Birds on OtterCam

I rarely set my trail cameras for pictures of birds but birds trigger more recordings than mammals.  Most of the mammals are rats and mice and most of the birds are wood pigeons and moorhens but sometimes it is something more interesting.  Several Eurasian bitterns have been in Gosforth Nature Reserve all winter and at least one is still there - it is rarely seen but constantly heard as its booming call echoes through the reeds.  This one did me the honour of walking past my camera.

Another surprise was a cormorant, a common sight on the lake but not previously within range of a trail camera.

Next two little brown jobs.  Reed buntings are common enough and the singing males are very visible in spring.  Females are less showy but still very attractive and, like the bittern, beautifully camouflaged for life in the reeds.  Cetti's warblers are easily heard but rarely seen, which is a pity as they are also very attractive little birds.

Common birds tend to get overlooked but the trail cameras can give us an intimate view.  Here are a few recent ones that caught my eye.

Finally another surprise - a tawny owl trying to catch a rat.  Perhaps a bit optimistic but it may have misjudged the size of its prey in the dark.  The rat lived to tell the tale.

End of year favourites - Birds on trail camera

Birds show up every day on my trail cameras.  I don't usually keep the videos of moorhens, ducks, geese, robins, pigeons, etc that I see every day but some of the recordings offer us a privileged view of behaviour that we wouldn't otherwise see.  Here are a few favourites from this year.

I am used to seeing sparrowhawks at home but this one appeared on my otter camera.  It's a first year bird, probably a female from its size, and whatever it was chasing it missed on this occasion.  I thought at the time that the call in the background was a buzzard but now I think it might be another sparrowhawk.

Water rails are much more often heard than seen.  They have a strange un-bird-like call, as this one is showing in front of the camera.

Water rails mostly eat invertebrates but will take larger prey, here a fish and a newt.

Carrion crows are pretty clever but this one was outsmarted by a mouse.  The story is a bit long to repeat in this post but you can find it here.

I posted a video of a heron eating water shrews a couple of days ago.  Another one (or perhaps the same one) tried to eat a frog, but lost it, and caught a toad but soon let it go.

Cetti's warblers were first recorded breeding in the UK only 50 years ago and they are now resident and breeding birds up here.  Like water rails they are mainly heard rather than seen but this one did turn up on the camera.  Unfortunately it wasn't singing.

Cetti's warblers sing all day and all night in the summer.  One was singing while a common snipe was exploring the bridge.  There is a little grebe and a bumblebee in the background at one point as well.

Finally a video I haven't posted before but something that turned up on PolecatCam in Allendale. A tawny owl catching a black spider in complete darkness.  Amazing.

There are birds every day on the cameras that don't make it to the blog.  I hope this has given a taste of what goes on while no-one is looking.

WaterRailCam

This blog has been taken over by mustelids recently so it is time for something different, although these pictures were recorded on cameras looking for otters.  The water rail (Rallus aquaticus) has a reputation for being a shy bird but it isn't shy when it thinks no-one is looking.  It is the most frequent non-target bird on this camera, appearing several times a day.

Most often the water rail just runs across the bridge but quite frequently it also does a dance on tip-toe with much flapping of its wings.  I don't know if this is a display or just for exercise, probably the former.  Here are a few examples.

Wikipedia says water rails mostly eat animals such as worms, slugs, leeches, spiders and insects.  They will also take small vertebrates such as amphibians and fish.  The cameras have twice recently seen a water rail carrying prey - first a fish and then a newt in the video, an observation that would be near impossible without the trail camera.

Because of their secretive behaviour water rails are very difficult birds to census.  My cameras suggest that locally at least they are doing very well.

Shy birds on OtterCam

OtterCam is in a quiet phase at the moment.  Single otters wander past every now and then, both the dog and the resident female as far as I can tell, but they don't do anything interesting.  I hope new cubs will be born in the first half of next month but, if so, we won't see them on camera for another three months or so.

The cameras are still in position, however, clocking up dozens of recordings a day, mostly of birds.  Young water rails, moorhens and mallards predominate, along with robins and wood pigeons.  There were also two notable recordings last week.

The water rail has a reputation of being a shy bird but it certainly isn't camera-shy.  It is usually heard rather than seen and makes a weird un-bird-like sound, often described as like a piglet squealing.  This one put on a show in front of two of the cameras.

Next another bird that is usually seen but not heard.  I previously posted videos of a common snipe and a badger, both with a Cetti's warbler singing in the background.  The video below shows the first time a Cetti's warbler has appeared on camera.  Cetti's warbler was previously a rare bird, having first bred in Kent in the 1970s and described in my (2016) field guide as a "scarce and local resident, mainly in southern England".  Since then it has been spreading north and for the past year or so there have been several in the reserve - I now hear one singing nearly every time I go in.  Unfortunately this one didn't sing to the cameras and the bird in the background is a reed warbler.

You can hear the Cetti's warbler's song here.

The wide-angle lens on OtterCam

After my initial success with attaching a wide-angle lens to one of my trail cameras I was encouraged to fit another to my newest camera.  As I wrote before, trail cameras have a fairly limited field of view and in the places I put them to watch otters I can't set them any farther back. The wide-angle lens offers an improved depth of field as well as the wider field of view.  I put the new one down by the water's edge near a popular scent-marking spot where the otters sniff to see which has been there recently, as well as leaving their own calling card.  It has been a success and works well despite being only a foot or two away from the otter.

