Bird Watching mini-mag October 20

FREE EXPERT ID CARDS INSIDE
Plus
CUT OUT
AND
KEEP!
ID essentials for beginners – wildfowl,
woodpeckers, herons, tits, owls
BRITAIN’S BEST-SELLING BIRD MAGAZINE
OCTOBER 2020 £4.70
Cultural
ICONS
l Why owls symbolise wisdom
l How Robins became our
favourite bird
l Surprising truth about the
Ravens at the Tower and more…
ID
CHALLENGE
Expert help to
separate riverside
birds
WHAT NEXT
FOR THE RSPB?
New boss Beccy Speight
speaks out
INCREDIBLE COSTA RICA
Record-breaking birder Ruth Miller
remembers a trip of a lifetime
BEAUTIFUL BLACK GROUSE
Explore this stunning bird’s extraordinary courtship habits

OCTOBER
Contents
14
8
NEWS & VIEWS
16
Weedon’s World
Mike spent time photographing
what he calls ‘elites’
18
NewsWire
Can you help with funds to rebuild
the Fair Isle Bird Observatory
FEATURES
20
26 36
76
19
25
Grumpy Old Birder
The scourge of wildlife crime is on
Bo’s mind this month
Hampshire 150
How are team members faring with
their 2020 photography challenge?
ON THE COVER
26 Birds in British culture
20 ID essentials
40 Beccy Speight interviewed
44 Costa Rica
36 Black Grouse
47 ID Challenge
IT’S NOT
TOO LATE!
BIRDWATCHING.
CO.UK/MY200
20
24
26
32
36
40
44
70
A guide to ID essentials
A guide to our new series of ID
cards, which will help you identify
even more British birds!
#My200BirdYear sign up
All the online help you need to boost
your #My200BirdYear list
Birds in British culture
Birds have long played a part in our
folklore and mythology, as editor
Matt Merritt discovers
Birds in folk songs
We highlight just a few of the many
bird-related folk songs
Black Grouse
Dominic Couzens on how life is
tough for this upland bird
RSPCA future
We talk to the organisation’s
new head, Beccy Speight
Memories of Costa Rica
How a heatwave in Wales got Ruth
Miller thinking about exotic birding
Wildlife photography
A series of wonderful images have
been collected for a new publication
40
44
8
14
47
53
IN THE FIELD
Your Birding Month
Find out why Great Northern Diver
is our Bird of the Month! Plus, how
Grey Wagtail got its name
Beyond Birdwatching
Is October the end of summer or
the start of winter, James Lowen
wonders...
ID Challenge
Find out just how well you know
river birds!
Go Birding
10 great destinations to
head to for some brilliant birding
SUBSCRIBE FOR
£2.80
PER MONTH*
TURN THE PAGE
*DIGITAL ONLY WHEN YOU PAY BY DIRECT DEBIT
73
76
82
86
BIRD THE WORLD
Highland birding
How do you fancy a fabulous
Highland winter birding trip in
2021, with the team at Heatherlea?
Belize
Urban Birder David Lindo heads to
Central America for a trip of a
lifetime and is not disappointed
Texas
A trip to the second largest US state
will reward you a feast of great
birds, as Barrie Cooper found to
his delight
Urban birding
An ‘urban bird discovery’ was one
of the many highlights on a trip to
Mexico City for David Lindo
BIRDING ON THE BRINK
92 Bermuda Petrel
How conservationists are
helping this wonderful bird in its
fight for survival
67
114
114
99
102
92
94
95
Your Questions
Our experts answer your birdingrelated
questions
Back Chat
Young conservationist Kabir Kaul is
in the Q&A hotseat!
BIRD SIGHTINGS
Rarity Round-Up
The best rare birds seen in the
UK during August
UK Bird Sightings
A comprehensive round-up of
birds seen during August
GEAR & REVIEWS
Gear
Editor Matt tests the latest Hawke
Endurance ED 15-45x60 scope
WishList
Birding goodies include camera
lenses, feeders and shirts!
