Monday 10 November 2014

Spot the bird competition

Here are the answers to the spot the bird (and seal) competition:

The first is one of what have been called the 'striped sprites'. This Yellow-browed Warbler comes from the Siberian Taiga and has six stripes - two wing bars on each wing and a stripe above each eye. A Pallas's Warbler has all of these plus a stripe along its crown. As well as looking pretty cool these stripes break up the outline of the bird and provide it with the perfect camouflage for life in the forest.
Yellow-browed Warbler
 
Next is a Peregrine Falcon which is hidden by the shear number of its prey. The chances of a starling being taken by a bird of prey from a flock of 10 are 10% and only 1% from a flock of 100. So each bird in this flock of roughly 600 has only 0.17% chance of being taken by the Peregrine. No sweat!
Peregrine falcon, the fastest animal in the world can still only take one bird at a time, although there were three Peregrines hunting starlings that morning!! What are there chances now?
Last one and probably the hardest of them all. These two little seals are almost completely lost on this boulder beach. Our Grey Seals give birth to a single white coated pup in autumn. After three weeks of suckling on some very fat rich milk the white coat is moulted off and they are weaned. Their first adult coat is much better camouflage and makes our job of studying the seals much harder.
Two little fat weaners on South Haven beach
 


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