This is a memoir of a COVID-invigorated Bird Spotter and his July 2021 journey from Half Moon Bay to the pinnacles of the Southeast Farallon Islands, and waters beyond, in search of pelagic birds: puffins, shearwaters, storm-petrels, and albatross. My thanks go to Alvaro Jaramillo …
For thousands of years, domesticated pigeons have been an integral part of human life. Egyptian hieroglyphics and stone carvings in Mesopotamia (now modern Iraq) indicate that these birds were domesticated at least 5,000 years ago. Over centuries they have been kept as symbols of prosperity, …
It was the summer of 1954 when my childhood hobby of birds’ egg collecting came to an end. The British government implemented the Protection of Birds Act, 1954 that forbid me to take wild birds’ eggs, and at the same time, protected adults and their nests from human interference. The United States had many years earlier, in 1918, introduced similar legislation through its Migratory Bird Treaty Act that applied to approximately 1100 species, but which excluded non-native types such as house sparrows, European starlings, and pigeons.
Where I lived, up until the mid-1950s, it was normal to go “bird nesting” and gather the eggs you found to build up your egg collection. I never thought about the consequences on bird populations. Even after it was illegal, I refused to throw away my assortment of eggs. More about my egg collecting habits can be found in my two novels Unplanned and She Wore a Yellow Dress.
With these strict new controls, you would have expected bird populations to boom, but this has not always been the case. The reasons are complicated and below I try to describe some of the important aspects of avian demographics. At the end of this paper, I illustrate the decline using the European skylark and North America bobolink.
A. Background data
B. The skylark and the bobolink
Two examples of bird species under serious threat are the Eurasian skylark and the American bobolink (named for its bubbling “Bob O’Lincoln” song). The species are not related. The bobolink is a member of the blackbird family and the skylark belongs to the lark group of birds; only its cousin, the horned lark, is native to North America. Both species rely on grassland and farmland, which are the habitats in North America that have suferred the greatest loss of bird population during the past 50 years, with a 53 percent decline and a reduction of half a billion birds.
Both species symbolize the countryside’s return of summer. Males deliver a bubbly, metallic song, often fluttering high above the fields, as they look for mates. Their melody has been associated with joy, freedom and enthusiasm, and has inspired poets such as Emily Dickinson, Shelley, Tennyson and Wordsworth. Both species nest on the ground, but that is where the similarities end.
Their appearance is distinctively different as the illustrations below show.
The bobolink migrates between southern Canada and the northern states to southern South America twice a year, a return journey of approximately 12,500 miles (20,000 km). In contrast, skylarks generally do not migrate. However, the two species are known to appear in each other’s territory and both are suffering serious declines in their native habitat.
Skylarks, while still common in the UK with a population of about 1.7 million, are calculated to have experienced a population decline of around 75 percent since the early 1970s. The switch in agriculture from spring to fall sown cereals has interfered with the birds’ food supply; the move from hay to silage has caused nests to be destroyed by machinery due to earlier harvesting; and on grasslands, intensified stock grazing exposes nests to trampling and makes them more accessible to predators. Efforts to reverse this trend are underway and include more organic farming, providing incentives for sowing spring crops, and implementing standards to prevent nest destruction. Indications at the present time are that these steps are stabilizing the population of skylarks
The plight of the bobolink is similar that of the skylark, with its population having declined around 65 percent since 1970. Even so, it is fairly common, with a breeding population of around eight million, of which 28 percent breed in Canada and 72 percent in the United States. Habitat destruction is the main cause for their loss of breeding territory, and it has to contend with dangerous pesticides in its wintering locations and is often treated as an agricultural pest. While on migration, it is hunted as food in places such as Jamaica.
Efforts are underway to control these interferences, with bans on dangerous pesticides, encouraging working farms to establish additional grassland, maintaining larger fields that apparently are preferred by the bobolink, and probably, most important of all, incentivizing farmers to mow hay fields outside the breeding season.
During the 1950s and 1960s, as a young birder in the north of England, I ignored the rather common, drab and inconspicuous-looking birds known as house sparrows and tree sparrows. Both are Old World species, distributed across Europe and Asia, and rarely migrate significant distances. …
Recently, I came across a glossy, all-black American crow removing fiber from the back of my outdoors lounge chair. It gave me a look of disgust and then resumed its destruction, presumably using the stuffing to decorate its nest some distance away. Both sexes look …
Blue-crowned mot mot
The first resplendent quetzal I ever saw was on April 5, 1998 in the Monteverde Cloud Forest, Costa Rica. The species is considered by many to represent the most beautiful bird in the world, and although it was partially obscured by the dark forest canopy, it was sufficient to cause one of my companions to burst into tears. “It’s my wife” he said. “Her greatest ambition was to see one of these birds, but she died last year of cancer”.