Books
Latest releases including
A Bird A Day by Dominic Couzens
4 October 2020 birdwatching.co.uk 5

A t-a-glance
Identification
Trunk climbing woodland birds and tits
Only Nuthatches go
headfirst down tree trunks
A guide to our new series of ID cards
This month we have the second part of our series of cut-out-andkeep
at-a-glance ID cards (which again you will find on the inside
of the front cover of the magazine). This time around we feature
larger dabbling drakes, smaller diving ducks,
widespread tit species, trunk-climbing birds, owls,
pigeons, herons and other long-legged wading birds. Over the
next four pages, we will look at a few tips to help you master the
identification of these groups of British birds.
Drake identification
The ID cards cover 10 of our
commoner species of duck,
particularly drakes (male ducks):
five are the larger dabbling ducks and five
are smaller diving duck species. Here are
some key points to consider.
Head shape and colour
The headshape in particular is as good a
place to start as any, instantly narrowing
down the possibilities. For instance, of the
dabbling ducks, only drake Mallards and
The Pintail is long-necked and
long-tailed; the head is chocolate
brown and the speculum is brownish
Shovelers have blackish, glossy-green
heads. And head colour will immediately
tell a drake Scaup (blackish) from a drake
Pochard (red).
While at the head end, don’t forget to
check out the bill shape and colour.
Back colour etc in diving ducks
In diving ducks, the colour of the back can
be critical. For instance, Tufted Ducks have
black backs, whereas the somewhat similar
Scaup has a pale grey back. Similarly, in all
The Goldeneye has an odd-shaped
head with obvious white cheek patches,
striped wings and a white breast
PAUL A STERRY NATURE PHOTOGRAPHERS LTD/ALAMY TIM ZUROWSKI ALL CANADA PHOTOS /ALAMY*
Red of head and pale grey on the
flanks and back, the drake Pochard
is very distinctive
Predominantly grey-looking drake
Gadwall has white ‘sugar lump’ speculums
on the trailing edge of the wings
male ducks, the colour of the breast is a
very useful ID hint. Shovelers and Pintails,
for instance, stand out as having white
breasts; as do Goldeneye and Long-tailed
Ducks among the diving ducks
Speculum colour in dabblers
Look for the square area of colour on
the trailing edge of the wing of dabbling
ducks. This ‘speculum’ can be critical in
identification of birds in flight.
DENNIS JACOBSEN/ALAMY
BLICKWINKEL/M. WOIKE/ALAMY
ARTERRA PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY
ALAN WILLIAMS/ALAMY
Card 6 is all about woodland
birds, with one side dedicated to
trunk-climbing species (the
woodpeckers, Nuthatch and
Treecreeper); and the other side the
widespread species of tit (ie., all our
true tit species, excluding the localised
and very distinctive Crested Tit).
Size
Particularly with woodpeckers, size is a
vital starting point. Our three resident
woodpecker species are in three
distinct size categories. In woodland
conditions, looking into bright skies, a
woodpecker-shaped silhouette is often
all you get to see, as a bird flies off. So,
a realisation that Green Woodpeckers
are much larger than Great Spotted
Woodpeckers, which in turn look huge
compared with the scarce Lesser
Spotted Woodpecker (or Nuthatch
and Treecreeper) can be vital as a first
(and perhaps final) step to confident
identification of these birds.
The Marsh Tit is very similar to the
Willow Tit, and best distinguished by
the tiny white mark on the bill
The Treecreeper has a
unique appearance among
common British birds
With our tit species, the thing to
remember is that the Great Tit is almost
sparrow-sized, the rest are much
smaller, and the tiny Coal Tit is not
much bigger than a Goldcrest!
Head and face pattern
Luckily, all the ‘trunk-climbing’ birds
featured here have quite distinctive
patterns, which can instantly identify
them. Most of the tits, however, have
black crowns, white cheeks and black
bibs (the Blue Tit is the exception).
Concentrate instead on the extent of the
bib, and features like the white stripe on
the back of the head of the Coal Tit.
Tell-tale signs
Just as the blue cap and white
supercilium combination is unique to
the Blue Tit, so the crimson on the lower
belly and undertail coverts of the Great
Spotted Woodpecker is a dead giveaway;
no other similar birds you are likely to
encounter will have this feature.
