Canvasback at Abberton Reservoir ...

 A second visit to Abberton Reservoir on 20th August was a very different experience from my day there last winter ... on that occasion I day-tripped the site, getting badly held up on the way there and was unable to locate the bird among the five thousand or so Pochards that dived, spun round, flew out of sight and generally made for a bad experience in the biting wind ...

This time I booked overnight accommodation in Colchester ... on arrival the bird was loafing on the eastern shore of the western causeway ...

... with the head in full profile the relatively fine tipped but broad based bill contrasted with Pochard ...

... one of the best distinguishing features from Pochard was the forward sloping border between the dark breast and pale flank ... this border being vertical on Pochard ...

... as the bird turned this feature no longer applied ...

... in all views the almost uniform dark grey bill contrasted with the dark tipped biull of Pochard, the dark lores also showed consistently ...

... depending on attitude the mantle shade was not always strikingly paler ...

... one minor feature was iris colour which was rather a dull red compared with Pochard's bright red iris ...

... here the paler mantle is very much apparent ...

Book Review - Ten Birds That Changed the World by Stephen Moss

 It's been quite some time since I reviewed a book on this blog but since finishing reading this book today I was prompted to put virtual pen to paper.

Funnily enough I had no particular intention of buying books when I browsed the Wildsounds (I think it was) stand at BirdFair and came across it; I remembered having read Mrs Moreau's Warbler by the same author and thought it was worth a go despite admittedly not being particularly inspitred by the title (how wrong can you be !).

As I browsed the chapter headings the choice of species seemed rather unusual - there is however a very good reason for choosing each species and that is because there is a very interesting story behind each one.

I started reading chapter one which features Raven.  Having just finished doing some field research for Adam Nicolson for his section on Wordsworth's Ravens in his forthcoming book I rather arrogantly thought that I would learn nothing new - it turned out that I not only learned a quite a few new things but really enjoyed the new perspective that Stephen brought to the species.

Several other chapters, for instance the Snowy Egret one that deals with the Victorian feather trade, were ones I knew quite a lot about but again found them refreshing and grabbed my attention.

And then there were chapters that brought something completely new to me.  Chairman Mao's bid to eliminate the Tree Sparrow from China in 1958 was a complete surprise and tells a tale of totally inept ecological management that had a devastating effect and one contrary to the intended result.

The book is beautifully written and crafted with intriguing introductions to each chapter that draw the reader in with a sense of curiosity.  During the course of reading it I ordered two more books because I became fascinated by the subject concerned and wanted to dig deeper: one on Darwin's Finches and the other on where bird species originated from.

So I wholeheartedly reccomend this book, and if you think it won't contain stuff that's new to you then I'm pretty sure you'd be wrong.

When I was paying for the book the guy on the till said 'you could get it signed, Stephen's sitting right there'  So I went over and had a lovely chat with him...