I had been much more impressed by the several blue-crowned motmots we had stopped to photograph during our minibus journey from San Jose to Monteverde. However, my opinion was to change later.
This was my first dedicated overseas trip for birding although I had followed the hobby of bird watching in England during the late 1950s and 1960s. Each of the first 35 chapters of my “coming-of-age” novel She Wore a Yellow Dress is dedicated to a bird that influenced my early life, and the last chapter is given as a special tribute to my deceased wife who supported my love of birding. Only the hoopoe, from chapter nine of the book, deserves a special mention at this time, although it does not make my top ten.
22 years later, when I was back in Costa Rica, I came across a pair of quetzals during a hike I was taking along the Savegre river valley. The birds were out searching for their favorite food – wild avocados – which they swallow whole before regurgitating the pips. That magnificent sighting took them to the top of “my most beautiful birds” that I have ever seen.
A pair of quetzals in the Savegre national forest.
It also prompted the task of trying to select the top ten species of bird that I consider to be the most beautiful birds in the world, even though I may not have seen them. What follows are the results of my efforts and descriptions of the birds I have selected. I used plumage, visual presentation, and my desire to represent all 7 Continents to create this list.
Here comes number one.
1. Green-headed tanager (South America)
A striking, multi-colored songbird (with several different opalescent colors) that is endemic to the Brazilian Atlantic Forest (only about 10 percent of the original forest survives today). The species’ territory includes south-east Brazil, parts of Paraquay, and north-east Argentina. Surprisingly, the bird’s flashy coloring is used as camouflage while it forages among the forest canopy to find its diet of fruit and insects. The Portugese name for the bird is “Saira-seta-coras”, meaning seven-colored tanager.
Its breeding season is November to February in Brazil; November and December in Paraquay; and November in Argentina. Its population is unknown but the number appears stable, and although abiding in the same area most of the time, some may undertake small seasonal migrations between the forest and semi-open habitats.
2. Keel-billed toucan (Central/South America)
A species noted for its unmistakable, large, rainbow-colored bill, often considered one of the most beautiful birds in the world. Despite the bill’s appearance, it is hollow, made of keratin, with thin rods of bone for support, and therefore is not heavy. The bird’s plumage is mainly black, with a yellow neck and chest, and the bird is heard more than it is seen because of its preference for living in the tops of forest canopies; it moves between trees by hopping due to its limited flying abilities, and is found from Southern Mexico to Venezuela and Colombia; it is the national bird of Belize and the global population is estimated at up to 500,000.
3. Bee hummingbird (Cuba – North America)
This is the smallest bird in the world at 2.4 inches (6.1 cm) long, and weighs under 0.1 ounce (2.6 grams). It is found exclusively in the Cuban archipelago and is sometimes mistaken for a bumble bee since, as well as its smallness, the bird makes a buzzing noise when it flies. The male displays an iridescent red head and throat, black tips to its wings, grey-white underparts, and the remainder is bluish-green. The birds are sedentary, often living alone, but play a vital role in the ecosystem by picking up pollen on their bill and head, and passing it on as they fly from flower to flower. In a day, a bird may visit 1,500 flowers.
The species occupies the rain forest and forest edges where there are bushes and lianas. Its nest is about the size of a quarter and its eggs the size of a coffee bean. The bird has the ability to fly straight up and straight down, backwards and even upside down. Its population size is unknown, but the species is believed to be in decline.
4. Wilson’s bird-of-paradise (West Papua, Indonesia – Asia)
This species of bird-of-paradise, out of an estimated 42 types, exhibits more colors than any other bird in the family. Birds-of-paradise are extraordinary creatures, not only for the colors of their plumage, but their lacey feathers that they wear arranged into disks, flags, ribbons or wires, and that they use in dances and mating displays. In the circumstances of the Wilson’s bird-of-paradise, its teal crown is actually bare skin. The species occurs within a small range, limited to the islands of Waigeo and Batanta off the West Papua coast. Their mating ritual includes the male flashing its brilliant green fluorescent collar and calling out to the female. Supposedly, with all birds-of-paradise, the female is the one that selects her partner and chooses the one with the “sexiest” display. So long as this process continues, we can expect incredible colors and decorative feathers among this family of birds.
