Nuthatch

 

 

It's been a while since I posted anything bird-related, but I took these videos of a nuthatch yesterday, while in La Granja de San Ildefonso, near Segovia, Spain. Such a beautiful bird!

Bird of the day

A serin, perched outside my window, along Carrer del Nord, Terrassa, today, 10 minutes ago! A pretty little finch, they are common here.

Holiday birdwatching (with more quality photos)

On our recent holiday to the North Norfolk coast, I was able to see some interesting birds. The weather was quite bad for a few days, which limited the number of outdoors trips we could make. We did make it to Titchwell Marsh Nature Reserve (in really strong winds). The main highlights of the week were several little egrets in the harbour at Wells-next-the-sea (one pictured), little terns and sandwich terns, various waders (oystercatchers, redshanks, turnstones, avocets (see photo), sanderlings, ringed plovers), a male and a female marsh harrier at Titchwell and 2 turtle doves. In total, I saw 69 species (including the journeys)

Photos of barn owl stealing food from a kestrel

There is a great photo of a barn owl and a kestrel here. You may need to scroll down to it. Clicking on the photo opens up another photo of the same incident. Note, the photo will eventually disappear as new ones are added over time.

Random Notes in May

As it is over a month since I last posted, and I have nothing substantive to say, I thought I would make a few random notes to keep updated.

I discovered facebook yesterday and am very impressed. I have also been playing around with my website, I believe that the design to the "site in construction" page is somewhat improved!!

I am currently working on a series of Bible studies for international students. The series is entitled "Knowing God" and is based on a selection of Psalms. The course begins tomorrow, so if you're reading this and know God, please pray that some internationals would come. I may put the studies on my website eventually, but this is the outline of the course:

• Psalm 19 - Knowing God
• Psalm 139 - What is God Like? (1)
• Psalms 23 and 13 - The Happiness of Knowing God
• Psalm 33 - What is God Like? (2)
• Psalm 49 - Money, Life and Death
• Psalms 14 and 32 - Knowing God and Not Knowing God

Some interesting birdwatching recently: wheatears, yellow wagtail and redstart one day at Attenborough Nature Reserve. I saw/heard 8 different warblers on another day, including a grasshopper warbler, with its bizarre "muffled alarm clock" song. I also missed (according to the Nottinghamshire birdwatchers website) some bar-tailed godwits, a black-tailed godwit, a green sandpiper, arctic terns, an osprey, a crane, a spotted crake!!

I was given Pierced For Our Transgressions for Easter. I'm looking forward to reading it, although haven't had a chance to yet. I have noted, however, that there has been considerable debate about it, including a contribution from N.T.Wright: see also here and here.

My brother seems to have given up on his blog (!) but some of his music is on myspace. Go on, have a listen!

Timothy (21 months) can now hiss like a snake and roar like a lion!!

Rare ducks

I saw some unusual ducks at Colwick Country Park last saturday. Here are some photos of them. At the bottom, a Mandarin duck is to the right of a female mallard. Mandarin ducks are not native to Britain, but have established a "wild" breeding population in parts of the country. I had never seen one in the "wild" before. Several ducks can be seen in the top photo. The unusual ducks are sat next to each other to the right of the centre of the photo, underneath a large branch. Guesses as to their identification in the comments, please!! Or click here. There was a male and a female; it was the first time I had seen a male, which is particularly attractive.

Blackbird in our garden 2

Rosemary helpfully pointed (here) out that the blackbird in my previous post wasn't actually in our garden. True. Happily, it returned a few days later and did alight on our lawn. Hooray!

Notes on a few websites

• This week is China week at the Times (here). You can download lesson podcasts in basic conversational Mandarin. Very exciting!
• Mark has begun a new blog. Underlined bits is simply a space where contributors can share "thought-provoking and inspiring quotations from evangelical writings"
• Oak Hill Theological College has just appointed a new principal, to start when David Peterson returns to Australia in the summer. If you want to know who he is, click here.
• I couldn't resist adding in an old favourite. At Nottinghamshire Birdwatchers, you can see what birds have been seen around Notts recently. See similar sites for Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire.
• I also recommend The Pension Service and HM Revenue and Customs. Helpful information about pensions, taxes etc.

