Birdwatch, June - July 2017

The summer months were intensely hot. By June 12th there was very little about. On a trip to the pond that morning I found that the biggest area was about to evaporate later that day– there was a tiny little pool with the remaining fish all gasping. Equally I saw a Cormorant, probably stocking up with an easy source of food.

Scops Owl Scops Owl Photo: Steve Jones

There had been an influx of Alpine Swifts during those days, also a Cuckoo still calling near the pond 300-400 metres away.

Pond dried up. Photo: Vivian Grisogono

As I’m sure most of you know the longest day marks the sign of change in nature’s calendar and the singing for territory and mate virtually ceases. Nightingale were one of the first to disappear: from my observations this year I would suggest there were reasonable numbers of Nightingales singing in “my patch”. Sadly despite numerous attempts, I have still yet to photograph one.

Eugenie, Will and Steve by the pond. Photo: Vivian Grisogono

On July 15th, two keen bird-watchers, Will* and Eugenie, joined myself and Vivian for an early-morning tour of some bird-watching sites in our part of Hvar Island. They particularly wanted to see the Bee-eaters, so I had sent them a photograph I had taken on July 8th and warned them that good pictures might be hard to take on a single trip: "[Bee-eaters] don’t like you getting too close and also at the moment the sun is so bright difficult to get a really decent shot at this location. I’m also of the opinion they disperse to different locations in the day. Are you familiar with the call of Bee-eater? I can sometimes hear them over my garden in the afternoons but often quite high up when I come to look. So you might be lucky enough to hear them where you are staying....If you can get to Jelsa, although nothing is guaranteed, I should think we can knock off Bee-Eaters and Red Backed Shrike for you. Hoopoe are a little more difficult as are Woodchat Shrikes now, I’ve only seen two Hoopoe in the last month and both in flight whilst driving, and they have stopped calling now like most." (email July 9th 2017).

Turtle Dove, July 8th 2017. Photo: Steve Jones

I also sent through a picture of a Turtle Dove, taken on July 8th, as they are a fairly rare sight in the UK now. The response was pleasingly enthusiastic: "Love those bird shots you took Steve. It's true, Turtle Doves are so rare these days in the UK it'll be lovely to see them." The words of true bird-lovers!

Bee-eaters, July 8th 2017. Photo: Steve Jones

We started our quest in Pitve, moving on to the pond in the Stari Grad Plain, and then to Jelsa.

Steve, Eugenie, Will in Pitve, July 15th 2017. Photo: Vivian Grisogono

We were rewarded with more sightings than I expected, including an unknown wader at the pond. In Jelsa the Bee-eaters were happily swooping over their favourite nesting area.

Will watching the Bee-eaters, July 15th 2017. Photo: Vivian Grisogono

It was a great start to Will and Eugenie's brief weekend visit, which was followed up by them spotting the elusive Golden Oriole near their accommodation.

Golden Oriole, July 17th 2017. Photo: Will Rose

Without doubt the highlight of my summer was being able to catch the Scops Owl in daylight, I just happened to pick up a contact call. Before, I had managed several shots at dusk, when it was coming to the power cables outside my house every evening, but the pictures were poor. On July 13th, I had a Scops on wire outside my house during the day, sadly it was off as soon as it saw me, I would have loved a daytime picture.

Scops Owl at night, June 17th 2017. Photo: Steve Jones

Then, on July 18th: done it! Albeit early in the morning (5:15am) as opposed to dusk where it would perch on my electric cable every night.

Scops Owl, early morning July 18th 2017. Photo: Steve Jones

And then over the next couple of days came the real daytime shots. So I was delighted with these. Then I had some doubts as to whether it really was a Scops Owl, as reading about their behaviour Scops is apparently a true night owl, whereas the Little Owl (Sivi ćuk) can also be seen in the day, which I know from seeing them in the UK. Their calls are similar. However, a knowledgeable friend from the UK confirmed that in his opinion it was a Scops – they do have two forms, grey and brown.

