Common Goldeneye - Bucephala clangula
The Daily Bird has been a little lapsed this year - the Task has clearly not been a priority. My camera has been dutifully lugged around on business trips but more often than not a couple of hours sat in a bar with a colleague was more of a draw than a trip out to "collect" a species. I haven't applied myself to Local UAE birding by "patch watching" or day trips. I haven't done a weekend away by myself (despite the promised on new leech socks stacked in my wardrobe). I have managed a safari with the family to the Ruaha National Park in Tanzania - without that the Task would have been glacial this year. Birding itself takes time - when you couple it with camera equipment and the quest for a good shot it does require a commitment. It seems on some days quite an indulgence to drive the car into the desert and sit watching a patch of dirt for a couple of hours.
I am in North Wales just outside Holywell at the moment having flown over a couple of day's ago for Christmas. My wife's mother is 89 now and still independent to a large extent, perched in a bungalow on the side of what is an incredibly windy hill side just at the moment. Despite the storm that is battering the UK we made it out to Conway RSPB which is a 30 minute drive away for an hour's stomp around the lake. Conwy is a collection of gravel pits next to an estuary making its way out into the Irish Sea. It has a good visitor centre with a cafe, main shop but also a second hand bookstall which often has quite a few second hand field guides. I have written about purchasing from here in advance of world travels before.
The weather was fine when we set out, that low clear crisp Winter light which has a different quality - a cold, honeyed light - but great for photography. Birds are caught face on by the low rays and well lit. Definition is brought to surroundings. It was Jane's suggestion and a good one and the whole family was wrapped in scarfs, coats, coats, walking boots and even my veteran and ridiculous first birding hat made an appearance. In popular culture it would be best described as something sported by a fat dwarf in the latest Hobbit films. It has ear flaps and is constructed of bobbly dark charcoal grey wool - wool is doing it an enormous compliment - I am sure that it must have a fair contingent of man made fibre.
On the drive over the weather started to pile in from West. We knew there was rain coming in from the appearance of a rainbow over the sea.
Grey clouds, drizzle verging on sleet and a falling temperature reading on the venerable Audi all threatening my desire to get some sharp well lit pictures of Winter ducks. I also had dreams of shining yellow and green siskin, redpoll and other Winter Passerines frolicking in the alders. Instead as the barometer fell it was more likely to be a struggle in low light, cranking up the ISO and keeping the drizzle off of the lens.
But thats commitment isn't it - I can remember days on the Isle of Sheppey off the coast of Kent in hard Winters being whipped by hail and viscous sideways rain desperately trying to get slight glimpses of identification marks of small brown birds clinging to sea walls. For every day of Short Eared Owls wheeling in the sunshine I would make that two hour drive out from South London to be tortured by fell weather - but the UK list crept on and birds like Merlin, Lapland Bunting, Red-Breasted Merganser, Rough Legged Buzzard were never going to come to me sat in the centrally heated tower hide of Barn Elms in SE1 - a mile or two from the posh London neighbourhoods of Fulham or Clapham. So when I had some commitment to the first task - just seeing birds in the UK that were all new I would happily battle the elements, distance and tight weekend time resources to dig out those ticks. I don't seem to want to pay quite so much for my birds these days unless it involves a 5 star hotel or tent, a gin and tonic and a guide. I think I need to get down and dirty next year. Thats a big tangent !
My old birding hat puts me in touch with that 30 year old though - Xmas 1999 was the Xmas after I rediscovered birds having met Jane and and tip toed into being outdoors thanks to her father and dogs and things like that. I am sure the hat was a gift then - Xmas 1999 - it makes appearances in New Year pictures for a long time after. Trip reports are on an old box of a computer somewhere - set out in the style of a memo as it was a template I borrowed from work changing "from and "to" to "location" and "weather" ! I shall have to dig out all that stuff at some point and do some retro reporting. The first few times I was out on my own I felt very very odd - like a criminal doing something unseemly. Is this what grown up do ? Well evidently yes for fifteen years since.
So to Conwy in a different century and accompanied by my 12 and a 10 year old boys - 15 years after meeting my wife. A coffee and a wholewheat star with white chocolate - a nice leisurely stroll from hide to hide until my eldest thought we had lost the youngest and started screaming at me to hurry up. He gets anxious when the younger one runs ahead - I don't as the path leads back to a nice centrally heated coffee shop overlooking a play area ! I'd feel differently on a path in say Tanzania on the way back from dinner or breakfast. A Goldcrest defeated my best efforts to get a shot - painful - the ducks on show had all been logged (I think ?) on the Daily Bird. Siskin went over my head high and at speed. Frustrating - But then hoving into view like a beautiful ship from the boreal North, a viking gem with a great prow - a Goldeneye. A fine male example - a long way off and in low light so you will have to excuse the picture. The picture below gives you a better idea of the distance and this with a 400 m lens at full stretch (thats a 25-30 x in birdwatching terms).
The clue to the trained eye is that big fat black head (actually very dark glossy green - and now you can understand why I crave that Winter light !) and the white neck ring. To the left I think are Northern Teal, much smaller and the top most bird is just showing the scoop up of its delicate bill. There were Mallard, Gadwall, Shovelor, Coot and Moorhen scattered across the surface of the lakes (all logged on the bird) but only this one male Goldeneye. So whats so special about these ?
For starters (and mains and pudding) they breed in hollows and holes in trees. Often in coniferous forests in the high North near to freshwater lakes. Heres the trick - The ducklings when ready to fledge have to launch themselves from their nest high up in the canopy to crash down to the forest floor before making their way out to the Lake following Mum. Check out this amazing picture here of the leap of faith ! . Which brings me back to Xmas.
One of my Xmas presents this year was a Goldeneye nesting box - a generic one by way of an RSPB Home for Wildlife gift - but the money donated will put up a box somewhere for the RSPB in Loch Garten or the like. So if it goes up this Winter by June little balls of black, white and grey fluff will be launching themselves out on their great adventure. One of my boys got a home for a water vole and my mother in law I think a doormouse box somewhere. Somewhere in the high crisp North my little box should be hanging on a tree - a box full of promise.
So I like Goldeneyes because they are beautiful but also because of how they start off in life. Great ducks.
Goldeneye, Bucephala clangula
RSPB Conwy
Boxing Day, 2013
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