Kingfisher

Today’s blog entry consists of photographs of Common Kingfishers, pictures I took recently in Makadai Bay, Hurghada, Egypt.

Kingfisher

The Common Kingfisher is widespread across Europe, from Britain in the west all the way across to the most eastern part of Russia. Some European birds migrate towards the Mediterranean area in autumn and a small number winter in North Africa. The Kingfishers I saw in Makadi Bay could be wintering birds from central or Eastern Europe, Turkey or Iran because according to my field guide Kingfishers don’t breed along the Red Sea coast. There are scarce breeding records from coastal Morocco and also Tunisia, the latter a holiday destination where a few years ago I also saw Common Kingfishers.

Kingfisher

The Kingfisher(s) always hung about in the early morning where a few boats reached into the shallow, clear waters of the Red Sea, and wherever small fish fed in abundance. In a few of these pictures it is possible to see fish scales stuck to the bird’s bill. Although I waited around a few times I didn’t get to take pictures of a Kingfisher with a fish, my ultimate goal.

Kingfisher
Sunrise, Makadi Bay

Leftovers

Two weeks later I finally finished going through my pictures from Egypt, so picked out a number that as yet have not performed on the blog. Some of the species have appeared before, but in the absence of any birding on a wet and windy Friday and promised same again for Saturday, the bit of blue sky and memory of warm, sunny Egyptian days may cheer everyone up.

There was a particular Western Reef Heron in Hurghada that hung around the main jetty where the local lads fished with hand lines, but to amuse the tourists fed the heron by hand with freshly caught fish. The creature was so used to being fed it would stalk up and down the jetty in the hope of scrounging a meal. The Striated Herons weren’t so obliging and I would have to seek them out in quiet beach or boat spots in the early morning. In the second week of the holiday when most of the tourists went home, the beach camels took a well-deserved rest, the lizards came out to play and early mornings were the best time for Greenshank and Greater Sand Plover.

Western Reef Heron
Striated Heron
Striated Heron
Striated Heron
Sleepy Camel
Egyptian Lizard
Greater Sand Plover
Greenshank

There were a small number of very wary Stonechats about the hotel grounds which kept their distance so well I only bothered to get one photograph. I am pretty sure the ones I saw were all European Stonechats, and none of them Siberian Stonechats, although both occur in Egypt. The common crow of the area is Hooded Crow.

Stonechat
Hooded Crow

I suppose the highlight of my photography time was getting the chance to take pictures of a close Osprey, and on a couple of mornings sitting near a Kingfisher, none of which happens too often here in the UK.

Osprey
Kingfisher

Nectarivory

During the recent holiday to Egypt I saw many, many Chiffchaffs. This was not entirely surprising as unlike the closely related Willow Warbler which winters mainly in West Africa south of the Sahara, many Chiffchaffs also cross the Sahara and concentrate in Senegal, while many others remain in Mediterranean North Africa; also at least 3 often inseparable races breed in the Middle East, collybita (includes brevirostris), menzbieri and probably abietinus and at least two others visit. So at any time, and especially during winter, spring and autumn the origins of Chiffchaffs and race of each individual in Egypt is hard to determine. There is no doubt I heard and saw our familiar collybita, with both the typical “hweet” call and occasional snatches of “chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff”. I also heard the “squeaky chicken” call frequently and on a couple of occasions, snatches of the fast, melodious song of Siberian Chiffchaff tristis, totally unlike the Chiffchaff song I know and more like a demented Dunnock.

Chiffchaff

Any day soon spring Chiffchaffs arrive in the UK and ringers know that in spring they may catch recently arrived Chiffchaffs carrying pollen residues on their bills. This pollen was deposited by the feeding strategy known as nectarivory, or birds indulging in sipping nectar from flowering plants during which flowering pollen is left on the bird itself, mainly around the base of the bill, the part of the bird most closely in contact with the flower. Nectarivory is also known to occur in some species of bats.

Chiffchaff

In Hurghada I witnessed many Chiffchaffs taking nectar, at times the liquid being visibly sipped as birds stuck their heads deep into the flowers, and upon the bird withdrawing from the flower, drops of the nectar spilling from their bill. A particular favourite plant of the Chiffchaffs was a flowering Mexican Saguara cactus shown in the photographs below. In a few of the pictures, by zooming up it is possible to see the nectar drops around the bill.

Chiffchaff on Cactus
Saguara catus
Chiffchaff on Cactus flower
Chiffchaff
Chiffchaff
Chiffchaff
Chiffchaff

In the two week trip I had one sighting only of Nile Valley Sunbird, another bird that takes nectar. In view of the tremendous number of flowering plants in Makadi Bay my single sighting was a little disappointing. The biggest numbers of Nile Valley Sunbirds do occur much further south than Hurghada, but in the last 100 years, and almost certainly helped by the building of tourist resorts, the species has spread from the southernmost parts of the Red Sea and up to the Cairo area where it breeds. I didn’t get to Cairo to look for more sunbirds so settled for my one brief encounter and a couple of distant shots.

Nile Valley Sunbird

Slender-billed Gull

I am not the greatest gull enthusiast, but I came back from Egypt with a few pictures of Slender-billed Gull Chroicocephalus genei, as attractive as ever a gull can be, but the identity of which initially puzzled me until I consulted Birds of The Middle East back in the hotel room, after I had taken a few pictures of Makadi Bay.

