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Siskin

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Photography and Updates


Honestly, I didn’t realise I had that many readers but I’ve been asked quite a few times now why I haven’t been posting for a while, so here’s a quick update. I’ve been moving home over Christmas, which hasn’t been the smoothest process, having had todo most of the actual moving myself, with a herniated disk and two lumps on my spine, so that wasn’t fun, but it’s all done now! We’re settled in, just got a loong list of things to fix or replace on the new house but all doable work. Despite it being cold outside right now, signs of spring are really showing and I really wanted to focus on these signs this year, as for me, they are the highlight of this time of year.

A goal of mine has always been to record the sound of Frogs Croaking / Spawning, but I haven’t had the right location or a gap in the weather just yet, but I did manage to have a great photography session with my Amphibian specialist friend Michael Rodgers. I remembered an old spot that I had previous success from, so thought we’d give it a go and was shortly rewarded with several males and females popping their heads up to keep an eye out. Must admit these are some of my best Frog images I’ve ever taken, capturing them spawning, mating and croaking, painting a true picture of the atmosphere that filled the pond. I’ve thrown in a few images from my travels, usually between work breaks on the Gwent Levels, with Magor Marsh and my home Garden being my go-to break time locations at the minute. Despite several ill-health moments over Christmas, with Viruses, Shingles, and my usual health issues, I’m back at my ecology work, mostly on the Gwent Levels but in the uplands of Swansea soon too, not to mention the Bat season is fast approaching so it’ll all be chaos soon again!

Here’s the shortest video in history to make up for the lack of sound recording gear! That Croak is epic :)

Sound Recording

I’ve done very little this winter, as it’s been quite a windy one! Here’s a recording of 50mph gusts from the backdoor of my new home to prove it!

But still, signs of spring started quite early in the year, with short windows of southerly winds spurring some early spring songsters into action:

These last two recordings I’ll revisit in a future blog, as the mimicry in these two very different species of bird, is spectacular and whilst the Starling is very well known for mimicking, I think the Siskin can give it a run for its money!

This year I also intend on doing more ambient recordings, and I’m off to a good start with some Wave recordings at Goldcliff, and River Recordings along the Usk. These recordings directly tie into my Mental Health company called In Our Nature CIC, which I’ll give updates on also below.

Glad I brought the Dish on this river visit as further upstream there were two Oystercatchers chasing each other around, so I was able to continue recording the river sound with a stereo pair of mics, whilst also pointing my parabolic dish upstream to capture the echoing sound of the Oystercatchers as they flew up and down.

In Our Nature CIC

We’re kicking this year off with a bang! No thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund which has allowed us to continue offering our services to the public, totally FREE of charge. You can expect weekly walks, special events, everything from Birdsong Identification to Tree’s, Otters, Bats and Flowers, keep an eye on our website for more details or head over to our Facebook group. The project is called ‘Take A Moment’ which is a fitting title that encapsulates our message that we’re trying to send thru our company. We could all do with Taking A Moment this year with nature, as the mental and physical benefits aren’t just incredible beneficial to us, but they’re absolutely free!!

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Nocmig

Birding

My first ‘birding’ trip to Llandegfedd this year proved fruitful with a Kittiwake flying in over our heads on the dam wall, continuing on a NW flight path. Not sure if it’s a migrating bird or if it’s been blown off course during the last storm but I presume it’s the latter. There’s so much we don’t yet know about migratory birds, which is why Nocmig recording is quite an exciting activity to take part in. All that community data could really help paint a bigger picture about bird movements and distribution and all this could be achieved from the comfort of your home. So far I’ve only heard a Swallow, I haven’t actually seen one yet but looking forward to it.

One spring migrant I’ve certainly heard plenty of so far is the Chiffchaff. At first I wasn’t sure if it was just the birds that overwintered here that were singing, but I can confirm now on the Gwent Levels that they’re everywhere already! Here’s a recording from Llandegfedd this week.

I love this time of year, as winter migrants start to properly sing and ‘warm up’ to spring, but at the same time, spring migrants are arriving and starting to reclaim territories, so you get this cross-over of sounds from birds that live in totally different worlds to each other. You would have probably heard this by now but if you haven’t, keep a close eye on the Ivy and Holly bushes, especially around open fields of waterways. As the Redwing flock up, they’ll often sing together, creating a wall of sound that sounds way bigger than it actually is. The scratchy sub-song of the Redwing is quite common in winter but it’s less common to get a single bird sing their spring song, which is exactly what you can hear slightly in the recording below. Just a few fluty notes is all it takes.

