Month: April 2017

Stonechat – Saxicola rubicola

Bagged a few nice shots of birds new to my British birds gallery this weekend on a short trip to Brecon (Aberhonddu) in Wales (Cymru) including several shots of stonechats (Saxicola rubicola). The stonechat is a small passerine, perching, bird that was bizarrely considered a member of the thrush family (just as was the robin (Erithacus rubecula), neither have much in common with the Turdidae to my eye and genetic evidence puts them in a completely different family, Old World flycatchers, Muscicapidae.



Pied wagtail (Motacilla alba)

It’s a common enough bird, the pied wagtail (Motacilla alba yarrellii), you can spot its characteristic bobbing tail almost anywhere in the UK at almost any time of year, although they tend to leave northern Scotland in the depths of winter. We took a stroll around the outskirts of the grounds of Ickworth House in Suffolk, this fellow was anything but shy sitting on fence posts about 20 feet from us and our dog and only flitting to the next one if we made a sudden move. I positioned myself on one post two away from the bird, using the post to support and steady the camera.

With a fast shutter, short depth of field, focusing on his eye. Everything else out of that plane pretty much blurred, the background becomes homegeneous, but what happened to the galvanised steel wires of the fence in the shot is nice. With everything closer than his eye and everything further away out of focus, the wires look almost like plucked strings or perhaps soundwaves. I snapped him half a dozen times but he cocked his head towards us, almost in defiance as the dog stepped forward before flying off.

Needless to say the pied wagtail is also now in my burgeoning gallery of British birds. For those looking at this bird and thinking…pied wagtail? Surely that’s a white wagtail. Well, this is a slightly darker subspecies found in Britain as opposed to the more widespread (Europe, Asia, Africa, even Alaska) Motacilla alba. The etymology of “pied” meaning to have black and white garb comes from the pyed freres monks who wore black and white clothing, hence magpie, The Pied Piper, piebald horses, pied tamarin etc.

European peacock butterfly (Aglais io)

Although slightly slower-moving than the orange tip I photographed and blogged recently, the European peacock (Aglais io) is just as tough to catch on a pitstop, luckily there are so many dandelions in bloom in the set aside fields and elsewhere that it’s now quite hard not to get a photo!

If I remember rightly, this species lays its eggs only on nettles (Urtica urens) and hops (Humulus lupulus), so definitely a reason to cultivate a nettle patch and grow some hops (perfect for nettle wine and beer after the season too).

Richard Smyth explains why we love birdsong

Unless you’ve been ignoring me on here, on Facebook, Twitter, 500px and elsewhere, you probably noticed I’ve had a bit of an avian fixation recently. I’m writing about them, photographing them for a gallery of British Birds, and generally educating myself about our feathered friends. By sheer coincidence, my own book publisher (E&T) sent me a copy of a book about birdsong (A Sweet, Wild Note) by my nest-mate Richard Smyth, which I have mentioned elsewhere.

In it, Smyth discusses the nature and context of birdsong, what it means to us and our best guess as to what it means to birds. He talks of avian musicality and our own efforts to emulate birdsong and to be inspired by it in various ways. My current avian addiction, which probably stretches back to spotting my first kingfisher almost thirty years ago had me noddling about with some musical ideas. Not so much attempting to emulate birdsong, but feeling inspired by one of my favourites, the blue tit, which I’ve happily stalked around local woodland as the trees vernalise and the dapper little chaps pair up.

Orange tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines)

Orange tip butterflies (Anthocharis cardamines) flutter by so quickly it’s hard to get a good snap of them in flight, but now that the dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) have bloomed occasionally they come into land to refuel and sit there long enough to photograph. There were a few out and about when I was walking the dog earlier today and this one settled with his proboscis out to suck up the nectar.

More nature photos in my 500px gallery.

This particular photo shot with a 6D and a Sigma 150-600mm lens at full length, 1/1600s, f/6.3, ISO 500 in full sunshine and auto white balance. Photo levels nudged a little with Paintshop Pro and a subtle unsharp mask applied.

Marsh tit (Poecile palustris)

We were walking in the back woods of Ickworth House in Suffolk…hearing blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla) and the almost ubiquitous blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) and hoping to spot at least one of the former, which seem a lot more elusive than robins (Erithacus rubecula) despite their song being turned up to 11, although the robins were scarce too.