A E BURRELL/ALAMY
Colour
Of the five tit species we are dealing with,
the Blue and Great Tits are bright yellow
beneath and have blue wings and tail
and a green back. The extremely similar
(to each other) Marsh and Willow Tit are
fundamentally brown birds. And the Coal
Tit is a grey-and-buff bird, on its own.
Similarly, basic colour is a good next stage
in ID (after size) with the woodpeckers
and other climbing species. For example,
only the Green Woodpecker is green, only
the Nuthatch blue-grey and buff.
Feeding area
It can be useful to know where in the
woodland (or indeed out of the woodland)
these birds feed. Green Woodpeckers do
nearly all their feeding on ground
(hoovering up ants), while Lesser Spotted
Woodpeckers favour the tiny uppermost
branches. Nuthatches can be found all
over trees, and will walk headfirst down
them, unlike Treecreepers, which like to
spiral up trunks.
WillowTits have subtly larger heads
than Marsh Tits and more ‘tonally
constant’ flanks and backs
COLIN VARNDELL/ALAMY
BRIAN SCOTT/ALAMY
20 October 2020
birdwatching.co.uk 21

Owls and pigeons and doves
Herons, egrets and long-legged wading birds
The Great White Egret is very large, with a
distinctive kink in the neck and usually a
long ,orange-yellow bill
The next card deals with two quite
different medium-sized nonpasserine
bird groups: owls and
the pigeons and doves.
When do they fly?
Although owls are famous for being
nocturnal, it is useful to know that some
will readily hunt during the day, while
others are rarely seen while the sun is up.
In short, the Tawny Owl and Long-eared
Owl are pretty rigorously nocturnal in
their activities, while the other three
species can be seen out in full sunlight,
particularly Barn Owls, when there are
young in the nest to feed.
Pigeons vs doves
Although these terms are pretty
interchangeable, the word pigeon is used
more often for the larger species,
particularly those of the genus Columba
(Woodpigeon, Stock Dove and Rock Dove/
Feral Pigeon); while those smaller birds in
the genus Streptopelia (Collared Dove and
Turtle Dove) are always called doves.
Eye colour
Somewhat surprisingly for birds which are
not often seen up close and personal, eye
colour can be useful in identifying owls.
Tawny and Barn Owls have dark eyes, but
the real crux comes with the similar
Stock Doves are subtle beauties of birds,
with short wing-bars and a glorious splash
of iridescence on the neck
Short-eared and Long-eared Owls. If all
you can see of a roosting ‘eared’ owl
within a bush, is part of its face, then the
eye colour can help identify it: orange for
Long-eared and yellow for Short-eared.
Wing and tail pattern and rump
Of the doves, only the Woodpigeon has
big white wing flashes, only the Rock
Dove/Feral Pigeon has a white rump
and long dark wing-bars, and only the
Turtle Dove has a dark tail with a white
terminal band.
Apart from the ‘ears’, Long-eared Owls
have orange eyes and often have
orange facial discs
The Turtle Dove has a
unique Zebra-striped
neck patch
DAVID CHAPMAN/ALAMY* DAVID CHAPMAN/ALAMY NEIL BOWMAN/ALAMY
Our final card features birds
colloquially known as long-legged
wading birds (not to be confused
with the true ‘waders’). One side
concentrates on the herons and egrets. The
other has one heron, the Bittern, and a
hotchpotch of lanky, long-necked birds.
Start with colour
Unlike many bird groups, colour is a crucial
first ID step with these species. Great White
and Little Egrets are wholly white in
plumage, and Cattle Egret and Spoonbill are
predominantly white birds. White Storks
are also white, but have big black areas on
the wings, which are immediately obvious.
So, if it is white, you can narrow the bird
down, dramatically, to one of a few species.
Size matters
These birds vary from the huge Crane and
White Stork through the larger herons and
Great White Egret, to relatively small birds,
like Little and Cattle Egrets and Glossy Ibis.
Compare with other nearby birds.
Flight style
All the herons nearly always fly with the
neck folded up, whereas all the other
species have the neck fully extended in
flight. The Bittern, a heron, also folds the
neck, but it has so much feathering it just
looks thick-necked.
