Cold Edge

Tufted duck with 5 young

2 Scaup (14 July)

I've posted these photos because it is interesting to compare Tufted Duck and Scaup when plumage is no help telling them apart. Of the Scaup photos on 14 July, no. 5 is too distant to be useful, and nos. 1-3 are clear cut: no Tufted has a bill like those birds have. But the birds in photo no. 4 (reposted above) are more problematic:

- they have no tuft, but today's Tufted has none either (? moulted) - it does not even have a 'bump' on the nape;

- these Scaup's bills from the side are less massive than those in photos 1-3: they look similar to the Tufted's: they are probably broader but we cannot see that: (do female Scaup have smaller bills than males?);

- so (apart from their being with definite Scaups) it comes down to head profile: the highest point on the Tufted's crown is about half way along, and there is a slight bend at the nape - giving the head a squarish shape: in the Scaups the highest point on the crown is further forward - just behind the eye - and then the crown, nape, and hindneck curve smoothly downwards with no interruption - so the head does not look square.

Finally, a very useful thing I've noticed is that, when diving, Scaups tend to spend far longer under water than a Tufted Duck ever does.

Undisclosed location

Long-eared Owl adult. Repeated 'hunger calls' were heard, (first heard and identified by NK). Presumably the calls were from a hidden juvenile.

Cold Edge

Scaup: 4 juveniles

Cold Edge

Tufted Duck: 2 broods. Female + 3 young, female + 5 young

Cold Edge

Black-tailed Godwit

Halifax Railway Station

Goldcrest fledgling

Cold Edge

1 of 3 juvenile Stonechats

Ogden - 5th July

Tried this morning in the drizzle for yesterdays Black-tailed Godwit that was there at some point  yesterday. Gone now, just too late for it !

8 Grey Heron on the res'r shoreline along with 1 Cormorant and a single drake Tufted Duck. 

2 adult Herring Gulls and 25+ L B B Gulls to and fro along with 17 Black-headed Gulls.

Chiffchaff and a Willow Warbler also present along with at least 5 singing Blackcap and a Treecreeper.

3 Oystercatchers, 1 Curlew and then 14 Swallows, mostly juveniles passed through >W.

Cold Edge

Short-eared Owl

Tufted Duck female with 3 young

Bar Lane, Rishworth, 4 July

Its avian name is my feeble excuse for putting this wonderful Hummingbird Hawk-moth onto a bird blog. It hovers like a Hummingbird while it drinks nectar from a flower through its long tongue.

Fly Flatts

Tried hard this morning till noon for the summer plumage Black-tailed Godwit found by BS earlier in the day. In a strengthening wind up there I failed to relocate it and just about managed 1 Oystercatcher and 2 Common Sandpipers scoping from the top road watch-points. I suspected the bird had moved on.

I gather that NK relocated what was presumably the same bird later in the day at Ogden Water and a Little Egret turned up there too.