Birdwatch, January 2017

Steve Jones has had a great start to the year!

Goldfinch Goldfinch Photo: Steve Jones

Steve's report for January 2017:

I was expecting to see quite a few species at the end of last year, especially brambling and fieldfare, but they didn't appear. Finally in mid-January I saw a Brambling! I don’t think I had been missing them up to then, I think they arrived recently, perhaps with the cold spell. January 2017 was much colder than the same time last year. I had thought I had seen a Brambling on 15th January, but was waiting to confirm. So I was delighted to confirm several Bramblings on 19th January, a couple pictured here among a host of Chaffinches. Also by chance there's a Serin (with yellow breast) in there too.

Brambling circled in blue, chaffinch in red. Photo: Steve Jones

I think it fair to say I have never seen so many Chaffinches as here, huge flocks everywhere, always feeding, Blackbirds are also feeding on berries in great numbers. Because of the way people tend their ground there are great plots of land left unattended throughout the winter and it is a great source of food for these birds. On the 10th January on the airport road to Stari Grad it was particularly cold, and all along the road there were birds - by far the majority Chaffinches and Blackbirds. I would think that there were several hundred in number. They were all descending on any indentations in the road where ice had formed, presumably to take in the liquid where possible. It was quite a sight. Often amongst the flocks one could spot the odd Goldfinch or Serin. In the photograph above you can make a comparison between the Chaffinch and the Brambling. During the month it was impossible to count the number of Chaffinches, but, by contrast, what has been interesting is that I have only seen the Brambling on two occasions.

Female blackbird. Photo: Steve Jones

13 1 2017: I was asked to do a survey of seabirds on the following day, although identifying seabirds isn't my greatest strength. Hopefully there would be nothing too complicated, and there might even be surprises. I had seen some Black Headed Gulls in Jelsa the previous week, which was unexpected.

Black-headed gull. Photo: Steve Jones
Black-headed gull. Photo: Steve Jones

On 14th January it was another particularly cold morning bordering on snow, in fact there was a white ground covering in Prapatna and a slight covering at Grebišće. So I did the “Seabird count” for another Croatian organisation as requested, but it didn’t provide me with much.

Yellow-legged gulls, Jelsa June 2012. Photo: Vivian Grisogono

There were the usual Yellow-Legged Gulls, Black-Headed Gulls and three Cormorants. Had the weather been what would be described as a normal winter's day, I don’t think it would have changed my count.

Cormorant. Photo: Steve Jones

22nd January brought a new sighting for me here down at the airfield. I was first attracted by the call. At last, a Fieldfare! This is another of the winter thrushes, about the size of a blackbird. Initially it was difficult to get a photograph, as they are off at the slightest movement. On the 22nd I counted in the region of 20 birds but over the rest of the month I saw them several times, An early trip to the airfield on January 23rd produced more sightings of Fieldfares, as well as my first Heron of the year. There were good numbers of Goldfinches, with about 60 - 70 in a single flock, and more Chaffinches. That brought my tally of sightings up to 23 species, slightly up on the numbers in January 2016.

Fieldfare. Photo: Steve Jones

On January 31st I saw between 50-60 Fieldfares on the airfield. There was also a new species for me on Hvar. I had caught fleeting glimpses of this bird while driving, but that's not good enough for certain identification. It was a bird of prey, about the same size as a buzzard. Buzzards circling above us are a fairly common sight on Hvar, but this one moved differently, gliding quite low over the fields. In birdwatching, the odds are that a few sightings will allow for clear identification sooner or later, and so it proved. The Hen Harrier was my highlight for January 2017.

Hen Harrier. Photo: Steve Jones

In total I saw 26 species during the month. Birdwatching on Hvar has brought out several differences in comparison to the UK. For instance, a friend in England keeps track of birds which touch down in his garden, and counted 25 species during January, whereas in my garden on Hvar the total would be about six..In my garden in Devon I would see about 12 species within an hour.

SUMMARY OF BIRD SIGHTINGS, JANUARY 2017

© Steve Jones 2017

Eco Hvar footnote.

At the end of January, the British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) organized its Big Garden Birdwatch, an exercise in bird observation which has taken place every year since 1979. Due to the cold weather in northern countries, they were expecting an influx of waxwings, beautiful colourful birds which only visit the UK every few years. The annual Birdwatch scheme produces interesting details about bird numbers and movements. Numbers of house sparrows, for instance, have declined by about 58% since the annual count began. The aim of the scheme is to make people aware of the birds and wildlife around them, whether in cities or countries,  and to promote conservation. It has been extremely successful, with mass participation. Much work is being done in the field of nature studies and conservation in Croatia. A participation scheme involving the nation's schoolchildren would be of great benefit in helping future generations to understamnd and care for the world around them.