I’ve recorded quite a lot so I won’t post everything, but here’s a comparison between the song of a Goldcrest and a Firecrest. Other than the fact that they’re both high pitch, they’re quite different when you know what you’re listening out for, so here’s a comparison. That dainty, bouncy rhythm of the Goldcrest is quite distinctive compared to the Firecrests loud-sharp-monotone song, that speeds up towards the end.

I have plenty more new recordings to listen to. I’m really starting to become more proud of the work that I do, and the benefits that it has, not just for my own mental health, but for others than are stuck in isolation, not just because of covid lockdowns but because they’re confined to the house, care home or hospital bed.
Below, probably one of my favourite, as it’s my very own Garden Blackbird that is now gracing me every morning and evening. I’ve commented on the track where mimicry is used.

My local Yellowhammer’s are back on territory and it’s so nice to hear this iconic song again. I can’t imagine the countryside without it. We need more gorse! Hedgerows aren’t enough, we need to protect our gorse patches and not allow farming culture to cut it all down. Even the brecon beacons national park have a lot to answer for, for needlessly cutting down gorse. Cattle can graze around it, and it doesn’t spoilt the view, it enhances it, as a mountain side covered in flowering gorse is a site to behold.

If you haven’t managed to get to your local mountains yet, the moorland soundtrack is in full swing again. Plenty of Skylark and Meadow Pipit displaying. The only sad the about that trip was seeing the amount of destruction done to our protected peat bogs. 4X4 and off-road vehicles have a lot to answer for, not only do they pose a threat to ground nesting birds but the damage they’ve have caused to our nationally important peat bogs is almost irreversible. They think it’s just grass, and that the grass will grow back, but that is not our moorlands work! they aren’t in many ways like ancient woodland, formed over hundreds of years, and once damaged like this, take a very long time to recover. The exposed peat makes the moorland less affective at storing water, which can cause flooding, as that water is no longer being stored and released slowly. It also contributes to global warming, as it makes the peat less affective at storing carbon. I hate seeing this happen on our doorstep but truth is, it’s happening everywhere. It’s good to see the police are starting to tackle this but I do think that off-roaders need somewhere where they can practise their hobby and enjoy themselves without causing damage. Simply educating people isn’t going to be enough.

Some other cool moments for sound were these Carrion Crows, that were in full territorial dispute. At first I thought they were dive bombing a predator, but they were actually dive bombing each other. |f you listen to the start of the recording, you can hear two birds forming a bond with each other by rubbing their bills together.

I’ll hopefully get more opportunities to record Siskin, as I know they can be excellent at mimicking other birds. In this recording you can hear Swallow and Green Woodpecker, but I’ve heard some that are quite elaborate with it.

This Robin actually did a pretty good job at mimicking other birds. I’ve commented a few of the more obvious species on the actual track, check them out.

Nocmig

Right! Now onto the good stuff, as migration is well and truly underway! And like last spring, I have high hopes for something special flying over the house. So far it’s been mixed bags, but last night, despite the northerly winds, I had quite a variety of cool birds.

I won’t upload every recording, but I’ve also had Wigeon, Snipe and good numbers of Moorhen, Coot, Mallard, Redwing and small numbers of Song Thrush too. As we approach April, things should really pick up, as so much starts moving, it’s quite exciting as you never know what you might have flying over your house at night. I’m expecting Common Scoter any day now as they have started moving all across the country but I’m also looking forward to Terns arriving, Spotted Flycatchers and Tree Pipits, which seemed to be a popular one for me last year.

I’ll end with some sleep material and a celebration of my local streams.


Bluebells, Froglets and more Mimics

Wifi has been down for a week so I’ve got lots go catch you up on. I’ll start with some beautiful woodland Frogs amongst the Bluebells which doesn’t seem significant but I look forward to finding them every year in this wood. Any excuse to use the macro lens and to include flora in my images. It looks like it’s going to be a good year for bluebells. I’ve even seeing them high on the moors, which seems unusual.. certainly not something I’ve ever noticed before. I just always associated them with woodland but I guess that’s because everything else is intensely farmed..

While I’m on the uplands, it was pretty special bumping into not 1 but 2 Ring Ouzel in an undisclosed location. We’re at the start of the breeding season for these birds now so it will be interesting to see whether they stick around or if they continue on their migration.

