My A-Z of Birding, Blogging and Volunteering - Part One

I have recently celebrated my second year of blogging on here. Way back in March 2012 I was given a unique opportunity to share with you my enthusiasm and passion for the great wonder of Welsh and British nature. I wondered how I could celebrate that on here, and I decided on doing my own personal A-Z of some of my favourite creatures and of the wonderful things I have seen and experienced, in the most part down to my time as a volunteer for RSPB Cymru here in South Wales. I warn you now I have no idea where I am going with each letter of the alphabet, or how many blogs this will take … so strap yourselves in for the ride …

A is for Ant

I have always been fascinated by ants. I can never quite get my mind around the idea of a hive structure, the thought of the whole colony acting like one huge organism working with of individuals. It really sounds like the stuff of horror writers. I always look through the documentary channels on Sky to see if there is anything on these denizens of the undergrowth. When I was little kid I used to love studying them as they made nests underneath the patio stones, occasionally lifting a stone to see the egg chambers beneath. I remember staying at my grandfather’s house once, and was incredibly lucky to see an ant war. Ants are of course the only other species apart from us to wage war. We were sat there and we watched a rival black ant and red ant colony pour out onto an area of the garden and all the battles take place. I’ll probably never forget it. Ants also farmers! They cultivate fungi in their nests, and keep “herds” of aphids, protecting them from attacking ladybirds. The aphids repay the ants with droplets of sugary honeydew which they secrete. Their ability to carry loads that are many multiples of their own body weight makes them, pound for pound, one of the strongest animals on the planet.

I am of course an Ant too!

B is for Birds

Why else would most of us be here if it was not for the love of our feathered friends. With such a wide diversity and colonising practically every part of the planet it is no wonder that bird watching is one of the most common past times anywhere. Bird watching is a hobby that just keeps giving. There is always something new to observe, even if it is common behaviour. There are always new species you can add to your list that you can confidently identify. Bird song provides a natural symphony to most nature reserves, local parks or woodlands near you. I can only imagine how rich that tapestry of sound must have been when the numbers of our most common birds were at levels in the multiples of hundreds if not thousands of now. One of the things I always look back at, at the end of every year, is the birds I could never have ID’d readily the year before. I spend a lot of time looking at waders, one of the hardest groups of birds to learn, and yet I can now quite easily pick out Little Stints and Common Sandpipers in flocks of other waders. I can tell the difference between the Curlew and the Whimbrel from picking out the key diagnostics in the eye stripe and the beak. I know that the birdwatchers rule of if looks a bit like Godwit but isn’t a Godwit then it’s a Ruff is true! I’ve learnt a bit of this by looking at my Collins guide, and from magazines, but nothing teaches you better than being out there and observing and talking to more experienced birdwatchers.

C is for Canada Goose

The official British Bird List as recorded by the British Ornithological Union is ordered chronologically from when they were first observed. There are currently 596 birds on this list. The first bird on that list recorded in 530AD is the Robin Redbreast. For my own personal list, number one would be the Canadian Goose. It wasn’t the first bird I had ever seen of course. When I was growing up I remember the Cuckoo’s calling on the Penrhys hillside, something my dad says he rarely hears on his allotment now, but the Canada Goose was the bird that started the passion in me for birds and ultimately the conservationist in me. I had no idea that one afternoon at Freiston Shore, South Lincolnshire, and a family Canadian Geese and goslings would lead to all of these blogs and some of the wonderful people I have met in the past two years, all thanks to RSPB Cymru.

I will continue this A-Z next week …

All Images © Anthony Walton