5. European bee-eater (Europe)
One of Europe’s most colorful birds, with an estimated breeding population of 3 to 5 million pairs. It occurs as a rare vagrant and infrequently breeds in the United Kingdom, preferring to inhabit the warmer climates of southern Europe and North Africa. Its plumage is highly distinctive with a yellow throat, rusty brown upperparts and turquoise underneath. Its diet makes it unique. As the name suggests, bees are its preferred food, although it will take butterflies, dragonflies, flying ants, and even wasps. To avoid being stung by its prey it will return to its perch and repeatedly thrash the insect against a branch to release the sting. It may catch up to 250 bees a day.
6. Grey-crowned crane (Africa)
You are more likely to see this species in a zoo than out in the wild. Its size and form, as well as its plumage, qualify it for a place on my list of most beautiful birds. Today, there are about 30,000 grey-crowned cranes living in the wild. Their usual territory is wetland/grassland in eastern and southern Africa, especially in Kenya, Uganda (where it is the national bird), Zambia and South Africa. These majestic long-legged birds stand 3.3 feet (100cm) tall, have grey bodies, white wings with brown and gold feathers, white cheeks, and a bright red inflatable throat pouch beneath their chin. The most striking feature is a spray of stiff golden feathers forming a crown around their heads. They are non-migratory, although some may move short distances.
They are famous for their elaborate mating display that includes dancing, bowing, running and jumping, while raising their wings and inflating their red throat sacks.
15 species of crane exist worldwide, including the sandhill and whooping cranes in North America, and the common and demoiselle in Europe. Do not confuse cranes with storks. Storks are not closely related, do not vocalize like cranes and are more heavily built, especially in the bill.
7. Bullock’s oriole (North America)
This songbird occupies the west of the United States, whereas a close relative, known as the Baltimore oriole, is the equivalent in the east of the country, and up until 1975, the two species were combined into one, called the Northern oriole. The adult male is medium-sized and has bright orange underparts, a black back, large white wing patches, and a black throat and black line through the eye. They are nimble and highly active birds, searching for caterpillars, and feeding on nectar and fruit. They breed on the western side of North America from southern British Columbia into north Mexico, and winter as far south as Central America. On the Great Plains, their range overlaps with the Baltimore oriole and the two species occasionally hybridize. Both male and female Bullock’s orioles sing, the male more sweetly and the female often more prolifically. A special trait is there determination to resist interference from the brown-headed cowbird that tries to use them as host parents. They are one of the very few species that will puncture and eject brown-headed cowbirds’ eggs laid in their nests.
8. Golden pheasant (China – Asia)
A delightful, timid and beautiful gamebird, native to the forests and mountains of western and central China. Additionally, it has a substantial feral population elsewhere in the world, with birds having been relocated to North America, South America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Two thirds of the bird’s length is accounted for by its golden-brown tail, and it sports an unmistakable golden crest and rump, green patches on its back, a bright red body, and its legs and bill are yellow.
Golden pheasants feed on the ground on grain, leaves and invertebrates, but roost high in the trees at night. This very colorful species is commonly seen in zoos, aviaries, on farms and in gardens worldwide, but in the wild, they hide in the dark forest during the daytime and retreat to their tree-top roosts for the night. If startled, they can burst into flight at great speed.
9. Snow petrel (Antarctica)
An odd-one-out among the species I have selected, and its inclusion reflects its pure white plumage, jet-black eyes and beak, and its bravery in breeding as far south as the Geographic South Pole. It lives on krill and has to travel to the open sea to find its food. The name petrel is of unclear origin but is believed to come from the bird’s habit of running on water before taking off. Today, an estimated 4 million birds inhabit the Antarctica Continent and surrounding islands.
10. Gouldian finch (Australia)
These birds are native to the tropical grasslands of northern Australia, are extremely attractive and strikingly colorful, and can morph into different colors on their face while retaining a consistent pattern elsewhere, combining greens, blues, orange and purple. For example, there is the black-headed, red-headed and yellow-headed Gouldians, and a few even have an orange face. The explanation is that they regulate the production of melanin and that different amounts cause the color differences (polymorphism is the technical term). The species was, until the late 1960s, trapped and exported as cage birds, and some estimates suggest that less than 2,500 exist today in the wild.