BW
WERNER LAYER MAURITIUS IMAGES GMBH/ALAMYY*
Little Egrets are slim,
dark-billed, with black legs
yet yellow footed
White Storks are unmistakable:
huge, white and black, with long
red bill and red legs
MIKE LANE/ALAMY
Cattle Egrets are chunky
with a short, orange bill and
some orange in the plumage
NICK UPTON/ALAMY
STEPHAN MORRIS PHOTOGRAPHY/ALAMY*
22 October 2020
birdwatching.co.uk 23

GREAT GREY BIRDS IN BRITISH CULTURE
Birds in
British culture
Birds have long played a part in our folklore and
mythology, as Matt Merritt discovers…
ADAM GASSON/ALAMY
ROCK DOVE/
FERAL PIGEON
The first species might not immediately
spring to mind, partly because it’s so
ubiquitous. Genuine Rock Doves
themselves are not easy to find these days,
except on the wildest and loneliest coasts
of Scotland, Ireland and Wales, but the
Feral Pigeon, a species descended from
domesticated Rock Doves, is everywhere.
While we might not immediately make
the traditional connection between it and
fertility – something that made it one of
the main bird symbols of the ancient
world – we still feed them and live cheek
by jowl with them in our towns and cities,
and of course pigeon fancying is still a
pastime with a lot of adherents. So, forget
about calling them ‘sky rats’, and give
them the respect they deserve.
Birds tend to feature heavily in
the folklore, mythology and
cultures of most parts of the
world – they’re highly visible,
they’re pretty much
everywhere, and their power of flight,
with all the metaphorical possibilities that
go with that, is something we envy.
REALIMAGE/ALAMY
Herring Gull
Britain is no exception. To some extent,
the phenomenon is exaggerated here,
because we have relatively little in the way
of mammal life, so birds have always been
the most immediate and obvious
candidates to get used in symbolism.
You could write a very big book about
all the ways in which birds are embedded
in our culture (in fact, likes of Mark
Cocker and Richard Mabey already have,
in their tome Birds Britannica).
Folk song is just one of aspect of the
cultural impact of birds (see our feature on
page 32), but read on to discover some of
the bird species that have left a deep mark
on our culture.
RAVEN
The largest of our crows has
left a huge impression on
us for a number of reasons,
but the main one might be
that we once formed a
significant part of their
diet! Right up to the end of
the medieval period, frequent
warfare and battles meant there
was no shortage of human corpses
for these carrion birds to feed on, as
old ballads such as Twa Corbies attest.
Further back it’s thought that some Stone
Age peoples deliberately left dead bodies out
for Ravens to pick clean, and consequently,
they became a symbol of death, foreboding
and evil. But there’s another key factor at
work: Ravens are very intelligent. For that
reason, perhaps, the Vikings believed that
Odin, their main god, had two Ravens, Huginn
and Muninn, who reported back to him on
everything they saw each day. It’s possible that
the Anglo-Saxons believed similar of their
Odin equivalent, Woden, too. So we venerate
as well as fear these crows – the beliefs
attached to the Ravens at the Tower of
London (it will fall down if
they leave) are an
example of that.
Ravens
at the
Tower of
London
HUGH THRELFALL/ALAMY*
FLPA/ ALAMY*
26 October 2020
birdwatching.co.uk 27

BIRDS IN BRITISH CULTURE
ARTERRA PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY*
NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY
OWLS
Owls have long been thought of as birds
of ill omen – Shakespeare uses them
as such in several of his plays. It’s not
hard to understand why – their
largely nocturnal habits and their
eerie, far-carrying calls are to blame,
with both Tawny and Barn Owls being
thought of in this way. The latter’s
all-white underside led to it being
known as the ‘ghost owl’ at times, and
it’s tempting to think that at least some
ghost sightings over the years must have
been down to the sight of one of these
buoyant, silent hunters. Short-eared and
Long-eared Owls seem to have slipped
below the radar, while the Little Owl is, of
course, a recent arrival, so has only just
started to seep into British culture. But it
may, ultimately, be responsible for that
association with wisdom – it was the symbol
of the Greek goddess Athena (Roman goddess
Minerva), among whose gifts was wisdom.
