Long-Tailed Tits

A week or two ago Zoe and I were in her bedroom when she pointed out a flock of small birds flitting about in the chestnut trees in front of our flats.  I immediately recognised them as long-tailed tits (Aegithalos caudatus). We leant against the window-sill and watched them as they 'leap-frogged' each other round the trees, presumably looking for things to eat.  Just when you think you have seen them all, a straggler swoops in from another tree. Flocks of long-tailed tits remind me of loose clusters of stars like the Hyades where most of the members are travelling as a concentrated ball of stars, but there is also a loose association of outliers that are travelling in the same direction.

Goldcrests

This Saturday Liz and Zoe saw a goldcrest (Regulus regulus) in the Reading University grounds.  I remember seeing one back in January, on a frosty morning as I was walking between Farnborough and Frimley.  They seem so tiny that I am surprised that they can survive cold weather.

On Saturday Zoe said they also saw a darkish pheasant-like bird which might have been a female golden pheasant, possibly the mate of the male one they saw in October - it was also on the drive to Foxhill House.  However, they did not get a good look at it before it disappeared into the bushes.

Diving behaviour in a Lesser Black-Backed Gull

While walking with Zoe around the Reading University lakes this morning, I noticed a lesser black-backed gull (Larus fuscus) sitting on the water.  Suddenly, it flapped its wings as if taking off but rose only a few feet into the air and then dived head-first back into the water, almost immediately coming to the surface again.  I saw it perform this trick twice, so it was obviously deliberate.  Maybe it was trying to catch a fish and needed to get a certain amount of momentum to get deep enough to reach it.  After the second dive, the gull then slowly meandered its way around the lake as if looking for something else to dive for, but we didn't see it dive again.

Heron in the Dark

With the shorter hours of daylight at this time of year, I don't get to see that many birds on my way to and from work.  However, on Monday morning at 6am, as I was walking walking through central Reading on my way to the railway station, there was a grey heron (Ardea cinerea) standing in the river Kennet, just opposite the abbey ruins.  It was perfectly still in the darkness, with its neck extended as if it was watching.  Maybe the light from the street lights is bright enough for it to actually catch fish there at night, I don't know. 

Herons are usually fairly wary of people and I half expected it to fly off as I walked by along the tow path, but it didn't, maybe because I was I was over on the opposite bank.  It also ignored a car moving along the bank near to it, but when the driver got out of the car the heron rose up and flew off slowly upstream.

That part of the river, the shallows on the inside of a bend, must be a fairly popular place for water birds to spend the night: I often see swans, Canada geese, coots, mallard ducks, and occasionally the heron there in the early morning, waiting for daylight to come. 

The Return of the Egyptian Geese

This morning at 09:00am I went for another walk around the Reading University lakes with Zoe.  There is much more bird activity on the lakes in mornings than later in the day, especially now that the evenings are getting darker. 

The 'resident pair' of egyptian geese (the rufous phase male with its lame grey phase female) were standing on the weir at the west end of the largest lake when they suddenly took off and flew off towards the centre of the lake.  Then we saw five rufous egyptian geese fly in overhead, circle the lake and splash down on the water.  These could well have been the resident pair's first and second generation offspring coming back to the lake on which they were reared.  We hadn't seen them for several weeks.  Maybe they have been staying on some of the other lakes in the Reading area.  Anyhow, a few minutes later there was a commotion when a rufous form one chased off several  of the others.  Maybe this was one of the parents telling its offspring to go and find their own lake - I understand that birds can be quite ruthless when it comes to encouraging their young to fend for themselves.

We also saw a lone cormorant, as we did back in August, standing on the same submerged rock.  Over the past couple of weeks I have seen a lone cormorant on three occasions, twice on the lakes between Frimley and Farnborough, and once over the Kennet in Reading.  I suppose it is possible that these sightings are all of the same bird moving around from one body of water to another.