Thursday, July 27, 2006

Wonderful Visitors


This week we have had the visit of a group of 13 Common Sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos) , that are been spending several nights, resting in the dam of the Mill, the group this made up of several adults and juveniles birds.
Not very often so numerous groups of this species see themselves.

The Common Sandpiper are one of the species of waders more common in the Iberian Peninsula interior, very being bound to the watercourse.
His identification is simple, in adult in breeding plumage, brown upperparts; tertials, scapulars and wing coverts have dark brown shaft streaks and bars, with buff tips. Bill dark brown. Legs usually greenish-grey. The juvenile plumage is similar to non-breeding plumage in adults, mantle and scapular feathers are a warm brown, with shaft streaks and subterminal lines.


Junenile and Adult mantle plumage

His behavior also is very characteristic.
Teeters constantly, habitually bobbing its head and pumping the rear part of the body up and down.
In flight they make alternating bursts of stiff wing-beats and short glides, just above the surface of the water, with bowed wings.


During these days that are been this way have by day been during long time emitting as much as at night one of their classic calls.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

The Juveniles Birds

As I already commented in my previous post, it is time to see mainly juveniles of the different species of birds, yesterday after a route by the center of the “Las Merindades “, were possible to be observed quite a lot species.
The presence of juvenile birds, with its plumages different from the adult was remarkable, Great Tit (Parus major) , European Stonechat (Saxicola torquata) , Whinchat (Saxicola rubetra) , House Martin (Delichon urbicum) ,Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica), Finches....
One of the most spectacular juveniles birds was the Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus), a totally black juvenile, very different from the adults, also the head differs in the color, yellow in the adult and bluish in the juvenile.
In a distance, a inexperienced observer, can to mistake by Black Vulture.


A juvenile birds of Goldfinch, Coot and Egiptian Vulture

Thursday, July 20, 2006

I and the Bird #28 by Bogbumper

I and the Bird #28

Sunday, July 16, 2006

"Easy Path of Castilla y León"



This week the TVE (Spain television) is been recording an interview, in the Inn, the author of the book “SENDEROS FÁCILES POR CASTILLA Y LEÓN", Javier Prieto, a book on routes and ways of Castile and León .



Among the outstanding routes one is a very near one the Molino del canto Inn, the one that runs by the Canyon “Los Tornos”, and that begins in the village of Tudanca.
In a future post I will describe this route of detailed form more.
It is a section of the GR85 that crosses great part of the north of Burgos province.


They have arrived at the zone to take images from the route for the small accomplishment from a documentary one, and have made some interviews, a pair of them to the own author of the book and another they did me my, in relation to the species of birds that live and that can be observed in this zone of the north of Spain.
The birds that could be observed during the route, were mainly Griffon Vultures (Gyps fulvus), although also the rest of the species was seen an Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus), were forest, Tits, Wagtails, Western Bonelli’s Warbler (Phylloscopus bonelli), but it is already very evident that the birds have been stop sing as intensely as for some weeks, now easiest to see and to listen it is to great amount of young birds of different species, persecuting from the parents so that they give food them.
By this it is a good moment to be able to observe the different types from plumage that have the birds with youthful age, sometimes very different from the plumage of the adults.

Friday, July 07, 2006

The Jay (Garrulus glandarius)

The other day my girl found a Jay (Garrulus glandarius) died in the road, something commonest of that we can imagined, it is difficult to know the number of birds that die in the highways of Europe, but surely that is elevated.
It is not easy to observe the Jays in the forests, is an evasive bird, which does not let itself see much, but if to listen, in a small route by any forest it is easy to listen to several times the rough calls of these birds.
Although it is not the first time, I could again observe with detail the wonderful characteristics of the plumage of the Jay, emphasizing the primary coverts, feathers without a doubt of prettiest of the European birds.





Primary coverts

Also she observes in the head the feather of the crown, same that raises as a crest, and the characteristic moustache support.


Crest

Other spectacular feather are the tertials , of colour it rusts and those of colour salmon of the mantle.















Mantle of Jay



Tertials

As it is possible to be seen, a so common bird but simultaneously one of the birds more spectacular than lives in the environs.
It is easy to observe like at time of nuts, the Jays gather nuts of the trees later to bury them in places where they to think that they will remember, but the recoveries of buried nuts are small.
This the best friend of the forest does of the Jay.


walnut tree born under yew tree




Distribution of Jay in the Burgos province.
Map of the book: Atlas de las Aves Nidificantes de la Provincia de Burgos.Román, J., Román, F., Ansola, L.M., Palma, P., Ventosa, R.. (1996)

Thursday, July 06, 2006

I and the Bird #27 by 10,000 Birds

I and the Bird #27