David Bradley – Page 40

What do Peregrine Falcons eat?

What do Peregrine Falcons eat? It might be easier to ask what don’t they eat? Here’s a list of kills reported based on avian remains and feathers at the foot of the tall buildings frequented by the Cambridge Peregrines:

Bar-tailed Godwit, Blackbird, Black-tailed Godwit, Carrion Crow, Collared Dove, Feral Pigeon (Stock Dove), Fieldfare, Golden Plover, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Great Tit, Grey Partridge, House Sparrow, Moorhen, Redwing, Robin, Shoveller Duck, Starling, Teal, Woodcock.

The Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) is the world’s fastest animal. It stoops on its prey from way above and has been recorded as reaching speeds of an incredible 300 kilometres per hour. It basically slams into its prey to kill it and carries it off to a perch where it will pluck the bird before eating. It will also cache chunks of prey on tall buildings around its territory to eat later or for feeding nesting partner, and later chicks.

Creating large plasma bubble between electrodes

Occasionally, I like to mention some of the search terms that bring new visitors to the Sciencebase website. One of those phrases that intrigued me somewhat is this:

creating large plasma bubble between electrodes

Now, I can half imagine it’s someone looking for information about a physical phenomenon, perhaps for a school assignment or maybe a research project. So, what were they looking for?

Plasma is often referred to as the fourth state of matter – after solid, liquid, and gas. It is most similar to a gas, but rather than being made up of neutral atoms or molecules, it is fully ionised. This means that every atom in the gas has been stripped of its electrons. A plasma therefore comprises ions, charged particles, and free electrons (negatively charged particles) rather than atoms or molecules.

We think of it as being the fourth state of matter, but there is an argument for calling it the first state of matter given that plasma is the most common state of matter across the universe, such as the core of stars, nebulae in space, the aurora borealis. That said, we do not tend to encounter it in everyday lives except in specific small-scale circumstance because plasmas form only at extremely high temperatures or in very strong electric fields.

One of those small-scale situations involves the formation of a plasma between electrodes. More specifically, a plasma bubble can form in the electric field between two electrodes as the field strips away electrons away from the atoms of a gas. The size of the plasma bubble depends on a number of factors, including the voltage applied, the distance between the electrodes, and the type of gas that is being ionised by the electric field. Scientists experimenting with plasma bubbles can adjust these parameters, to create plasma bubbles of different sizes and shapes.

Glossy Ibis looking glossier

UPDATE: Breeding season 2023. In 2022, I mentioned the hope and possibility of Glossies breeding in the UK. This happened in 2023.

I’ve mentioned the Glossy Ibis many times before, there are still several in and around our local patch and almost 200 estimated to be across the British Isles. There were just four at a place where I’ve seen seven recently, but that’s fine. Four is better than zero.

They were all looking rather glossy, which is presumably in time for the breeding season. Whether or not these birds actually breed here is another matter. There is a breeding colony in Spain, but this African/Mediterranean species has been extending its range and hanging around the British Isles recently, but no reports of breeding or attempts at breeding just yet.

Maybe 2022 could be the year for it! Certainly, other recent acquisitions like Cattle, Great White, and Little Egret are in on the act.

Eurasian Crane, Grus grus

I’ve talked about the Common, or Eurasian, Crane on the Sciencebase site before, there are increasing numbers of this bird to be seen on our East Anglian patch, and that’s a very positive, natural thing.

There is something quite primaeval about the species. Snapped here with a 600mm Sigma zoom on 2/3 crop sensor Canon 7Dii from about 370 metres. I didn’t know ahead of the visit that they were even there and snapped them when I saw them and left them to their own devices.

Aperture f/8 shutter speed 1/1579s, ISO 1000. RAW image imported with Rawtherapee, denoised and sharpened in Topaz DeNoize AI, and final output tweaked with PaintShop Pro. Cropped to 40% original pixel-width.

Twentypence Otter

TL:DR – We saw an otter preening on the banks of a local waterway in early Spring 2022. Also a pun or two from friend of the blog, Patrick C.

A road that crosses the River Great Ouse a short way north of our village has the fabulous name of Twentypence Road. Downstream of the river is the Twentypence Marina where often you might espy Kingfishers darting about from branch to reed. Indeed, we parked up ahead of a country walk there and saw two within a couple of minutes of getting out of the car.

Upstream of the bridge is a nice walk that can take you along the edge of farmland to walk on the flood bank or you can head back towards our village along the Cottenham Lode. There is also a fishing lake surrounded by trees, which is often good for various bird species and beyond is a growing herd of roe deer to be stalked. However, today we took the north bank of the river and headed for the footpath beyond the riverside cottage.

