Goldeneye
I found this handsome male Goldeneye yesterday on a high Pennine reservoir. They are usually rather thin on the ground in my area and nationally they are relatively scarce compared to other wintering diving ducks so always a treat to see. When the sun shines the males show a beautiful iridescent green sheen on their heads, but the sun isn't usually shining whenever I get photographable views. The name Goldeneye was first used by John Ray in 1678 (in the first proper bird book published in the English language) and was apparently coined by him. Goldeneyes are a relatively recent breeding colonist of Britain thanks largely to a nestbox scheme in Scotland where a couple of hundred pairs breed. In natural situations they nest in holes in trees next to water. In winter the number in Britain swells to about twenty thousand individuals as birds migrate here to escape the freezing Scandinavian winter where their lakes will freeze over. That might sound a lot but other diving ducks such as Tufted Duck number about 140,000 in winter. The scientific name is Bucephala clangula. Bucephala means bull-headed as the head feathers make the bird's head appear larger than it really is.
And one final thing, Goldeneye is the only bird that shares its name with a James Bond Film. The author of the Bond books Ian Fleming was a British Naval Intelligence Officer during the Second World War, but he was also interested in birds. The name Goldeneye came from an intelligence operation (Operation Goldeneye) in Spain after the Spanish Civil War that Fleming was involved in. Fleming later used the name Goldeneye for his estate in Jamaica which he bought in 1946, and that is where he came across his character name James Bond which he appropriated from a book "Birds of the West Indies" written in 1936 by American ornithologist James Bond. In 1964, Fleming gave Bond a first edition copy of You Only Live Twice signed, "To the real James Bond, from the thief of his identity". In December 2008 the book was put up for auction, eventually fetching $84,000 (£56,000).
Goldeneye
I found this handsome male Goldeneye yesterday on a high Pennine reservoir. They are usually rather thin on the ground in my area and nationally they are relatively scarce compared to other wintering diving ducks so always a treat to see. When the sun shines the males show a beautiful iridescent green sheen on their heads, but the sun isn't usually shining whenever I get photographable views. The name Goldeneye was first used by John Ray in 1678 (in the first proper bird book published in the English language) and was apparently coined by him. Goldeneyes are a relatively recent breeding colonist of Britain thanks largely to a nestbox scheme in Scotland where a couple of hundred pairs breed. In natural situations they nest in holes in trees next to water. In winter the number in Britain swells to about twenty thousand individuals as birds migrate here to escape the freezing Scandinavian winter where their lakes will freeze over. That might sound a lot but other diving ducks such as Tufted Duck number about 140,000 in winter. The scientific name is Bucephala clangula. Bucephala means bull-headed as the head feathers make the bird's head appear larger than it really is.
And one final thing, Goldeneye is the only bird that shares its name with a James Bond Film. The author of the Bond books Ian Fleming was a British Naval Intelligence Officer during the Second World War, but he was also interested in birds. The name Goldeneye came from an intelligence operation (Operation Goldeneye) in Spain after the Spanish Civil War that Fleming was involved in. Fleming later used the name Goldeneye for his estate in Jamaica which he bought in 1946, and that is where he came across his character name James Bond which he appropriated from a book "Birds of the West Indies" written in 1936 by American ornithologist James Bond. In 1964, Fleming gave Bond a first edition copy of You Only Live Twice signed, "To the real James Bond, from the thief of his identity". In December 2008 the book was put up for auction, eventually fetching $84,000 (£56,000).