The cameras also recorded a visit from a young fox.  The focus is pretty good despite the fox being close to the lens.  Most foxes don't like trail cameras but this one doesn't seem too bothered.

I moved one of the cameras to a new position in the roof of the culvert, where the wide-angle view again works well.  This is more behaviour I haven't seen before.  I think the dog otter is probably catching tiny fish - sticklebacks or fry - as I see them in the water when I check the camera.  The episode lasted for 10 minutes, not always in view, but I have edited it to be much shorter.

Exactly 24 hours later the otter was back for a repeat.

The sluice gate is also a popular fishing spot for a moorhen and a water rail who triggered over 100 video recordings!  You can see the otter's footprints on the gate.

I'll carry on experimenting to see what else the wide-angle trail cameras can reveal.

Youngsters on CulvertCam

The culvert camera is set mainly to keep an eye on the otter(s) but does detect all sorts of other visitors.  At this time of year they often include youngsters.  The first video shows a mallard and two ducklings (quite a small number for a duck).  The ducklings don't fancy the ramp and return down the pipe.  After calling them the mother gives up and flies back over the top to meet them back on this side.  The video has to peer through a spider's web over the lens.

On another occasion the ducklings were hesitant about going up the ramp but presumably did make it up as the camera didn't record their return.  They did come back early the next morning. By the time the camera is triggered mother and one duckling are already half way down the culvert but the other one lags behind and drops over the edge of the sluice gate as it hurries to catch up.

Water rails are often recorded on the culvert camera, more frequently than otters.  On this occasion one appeared with three small black chicks.  One chick disappeared round the far end and the other two followed mother back past the camera.  Six minutes later one chick is seen running up and down, trying to find where the others have gone.

I can't work out what the loud tapping noise is in this video as none of the visible birds seems to be making it.  Any ideas?

WaterRailCam

After the wood mouse, this is another animal that has shown up while the trail camera is watching the water shrew. Water rails are shy birds, preferring to stay in cover in or around the water's edge.  This one was unaware of the camera and was searching for food.  It didn't find the water shrew's larder, or perhaps the larder was empty.

On the last video early one morning the water rail moved from the water shrew camera round to the culvert camera a few inches away and found a worm in the culvert.  It just goes to show...

End of year favourites - Aves (elsewhere)

I haven't taken as many bird photos this year as usual, probably because I have been distracted by other things such as dragonflies, bees and hornets.  Here are a few birds I did see.

Water rail

This is the third mud-loving bird I have posted this week.  The increased area of mud in front of the hide at Gosforth Park is popular with birds that we don't often see.  Water rails are generally fairly secretive birds but these are happy to come out onto the mud each evening.  This is an adult.

There are also several juveniles.

If and when we have some rain they will eventually move back into the reed beds as the water level rises.

It's a hard life

The freezing weather we have had recently makes life pretty tough for creatures that rely on access to open water to make a living.  The lake and the reedbeds in the reserve have been frozen this week, making things difficult for birds that live in the reeds, especially those that can't fly far.  Water rails are normally fairly shy and reluctant to come out into the open but I saw half a dozen as they risked coming out onto the ice to dash from one reed bed to another.  There were plenty of fox tracks around so they were right to be wary.

The water rail is a smaller, slimmer and smarter looking relative of the moorhen.  Here is a moorhen for comparison.

A mud-coloured bird in the mud

This young water rail is one of two that have been very visible in front of the hide recently.  It is much bolder than the adults, probably through lack of experience, so it is just as well that it has such good camouflage.  It also doesn't mind getting its feet muddy.

Bird of the week - Water rail

The water rail is a secretive bird and is much less visible than its cousins the moorhen and the coot.  It it most often heard squealing in the reedbeds or glimpsed at the edges of the reeds but occasionally one wanders into view, as this one did this morning in Gosforth Park.

More commonly the only view is a brief one as it scurries across open ground.

The young birds lack the adults' fine colouring.  I got several pictures of them on the trail cameras a few weeks ago when I was trying to capture a water shrew.

Both the rails and the shrews liked the dried mealworms.

This young rail managed to keep its head perfectly still for the camera while doing the twist.

The water rail is Rallus aquaticus, meaning water rail!  It is mostly found in the wetter parts of the east of the UK.

Numbers seem to be on the increase.

The UK water rail population is thought to be around 1000 territories (breeding pairs) but because of its behaviour it is a difficult bird to survey.  I helped James with a water rail survey in Gosforth Park Nature Reserve in the spring where he played a recording of the rail's territorial call at multiple sites in the reserve and we listed for responses.  We reckoned there were at least 8 pairs and 2 single birds in the Park.

Despite being a reluctant flier it can be a migratory bird, although the UK population mostly stays put in the winter.  This is what Thomas Bewick had to say about it in A History of British Birds vol II published in 1832.

Bewick also knew it as the brook runner.

This picture was painted by the Scottish wildlife artist, Archibald Thorburn.

Water rails make a lot of noise and emit a variety of squeals and grunts.  The territorial call is known as sharming and can be heard here.  You can listen to Chris Packham's BBC Radio 4 Tweet of the Day on water rail here.