OTHER BIRDS: I confess there are many other species of beautiful bird that deserve a mention; just a few include the peacock (India), hyacinth macaw (S. America), flamingo (Americas, Africa and parts of Europe and Asia), condors (Americas), scarlet ‘I’ iwi (Hawaii), mandarin duck (Asia), Atlantic puffin (N. America and Europe), yellow-billed cardinal (Central South America), great hornbill (Asia), Victoria-crowned pigeon (New Guinea – Asia), bohemian waxwing (N. America), Adelie penguin (Antarctica), king parrot (Australia), Vulturine guinea fowl (NE. Africa), several species of kingfisher (Americas, Europe, and Asia)), and of course, the bald eagle (N. America).
Hopefully, my top ten and the ones listed above, plus the quetzal and hoopoe, can influence your personal selection.
Growing up in Yorkshire, I called them waterhens (now more usually known as moorhens). They are humble birds, preferring freshwater wetlands, and are sedentary, except that they are joined by birds moving from north-west Europe to winter in the UK. As their name implies, they …
Meet the Eurasian common cuckoo bird and the North American brown-headed cowbird, both brood parasites. As a boy many years ago in northern England, I pursued a little brown bird called a hedge sparrow, flicking its tail and shuffling through dense bramble undergrowth and …
Eurasian/common teal bird (male)
The first Eurasian or common teal I ever saw was a flock flying south over the sea at Spurn Point, Yorkshire, in England, during the early 1960s, presumably on their way to their wintering grounds around the Mediterranean. Spurn Point was a regular haunt of mine as a bird watcher during my late teens and early 20s, and I still have fond memories. I chose to include some of these recollections in my recently published novel, She Wore a Yellow Dress (by John R. Cammidge). While essentially a coming-of-age story during the 1960s and 1970s, I share in each chapter at least one species of bird that featured in my life at the time.
The identification of this small duck with its stout neck and short tail occurred during my early stages of bird watching. Migrating teal usually do not interrupt their travel, unlike many other species of duck. In Europe, the bird is sometimes known as the Eurasian green-winged teal, and they are ducks that feed in shallow waters by tipping their heads into the water to find food. This species of teal breeds across Euro-Siberia, a region that extends from Iceland to over most of Europe, and to Siberia and the Kamchatka Peninsula. In the UK, around two thousand pair breed in northern Britain, but as many as 200,000 spend winter here. It has a very close relative – maybe even the same species – in North America that is called the green-winged teal. Now that I live in California it is this bird I see during winter.
Eurasian/common teal (female)
Look for the male’s chestnut-colored head, with a broad green eye patch, a spotted chest, grey flanks and a black-edged yellow tail. Females are mottled brown but both genders display bright green wing patches in flight. The Eurasian and North America varieties appear almost identical except the male green-winged has a vertical white bar on the side of its breast and the common teal has a horizontal white stripe along the inside wing feathers. During winter, the two may mix together when small numbers of Siberian and Alaska-breeding Eurasian teal pass down both coasts of North America. Similarly, green-winged teal can be blown across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. The two subspecies interbreed where their range overlaps.
Eurasian common teal Range Map: light green – nesting, dark green – all year round; blue – wintering
Green-winged teal Range Map
Large flocks form outside the breeding season and are recognized in flight by their quick wing beats and veering and twisting acrobatics. You usually see them on calm bodies of water such as marshes, shallow lakes, wetlands, and estuaries.
The green coloring on the teal’s head has been used to describe a shade of blue-green known as “teal’, and apparently was first used in 1917.
American green-winged teal (male and female)
American blue-winged teal (male)
The American green-winged teal is widespread across North America, with an estimated four million birds breeding in Canada and the northern USA, and they migrate south across the continent during August, returning to their breeding grounds starting in early March.
While the green-winged teal is the commonest of this family of ducks in North America, the blue-winged species is also widespread, but absent in desert areas and also rare along the West Coast where they are outnumbered by cinnamon teal. They use the Atlantic and Mississippi flyways rather than the Pacific corridor during migration.
Blue-winged teal Range Map
You need to avoid confusing the green-winged teal with the American wigeon that is slightly larger, and the male wigeon lacks the cinnamon-brown coloring on its head. There is also the larger and very common mallard whose drake possesses a gleaming green head, and both sexes exhibit blue wing feathers in flight, possibly causing confusion.
American wigeon (male)
Mallard (male and female)
Finally, there is the cinnamon teal in North America These are less numerous than the green and blue-winged species, with an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 that breed primarily in the Great Salt Lake region, the San Luis Valley of Colorado and the Caribo-Chilcoton parklands of British Colombia. Many migrate south to California, and as far as Mexico and Central America for winter but their range is restricted western North America. The male has a cinnamon-red head, neck, breast and belly, a black back and rump, and a characteristic red eye, black bill, and yellow legs and feet. The female is a rustier colored and heavily streaked.