Scops Owl July 20th 2017. Photo: Steve Jones

Despite frequent visits to the pond and the airfield throughout the summer it remained very quiet and nothing new was observed. Perhaps you too noticed that numbers of Swallows were slowly building up on cables towards the latter part of July: on July 20th I counted 56 Swallow lined up on a power cable on my way back from Stari Grad ……was it a daytime roost or were they getting ready to go perhaps…?? and I believe the first weekend of August saw a lot move on. This doesn’t mean you won’t see a Swallow after that, but they are seen in smaller groups, as are Swifts and House Martins. Similarly Bee-eaters mainly went in August but I was still hearing them passing overhead as late as 13th September.

Just-fledged Red-backed Shrike, July 27th 2017. Photo: Steve Jones

Photographed in and around Dol during the latter part of July, a just fledged Red Backed Shrike still being fed by parents. I was still seeing these birds around, mainly in single numbers, into mid September.

Red-backed Shrike feeding, July 27th 2017. Photo: Steve Jones

© Steve Jones, 2017

For more of Steve's beautiful nature pictures, see his personal pages: Bird Pictures on Hvar 2017, and Butterflies of Hvar

*Will Rose is an animator and illustrator, mainly for children's programmes, and he uses his interest in wildlife in his professional work: http://wilbojonson.tumblr.com/, and https://vimeo.com/170155454

You are here: Home Nature Watch Birdwatch, June - July 2017

Eco Environment News feeds

  • Former Labour PM accused of ‘handing talking points’ to Tories and Reform after saying net zero strategy faltering

    Climate experts and politicians have criticised Tony Blair for claiming any strategy that relied on rapidly phasing out fossil fuels was “doomed to fail”.

    The former prime minister’s comments, published in a report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), prompted an internal row within Labour, with some accusing him of playing into the hands of a narrative used by rightwing parties to delay climate action.

    Continue reading...

  • Advertising Standards Authority says neither Lavazza UK nor Dualit’s product can be recycled at home

    Descriptions of coffee pods as “compostable eco capsules” were misleading as they could not be composted at home, the Advertising Standards Authority has ruled.

    The ASA has banned adverts by Lavazza UK and Dualit, which both made claims about the eco credentials of their coffee products.

    Continue reading...

  • ‘Huge volumes of chicken muck’ entering rivers are harmful to fish and plants, campaigners argue at Cardiff high court

    Clean river campaigners have told a court that planning permission for a poultry megafarm in Shropshire is unlawful and should be overturned.

    In the high court in Cardiff on Wednesday, Dr Alison Caffyn argued that the council had failed to take into account all the environmental impacts of the industrial chicken units, which will house 230,000 birds at any one time, in particular the effects of spreading manure on land.

    Continue reading...

  • Corroboree frog belongs to 100m-year-old family of amphibians but is now found only in the puddles and peat bogs of Kosciuszko national park

    Scientists have sequenced the genome of the critically endangered southern corroboree frog – one of Australia’s most threatened amphibians – in hope that the information could be used to aid its recovery.

    The striking alpine frog, which has distinctive yellow and black markings, is so threatened by disease and the drying of its habitat due to climate change, that it is considered “functionally extinct”. The species survives in the temporary pools and peat bogs of Kosciuszko national park in New South Wales, with the help of zoo breeding and re-introduction programs.

    Continue reading...

  • The scheme, part of policy blitz for local elections, will encourage councils and police forces to work together

    Councils will be encouraged to work with police forces to seize and crush vehicles used by fly-tippers, in the latest phase of a government policy blitz before Thursday’s local elections.

    Under a scheme being led by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), new legislation will impose jail sentences of up to five years for people who illicitly transport waste in England.

    Continue reading...

