Archive For The “Great Britain” Category
This (female?) ring-necked parakeet is a survivor, hanging upside from a branch with just one leg and huge scar on the chest. (Robin Rowland)
A feral ring-necked parakeet in a tree in London’s Kensington Gardens. (Robin Rowland)
Walking through London’s Kensington Gardens I saw a crowd of people around some trees and a loud screeching of birds. Then I saw flashes of green as the birds flew between the trees and often landed on people’s hands and even heads, as they were (sometimes) fed.
This was a flock of what is called in Great Britain the ring-necked parakeet and in North America the rose-ringed parakeet. The species originates from both central Africa and India and has long been popular in the pet trade. A population of feral parakeets was first noticed in England in 1969 and there are now thousands in parts of the country. While in most places the feral parakeets thrive in city parks, their range is increasing in rural and wilderness areas. Because their diet includes cultivated fruit they are considered a pest by farmers. It appears that in England, the parakeets have rapidly evolved to survive the winters. As you can see at least in the summer, they are perfectly camouflaged among green leaves. As well as England, there are large numbers of feral parakeets in Japan, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, with smaller populations in southern California and Florida.
A ring-necked parakeet. (Robin Rowland)
A male ring-necked parakeet. The males have a faint blue and pink “ring” around their head (Robin Rowland)
A ring-necked parakeet. (Robin Rowland)
So what did I do on my summer “vacation”? I am (semi) retired, so it isn’t a formal vacation, but I did have some relaxing down time on my trip to England in June. After attending a conference in Liverpool, I went to Stratford-upon-Avon to see the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Julius Caesar, then spent some time with cousins in Oxfordshire and finally went to London to see some shows and some friends. I didn’t set out to concentrate on bird photography but that was what the photographic gods provided,
Stratford-upon-Avon
The River Avon (the famous one in Warwickshire) with its swans and the town of Stratford-upon-Avon. (Robin Rowland)
A raven perching in a weeping willow on the banks of the River Avon. (Robin Rowland)
A pair of rooks perch on a bare branch overlooking the River Avon. (Robin Rowland)
A grey heron in a park on the banks of the River Avon. I usually photograph their cousins the great blue herons in our much wilder Kitimat River estuary. The grey heron resembles the great blue but is a bit smaller, with no brown feathers and more grey than blue. (Robin Rowland)
A moorhen among the reeds of the River Avon. (Robin Rowland)
Oxfordshire Upper Thames River
The upper Thames River near King’s Lock, Oxfordshire, one of the 45 locks on the Thames from London to the river mouth. (Robin Rowland)
A common tern flies over the Thames. (Robin Rowland)
A wood pigeon in flight in one of the upper Thames’ locks. (Robin Rowland)
A pied wagtail (also known as a white wagtail) looking for opportunities at one of the Thames’ locks. (Robin Rowland)
A flock of greylag geese on the Thames. (Robin Rowland)
A greylag goose looks out from the shore grass. (Robin Rowland)
A narrow boat moored on the banks of the Thames–they have to fit through the narrowest locks. (Robin Rowland)
A hooded crow flies over the Thames. (Robin Rowland)
A red kite high above the fields of Oxfordshire. (Robin Rowland)
A magnificent crested grebe. (Robin Rowland)
A black-necked grebe on the River Thames. (Robin Rowland)
A family of greylag geese. (Robin Rowland)
A coot in Farmoor Reservoir. (Robin Rowland)
A carrion crow flying over Farmoor reservoir. (Robin Rowland)
Our route in the Miss Moffat II along the Upper Thames River. King’s Lock is at the beginning of the line following the route of the river and the Farmoor Reservoir is the large body of water in the lower left (where we stopped for lunch). Wytham Woods are the wooded area roughly to the right of the river.
Wytham Woods – Oxfordshire
Wytham Woods are an area of ancient semi-natural woodland to the west of Oxford, UK, owned by the University of Oxford and used for environmental research for the past sixty years, including climate change research for the past eighteen. Hiking is permitted by special permit.
Tangled trunks in Wythams Wood, Oxfordshire (Robin Rowland)
My namesake, an English robin, perches on a branch in Wytham Wood, Oxfordshire. (Robin Rowland)
The Serpentine – London
The Serpentine is a small lake between Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens in London.
A moorhen on a take off run in London’s Serpentine pond. (Robin Rowland)
I was able to photograph my second sequence of aerial bird combat in a few weeks on June 15, on a boat trip on the upper Thames River in Oxfordshire, in England, above me a carrion crow (Corvus Corone) was taking on what in Britain is called a buzzard and internationally the common buzzard (Buteo buteo)
The buzzard is a hunting raptor, and although it does eat carrion, its main diet consists of rabbits, voles, other small mammals, small birds, including young pigeons and crows. It may be that the crow was defending its young. (Robin Rowland)
I first spotted the two high up over the fields of the English countryside along the Thames. (Robin Rowland)
It was just a couple of weeks earlier that I photographed a red winged blackbird taking on a hawk over Topley, British Columbia.
Here’s the approximate route we took on the Thames River, with the track from my Garmin Extrex 20x uploaded to Google Earth. (The straight line is where the GPS jumped from where I was staying to when we began the boat trip). Oxford is in the lower right corner.
The persistent crow mobs the buzzard over this and the next few images. (Robin Rowland)
(Robin Rowland)
(Robin Rowland)
(Robin Rowland)
(Robin Rowland)
All images were taken from my cousin Bob Timm’s boat, the Miss Moffatt II, with my Sony Alpha6000 and the Sony G 70-300mm lens with ISO 1250 and shutter priority at 1/2500 at f8/