It was in front of the cottage that I spotted a creature cleaning itself on the riverbank. An otter, or more precisely Lutra lutra, the repeated word, a tautonym, implying this species is the “archetype” of the Lutra genus. The species is often called the European or Eurasian Otter and sometimes that is qualified as River Otter to separate it from the Sea Otter. Anyway, it was a surprise to see it out in the open rather than simply catching a glimpse at a distance of a head ducking under the water. It made my day, as one might say.

Incidentally, otters are fairly closely related to weasels and stoats but also to seals, seals are certainly closer genetically speaking to otters than they are to dogs with which they are often compared.

Incidentally, my great friend Patrick tells a nice joke on this topic.

Patrick: Had a lovely chicken tarka at the curry house last night

Me: Sounds delicious, but don’t you mean a chicken tikka?

Patrick: No, it’s like a chicken tikka, but a little otter!

Me: Oh

Patrick: Had an onion budgie as a side

Me: Nice, but surely you mean an onion bhaji

Patrick: No, it’s like an onion bhaji, but a little cheeper…cheaper…cheeper, geddit? Ah, never mind…

Me: When was the last time you went clubbing?

Patrick: Aloo bangain?

Me: No idea, the songs all sound the same these days

Patrick: No, bangain bharta!

Me: I don’t care how much you haggled on the price to get in

Patrick: Naan?

Me: Don’t be silly, she prefers a tea dance

Patrick: Paneer tikka masala

Me: What she does in the privacy of her own home is none of your business

Patrick: Aloo gobi

Me: Yeah, see ya next time!

Smithy Fen Birding

UPDATE: October 2023. Despite recent heavy rains the patch of farmland, on which birders (Ian and Brendan) had ticked 160+ species, has remained unflooded so far this season. I suspect the drainage along the fields and/or the adjacent travellers’ site have been fixed. So, it was fun while it lasted and maybe it will happen again, but it seems that for the timebeing we are not going to have quite the birding on that patch as we did last winter and the previous couple of seasons, unfortunately. So much for creating a protected birdlife area.

Over the last year or more (2020-2022), a patch of farmland known, as Bullock’s Haste, which lies on the outskirts of our village has been perpetually flooded. Incredibly, over two winters it has attracted a greater and greater diversity of bird species who have spent time there feeding, preening, and roosting.

Two friends dedicated to the citizen science cause of birding (Brendan Doe and Ian Ellis) have observed and catalogued (on eBird) more than 150 species there in that time. I cannot claim to have seen even a fraction of that number there, although I have seen a good many of the “ticked” species in various other places and several of them at this site. There are a few other named spotters on the list who have ticked several species, but Doe and Ellis have done the bulk of this excellent work.

Here’s the list as it stands, in alphabetical order. I have removed terms such as Eurasian, European, Northern, and Western from these vernacular names to simplify things. You can visit the eBird list to get alternative formats. As you will see, there are a few fairly rare and unusual visitors on the list:

Arctic Tern
Barn Owl*
Barn Swallow*
Bewick’s Swan*
Blackbird*
Blackcap*
Black-headed Gull*
Black-tailed Godwit*
Blue Tit*
Brambling
Bullfinch*
Buzzard*
Canada Goose*
Carrion Crow*
Caspian Gull
Cetti’s Warbler*
Chaffinch*
Chiffchaff*
Coal Tit*
Collared Dove*
Coot*
Corn Bunting*
Cuckoo*
Curlew*
Curlew Sandpiper
Dunlin*
Dunnock*
Egyptian Goose*
Fieldfare*
Gadwall*
Garden Warbler
Garganey
Glossy Ibis
Goldcrest*
Golden Plover*
Goldfinch*
Goosander
Great Black-backed Gull*
Great Cormorant*
Great Crested Grebe
Great Spotted Woodpecker*
Great Tit*
Great White Egret*
Green Sandpiper*
Green Woodpecker*
Greenfinch*
Greenshank*
Green-winged Teal
Grey Heron*
Grey Partridge
Grey Plover
Grey Wagtail*
Greylag Goose*
Greylag Goose (Domestic type) x Canada Goose (hybrid)
Greylag x Canada Goose (hybrid)
Hawfinch
Hen Harrier
Herring Gull*
Hobby*
House Martin*
House Sparrow*
Iceland Gull
Jack Snipe
Jackdaw*
Jay*
Kestrel*
Kingfisher*
Lapwing*
Lesser Black-backed Gull*
Lesser Redpoll*
Lesser Whitethroat*
Linnet*
Little Egret*
Little Grebe*
Little Owl*
Little Ringed Plover*
Little Stint*
Long-tailed Tit*
Magpie*
Mallard*
Marsh Harrier*
Meadow Pipit*
Mediterranean Gull
Merlin
Mistle Thrush*
Moorhen*
Mute Swan*
Nuthatch*
Oystercatcher*
Pectoral Sandpiper
Peregrine Falcon*
Pheasant*
Pied Avocet
Pied Flycatcher*
Pied Wagtail/White Wagtail*
Pink-footed Goose
Pintail
Pochard*
Raven
Red Kite*
Red-crested Pochard
Red-legged Partridge*
Redshank*
Redwing*
Reed Bunting*
Reed Warbler*
Ringed Plover*
Robin*
Rock Dove*
Rock Pipit
Rook*
Ruff
Sand Martin
Sanderling
Sandpiper
Sedge Warbler*
Shelduck*
Shoveler*
Siskin
Skylark*
Snipe*
Song Thrush*
Sparrowhawk*
Spoonbill*
Spotted Flycatcher*
Spotted Redshank
Starling*
Stock Dove*
Stonechat*
Swift*
Tawny Owl*
Temminck’s Stint*
Tern*
Tree Pipit
Tufted Duck*
Turtle Dove*
Water Rail*
Wheatear*
Whimbrel
Whinchat
Whitethroat*
Whooper Swan*
Wigeon
Willow Warbler*
Wood Sandpiper*
Woodcock
Woodpigeon*
Wren*
Yellow Wagtail
Yellowhammer*
Yellow-legged Gull