Blackbird in our garden!

News. Bird in garden!

I know that this is a rubbish photo. But there is a blue tit in it, and it is IN OUR GARDEN. Can you spot it? As we very rarely have birds in our garden (see here and here), this is quite an event. In fact, my entry for the RSPB Great Garden Birdwatch comprised 4 house sparrows and two blue tits; not impressive.

Actually, we have had blue tits quite regularly recently - probably because of the food we have put up. We also had a grey wagtail in our back garden a week ago, and before that a female blackcap, and to be honest, they are rather impressive - at least for our garden! I have never seen a blackcap in January before; it's mostly a summer migrant, but "increasingly spending the winter in the UK." (source)

A house sparrow in our garden (2)

Back in January I wrote about the scarcity of birds
in our garden. (here) We've added a few more birds to our garden list since then - blackbird, starlings, greenfinch, and have had house sparrows passing through on several occasions. This house sparrow visited our garden today. (BTW, now you can see the industrial state our garden backs on to)

Arenaria interpres

Why have I renamed my blog "arenaria interpres"?

1. I wanted a name that more accurately reflects what this blog is about.
2. I wanted a name that would reflect my interest in birds. Arenaria interpres is the latin name for the turnstone, the bird that appears in the two photos here and here.
3. Mark suggested something in Latin!
4. I like the connotations suggested by the word "turnstone". Something about leaving no stone unturned.
5. I like the connotations suggested by the latin name, especially "interpres" (although the precise sense intended in the bird's name escapes me for the moment).

Arenaria: from the Latin arena, "sand," referring to the sandy habitats of many species (source)
interpres: [derived from inter, meaning between, and pres, a form of prehendo, prendo, meaning to catch, lay hold of, grasp, take. Literally: Caught in between]
A middle man, mediator, broker, negotiator, Interpres divum, messenger, Mercury, Explainer, expounder, translator, interpreter (source)

I hope, though, that this blog would be of one who builds his house on the rock rather than on the sand. (Matthew 7:24-27)

Turnstones on shore

Ruddy Turnstone (playero vuelvepiedras, arenarias interpres)
Originally uploaded by Tim Abbott.

Turnstone feeding on fiddler crab

翻石鷸捕食北方呼喚招潮蟹 Turnstone feeding on fiddler crab
Originally uploaded by 彰化海岸保育行動.

Unanswered Questions

One of my big answered questions, is “what is the significance of the black-tailed godwit?” This may sound rather bizarre, but stay with me. The black-tailed godwit is a wading bird that I find particularly fascinating, but any natural phenomenon could be inserted in the question. It is my way of asking ‘why do all the wonders of the natural world exist?’ Why so much variety? Such abundance? There is a character in C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength whose ideal utopia is a moonscape: away with the clutter and irregularities of nature! Poirot has these tendencies too (see the dramatised version of the Mysterious Affair at Styles). But we don’t live in a cuboid purged of ‘dirty nature’. We live in a world of such wonder, such diversity, such drama. Why? Why has God made all this? I know the answer at a simple level – it is to bring glory to God. And such a world should elicit our wonder and thanks to Him who made it all. Yet I am sure that there are depths to that answer that will take eternity to explore.

Two things I find beautiful

I was thrilled to see arctic terns in Helsinki – not the mere fact of seeing them and hence being added to my lifelist (I once read of a serial birdwatcher who watched his first azure tits (bird no. 5000-and-something on his life list) for barely 10 seconds, so eager was he to get onto the next ‘tick’) – but the delightful watching of them, the oh-so-subtle differences that distinguish it from the common tern, the way one twice dived into the water barely yards away as we were praying on the beach, the way they flew – especially the way they flew, so elegant, so graceful. What a delight! What a thrill! Praise God for the arctic tern!

Yet I experienced something even more beautiful in Helsinki, the beauty of Christian fellowship, generosity, kindness and joy. We stayed with my sister-in-law’s family for a week before and after their wedding. It was a wonderful time, an experience of the most beautiful hospitality and generosity. And the wedding too was truly Christian, saturated with joy and thankfulness. Of course, not everyone there was a Christian, but the two families were, and there was a tone to the proceedings of purity, reverence and rejoicing in the goodness of God. I am grateful for this experience.

