Six Of The Best

Not six of the best birds you'll ever see - all birds are equal in my estimation (though some might be more equal than others). And certainly not six of the best photos of birds either, but six of the best I could manage yesterday on a visit to the North Norfolk coast.

First of all a Little Egret....

If I'd seen this bird as little as thirty years ago I'd have been very excited indeed; you just didn't see them in the UK. I remember a trip down to Hampshire when I saw one of the only two Little Egrets in the country at that time, now I see them all over the place, even within half a mile of my house.

The Egret was central to the forming of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) as it was the trade in their plumes, for making ladies' hats, that so appalled Emily Williamson and Eliza Phillips that they campaigned against the absurd fashion, leading to the founding of the charity in 1891. 

I've always been very fond of ducks, ever since the days when I used to feed them bread when I was about four-years old. That's a male Wigeon you can see above, just one of a vast number of the species that visit our wetlands - in fact anywhere where there's water and grass - every winter. They have a wonderful whistling call which always conjures up memories of wild winter weather in my mind.

Another bird with an evocative call is the Redshank. Old bird guides never fail to mention that it's known as "The Sentinel Of The Marshes". By whom? I'm tempted to ask. Not by the wildfowlers who made a living out on the fens and marshes, I'm sure. Probably by the clergymen/naturalists of the Victorian era. I'm certain the fenmen had a much more colourful name for the bird whose panic-stricken cries would have alerted every bird for miles around to their presence.

This character, boldly strutting along the edge of the water-channel, is a Godwit. We have two closely-related species, the Black-Tailed Godwit and the Bar-Tailed Godwit, and in winter it's not that easy to tell them apart, though I'm pretty certain this is a Black-Tailed Godwit....

...and there's the black tail! I'm sure that if I made my living by walking about in marshes, shoving my nose into the mud to sniff out my food, I'd be pretty much black all over within a very few minutes; I've never really understood how birds keep so clean.

Watching from afar is a tall, proud Curlew. It's another bird with a wonderful voice; I'll put some links at the end of this post so you can hear some of these birds if you want to.

Saving the most colourful till last, these are Teal, male and female. At a distance, in dull light, the drake looks like a greyish bird with a dark brown head; it's only bright sunlight that reveals the details.....

The collective name for a group of these birds is a spring of Teal, which must refer to the way they suddenly take off vertically when disturbed, usually when you didn't even know they were there.

Call of Wigeon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB3aZAoiPIg

Redshank:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xtuq6lwPao

Curlew:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3UBH_M_LGk


Take care.