For more of Steve's beautiful nature pictures, see his personal pages: Bird Pictures on Hvar 2017, and Butterflies of Hvar

Nalazite se ovdje: Home Novosti iz prirode Birdwatch, January 2017

Eco Environment News feeds

  • Transforming a former industrial area in Sweden will bring psychological benefits for future residents and reduce construction’s climate impact

    Although activity is high, it is surprisingly quiet inside the construction site of a high school extension in Sickla, a former industrial area in south Stockholm that is set to become part of the “largest mass timber project in the world” according to the Swedish urban property developer Atrium Ljungberg.

    Just a few months remain until students enter the premises, but there is no sound of drilling or pounding against concrete walls. The scent of wood is unmistakable, and signs of the material can be spotted everywhere – from glulam (glued laminated timber) columns and beams in the building’s frame to cross-laminated timber (CLT) slabs in the floors, ceilings and staircases. CLT, made by gluing together layers of planed wood into panels, offers strength and rigidity comparable to concrete but is significantly lighter and quicker to build with.

    Continue reading...

  • Employees of water firms who obstruct investigations into spills could face jail under new rules that come into force on Friday

    Water company bosses have entirely escaped punishment for covering up illegal sewage spills, government figures show, as ministers prepare to bring in a new law threatening them with up to two years in prison for doing so.

    Only three people have ever been prosecuted for obstructing the Environment Agency in its investigations into sewage spills, officials said, and none received even a fine.

    Continue reading...

  • Authorities warn of mudslides during intense rainfall, as Kenya is hit by deadly flash flooding

    After Storm Hans battered northern Italy in the runup to Easter, severe weather continued to lash much of the country this week. Since Tuesday, the conditions have triggered potent showers and thunderstorms, and yellow and orange weather warnings have been issued.

    With winds generally remaining light this week, the greatest concerns surround the risks from intense rainfall, as slow-moving heavy showers can deliver a prolonged downpour to a fairly localised area. The authorities have warned people to avoid high-risk areas such as roads with steep embankments amid a threat of flash flooding and mudslides.

    Continue reading...

  • UK prime minister tells energy summit his government is determined to transition energy system from fossil fuels to renewables

    Continue reading...

  • About 89% of the public want their governments to do more to tackle the climate crisis – but don’t know they’re the majority

    • The Guardian is joining forces with dozens of newsrooms around the world to launch the 89% Project – and highlight the fact that the vast majority of the world’s population wants climate action. Read more

    A superpower in the fight against global heating is hiding in plain sight. It turns out that the overwhelming majority of people in the world – between 80% and 89%, according to a growing number of peer-reviewed scientific studies – want their governments to take stronger climate action.

    As co-founders of a non-profit that studies news coverage of climate change, those findings surprised even us. And they are a sharp rebuttal to the Trump administration’s efforts to attack anyone who does care about the climate crisis.

    Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope are the co-founders of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now

    Continue reading...

  • Discovery could provide valuable clues as to how the climate crisis might affect Antarctica, says study

    Giant, flat-topped icebergs the size of the city of Cambridge drifted off the coast of Britain during the last ice age, according to a study that has uncovered evidence of their existence for the first time.

    A series of distinctive, comb-like grooves found preserved in sediment near Aberdeen in Scotland were left behind by the underside of huge “tabular” icebergs that dragged across the North Sea floor between 18,000 and 20,000 years ago, the researchers said.

    Continue reading...

  • Belém prepares for an international conference on a far greater scale than anything previously seen in the Amazon

    Fake metal trees have been set into the concrete ground of the Amazonian host city of this year’s climate summit, prompting scandalised contrasts with the once-living vegetation that has been cleared in preparation for Cop30 in Brazil.

    But in an unlikely convergence of views, both the centre-right state governor and leftwing social movements insist this is a storm in a plant pot compared with the darkening geopolitical threats to the world’s biggest diplomatic gathering, which will take place in November in Belém.

    Continue reading...

  • Americans have often moved between states for opportunities. Now they’re being forced to uproot themselves to escape hostile forces under Trump

    Continue reading...

  • The UN has called the detention of Pablo López Alavez ‘arbitrary’, while human rights organisations say his sentence is part of a systematic and alarming pattern of criminalisation of Mexico’s environmental activists

    The meeting room in the prison of Villa de Etla, a town in Oaxaca, Mexico, doubles as a classroom with school desks and a small library. The walls feature motivational phrases such as “First things first”, “Live and let live” and “Little by little, you’ll go far”.

    Pablo López Alavez, a 56-year-old environmental defender, has had nearly 15 years to contemplate these sentiments – and faces 15 more, after being imprisoned for murders he says he did not commit.

    Continue reading...

  • The Wildlife Trusts are in shock after acquiring 4,000 sheep in Rothbury estate deal as part of land restoration project

    Woolly maggots, nature-destroyers – sheep are criticised by many conservationists for denuding Britain’s uplands of rare plants and trees.

    So The Wildlife Trusts were shocked when they were compelled to buy 4,000 sheep as part of the biggest land restoration project in England.

    Continue reading...

Novosti: Cybermed.hr

Novosti: Biologija.com

Izvor nije pronađen