Birdwatch: Crested tit

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/22/birdwatch-crested-tit-loch-garten

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When birding, my wife Suzanne swears by a simple principle: if you want to see the best birds, stay in the car park.

And it works. During the past few years we’ve seen a nightingale singing in full view at Stodmarsh in Kent; hordes of American wood warblers passing over Cape May, New Jersey; and a club-tailed dragonfly (not a bird, but the same principle applies) at the end of a long walk along the River Severn last spring. All in (or over) car parks.

So on our half-term holiday in Scotland we knew exactly where to go: the car park at RSPB Loch Garten in Speyside. This is usually packed with vehicles, but being February, the ospreys were still sunning themselves in Africa, so the place was almost empty.

Apart, that is, from the birds. Flocks of chaffinches, unobtrusive on the ground, revealed their presence, as they took to the wing when disturbed by the drumming of a nearby great spotted woodpecker.

Four species of tits competed for space on the bird feeders: each taking turns to help themselves to seeds and peanuts.

As usual, the great tits were dominant, closely followed by the smaller but feisty blues. Coal tits – monochrome versions of their familiar cousins – nipped in and out, while the long-tailed tits were far more circumspect. There were treecreepers, too: half-a-dozen of these charismatic little birds circling the thick trunks of the Scots pines, occasionally flashing their white underparts. And best of all, a fifth species of tit: the crested, a bird we’d been hoping to see, as this is the only part of Britain where it can be found.

Crested tits are well suited to their surroundings: their soft browns and mottled greys perfectly mimicking the bark and lichen on the birches and Scots pines. One perched momentarily on half a coconut a few feet away, giving us the chance to appreciate his exquisite markings, before flitting off into the forest once again.

Later in the week we went back with our friend Sue, from the Grant Arms Hotel’s Bird Watching and Wildlife Club, and my children held out hands full of birdseed for the great, blue and coal tits (but sadly not the crested) to come and feed.

The car park at the bottom of Cairn Gorm could hardly be more different from Loch Garten: packed with cars, each depositing their load of skiers dressed in ludicrously bright colours. Yet there were birds here too: a flock of snow buntings, the world’s toughest songbird, flashing their white wings as they swirled around like snowflakes.

But we couldn’t stay in car parks for the whole holiday: so my son Charlie and I tramped halfway up the mountain. At first we saw nothing, but eventually we flushed a ptarmigan, which flew croaking into the distance; followed immediately by a mountain hare, which ran off almost from beneath our feet.

At dawn on our final morning, just before the long drive south, we watched a score of black grouse at their lek, whose ornate courtship dance was rudely interrupted by a passing goshawk.

But for the highlight of the trip, it was hard to beat that crested tit, popping down to grab a bite to eat as we stood in the car park; thus proving, as if I needed any confirmation, that my wife is always right.

Twitter: @stephenmoss_tv