Bird of the week - Yellowhammer

Here is a bird to gladden the heart in late winter.  Male yellowhammers are now starting to come into their glorious breeding plumage.  These males have very yellow breast feathers.

These males illustrate the variation in colouring.

The females and first winter males are much more subtly coloured.

The yellowhammer is Emberiza citrinella, meaning yellow bunting.  Thomas Bewick knew it as the yellow bunting - here is his engraving for A History of British Birds (1797).

Bewick wrote of the variability in colour of the yellowhammer:

He also wrote

In his day the yellowhammer was a common bird.

Like so many birds of arable farmland the yellowhammer is now in trouble and is red-listed.  It is found in lowland areas of England, eastern Wales, eastern Scotland and eastern Ireland.

But it is in decline across most of its range.

Yellowhammers are native to Europe and northern Asia.

By Jimfbleak - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32417243

In the 1860s and 1870s yellowhammers were introduced to New Zealand, supposedly to control insects eating crops planted by the settlers.  They were carried by ship and almost all survived the journey.  They cost 7/6 each (that's seven shillings and sixpence, or 37.5p if you are too young to know).  That's about £32 each in today's money!  Here is part of the receipt for 130 Yellow Hammers.  (They cost £48 15s 0d at the time and £4,160 in today's money so someone was obviously very keen on yellowhammers).  The shipment also included partridges, thrushes, blackbirds, goldfinches, redpolls, linnets  and starlings.

Not surprisingly the yellowhammers preferred to eat the crops and for a while were considered a pest.  You can read the story here.  Ironically yellowhammers are now faring better in New Zealand than they are in England.

Archibald Thorburn painted a pair of yellowhammers (the female looks a bit glum)

and a reed bunting with a yellowhammer.

Listen to the song of a yellowhammer here.  Listen to the BBC Radio 4 Tweet of the Day here.

Bird of the week - Stock dove

The stock dove is a commonly overlooked pigeon.  This one was pretending to be a sparrowhawk by standing on my sparrowhawk perch but none of the smaller birds was fooled.

Stock doves aren't often found in gardens, preferring open countryside.  Despite living in the city I am in a fairly rural setting so I do get them in mine.

The stock dove is smaller and neater than a woodpigeon and the two often go around together, as below.  There is usually a gang of them under my bird feeders.

This one didn't fancy the food on the floor and flew up to get its own - something I haven't seen a woodpigeon manage.

Stock doves are widespread in England with fewer in Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

Numbers increased the 60s and 70s and are now stable.

The stock dove gets its name from an old English word for stump as it typically nests in holes in old tree stumps.  The stock dove is Columba oenas, the first being Latin for pigeon and the second Greek for - pigeon.  Thomas Bewick knew it as the wild pigeon (as opposed to domesticated pigeons - which are descended from the rock dove, Columba livia). Below is his engraving for A History of British Birds (1797).  However, this looks to me much more like a rock dove because it has large and prominent wing bars (compare with the photos above and paintings below).  Bewick includes only three pigeons in his book - the ring dove (woodpigeon), the wild pigeon (stock dove) and the turtle dove.  I wonder if the stock dove and rock dove had not been recognised as separate species in his time.  

This is Archibald Thorburn's painting of a wood pigeon, a stock dove, a turtle dove and a rock pigeon.

This is Thorburn's stock dove and turtle dove.

You can watch a short BTO video on identifying pigeons here.  You can listen to recordings of stock doves here.  And listen to Kate Humble's BBC Radio 4 Tweet of the Day here.  These last two pictures are from Big Waters yesterday.

Out of my way!

The mute swan was challenging another mute swan (out of view) but the whooper swan made sure to get out of his way.

Bird of the week - Reed bunting

It has been a good couple of weeks for unusual visitors in the garden.  After last week's brambling I have also seen a handsome male reed bunting.  I see the odd one, always a male, at this time of year, presumably because there is less natural food around.  He stays only a short time before hurrying back to claim a territory in the reed beds.

Female reed buntings are very attractive but I have never seen one in the garden.  These photos were taken at Big Waters.

These two photos show the shape of the reed bunting's beak and how it uses its tongue to manoeuvre the seed before it is crushed.

BTO Garden BirdWatch data show that reed buntings (Emberiza schoeniclus) are seen in up to 5% of gardens in late winter / early spring and numbers have been increasing in recent years.

Reed buntings leave the reedbeds in autumn and feed on seeds with mixed flocks of buntings and finches in the winter. Along with many of these birds their numbers declined with changes in agriculture and at one time they were on the red list.

Reed buntings are fairly widespread in lowland areas of the British Isles, apart from the south.

This map shows they are in decline in much of the south of the country.

Listen to the song of a reed bunting here.  Listen to Sir David Attenborough's BBC Radio 4 Tweet of the Day on the reed bunting here.