Interestingly, the fact that our folklore contains
no trace of the Eagle Owl is held to be a reason why
the UK’s small breeding population is considered to
be derived from escaped falconers’ birds – such a
fearsome über-predator would surely have surrounded
itself with all sorts of associations, as in Norway for
example, where it’s considered a bird of great ill omen (not
least for its choice of prey).
IT WAS THE SYMBOL OF THE GREEK
GODDESS ATHENA, AMONG WHOSE
GIFTS WAS WISDOM
WREN
As we’ve mentioned in these pages before,
the tiny but very common and widespread
Wren (Britain’s most numerous bird, at
most times) was once known as the King
of Birds, and was the centre of a number of
traditions focused around St Stephen’s Day,
now better known to us as Boxing Day.
These involved it being hunted –
originally for real, later, symbolically.
There are a number of theories as to why,
based on Celtic mythology and
Christianity (the Wren is said to have
betrayed St Stephen), but perhaps the
reason our ancestors fastened on it
originally is that it is so ubiquitous, and
(despite its size) has a habit of making
itself known with its very loud voice.
NIGEL PYE/ALAMY*
NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY*
NIGHTJAR
It might seem strange, nowadays,
given that even a lot of keen birders
may never have seen a Nightjar, but
it’s a species that has accumulated a
lot of folk beliefs, and folk names to go
with them. Many are variations on
‘goatsucker’ (the meaning of the bird’s
genus), and refer to the old belief
(dating back to Ancient Greece) that
they sucked the udders of goats. This
probably arose because the birds
would be regularly seen in close
proximity to livestock, because of the
insects attracted by the animals.
Those beliefs, and the bird’s
mysterious, elusive nature, made it a
favourite of poets and writers through
the centuries, from Wordsworth and
his ‘dor-hawk’ to Dylan Thomas in his
poem Fern Hill.
Strangest of all, though, is the
northern name ‘gabble-ratchet’, which
links the Nightjar to the pagan legend
of the Wild Hunt, presumably simply
because of its nocturnal activities and
churring song.
IT MIGHT
SEEM STRANGE,
NOWADAYS, GIVEN
THAT EVEN A LOT
OF KEEN BIRDERS
MAY NEVER HAVE
SEEN A NIGHTJAR, BUT
IT’S A SPECIES THAT HAS
ACCUMULATED A LOT OF
FOLK BELIEFS, AND FOLK
NAMES TO GO WITH THEM
GARY TACK/ALAMY*
ROBIN
No British bird is more closely connected
to us than the Robin – polls have
repeatedly named it our favourite, or
national, bird, we send Christmas cards
with its image on, and gardeners treasure
their habit of hopping around down by our
feet as we dig. Until the Victorian era, it
was generally known as the Redbreast, or
Ruddock, due to its ruddy breast, in the
same way as the Dunnock was named for
its grey-brown (or dun) plumage. At some
stage, though, the personal name Robin
became attached (in the same way as the
Jenny Wren), and the birds became linked
to Christmas because Victorian postmen
wore red coats, and when Christmas cards
became fashionable, Robins were often
depicted as postmen.
But the Robin’s habit of singing even in
midwinter must also have played a part in
making its association with the season,
and it seems that in Britain it’s always
been considered unlucky to harm a Robin
(see the nursery rhyme Who Killed Cock
Robin?), in contrast to the situation on the
continent, where they have been among
the songbirds hunted as food.
Their tameness here, perhaps, is a
consequence of the affection that we have
for them. Again, on the continent, they are
often shy woodland birds, staying well
away from gardens.
MALCOLM SCHUYL/ALAMY*
28 October 2020
birdwatching.co.uk 29

BIRDS IN BRITISH CULTURE
FLPA/ALAMY*
THEY BECAME A
POWERFUL SYMBOL OF HOME,
AND NORMALITY,
FOR SOLDIERS ENDURING
UNIMAGINABLE
MISERY
SKY LARK
Sky Larks don’t necessarily crop up in our folklore
a great deal, but no British bird has been so beloved
of poets over the centuries, except perhaps the
Nightingale. As a symbol of spring, it is without
equal. The most famous example is probably
George Meredith’s poem The Lark Ascending, which
inspired Ralph Vaughan Williams’ orchestral piece of
the same name, often voted among the nation’s
favourite pieces of classical music.
