Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

An Errant Whooper and A Quiz

IMG_2822As we neared the near-end of our first day’s walk along the Northumberland Coast, we spotted two swans in the distance. One was a familiar Mute Swan (Cygnus olor), invasive in the U.S., but native in the UK (and very present on the Tweed, where we started our walk) and the other, pictured below, a Whooper (C. cygnus).Cygnus cygnusNote the projection of yellow below the nostrils, a good field mark when comparing with the similar looking but smaller Tundra or Bewick’s Swan (C. columbianus). Whoopers are general seen in the UK during migration, so this one was late or dawdling, with only a few breeding in the north. (The North American Trumpeter Swan (C. buccinator) is closely related but has a black bill.)

IMG_2433Less of a quiz than a mystery, to me anyway. Spotted this one in the Royal Botanical Garden. What is it?

mthew

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6 responses to “An Errant Whooper and A Quiz”

  1. Patrick

    Dear Matt, it’s a Hedge Sparrow.

    Reply
    1. mthew

      Thank you! Funny the way a different angle will change things dramatically, especially for a bird never seen before. Photographed one from the side the same day https://matthewwills.com/2015/07/11/british-birds/

      Reply
  2. elwnyc

    I was going to say dunnock (same as Patrick) – because I think of it as a totally nondescript small bird, one I frequently forget in the excitement of the brightly colored/marked ones.

    Reply
    1. Mark Wilkinson

      Nondescript markings possibly though the red legs always help a quick ID. Their song is a stunner, but it is their, ahem, sexual habits that are perhaps most fascinating.

      They were thought in Victorian times to be monogamous, and according to a Rev FO Morris to ‘exhibit a pattern which many of a higher grade might imitate, with advantage to themselves and benefit to others through an improved example’.

      But research conducted by Cambridge University zoologist Nick Davies has shown that dunnocks enjoy quite perverse sexual relationships, often with one female having two males. ‘Had his congregation followed suit, there would have been chaos in the parish.’

      http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/exposed-secret-sex-life-of-the-female-decievers–genetic-fingerprinting-techniques-have-exposed-monogamy-among-birds-as-a-myth-fostered-by-the-victorians-scientists-say-that-adultery-is-commonplace-and-a-deliberate-survival-strategy-steve-connor-reports-1566073.html

      Reply
      1. mthew

        Thanks, Mark! It’s an interesting reflection on human desires (if that’s the right word) that we so often want to find species that are “faithful, “life-long” pairings, etc., yet as we learn more, especially with genetic evidence, the animal world is just as human as the human world is animal.

    2. mthew

      This was my third trip to the UK, and the first I’d run into Duccock/Hedge Sparrow. Gives me empathy for foreign birders here, for instance, discovering species I may being paying less attention to because they are so common.

      Reply

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