30 Nov 2008

30th November

Nov 30

It was a case of sea watching between showers during the morning, and getting a list of a good variety of small numbers of common winter coastal birds. As a lunch‑time downpour ended a flock of small birds swooped into some puddles about twenty metres away and began bathing: pipits, gold­finches, greenfinches, house sparrows, serins and crested larks. Now we had a good opportunity to study the last two species.
The larks had similar plumage pattern to skylarks, but their short tails and deep bellies gave them quite a portly appearance. Generally they kept in the sparse vegetation, and were the last to leave if danger threatened ‑ they seemed to check first if it was really worth the effort of flying, perhaps it was just the sparrowhawk that had made them so nervous yesterday.
The male serins showed off their bright yel­low breasts and rumps alternately as they faced us and dipped their heads into the water to bathe; the females were a little less bright. However, a closer look revealed more subtle individual plum­age differ­ences, particularly in the streaks on the face and breast. Some just looked streaked while others had stripes, and on some these stripes appeared to be continuous with the face markings. Their flight pattern was fast with short undulations, though they often spent time flying in circles before deciding where to go. Like the other finches they were feeding on the seeds of grasses and crucifers.
The serins had a jangly call reminiscent of corn bunting, while the crested larks had a flight call similar to, but not so strident, as the woodlark, and also a shrill but slightly off‑key kwee‑tee call.
Several black redstarts came to the same scrubby area, mostly to feed. We didn't see them bathing, though some looked wet when they left. They spent most of the time on the harbour wall picking up insects from the crevices and seaweed. Talking of seaweed, someone came along with trac­tor and trailer and took away several loads of the stuff, perhaps for fertiliser or processing.
Plants in flower included sea rocket, white campion, slender thistle, groundsel, nightshade, also lots of thorn apple with seed pods splitting open.

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