I did, however, spot a tiny bird with a black cap flitting between a couple of trees and tried to get the camera on to it from about 30-40 feet away, quite hard…but eventually got a focus. And sure enough it had a black cap, but it wasn’t a blackcap. Looked like a tit of some kind (what Americans might know as a chickadee). No blue, no yellow so not C caeruleus and not big enough for a great tit (Parus major). Mrs Sciencebase ID’ed it in situ as a marsh tit or a willow tit. Definitely not a coal tit (Periparus ater) different family and no prominent white band down the back of its head.

The marsh and willow are very similar in appearance with only subtle differences and according to my bird books neither is particularly associated with willows or marshes any more than the other. Although the marsh tit seems to prefer woodland of broad-leafed trees while the willow tit prefers woodlands near marshes and peat bogs and such. Go figure. Writing in his latest book on birdsong (A Sweet, Wild Note), Richard Smyth quotes expert Graham Shortt as explain that a marsh tit’s plumage looks as if it’s going to work, whereas the willow looks like it’s just got back from a three-day rock festival.

Anyway, a quick bit of processing of the photos and a tight crop and a question on Facebook and Brian Stone confirmed it as a marsh tit (Poecile palustris) rather than its close cousin the willow tit (Poecile montanus).

Dusky rear cheeks, glossy crown, lack of clear pale panel in the wing, pale base to the cutting edge of the bill

So, another bird bagged for the British Birds gallery. There are a couple of other shots of the same bird on the Facebook page I linked above as well as an unprocessed, uncropped shot.

What to do if you find a toxic moth nest

As a keen photographer, I am always on the look out for odd and intriguing things to photograph. In the absence of birds other than skylarks and rooks along the St Ives to Cambridge guided busway I photographed what looked like a silky nest in a blackthorn/hawthorn bush. It was on the left-hand side of the walkway as you approach the Oakington stop (about 400m away in fact). And then another.

I posted the photo to Facebook and asked for comments (to be honest I hadn’t even noticed the caterpillars at the time I took the photo and only did so when I was “developing the print”. I had been musing on it being an immigrant funnel web spider’s nest or similar and keeping my distance.

Singing friend Jill Barrett suggested the caterpillars were those of the oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea). This species has been causing problems for oaks for a number of years, but it seems infestations were, until recent years, limited to London and environs. Graham Bellamy commented that it was more likely to be a Brown-tail moth given that the nest was growing on a thorn bush rather than an oak tree. This was later confirmed by a contact at the Forestry Commission.

If the Forestry Commission had said these were oak processionaries, that wouldn’t have been good news for our local oaks. It would also have been bad news for anyone who comes into contact with these caterpillars. They have myriad tiny hairs which if they touch skin or eyes or fragments are breathed in can sometimes cause serious inflammation [and irritation of skin, eyes, and lungs].

If you see one of these nests, stay well clear. Don’t try and remove it yourself even if there are no live caterpillars present, there will inevitably be toxic hairs and hair particles left behind. There are many species of hairy caterpillar that can cause similar health problems and there are others that damage different trees.

Here’s the science bit:

The oak processionary moth caterpillar hairs carry lots of soluble proteins, one of those extracted and identified in 1986 is found only in the hairs and causes a reaction on skin identical to that produced by contact with the hairs and so is assumed to be the causative toxin of the inflammatory response. Texier et al named this urticating protein thaumetopoein. It is, they explain, formed from two protein subunits and is present in large quantities in the glands producing the caterpillar's urticating hairs.

“Thaumetopoein: an urticating protein from the hairs and integument of the pine processionary caterpillar (Thaumetopoea pityocampa Schiff., Lepidoptera, Thaumetopoeidae)” by Lamy M, Pastureaud MH, Novak F, Ducombs G, Vincendeau P, Maleville J, Texier L. in Toxicon. 1986;24(4):347-356.

Classic Chords #17 – Yes, Wurm turns

The classic Yes track Starship Trooper (from 1971’s The Yes Album) comes in several parts just as any good prog rock and/or classical music should. Parts i-iii  are “Life Seeker,” “Disillusion” and “Wurm.” It is that latter section that is the focus of my latest Classic Chord on Sciencebase.com. The chord carries a wonderful and yet seemingly interminable jam on a mesmering progression -nominally nothing more than a G major to an Eb major to a C major and back again.

It’s not a common progression, but guitarist Steve Howe, is not known for being a common guitarist, there’s more jazz than prog in this. Moreover, Howe doesn’t play any of those three chords how you would expect (he’s definitely not with the CAGED program).