My prayers for my brother and his wife are that God would fill their lives and their home with joy, beauty and the love of God, and that through them people may be attracted to the Lord Jesus, as their lives adorn the gospel. And I pray that for ourselves too.

Creating the beautiful. The above thoughts made me think the following, first of all in the context of our own family, but then too for the church. We have an opportunity to build something beautiful, an opportunity, through the grace of God, to build something full of joy, goodness and love, something that will bring great glory to God. Is this not, in part, what we should be seeking to do in our churches? God’s purpose is to create something beautiful – a community of people, washed from their sins, reconciled to Him, knit into deep relationships with each other, a people amongst whom love and joy and goodness flourish, a people who are – to use Mark Dever’s phrase – to be “a display of God’s glory amongst a world of human sin and suffering.”1 What an amazing project to be involved with! What a privilege to be signed up by God for it through his gracious salvation! And how great it is that God is the one who is at work and who guarantees the project’s success!

PS If anyone is reading who knows us and wants to see some photos of my bro's wedding, send me an e-mail.

1 This phrase is part of the end-script found on the 9 marks interviews series

Arctic terns in Helsinki

We have just been away for a week for my brother's wedding in Finland. Before posting anything else about the wedding, I must put up a couple of photos of an absolutely stunning bird I saw: an arctic tern sitting on a rock barely metres away from the shore round the back of the hotel where the wedding reception was held.

Arctic terns are beautiful. In flight they are deliciously elegant, even more so than the common tern which in turn (forgive the pun) is vastly more graceful than any gull.

We do get arctic terns in the UK, but they are rather elusive (I've never seen one). Common terns are much commoner!

Arctic terns are difficult to distinguish from common terns, but the following features are indicative:

1. arctic terns have very short legs

2. the arctic tern's tail streamers extend beyond the wings when standing

3. the arctic tern's bill is a deeper shade of red while the common's also usually has a black tip

4. the arctic tern's underparts are slightly greyer

5. the arctic tern's head is slightly rounder

Most of these features, but especially 1 and 2, are just about evident from the closeup photo.

A fearless nuthatch

There is a patch of ground under some trees on a small island in the middle of a lake on the grounds of Nottingham University where the animals are fearless. My wife calls it the magical forest. Squirrels, mallards and pigeons rush to meet you; stock doves linger just a little further back; smaller birds such as great tits, chaffinches and blue tits also come remarkably close. We visited the lake last week and were delighted to find a nuthatch with equal boldness. It is a beautiful bird. I was able to get within 1 or 2 metres to take this photo with our digital camera. Remarkable!

A House Sparrow (Passer Domesticus) in our garden

I love birds and watching them, but sadly we have probably the worst garden in Britain for birds. It is small and backs onto a small industrial estate in which there is often an ice cream warehouse and, sometimes, invisibly, a Ferrari. A reasonable species total for a typical suburban garden may range, I would say, between 20 and 30, but in 2.5 years, I have seen a mere 6 kinds of birds in our garden: a few house sparrows, a robin (maybe a couple of times), a wren (once), a pair of great tits (once), some long-tailed tits (once) and (very incredibly) a grey wagtail!!! - the latter when we had no grass on our lawn. We could have joined in the RSPB's Garden Birdwatch but I haven't seen a single bird in the back garden for months (since October 28th to be precise!)

The front garden is even smaller, and has only recently had a few birds when we have put some seed balls out. The photo shows a brave house sparrow in our bush (the house that is visible is a neighbour's) . And to our great joy, two blue tits joined in for a few minutes about a week ago!!

"Birds in our street" would probably be up around the 25-30 mark. There have been mistle thrushes occasionally, and even a linnet and a willow tit have made appearances! Slightly further afield, sparrowhawks can be seen every now and then zooming across the estate and, most special of all, I found a solitary waxwing last winter in a small tree within shouting distance of our house. Only the fourth time I've ever seen a waxwing.