*Species I’ve recorded in Cottenham

UPDATE: 11 April 2022 – Little Gull has turned up

Hands up, who hasn’t had COVID-19?

TL:DR – I disappointingly succumbed to a COVID-19 infection in February 2022.

So, mid-February 2022 I got a sniffle and a bit of a sore throat, like a common cold coming on. Did a lateral flow test and what do you know – positive for SARS-CoV-2, dammit. Ten days of isolation and an awful sore throat, an unsleepable sore throat, in fact, but thankfully no breathing problems. I’ve managed to take a couple of walks since and a bit of a bike ride, but they’re very stop and start, albeit managing about 3 miles. My lungs aren’t working at full capacity, I must admit, and I feel a bit post-viral.

I feel lucky and privileged to have been doubly vaccinated and also to have had a booster shot*, all of which was free at point of access on the NHS. I don’t know how well I would’ve fared if I hadn’t been vaccinated, but I doubt it would have been well given my underlying conditions. By coincidence, I have a free consultation with the doctor later this week to check lung function and other stuff. Hopefully, the doc will tweak my NHS-subsidised prescriptions a little and I’ll be on my way and good to go.

Thank you NHS.

*Not a jab, a shot, I hate that word “jab”.

Incidentally, despite proclamations by our government to suggest that the pandemic is behind us, I know more people who have the disease right now than the total number I knew who had it in the two years previously.

Kingfisher Bridge Spoonbills again

We ate the Spoonbill to extinction in the British Isles in the 17thC. But re-creating lost habitat, conservation work, and a reintroduction scheme is seeing their numbers crawling back.

North Norfolk is a good place to see them these days, but they’re also spreading their wings. Four have been present on one of our fenland nature reserves for weeks now, we saw them on a dull day back in the middle of winter. Kingfisher’s Bridge Nature Reserve.

Out of covid isolation at last, I thought I’d pay them another visit and was told by a birder (might have been a warden) that they weren’t around right now. Ten minutes later, two flew off the main lake and right over my head.

LepiLED for #mothsmatter science

TL:DR – The LepiLED UV lamp is a rather useful, low-power and portable lure for use in citizen science with nocturnal Lepidoptera

UPDATE: Aug/Sep 22 – Have done a couple of trips with the LepiLED and a portable trap. First, to the New Forest and then to Corfe Castle. The first, August trip, was quite productive with a few decent moths and a couple that were new to me, such as Rosy Footman. Fewer moths on the September trip, as you’d expect, but again a couple of new ones, including L-album Wainscot and Tachystola acroxantha.

L-album Wainscot moth — L-album Wainscot

UPDATE: Feb 22 – All set up and lit up on Friday evening at dusk just for a quick trial. The LepiLED is nice and bright and lasted several hours on the battery pack. However, the night was rather chilly, although the wind had dropped, there was very little visible invertebrate activity in the garden, sadly, and no moths seen. In previous years with fluorescent UV lamps, it has been the same, don’t tend to see any moths in February, activity picks up in mid-March.

Apparently, mothing became something of a lockdown hobby for nature fans who weren’t allowed to head out into their usual patch to watch birds, search for orchids, hug trees, etc. I can’t see I’ve heard much evidence that anyone who may have glanced at it as a hobby back in 2020 has kept up with it…let me know if you did and you have. Either way, I’ve been lighting up since July 2018 after being introduced to the idea by my good friend Rob that summer. It became something of an obsession and subsequent years and I’ve been keen to find ways to see new species each season. I’ve clocked and photographed well over 300 unique moth species in that time.