Pictured is the basic shape showing the G major, the root is in the open G string and that stays open throughout, with the A-string muted every time. The moveable root note is the G on the B-string. To get to the EbM you move the whole shape down four frets and another four frets again down to the CM and then back up to the GM position to complete the cycle; the wurm that turned. Here’s a quick snippet recorded with out-of-phase pickups, loads of chorus and tons of flanger…

Long after I wrote this Classic Chord, I took a quick look at Yes’s Steve Howe playing this section of ST live, and he does indeed use this exact chord voicing. Obviously. It wouldn’t sound the same if he didn’t.

More Classic Guitar Chords here.

A tree by any other name

A recent late afternoon stroll with Mrs Sciencebase around NT Anglesey Abbey in Lode, near Cambridge, led to a few revelations about various plants and statuaria that were in bloom and uncovered following the winter. There’s an avenue of trees before you leave (not the Winter Walk) but parallel to that with a tree we couldn’t identify. Picture below, tree is about 8-10 metres tall and in this zoomed in shot you can see a bee about to alight on its floral protuberances.

Tall, with both a red and yellow, rhubarb and custard, hue to its aspect overall against the blue of the sky. The curious thing though zooming into the top of the tree, lots of hairy, frond-like flowering “catkins” and shiny bright green leaves that had something of the maple about them but were in clusters rather than growing as separate leaves each on its own stem as one would expect of that family.

The staff on reception were none-the-wiser as to its identity, although one did posit that it was some kind of acer (maple). None of us were convinced and the assistant in the plant sales area didn’t know either, despite his bumper book of tree photographs. I took an email address from reception and sent a message to Philip Hazel. Turns out to be a retired chap with a case of late-onset nominitive determinism of the surname (nevertheless very much worthy of the New Scientist Feedback column to which I contributed back in the day).

Philip identified the tree immediately from my photo. “It’s Acer negundo,“ he told me. “It’s also known as the ‘box elder’, though it isn’t an elder, sometimes it’s called the ‘ash-leaved maple’.” Therein my confusion. An acer called elder that isn’t an elder and has leaves like an ash. Philip, who is a volunteer garden guide at Anglesey Abbey went on to tell me that, “The tree hails from North America and is unusual for a maple in having compound leaves. The flowers, as your photo shows, come in hanging plumes, mostly before the leaves.”

The arboreal weirdness doesn’t stop there. If you pollard (cut back the upper branches to the trunk) of Acer negundo, Philip tells me, it will put up amazing grey spiky shoots, quite unlike an acer . “The discovery of this feature happened after an unwanted self-seeded plant had its top chopped off to stop it growing more,” he tells me. “There are a group of them in the Anglesey Abbey Winter Walk, recently pollarded after the winter season, that looked very ghostly on winter afternoons.” Pictured here.

Have you seen the Konik ponies at Wicken Fen?

Hardy Konik ponies graze the Wicken Fen nature reserve, keeping the wetland grasses at bay and adding their own brand of fertiliser to the land. I snapped a clutch of photos of these beasts on a recent visit, but there were so many reeds between them and my camera lens that I had to duck and dive to try and get a shot of a head toss, or a gallop or a noisy splash in the marshy water. Of 52 photos taken from various positions along the footpath trying to capture the equine essence all but one captured a story of wild life on the fen I feel.

Of course, it was the first photo of the contact sheet. It’s often the way, the subconscious brain frames the shot, sets the settings by instinct and clicks the shutter at just the right moment. Everything after that is just tweaking the concept it seems. The first shot is often the creativity in the raw and almost always, I find, the best photo.

In this shot, there are reeds between the ponies and the camera eye, which might be somewhat distracting in some ways, but the pony on the left is in plain sight and staring right at the camera. We are thus engaged through that direct eye contact with this one pony. His companion is distracted, partially hidden by the out-of-focus reeds, but looking to the right of the frame, off-stage, as it were, looking at something else waiting in the wings. It was the other ponies of course, but they’re not in this shot, there’s just an implied presence by the pony on the right with his head turned towards them.

Also, I did little to the levels and curves in this photo, nudged the “vibrancy” ever so slightly to make the most of it being almost golden hour, but rather than push the bottoms in and bring down the tops I let it ride to capture some of that evening haze. The other photos were all fun, head tosses and the like, but none so evocative as this one…to my eye, at least.