Wild Bird Wednesday 641 - Salvin's Albatross

I was lucky enough to go out on another couple of pelagic birding trips a week ago.  As per usual for me, these went out from Eaglehawk Neck in Tasmania.

This is a Salvin's Albatross (Thalassarche salvini) that we saw in the first trip of the weekend.  This species is part of the Shy Albatross group of birds.  It can be separated from Shy Albatross (Thalassarche cauta) by its pale grey head with a white forehead, its white underwings and the pale or olive-grey bit with a dark tip.

In the field (or on the ocean in this case) the grey head was very noticeable and this was the feature that first alerted us to the birds presence as it flew past.  Somewhat unusually (so I am told) the bird stayed around the boat for a while, rather than just doing a fly past.

This is a Southern Ocean species that breeds on some of New Zealand sub-antarctic islands. 

In some of these picture you can see the bird interacting with a Shy Albatross. 

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Wild Bird Wednesday 640 - Eurasian Teal

The Eurasian Teal (Anas crecca) or just Teal to me in the UK is another duck that is a scarce breeder in the UK - about 1,400 pairs - but an abundant winter visitor when 210,000 individuals may be present in the UK.

These ducks are small enough to be mistaken for waders in flight, and the twisting and turning flight of their flocks adds to this appearance.  When they take flight they leap nearly vertically into the air, and I like to think this is where the collective noun for a group of teal - a spring - originates.

The smallest of these birds is only just over half the size of a Mallard, but they really are a great looking bird.

The taxonomy of this species is rather fluid, with the closely related Green Winged Teal from America sometimes being considered the same species, and sometimes not.  This article suggests that these two type of birds are about to be (re) lumped as a single species after being separated in the past.

These picture were taken in flooded winter pastures at Catcott Reserve on the Somerset Levels in the UK.

(Once again I have failed to take any decent pictures of the females that were there - I really must address this!)

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Wild Bird Wednesday 639 - Pintail

The Pintail or Northern Pintail (Anas acuta) is a duck with a wide geographic distribution that breeds in the northern areas of Europe and across the Palearctic and North America.  These birds (which are all male) were seen at the Slimbridge WWT reserves in Gloucestershire in the UK.

They are a large duck, about the same size as the closely related but probably more familiar Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos). Both males and females of this species have the long, fine tail that gives them their common name.  Only the males have the distinctive white neck stripe.

Only abut 20 pairs of this species breed in the UK, but in winter almost 30,000 birds may be present as they migrate south from their more northern breeding grounds.

I remember the first time I ever saw this species was on an urban pond in Gateshead in the NE of the UK.  I got rather excited!

I must try harder not to be just distracted by the showy males when I am photographing birds!

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Wild Bird Wednesday 638 - Tuffted Duck

The Tufted Duck (Aythya fuligula) is a diving duck that is closely related to the Scaup. These pictures were taken at Slimbridge, a famous wildfowl reserve in Gloustershire, UK.

Tufted Ducks can always be found over much of the southern UK, but their numbers increase significantly during the winter.  The breeding population is about 16,000 pairs, but there may be as many as 120,000 individual birds present in the winter.  Interestingly, some of the UK breeding birds as themselves migratory, and spend the northern winter in Spain and Portugal.  This movement is most noticeable in cold winters in the UK. 

The individual in these pictures is a male.

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Wild BIrd Wednesday 637 - Two Birds of Prey.

The Black-shouldered Kite (Elanus axillaris) and the Nankeen Kestrel (Falco cenchroides) are two of Australis more common and widespread birds of prey.

Both can be seen on most days birding, and are often seen hovering about the grassy edges of freeways.  They are other the bird of prey you see while going to look for other birds.  As a result I think that they can be undervalued at times.

As you can see they are really rather good looking birds, and I think their ubiquity should not reduce how they are valued!

Anyway, both of these birds were hunting around the bushes and roadside edges of the Werribee Sewage works.  Although you can see it, the Nakeen Kestrel has a mouse (?) in its claws until it objected to my presence and flew off.  

The Black-shouldered Kite was just sitting and making occasional forays into the local area, until it too objected to my presence and felt off as well.

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Wild Bird Wednesday 636 - Great Tit

The Great Tit (Parus major) is a small passerine in the family Paridae. Members of this family are commonly referred to as "tits" throughout much of the English-speaking world, but North American species are called either "chickadees" or "titmice".

The Great Tit is widespread and common throughout Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and east across the Palearctic to the Amur River, and south to parts of North Africa.

This species is generally found in any sort of woodland. It is also common in gardens, especially those with bird feeders.  It was probably one of the first birds I leant to identify many, many years ago.

This bird was photographed at the RSPB reserve at Ham Wall in Somerset in the UK.  British birds are known to have a wider dark line on the stomach than many other members of this species.

These pictures were taken in February this year, and I think you can see hints of early spring in some of the buds in the pictures.

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