And Sky Larks took on a new significance in the
horror of the trenches of World War I, with more than
one writer commenting on them continuing to sing
even amid the barrages and machine-gun fire – they
then became a powerful symbol of home, and
normality, for soldiers enduring unimaginable misery.
Two of the best of such poems are Isaac Rosenberg’s
Returning, We Hear The Larks, and John McRae’s
In Flanders Fields.
SEABIRDS
For an island in which it’s impossible to get more than
about 80 miles from the sea, seabirds don’t play as central
a role in our culture and folklore as you might expect,
notwithstanding our affection for Puffins. But seabirds
can claim to be among the first birds to be mentioned in
English literature, with Gannets, gulls and White-tailed
Eagles (‘ernes’) all cropping up in the Anglo-Saxon poem
The Seafarer, written sometime before the 10th Century. It
also mentions ‘huilpan’, meaning Curlews or Whimbrels,
with the word living on in some dialect names for the
species, such as ‘whaup’. BW
FOR AN ISLAND IN WHICH
IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO GET
MORE THAN ABOUT 80 MILES
FROM THE SEA, SEABIRDS
DON’T PLAY AS CENTRAL
A ROLE IN OUR CULTURE
AND FOLKLORE AS YOU
MIGHT EXPECT
Puffin
ARTERRA PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY*
STEVE LINDRIDGE/ALAMY*
White-tailed Eagle
30 October 2020

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Yellow-throated Toucan
RUTH
MILLER
Montezuma Oropendola
OBSERVATIONS
Blue-grey Tanager
Selva Verde
Sunbittern
The recent heatwave prompted Ruth to remember the
time she experienced the humidity of birding in Costa Rica
It didn’t feel like being in the UK
during the heatwave that we
experienced in August. The
incredible heat, humidity and
monsoon-like thunderstorms were
more like Costa Rica than Costa de
North Wales. The still air was thick
with heat, making it hard to concentrate
on the computer screen, and easy to drift
off into a daydream.
In an instant, I was back in one of my
favourite destinations in Costa Rica, the
wonderful lodge at Selva Verde in the
Sarapiqui region. It’s our first destination
on a birdwatching trip to the country and
a superb introduction to Costa Rica birding.
Selva Verde lodge is set within its own
substantial grounds on the banks of the
Sarapiqui River. The buildings are
PHOTOGRAPHY: RUTH MILLER
Red-legged Honeycreeper
surrounded by lush vegetation: the
towering trees, massive-leaved bushes,
looming bromeliads and swinging lianas of
a tropical rainforest. High-level trails lead
you through the forest to your cabin, so it’s
easy to get distracted on your way to your
room by a striking Orange-billed Sparrow
or a marvellous Montezuma Oropendola,
a feast for the ears as well as the eyes.
The dining area is designed with wildlife
in mind too. Inside the spacious dining
room there are plenty of comfortable tables
and chairs where wooden fans waft the air
gently, to create a cooling breeze while you
eat. But why sit there when outside is a
fantastic veranda overlooking a feeding
station? And what a feeding station it is!
Forget your peanut feeder with some
sunflower hearts on the side. This is a
Orange -billed Sparrow
NICARAGUA
SAN JOSÉ
COSTA RICA
PANAMA
full-scale construction of aged wooden logs,
vines and creepers all blending perfectly
with the natural surroundings, making it
ideal for photography. And, being right
beside the dining room, it is always kept
well stocked with fruit – mainly papaya
and bananas – throughout the day.
The whole set-up is very appealing for
Summer Tanager
SELVA VERDE LODGE,
SARAPIQUI
avian diners, and the birds seem to
know the instant their dining table is
refreshed. The confident tanagers are
usually first: in swoops a tomato-red
male Summer Tanager, or the cooler sky
tones of a Blue-grey Tanager.
