OSLO BIRDER: Red-knobbed Coot

Showing posts with label Red-knobbed Coot. Show all posts

Friday, 4 October 2013

Mallorca

A week long holiday has, despite a hotel within walking distance of S'Albufera, meant little birding but that has been just fine :-)
A couple of short visits to the hides at S'Albufera did of course result in a few birds though.

adult Red-knobbed Coot - a couple of small things help separate this from its common cousin

juvenile Red-knobbed Coot - not so easy to separate from its common cousin

Purple Swamphen - note the incredibly long legs and how it uses them to hold the sedge grass that it bites off with its large bill

Little Egret

Garganey - the only one of its kind I could find amongst hundreds of Teal and Shoveler

whilst photographing this Golden Plover which I think is unusual here I completely missed the other bird lying down next to it (Stone Curlew)

this should definitely not have been here - a Harris Hawk which is a bird of North America and therefore an escapee

a Marbled Duck - along with the coots and swamphens these have been reintroduced to the marshlands of S'Albufera

Sunday, 21 October 2012

A Coot with knobs on

Not much in the way of weekend birding but a trip to the seafront around the Opera building was successful in its goal of showing the girls Guillemots (lomvi) and Razorbills (alke) with three of the former and four of the later feeding offshore. The Pink-footed Goose (kortnebbgås) is still here and judging by the amount of droppings it is finding enough nutrients in the grass verges here. Driving home we could see the returning Peregrine sitting on the top of the Plaza hotel (Oslo highest building).
With no photos to show for my efforts this weekend, here are some images of the Crested (Red-knobbed) Coots (knoppsothøne) I saw on Mallorca.

Just look at those red knobs!

I didn't find out if the ring signifies a released bird or not

Saturday, 6 October 2012

Mallorca photos

Towards the end of our week in Mallorca we visited the famous Boquer Valley. Going either side of midday was never going to be that productive but I did expect a litte more than Blue Rock Thrush (blåtrost), Booted Eagle (dvergørn), Raven (ravn), Crag Martin (klippesvale), Stonechat (svartstrupe), Pied Flycatcher (svarthvit fluesnapper) and Sardinian Warbler (svarthodesanger).
A drive to Sa Calobra on a fantastic mountain road full of switchbacks gave us at least 8 Black Vultures munkegribb) and 2 Griffons Vultures (gåsegribb) aswell as Booted Eagle and Kestrels (tårnfalk). On a future trip to Mallorca it will definitely be worth spending more time exploring the mountains.
The bay in Porto Pollenca offered bathing and birding with Auduoin's Gulls (middelhavsmåke), Black-headed Gulls (hettemåke), Shags (toppskarv) and Sandwich Terns (splitterne) resting on the offshore breakwaters. I waded out in the shallow water to within 20m of the birds to take pictures (hoping to get sea level shots of diving terns but i just missed this) and later swam to within 5 metres of the unaffected birds.

I only took the old 70-300mm lens with me and often found the light to be too harsh for good pictures but here is a selection of the best ones I took and I will have some separate postings of selected species later.

Red-knobbed Coot (knoppsothøne)

The new name is far more fitting than the old name of Crested Coot. After the breeding season they loose the redcurrants on their head and therefore far more resemble Common Coots (sothøne). The three birds I saw all had knobs and I couldn't pick out any without amongst the far more numerous Common Coots.

Purple Swamphen (sultanhøne)

This was a very common bird and not particularly shy.

Booted Eagle (dvergørn)

Alongside Kestrel, Booted Eagle was the commonest raptor we saw and although smaller than a Buzzard (musvåk) it has the feal of an eagle with longs fingers and a stout bill. Light and dark phase birds seemed to be equally common. On the dark phase birds the pale "landing lights" are very obvious on birds flying towards you.