Slender-billed Gull
Makadi Bay

Unlike our everyday UK gulls Slender-billed Gull is not numerous wherever it breeds and in consequence, very uncommon even in its winter quarters which includes Egypt. This is one of the few gulls I saw in the Hurghada area on the recent holiday, the other being Baltic Gull, which I was never able to photograph. The bird is a juvenile/first winter as shown by the black terminal tail band, and dark areas in the wings. Unfortunately my attempts at a BIF were not too good, but captured a few features of the creature.

Slender-billed Gull
Slender-billed Gull

Slender-billed Gulls are a mid-sized gull, slightly larger than a Black-headed Gull, and they breed locally and patchily around the Mediterranean and the north of the western Indian Ocean (e.g. Pakistan) on islands and coastal lagoons and in the Black Sea regions of Russia, Turkey and Iraq. Most of the population is somewhat migratory, wintering further south to North Africa and India, and a few birds have wandered to Western Europe, but with luck it is possible to see them all year round in the Middle East.

Slender-billed Gull

Slender-billed Gulls breed in colonies, nesting on the ground and laying up to three eggs. Like most gulls, they are gregarious in winter, both when feeding or in evening roosts, but It is not a pelagic species, and rarely seen at sea far from coasts. Lets face it, it beats a Herring Gull every time.

Do You Like Kestrels?

Below are photographs of Kestrels I took recently around the area of the Red Sea in Makadi Bay, Hurghada, Egypt. Here in the UK Kestrels are pretty hard to photograph on a casual basis but at our hotel 2 pairs that nest on the tall buildings and hunt in the hotel grounds were very tolerant of my camera. They were indifferent to passers-by probably because they were used to people working in the extensive gardens on a daily basis.

Here are a few Kestrels Will and I ringed at Out Rawcliffe last year.

And a Kestrel at Cockerham, also last year.


Do you like Kestrels?

Egypt Egret

After the near tropical weather of Egypt it’s back to wet, grey British weather today and a chance to sort through the 1000 pics I took in Hurghada. It’s also an opportunity to catch up with family and fix the daily essentials of life.

The blog topic today is Cattle Egret, Bubulcus ibis, probably because they were everywhere we went in Hurghada, the birds unfazed by tourists and locals alike, and I couldn’t resist taking lots of pictures of this engaging species. Although I have seen Cattle Egrets all over the world, I have yet to see one in the UK where they are not yet fully established – that’s what comes of not being a twitcher I guess.

Along the Makadi Bay area the egrets spent all day patrolling hotel grounds and gardens, searching through the manicured grasses for insects, seemingly oblivious to and unafraid of passers-by. The egrets even occur in local art, like the picture hanging on the wall of our hotel dining room.

Sometimes their expressions appeared gentle, at others aggressive, the poses they adopted almost comical, their calls and demeanour reminding me of domestic chickens. At other times their determination and feeding prowess showed through as they explored every nook and cranny of the grass, sometimes crouching parallel to the ground, head and neck quivering before a rapid dart and the strike at prey. Some were not averse to climbing up on to sculpted hedges, manmade structures or even exotic flower beds in their quest for food. Although Cattle Egrets sometimes feeds in shallow water, unlike most herons this egret is typically found in fields and dry grassy habitats, reflecting a greater dietary reliance on terrestrial insects rather than aquatic prey.

The genus name Bubulcus is Latin for herdsman, referring, like the English name, to this species' association with cattle. Ibis is a Latin and Greek word which originally referred to another white wading bird, the Sacred Ibis. The Cattle Egret has two geographical races which are sometimes classified as full species, the Western Cattle Egret, Bubulcus ibis, and Eastern Cattle Egret, Bubulcus ibis coromandus. The eastern subspecies coromandus, breeds in Asia and Australasia, and the western nominate form occupies the rest of the species range, including the Americas. The Cattle Egret has undergone one of the most rapid and wide reaching natural expansions of any bird species. It was originally native to parts of Southern Spain and Portugal, tropical and subtropical Africa and humid tropical and subtropical Asia. In the end of the 19th century it began expanding its range into southern Africa. Cattle Egrets were first sighted in the South Americas in 1877, having apparently flown across the Atlantic, but t was not until the 1930s that the species is thought to have become established in that area.

Cattle Egrets first arrived in North America in 1941, and after originally being dismissed as escapees, bred in Florida in 1953, and spread rapidly, breeding for the first time in Canada in 1962. They are now commonly seen as far west as California., first recorded breeding in Cuba in 1957, Costa Rice in 1958, and in Mexico in 1963, although they were probably established before that.

In Europe Cattle Egrets had historically declined in Spain and Portugal, but in the latter part of the 20th century expanded back through the Iberian Peninsula, and then colonised other parts of Europe; southern France in 1958, northern France in 1981 and Italy in 1985. Breeding in the UK was recorded for the first time in 2008 only a year after an influx seen in the previous year. In 2008 they were reported in Ireland for the first time.

Maybe this year I will get Cattle Egret on my non-existent British List?

This evening I’m sorting through more of my Egypt pictures - Chiffchaffs, Kingfisher, Osprey, Herons, waders, more pipits and Bluethroats, plus a few gull pictures for the Laridae enthusiasts out there.