Confident swagger
It takes longer to say Red-throated Ant-
Tanager than it does for the bird to sneak in,
grab some fruit and dash off to the security
of the bushes again, while bandit-masked
Red-legged Honeycreepers, a symphony in
azure-blue and black with startling red legs,
swagger confidently across the feeding
station to commandeer the ripest fruit.
The larger birds are curiously often more
cautious when it comes to feeding in full
view of their admiring public. Yellowthroated
(once called Chestnut-mandibled)
Toucans are noisy characters when
communicating through the forest to one
another, but their approach to the feeding
station is taken quietly, in stages.
Slowly, slowly they approach, pausing
first on one branch to survey the situation,
before dropping down to perch on the next.
They swivel their heads slowly in a full arc
to check in all directions; holding their head
like an angle-poise lamp to check up, down,
left and right past their bizarre two-tone
sheath-shaped bill. At last they decide it’s
safe to hop down onto a vine beside the
bunch of bananas. That bonkers bill may
be large to manoeuvre, but they delicately
break off a piece of banana using just the
very tip and then throw their head
backwards to toss the mouthful right to
the back of the throat.
One gulp and it’s gone; a banana doesn’t
last long when there’s a hungry Yellowthroated
Toucan in the area.
Word gets out, and mammals also
approach to enjoy the banana bonanza.
Nimble-pawed and whiffling its flexible
nose at the smell of ripe fruit, a Coatimundi,
or Coati, shimmies fearlessly onto the
feeding station and tucks in with gusto,
scattering all the birds and refusing to
budge from the table, until it has
demolished the very last of the fruit.
It’s distracting with so much to watch
while you dine, so luckily lunch breaks
are usually pretty long at Selva Verde. But
a visit by one particular bird had all the
human diners dropping their cutlery and
rushing for a look.
Ivan, the lodge’s expert resident guide,
burst round the corner in excitement. We
tiptoed silently to where he peered over the
balcony and followed the direction of his
pointing finger. Below us was a small
ornamental freshwater pool, surrounded by
stones and shaded by leafy vegetation.
Pottering around in this tiny pool like a
flamingo in a bathtub, was an incredible
bird: a Sunbittern! This extraordinary,
heron-like bird, normally so shy and
Coati on fruit
skulking, was so absorbed in its hunt for
minuscule fish in the pond that it was
oblivious to its stunned audience.
Wonderful barring across its back blended
with the dappled sunlight and bold white
headstripes led the eye to its dagger-like bill
with which it stabbed the shady depths for
fry. Suddenly, it realised it was being
watched and alarmed at being caught in the
act of fishing, it opened its wings and with
a bustle and flurry flew to the cover of the
riverbank. Oh, be still my beating heart at
that perfect view of a Sunbittern.
I was brought down to earth by the sound
of Herring Gulls over Llandudno in North
Wales. The temperatures may have been the
same as Costa Rica but there ended the
similarity. But a girl can daydream, and
while we yearn for a return to ‘normal’,
I can hope for a return visit to Costa Rica,
Selva Verde and a very special bird indeed.
Ruth Miller is one half of The Biggest Twitch
team, and along with partner Alan Davies, set the
then world record for most bird species seen in a
year – 4,341, in 2008, an experience they wrote
about in their book, The Biggest Twitch. Indeed,
Ruth is still the female world record-holder! As well
as her work as a tour leader, she is the author of the
Birds, Boots and Butties books, on walking, birding
and tea-drinking in North Wales, and previously
worked as the RSPB’s head of trading. She lives in
North Wales. birdwatchingtrips.co.uk
BW
44 October 2020
birdwatching.co.uk 45

PART 2 BERMUDA PETREL
BIRDS ON THE BRINK
Every issue over the next year, the team behind Bird Photographer of the Year
will look at conservation issues surrounding different species from the UK and
beyond, using beautiful images to inspire. This month it is the Bermuda Petrel
NEXT
MONTH:
Honey
Buzzard
WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY: PAUL STERRY
Bermuda Petrel
Pterodroma cahow
l World Population: 125
pairs (source: Bermuda
Audubon Society)
l IUCN Red List Category:
Globally Threatened,
Vulnerable
The fate of the Bermuda Petrel is
quite literally in our hands; and
without positive human intervention,
by now it would almost
certainly have slipped over
the brink into extinction.
