking about at the moment. Last time this happened I had birds to/from Norway, Highland, Merseyside and Herefordshire in the garden; bugger all so far this winter. This lot are showing the usual variability in post-juvenile moult though, anything from 1-8 old greater coverts on the first winters.

A couple of pics from this morning, top adult, bottom 2nd cal year. Note the differences in the tertials, greater coverts (GCs 1-5 and 10 retained juv feathers in the bottom pic), alula, median coverts (outermost is a retained juv feather in the bottom pic), primary coverts, primaries and secondaries.

Roger the hybrid II

Having wasted the morning taking my G5 Powermac to the Apple hospital, I decided to waste my early afternoon on another trip to see the Rogerstone hybrid, and it went a bit like this,...

[Enter Roger the aythya hybrid, diving energetically in the canal]

Me: Mr. 'Scaup', I believe?
Roger the aythya hybrid: Yes — Scaup by name, Scaup by nature. [keeps diving]
Me: Yes... if you'd like to remain motionless for a moment, Mr. 'Scaup'. Please be still. Now, Mr. 'Scaup' you are, I believe, auditioning for the part of a free-flying sub-rarity?
Roger: Right.
Me: Now, Mr. 'Scaup', I couldn't help noticing almost at once that you are a one-winged duck.
Roger: You noticed that?
Me: I noticed that, Mr. 'Scaup'. When you have been in the business as long as I have you come to notice these things almost instinctively. Now, Mr. 'Scaup', you, a one-winged duck, are applying for the role of a free-flying sub-rarity — a role which, traditionally, involves the use of a two-winged bird.
Roger: Correct.
Me: And yet you, a unidexter, are applying for the role.
Roger: Right.
Me: A role for which two wings would seem to be the minimum requirement.
Roger: Very true.
Me: Well, Mr. 'Scaup', need I point out to you where your deficiency lies as regards landing the role?
Roger: Yes, I think you ought to.
Me: Need I say with overmuch emphasis that it is in the wing division that you are deficient.
Roger: The wing division?
Me: Yes, the wing division, 'Mr. Scaup'. You are deficient in it — to the tune of one. Your left wing I like. I like your left wing. A lovely wing for the role. That's what I said when I saw you appear. I said ‘A lovely wing for the role.’ I've got nothing against your left wing. The trouble is — neither have you. You fall down on your right.

Two things I didn't notice during yesterday's brief stop: 1. the right primaries are well and truly clipped, Gosh knows how I missed this; and 2. the bill does darken somewhat towards the base (the Pochard option looms slightly larger in the rear-view mirror).

Rogerstone 'Scaup'

Dropped in on the reported "male scaup duck" at Rogerstone this afternoon. As anticipated, it wasn't a Scaup but it was more interesting than it might have been, cynical ol' me was expecting a Tufty. The bird appears to be an escape, it allows very close approach and readily swims to within a few feet for fodder, I don't think any rings were present though. It looks pretty good for Tufted x Scaup but, given a captive origin and the variation in mixed aythya offspring, back-crosses, etc., I suppose ruling out input from Pochard, Lesser Scaup or even something as exotic as New Zealand Scaup, etc., might not be possible.

Just in case you want a little more detail the bird is larger than a Tufted and quite broad in the beam. The bill is long and broad with an extensive black tip, a sub-terminal white 'crescent' and an inverted black, ill-defined, 'U' on the culmen on an otherwise blue bill (no significant darkening at the base). The iris is medium yellow. The head has a quite steep forehead, short blunt crest and extensive green and purple sheen (green largely restricted to the ear-coverts, purple largely restricted to forehead, crown and nape); overall the profile is much more Scaup than Pochard-like. The mantle is finely vermiculated blackish, appearing medium grey at a distance; tertials black with greenish gloss; flanks very finely vermiculated pale grey, appearing off-white at any distance. The breast, neck, uppertail, tail and undertail all appear black. It didn't wing stretch during my short visit; a pic of an open wing would be useful should anyone feel inspired to get one.

"Ancient fossil penis discovered"

One of the better headlines from the BBC news archive; I missed this story on first circulation and have only skimmed it, but I guess it has something to do with Michael Douglas, Silvio Berlusconi or Peter Stringfellow (see for yourself here).

I did not know that...

... Little Grebe's inner mandibles are white, well what d'ya know.

[Edit: 'inner mandibles'? Eh? Perhaps 'the inside of the mandibles' would be a better description.]

On visiting an ex-nature reserve

Uskmouth Country Park was pretty dire today; amidst teenagers riding bikes across floating pontoons, people climbing the viewing blinds, neonates screaming their general disapproval and dogs on invisible leads were a couple of Goldeneye, a couple of Stonchat and very little else. Above the hordes, three Skylark did their level best to hint at spring passage and a Siskin wheezed its way over, heading who knows where.

Ynys-y-fro Res is still locked up, I assume due to the danger of the ice that melted away three weeks ago. Don't get too hot under the collar though as there was bugger all present anyhoo.

Uskmouth Country Park, where men are men and Little Grebes are frightened.

Pub-lighthouse, lighthouse-pub

Not an awful lot at St. Brides this afternoon and, whilst I could see a fair bit of large larid loafing on the rooftops in the distance, I couldn't be arsed to trek along to the tip. Did see a 1st-winter/female-type Marsh Harrier working its way across the fields in the general direction of Newport, presumably the bird from the wetlands.

Just cos something cranes its neck don't mean it's a crane, especially if it then goes and sits in a river and/or riverside trees (for those who don't follow the GOS sightings page, don't worry, you're not missing much).

Public service announcement

Just for your collective information, NHBS have got 'Nature's Music' (a jolly good textbook on birdsong) in their sale at the moment (see here). It was worth the £55 I paid for it, so it is a bit of a bargain at £33.

Another red-hot Gwent news outlet

Just in case the local readership haven't noticed, the RaSPBerries have now added a 'Recent sightings' page to the Newport Wetlands bit of their website (see here). I daresay your anti-duff gen software will have to be regularly updated to safely surf this site but you never know, it might be worth checking for news of birds seen a week or two ago (it appears to be updated less than once a week). I assume news which deserves more immediate dissemination will be put on the GOS site, by 'assume' I mean 'forlornly hope with little expectation', by 'forlornly hope with little expectation' I mean 'I hope to hell and back in a hand-cart that they would at least tell the CCW staff if anything interesting appeared (given that it is a CCW reserve and all that)', by 'I hope to hell and....' oh,... you get the picture.

Look at each other and say BLARE

The first-winter male Black Redstart showed reasonably well at Sudbrook this morning. You can't see all the detail in this pic, but it has rather obvious moult contrasts in the greater coverts and tertials, and a much less obvious one in the medians. A few median coverts, the outer three greater coverts, the longest tertial and all the alula, primary coverts, secondaries and primaries are retained juvenile feathers; the shorter two tertials, the six inner greater coverts, most of the medians and all the lessers/marginals are moulted adult type feathers. The fact it has broad white edges to the replaced tertials makes for easy sexing (many 1st-winter males don't show this).

Following success at Sudders, I popped along to the reserve where both the female Marsh Harrier and the stonking male Hen Harrier showed rather well.