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WWT Slimbridge Wetland Centre.
What3Words
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The common redshank (Tringa totanus) is a medium-sized, widespread wading bird known for its distinctive, bright orange-red legs and its loud, piping call, which often serves as an alarm call for other marsh birds. It is found across temperate Eurasia and is a migratory species.
Habitat: Redshanks are found in various wetland habitats, including coastal saltmarshes, mudflats, estuaries, and inland wet grasslands, mires, and flood meadows.
Diet: They primarily feed on small invertebrates such as marine worms, earthworms, crane fly larvae, molluscs, crustaceans, and small fish, which they find by pecking or probing the mud in shallow water.
The common merganser or goosander is a large seaduck of rivers and lakes in forested areas of Europe, Asia, and North America. The common merganser eats mainly fish. It nests in holes in trees.
Senecio jacobaea
Common ragwort is a tall growing plant that has clusters of yellow, flattened flower heads. It’s a common 'weed' found in paddocks, pastures and on waste ground, the yellow flower heads are highly attractive to bees and other insects. I’m not sure if that is a bee or a hover fly in the photo. This was a contender for yesterdays Saturday Challenge, but I wasn’t 100 per cent happy with its sharpness, it was quite breezy, so I picked something else.
Thank you for your visit and your comments, they are greatly appreciated.
WWT Slimbridge Wetland Centre.
What3Words
///trailers.ripen.grownup
The Common Crane (Grus grus), also known as the Eurasian crane, is a large, graceful, migratory bird with a distinctive trumpeting call that is widespread across Europe and Asia. Known for its elaborate courtship dances and conservation success story in areas where it had previously become extinct, it is classified as a species of Least Concern globally.
Key Characteristics and Appearance:
Size:
As the UK's tallest bird, the common crane stands around 110–120 cm (about 4 feet) tall, with a large wingspan of 220–250 cm (7-8 feet).
Plumage:
It is mostly slate-grey, with a black and white head and upper neck, and a notable bare red patch on its crown.
Distinctive Feature: Adults have elegant, drooping, curved tail feathers (actually elongated inner wing feathers or tertials) that form a "bustle".
In Flight:
Unlike herons, cranes fly with their long necks and legs fully outstretched. They often travel in large, V-shaped formations and can reach astonishing altitudes of up to 33,000 feet (10,000 meters) during migration.
Habitat and Diet:
Common cranes are highly adaptable, inhabiting a variety of wetlands, including bogs, marshes, and swampy forest clearings during the breeding season. During migration and winter, they often gather in large flocks in open areas, such as agricultural fields and floodplains, where they can forage for food and roost in shallow water for safety.
They are omnivorous, with their diet changing seasonally. They primarily eat plant matter like roots, seeds, and grains, supplementing this with animal prey such as insects, snails, amphibians, and small rodents, especially when breeding and feeding their young.
Behavior and Life Cycle
Sociality:
Common cranes are territorial during the breeding season but become very social, forming large flocks during migration and wintering.
Courtship:
They are famous for their elaborate "dances," which involve bobs, bows, pirouettes, and throwing vegetation in the air. This behavior serves to reinforce lifelong monogamous pair bonds and can occur at almost any time of year.
Reproduction:
Pairs typically lay one or two eggs in a large nest built on the ground in shallow water. Both parents incubate the eggs for about a month, and the chicks fledge around 9-10 weeks of age, remaining with their parents through their first winter.
Lifespan:
In the wild, they typically live for about 13 years on average, though they can reach up to 26 years.
Common orange lichen (Xanthoria parietina) growing on a poplar tree bark.
Złotorost ścienny (Xanthoria parietina) rosnący na korze topoli.
WWT Slimbridge Wetland Centre.
What3Words
///trailers.ripen.grownup
The Common Redshank (Tringa totanus), often simply called the Redshank, is a medium-sized Eurasian wading bird famous for its bright orange-red legs and "sentinel" behavior.
Key Characteristics
Distinctive Look:
It features a greyish-brown marbled plumage in summer and a plainer grey-brown in winter. Its bill is straight with a red base and black tip.
Unique Flight Pattern:
In flight, it displays a prominent white "V" shape on its back and wide white triangles on the trailing edges of its wings, which are unique among similar waders.
The "Sentinel" of the Marsh:
Highly wary and nervous, the Redshank is often the first to sense danger, letting out a loud, piping "teu-hu-hu" alarm call that alerts other birds in the area.
Habitat and Diet
Coastal & Inland:
They are found in a variety of wetlands, including saltmarshes, mudflats, estuaries, and inland wet grasslands.
Foraging:
They hunt by probing their bills into mud and shallow water. Their diet includes:
Coastal:
Shrimps, small fish, molluscs (like cockles and marine snails), and worms.
Inland:
Earthworms, cranefly larvae, beetles, and spiders.
Breeding and Migration
Nesting:
They typically nest in shallow scrapes hidden within tall clumps of grass on saltmarshes or wet meadows. Interestingly, the male often builds the nest base while the female provides the lining.
Migration:
They are migratory, with many breeding in the UK or Iceland and wintering along the Atlantic coast from Ireland to Great Britain and southwards to Africa and South Asia.
Unfortunaterly Thursley Common is a very long way from me - and I'm not sure I fancy camping there with 100 other photographers during the plague luring poor old Colin in with mealworms. So has to be old school and walking round to work out where the males frequently call from - then spending a couple of hours hidden in the undergrowth next to one of maybe half a dozen possible trees on the off chance he shows up whilst being stung by nettles and bitten by mosquitos. But that is bird photography for you!
Common Merganser (Mergus merganser) flock on the waters of the K'tzim-a-deen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary in the Khutzeymateen Inlet along the west coast north of Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada.
27 May, 2015.
Slide # GWB_20150527_5371.CR2
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Wrightsville Beach, NC. I usually point my camera towards the water cause the sun is with me, but I never get to shoot the nesting colony. In the morning, it is back-lit. I did today to get some different shots and different lighting. If nothing else, it's good practice shooting and processing.
HWW!
Seeing more of these intelligent birds around. Populating is a good thing. :-)
Still feeling badly ill. It will pass.
Thanks for Viewing.
Common Grass Yellow
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Apparently the so-called Common Sandpiper is not as common as it once was as there has been a progressive decrease in numbers since 1968, though they are still quite common on northern rivers and lakes. The current British population is estimated at 13,000 pairs. Our birds winter in Iberia and Northwest Africa arriving back in late March and April. Studies have shown that they are very site faithful to their breeding grounds, but they are also site faithful to their wintering grounds. It's almost as if they have two different time shares for six months of the year. This photograph shows their very long tail which they habitually bob. When I watched their tiny, fluffy chicks, they also bobbed their tiny tails in an exaggerated fashion. This one was on a Pennine reservoir not far from where I live.
Wikipedia: The common yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas), also known as the yellow bandit or Maryland yellow-throat, is a New World warbler. It is an abundant breeder in North America, ranging from southern Canada to central Mexico.
Conservation status: Least Concern