A Bermuda Petrel or Cahow
at sea off Bermuda. Like
other Pterodroma petrels,
they are consummate
aeronauts, able to ride the
ocean winds with ease
Birds on the Brink is a conservation grant-awarding
charity (Charity No: 1188009) that owns the
competition Bird Photographer of the Year. Grants
are awarded to projects that support bird
conservation, typically offering between £200 and
£1,000 to small groups or individuals carrying out
grassroots conservation work that has measurable
impact. It was borne of a passion for wildlife and in
particular birds, and is a response to the seemingly
unstoppable process of human environmental
exploitation and biodiversity’s steady progression
towards extinction. At its heart there is a
recognition that all is not yet lost and Birds on the
Brink aims to inspire people to care using striking
imagery - to capture the imagination and thereby
nurture interest and compassion. Bird Watching
magazine is proud to support conservation and
money generated by these articles will contribute
to the funds of Birds on the Brink.
For more information, visit the website at
birdsonthebrink.co.uk
90 October 2020
The Cahow (or Bermuda
Petrel) is Bermuda’s national
bird, and over the years this
exquisite grey Pterodroma
has acquired almost mythical
status, thanks to its remarkable story. It
is the stuff of birding legend. Thought to
be extinct for over three centuries, it was
rediscovered and then brought back from
the brink by the efforts of a few dedicated
people; its recovery is one of
conservation’s most heart-warming
success stories.
Sub-fossil records indicate that the
Cahow (to give it the local name) was an
abundant breeder on Bermuda prior to
human settlement. Its demise began with
the arrival of Man, and from the 1500s
onwards, exploitation for food, habitat
destruction, and predation by rats, cats
and pigs helped eradicate it from the
main islands. There were no records after
1620 and the bird was assumed extinct.
After a couple of false starts, during an
expedition in 1951 (in which the
legendary David Wingate participated)
the species’ survival was confirmed – on
just five tiny, limestone islets in Castle
Harbour, in the north of Bermuda.
The entire world population that year
was estimated to be just 17 pairs, with
just eight chicks being produced.
The islets on which the Cahow survived
were vulnerable to rising sea levels and
hurricane damage. Plus, the birds also had
to contend with White-tailed Tropicbirds
entering their nest burrows and killing the
chicks. In response, David Wingate
constructed igloo-style entrance baffles
that prevented the tropicbirds gaining
access; and his ecological restoration of
nearby Nonsuch Island Nature Reserve
(as a site for natural recolonisation)
underpinned the next chapter in the story
of the Cahow’s recovery.
But continued erosion of the islets meant
that drastic measures had to be taken. So,
in 2001 the Cahow’s current guardian
angel, Jeremy Madeiros, began
translocating chicks just prior to fledging,
to artificial burrows on predator-free
Nonsuch Island. The idea was that the
chicks would imprint on the burrows from
which they fledged. The project has been a
resounding success and in the 2018 nesting
season 125 pairs were identified.
Through the Bermuda Audubon Society
(a non-profit charity) Bird Photographer of
the Year and Birds of the Brink are proud
to help raise funds for, and awareness of,
the Cahow nest-site programme, and so far
we have donated £500 to help their efforts.
SUB-FOSSIL RECORDS INDICATE THAT THE CAHOW
WAS AN ABUNDANT BREEDER ON BERMUDA PRIOR TO
HEUMAN SETTLEMENT
The Bermuda Petrel’s current guardian angel,
Jeremy Madeiros, checking on one of the
nest-prospecting birds
November presents a rare opportunity to see Bermuda Petrels in daylight. As dusk falls,
nest-prospecting birds approach land to stake a claim on a burrow (mostly artificial these days)
and courting pairs are sometimes observed at sea. After that, the petrels head back to sea for a
few weeks before returning to lay eggs
Free from ground predators and most non-native species, tiny Nonsuch Island, just a few hundred metres from the
main island, is the Bermuda Petrel’s new sanctuary
As the sun sets Bermuda Petrels move ever-closer to land, but they don’t
return to Nonsuch Island until it is completely dark
birdwatching.co.uk 91

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