My German lepidopteral contact Gunnar Brehm of whom I’ve written a couple of times on here in the past has now supplied me with a LepiLED device. The device is basically a cluster of LED lights in a chunky protective canister made of ultraviolet-transparent borosilicate glass that is powered using a portable USB powerpack). It has three wavelength peaks for attracting nocturnal insects. Two peaks in the visible spectrum green (530 nanometres) and blue (450 nm), and a third, peak in the ultraviolet (365 nm). The associated research linked to the peak choice in the design can be found here.

The LepiLED 1.1 - a UV lamp for studying light-attracted organisms at night

Having spent the first four seasons (July 2018 onwards) of my scientific moth-trapping with conventional fluorescent UV tubes (the kind that are used, ironically, in bug zappers), I am very excited to have the opportunity to try a new approach with the lower power, tuned LepiLED device. The weather is not optimal at the moment, it’s very windy and we just had a squally hailstorm/snow shower. But, once I have set up the kit, I will start lighting up and report back to you with the countless specimens I see each evening as the moth season unfolds over the coming weeks.

Moth trap setup with the LepiLED in place showing vanes and funnel

I have now used an old actinic trap with its UV fluorescent tube removed to build a new rig for the LepiLED. As I mentioned, the lamp uses a USB power supply so should be portable, I can either hang it like it is in the above photo with a net sack added around the funnel (per Brehm’s field approach) to catch the moths or set it on the ground and use the box from the original trap with egg cartons as is traditional…I’ll try both at some point once the wind has died down and I’ve found a decent waterproof way to have the USB powerpack outside.

Dustbowl – Pseudo Americana

A little bit of pseudo-Americana about a hobo with delusions of grandeur hopping from town to town, state to state, narrowly avoiding being grabbed by the railroad bulls. It’s the Great Depression of the 1930s. He panders to his addictions and his dependencies, gambling, drinking, partaking of them unholy angels, until he comes to the end of the line.

You can listen to the piano-led piece on SoundCloud or BandCamp as usual, it’s the 8th addition to my Lifelines mini-album there.

The artwork is somewhat incongrous, it’s a modern, but old-style windpump at Wicken Fen. It’s not dissimilar to the windpumps you might have seen in Western movies set in New Mexico, Texas, and Kansas, the heartlands of the dustbowl. It’s the kind that would spin and creak as the stranger finally leaves town. The photo treatment is also incongruous, a faked daguerrotype that was popular 100 years before the dustbowl of the 1930s.

Originally, I’d thought of writing a song about the old hobos on the railroads and then bringing it up to date with reference to the derailed railways now being tourist hiking trails. I came up with the basicss with no tune to hand and then once again worked with @LillBirdToldMe to hone the lyrics to something apparently meaningful and stronger than what I started with by a country mile. I then pieced together a piano arrangement over which I could lay my vocal.

Just for the record, I’ve travelled in 23 of the 50 US states, worked in West Virginia, and although I’ve never hopped a freight train, I’ve driven along dusty blue highways, I know they’re roads and not railroads. It’s poetic licence…or should that be license?

Dustbowl

Kicking up the railroad dirt, I ride these metal wheels
There’s plenty of times those dozy bulls come snapping at my heels
They’ve got to let it go when I hop that old freight train
Never going to mess with me in this old town again

Some unholy angel going to fix me up alright
Heading for the county line making good time tonight
I’m riding high in the lowdown, you know I’m on a roll?
’cause kicking back is easy on the blue highways of the dustbowl

Nickel and dime the journeys you can ride from stay to stay
Cross that bridge when it gets here, just hopping on that plate
The rolling stock’s for rolling as the years turn by and by
No tears are shed for the lonely who find no place to die

Nickel and dime the journeys you can ride from state to state
Cross that bridge when it gets here, just hopping off that plate
The rolling stock’s for rolling as the years turn by and by
No tears are shared for the lonely who find a place to die

The times they ain’t for changing, my fortune’s on the wind
Can’t make no money doing nothing, for that’d be a sin
I’m rattled by the railroad track from dusk to break of day
I’ve no Bible, just a bottle to ease my soul away

Riding high in the lowdown, know I’m on a roll!
’cause kicking back is easy on the blue highways
out of the dustbowl, of the dustbowl

Nickel and dime the journeys you can ride from stay to stay
Cross that bridge when it gets here, just hopping off that plate
The rolling stock’s for rolling as the years turn by and by
No tears are shared for the lonely. The final place to die