Ring Ouzel

Ring Ouzel

Other notable images from my weeks adventures were mostly bugs. Mating Green Tiger Beetles was a first but Hairy Shieldbug and a Common Crab Spider posed well. The shieldbug image is a 3 image stack, which enabled me to keep a soft background while using the 3 images to pull focus on various parts of the shield-bug in order to get it all in focus.

If you enjoy my mimicking recordings, this one might be a new one for you. It certainly was for me! Siskin have a complex song, but I've always found them pretty easy to identify, therefor didn’t really give them much attention. I don’t know whether it’s just this individual or whether they all do this, but this Siskin could mimic a Blackbird alarm call, a Magpie contact call and a Green Woodpecker call, all mixed into its own song.
It was a real windy day and recording thru numerous branches but you can still hear it if you listen carefully. I’ll revisit this bird on a clearer day to get some better quality recordings. What I love about mimicking birds is, it reminds me that all birds are total individuals, capable of making their own choices.

Crossbill Forest

For the last couple of days I've been enjoying a flock of Crossbill at Wentwood Forest. Seeing them flock up like this in the open is quite a thing considering they spend most of the year at the tops of conifer trees, deep in the forest for nobody to see. They are specialists at extracting seeds from pine cones, using that unique cross-bill to pry the casings open wide enough to get the seed out with their tongue. I watched them doing this sort of thing also on regular beech seed heads with much the same technique. Every now and again they'd drop down to drink all at the same time, as to keep an eye out for predators at a time where they are particularly vulnerable. I did my best to get as close as possible without disturbing them. Like the recent influx of Hawfinch, these have probably travelled a fair way and now we're in forestry felling season, we can expect to see a few more unexpected visitors further south. 

Crossbill Drinking

I tried my best to get recordings of the Crossbill flock despite getting interference from a nearby telephone mast. Between that and the typical plane noise, cars and drones! yes drones, I really did well to get this recording. It has been filtered to death so apologies about the quality as it's below my usual standard. 

Just as I mentioned about Hawfinch on the move, a sizable flock of 15 + Hawfinch just as the light faded, Couldn't even fit them all in the same frame so was sure there must have been at-least 20 birds. They were about to touch down but changed mind and carried on North. Other notables came in the form of Brambling, Siskin, Redpoll, Kestrel and all the typical species for Wentwood this time of year. 

Hawfinch 9th November.jpg

Blaenserchan - Black Redstart

Today I visited most of my local wild spaces and spent a fair few hours in the Blaenserchan Valley in search of Common Lizards. I did find some, 7 in-fact, but they were proving extremely difficult to find on this hot day. Usually you find them basking in the sun in the morning and evenings but it was so warm, they were disbursed all over the mountain in amongst the bracken.. Don't know if you've ever seen a Common Lizard in a mountain full of bracken but it literally is like finding a needle in a hay-stack. I came prepared for it however, even brought my chair along as I know, once you find one, you have to gain their trust by sitting and waiting until they realise you aren't going to hurt them. I got so close I could have reach out and touched a few. Blaenserchan was so good today, it brought me a 'lifer' in the form of a female Black Redstart! - Thanks to birding friend Tim Griffiths for that one as I surely would have missed it with my head stuck in the bracken looking for Lizards. I also found a Yellowhammer in the valley which I personally haven't seen there before. Insect life was great too with Bloody-nose Beetles, Green Tiger Beetles, a Stonefly, Brimstone Butterfly and many more. 

Lesser Redpoll

Whether it be high up in the canopy or down on the ground, Redpolls feed primarily on seeds. Luckily for Llandegfedd, the North Meadows are not cut for hay in the autumn, they are instead grazed by sheep during the winter months. Grazing is by far the best way forward for nature conservation as you can maintain grass levels while avoiding species of plant that are valuable to nature. It's these plants that species like Redpoll desire throughout the winter months and it is this reason alone that brings them down from the canopy and into the Meadows where we can see them better. This shot was taken from the footpath. 

Being down in the meadows however exposes them to predators like Sparrowhawk and moments after taking this shot, a Male Sparrowhawk flew out of the tree line behind me to try and catch one of these birds. They were lucky this time though and all of them managed to escape. The Sparrowhawk then flew off towards the feeding station so its probably eyeing one of those up. 

Siskin

If you have visited Llandegfedds Feeding Station and are wondering where all the finches are, my mate Chris has stollen them all! In his Garden he has; Siskin, Redpoll, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Brambling, House Sparrow and many many more! He really does have a hot spot and I appreciate the invite. Plus.. he makes a damn good cup of Yorkshire Tea! What more can you ask for? lol.