  • Temperatures south Asians dread each year arrive early as experts talk of ever shorter transition to summer-like heat

    The summer conditions south Asian countries dread each year have arrived alarmingly early, and it’s only April. Much of India and Pakistan is already sweltering in heatwave conditions, in what scientists say is fast becoming the “new normal”.

    Temperatures in the region typically climb through May, peaking in June before the monsoon brings relief. But this year, the heat has come early. “As far as Asia and the Indian subcontinent are concerned, there was a quick transition from a short window of spring conditions to summer-like heat,” said GP Sharma, the meteorology president of Skymet, India’s leading private forecaster.

    Continue reading...

  • The plastic particles are everywhere – here’s what to know about what to avoid, whether they ever leave the body and what to do about plastic pollution

    Microplastics are tiny particles of plastic.

    Continue reading...

  • Joshua Bonnetta spent 8,760 hours recording a pine – then honed it down into a four-hour album full of creatures, cracking branches and quite possibly the sound of leaves growing

    What does a landscape sound like when it’s not being listened to? This philosophical question was a catalyst for film-maker and artist Joshua Bonnetta, who has distilled a year of recordings from a single tree in upstate New York – that’s 8,760 hours – into a four-hour album, The Pines. As Robert Macfarlane writes in his accompanying essay, The Pines is a reminder of the natural world’s “sheer, miraculous busyness”, its “froth of signals and noise”. It is rich with poetic meaning, and resonant amid the climate emergency.

    “It started as a personal thing,” Bonnetta explains from his studio in Munich, where he relocated from the US in 2022. For over 20 years he has made sonic records of places as private mementos, but recent experiments with long-form field recording led him to push himself “to document this place in the deepest way I could”. On a residency in the Outer Hebrides between 2017 and 2019, Bonnetta made the sound installation Brackish, a month-long continuous radio broadcast from a weather-resistant hydrophone – an underwater mic – by a loch. “I started to leave the recorder for a day or two, then it just got longer,” he says. “Amazing things happen when you’re not there to interfere … This allows you a different, very privileged window into the space.”

    Continue reading...

  • Climate experts say warming atmosphere from climate change could fuel severe freezing rain and ice storms like the one that hit the upper midwest last month

    Winter has been slow to release its icy grip from the upper midwest this year, and in northern Michigan, its effects will be keenly felt for months, perhaps years.

    A devastating ice storm that hit late last month has left an estimated 3m acres of trees snapped in half or damaged from the weight of up to an inch-and-a-half of ice across the northern part of lower Michigan.

    Continue reading...

  • Charity shops won’t take them. Councils incinerate them. Retailers dump them on the global south. We’re running out of ideas on how to deal with our used clothes – and the rag mountain just keeps growing

    In February, a threadbare polycotton bedsheet landed on the desk of Simon Roberts, CEO of Sainsbury’s. A “protest by post”, it had been sent by the Sheffield-based designer, maker and eco activist Wendy Ward. “I purchased this from Sainsbury’s at least 10 years ago,” she wrote in the accompanying letter. “It has served me well. However, I have no sustainable options available for what I should do with it.” Beyond repair, it was too damaged to donate to a charity shop, she explained. She couldn’t compost it as it had been blended with polyester, and she couldn’t repurpose it as cleaning cloths, as, being polycotton, it wasn’t absorbent. And, she added, “I don’t want to put it into a textile recycling collection as the likelihood is that it will be shipped overseas or incinerated and not recycled.” Ward qualified her assertions with links to respected sources – as a sustainable fashion PhD student, she is well informed on such matters.

    “The only action I can personally take,” she continued, “is to put it into my general waste bin. I don’t want to do this, as in Sheffield all general waste is incinerated as ‘energy recovery’. This isn’t a sustainable option as such processes have been shown to be as damaging to local air pollution as burning coal.” So, she concluded, “as Sainsbury’s is responsible for designing and manufacturing this product, making decisions to use polycotton with no consideration for what could be done once it reaches the end of its life, I have decided to return it to you. I would really love to hear what you decide to do with it.”

    Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds