Hertfordshire News, Comment and Bulletin articles
This month
Birding Beyond Hertfordshire - Another postcard from Egypt
Petition to oppose French hunting season extension
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Birding Beyond Hertfordshire - Postcard from Egypt 2
Another note from Bird Club member Tom Coles in his new home in Egypt. It sounds to me as if a few old associations with Vietnam are showing through Tom!
The Hilton Plaza Hotel at Hurghada, on Egypt's Red Sea coast, is like an artificial crescent-shaped escarpment - 800 metres high and about 3000 metres long. The landscape slopes up from the beach adding another 300 metres in height.
Just as a bay channels and extenuates waves, the Plaza's landscape and architecture does the same with the offshore breeze.
At 5:30 am White-eyed Gulls in particular use this man-made escarpment to their advantage. At a distance, squadrons of what appears to be dark pelagics with white tails, contour across the sea swells, and then the beach, as if to avoid radar detection.
As they near the sloping landscape, one notices the white leading edge of their dark wings. Then, suddenly, they are lifted like a shot by the updraft - as if the squadron just received an order to 'abort attack!' Displaying their black head, drooping bill, white neck collar, belly and tail, yellow legs and feet, with a white trailing edge to the wings - a handsome bird.
Almost as near as arm's length away, they turn to port and start a lazy upwards spiral. The squadron becomes stationary as it hangs head-on into the wind. The squadron leader turns to starboard. With a tail wind, he and the rest of the wing shoot off into the sunrise for a day's foraging for Red Sea fish.
The white, thick-set Caspian Terns seem less reliant on the up-drafts. With massive red-orange bills, they slice through the strongest headwinds, powered by long, pointed wings. The buoyant Lesser Crested and Common Terns seem to dance across the sea surface wind currents, while the Bridled Terns stay close to the surface, in the troughs between the wave crests. But the master of windsurfing through the troughs is the Brown Booby, their wingtips nearly etching the aqua blue.
The Arctic Skua lumbers along like a C-130 cargo plane on a sea search-and-rescue mission. Then suddenly it transforms into an acrobat as it attacks other pelagics, robbing them of their hard-earned fish. The only other pelagic birds more skilled at this are members of the frigatebird family ('Iwa' is the Hawaiian name for the Greater Frigatebird and means 'thief'). Fortunately for the skua and the pelagics on which they prey, frigatebirds are seldom seen pirating over the Red Sea.
Seemingly aloof to all the pelagic goings-on, the graceful Sooty Falcon, its gray-blue color setting off its yellow legs, powers by, giving one the impression that nothing will deter it from the purpose its keen eyes are rivetted on.
In contrast, the Kestrel seems to be the lazy member of the Falco family, if not more efficient. It prefers to hang-glide in the wind, waiting for a small meal to present itself on a platter - or maybe it is just enjoying the view along the beautiful Red Sea coast.
Tom Coles
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An Aythya hybrid, first seen at Tyttenhanger Gravel Pits in 1996 (and eclipsed that year by the discovery of the Lesser Scaup), overwintered in 1998-9 at Frogmore Gravel Pits. This spring it turned up at Hilfield Park Reservoir and remained throughout June at least. Although it can be dismissed as another 'mucky duck' it is worth a look if opportunity arises.
It can be easily mistaken at a distance for a moulting drake Tufted Duck, but closer inspection reveals a curiously patterned bird. Apart from a rudimentary crest, the shape is much like a Tufty. The sides are evenly sullied pale brown with a pale whitish fringing. The rest of the body is black. It is the head which is most interesting but it needs a close view in good light to see any detail. The crown and upper nape are a deep, rich chestnut while the remainder of the head and neck are iridescent green.
One parent was obviously a Tufted Duck but the white eye on this bird suggests the other may have been a Ferruginous Duck as this colour fits neither Tufted Duck or Pochard.
Jack Fearnside
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Usually renowned for scoring 'nil points' at the annual debacle of the Eurovision song contest, how about this even sillier story from Oslo, scraped from a recent edition of The Mail on Sunday:
A 58-year-old Norwegian woman has been reported as using her cleavage as a nest to help incubate a birds egg. The egg believed to be that of a Curlew, Numenius peekabooliftandseparateus, was found abandoned by a farmer who then handed it to former mid-wife, Anne-mette Smette, when a hen chicken rejected it. Anne-mettes' husband, Knut, has been given strict instructions to keep away from her for the next three weeks for fear of cracking the egg!
Surely a moral of, 'don't count your Parus major's until they've hatched'!
Mike Russell
This story was circulated on the UKBirdnet email group recently and rather amused me. I thought I would share it with HBC website visitors.
The Independent carried an article this week (week commencing 2nd Aug) about a pair of captive homosexual Griffon Vultures in Israel which have been fostering chicks taken from other nests for the last two years. Apparently the two male vultures court and mate just like a normal pair and their keeper came up with the idea of using them as foster parents to boost the productivity of the straight pairs. This avoids the need to hand rear them and means the young do not become imprinted on humans and can be released into the wild.
Unusual to say the least! The avian equivalent of The Odd Couple?
Gareth Watkins
Have you signed the online petition against the extension of the French hunting season? If not, for the sake of our birds, please do!! The French hunters was to extend the season right over breeding and migration time with very serious ramifications for French birdlife as well as our own summer visitors. You can sign the petition on-line here...thank you!