Showing posts with label common terns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label common terns. Show all posts

Wednesday, 13 May 2009

Reterns and what's that Stint?


Nice day ABBing at Carsington yesterday, nice to see visitors excited by the antics of the Common Terns. Whether they manage to remove the Black-headed Gulls from the newly deployed raft and get a chance to nest looks like big story for the next few weeks. Just not sure they're quite feisty enough to do it. I think the word soap opera writers use for the interest inspired by this sort of thing is jeopardy.
3 Common Sandpipers were a charming addition too. The Garden Warbler video comes from the Sheepwash end of the water.

Can beat that all though, this afternoon I checked Birdguides and there it was a report of Little Stint up at the pit. Good birds, but I've seen them before, even in Derbyshire, better stay in and get some work done in the house. A couple of hours later I check again and jeepers, there's been an upgrade, they're Temminck's Stint! - a lifer for me and probably the first in Derbyshire for many a year. Admittedly the difference is slight between the two species (and the mistake easy to make), basically Temminck's have pale legs, but they are a good deal rarer than Little Stint, both birds notable for being so flaming tiny, like unbelievably small for waders.
So Pleasley scores again, I really do like having the pit just a short walk away.

Here are a couple of strictly dodgy digiscope efforts, taken from a windswept video too shaky to dare post, glad they were still there...

Thursday, 2 October 2008

Notts birds in the news (and Senegal)

Two small birds thought to have drowned at a Nottinghamshire nature reserve last summer have been found nearly 3,000 miles (4828 km) away - in Africa.

The pair of Common Terns - which were too young to fly - were among chicks living on a specially-built platform at Attenborough Nature Centre.

When rising flood water covered the area last year it was thought all the chicks, which were ringed, had died.

But records from March show two survived and migrated to Senegal.

(BBC NEWS link)