Cinnamon teal male and female
Cinnamon teal Range Map
In Pacheco Valle Woods, a neighborhood in the city of Novato, CA, and named after Ignacio Pacheco, an early Californian rancher, the streets are called after species of birds, and include Cinnamon Teal Lane. However, there is no record of how these names were selected.
Additionally, I could never have seen cinnamon teal at Spurn Point or elsewhere in the UK since it is only a rare vagrant to Europe, whereas in California it can appears as a fall and winter resident. My first sighting of this species was at the Madrona Marsh Preserve in Torrance, Southern California.
The only other duck possessing a cinnamon-colored face that might cause confusion is the canvasback, but this is a large duck and dives for food rather than dabbles.
Canvasback (male and female)\
Reductions in water availability due to climate change may reduce the teal’s habitat and affect its future breeding populations that leads to a decrease in numbers. In the US, however, its wildlife conservation status is of Least Concern, whereas in the UK it has made it onto the Amber Watch List because of a decline in breeding numbers.
As a small wader and member of the plover family of birds, the dotterel is known for its friendly, sweet and trusting behavior towards humans. Consequently, it was hunted for sport, was easily caught, eaten by royalty as a delicacy during English Tudor times, and …
Eurasian Red-Backed Shrike I must have been aged 13 at the time during the 1950s, when looking down near the blade of the spade, I spotted a large round object. It was dirty black, except for a distinctive blue-green patina caused by its copper …
Eurasian Siskin Male
There were not many birds I could see in the UK growing up that are also here in California. The siskin is an exception. It is a small finch, about the size of a sparrow, with a sharp pointed bill, pointed wing tips, and a notched tail. The two species, the Eurasian siskin and the North America pine siskin are similar in size and structure but differ in appearance.
Eurasian Siskin Female
The North American siskin is brown and streaky with subtle yellow edgings on its wings and tail. The Eurasian male is much more brightly colored, with bright gray-green plumage, dark cap, black wings with conspicuous yellow wing bars, a black tail with yellow sides, and an unstreaked yellow throat and breast. The female is more drab and may look like a pine siskin. It is possible that the Eurasian bird is the ancestor of the North American one, having reached North America, both via Greenland from the east, and along the Aleutian Islands into Alaska from the west.
North America Pine Siskin
The Eurasian siskin came on to my Life List after a visit to Spurn Point during 1962 when I saw several birds migrating. Around York, the species was only seen during winter when it appeared in small flocks along local river banks. Its UK breeding range was restricted to the upland wooded parts of Scotland, Wales, and the extreme north of England where its habitat was coniferous forest like its North American cousin. Siskins feed on seeds, especially from spruce and pine trees.
Globally, the Eurasian siskin ranges across large parts of Europe and Asia where they are often semi-permanent residents that only wander in search of food. Others, especially those breeding in northern Europe, may move south for the winter. A few vagrant Eurasian siskins have made it onto both coasts of North America.
Eurasian siskin Range Map: orange – breeding; purple – year-round; blue – non-breeding
Today the UK breeding situation has changed. There are now approximately an estimated 400,000 nesting pairs in Britain and they are spread broadly across the country. Indeed, by the late 1960s, the siskin was breeding as far south as the New Forest in southern England, as I mention in my novel She Wore a Yellow Dress, and from 1995 to 2015 their numbers rose 61 percent. In winter, they roam more broadly across the country in search of food and are joined by colleagues from Scandanavia. They even show up at garden bird feeders, especially during hard frosts.
It is noteworthy that while some bird species in the UK have registered dramatic declines in numbers over recent decades – such as the turtle dove, lapwing, cuckoo, and yellow hammer – others, like the siskin, have benefited from garden feeders and the increase in coniferous commercial plantations.
The siskin is named after the Swedish word sidsken and the Danish word siska, and in the past, in some parts of the UK, the birds were nicknamed aberdevines, at a time when they were kept in captivity. The origin of the word aberdevines is obscure. In North America, the related species of pine siskin has the nickname of pine chirper due to its habit of singing from the tops of conifer trees during the breeding season.
Like its Eurasian cousin, the North American pine siskin enjoys a wide range, with its breeding area spread across almost the entirety of Canada, Alaska, and the northern parts and western mountains of the United States. Its winter movements are erratic and sporadic, probably influenced by the availability of food, with large numbers moving south every other year. Its estimated population is 22 million birds. I enjoy their arrival at my bird feeders during winter where they compete for food with house finches, goldfinches, chickadees, and various other species.
North American pine siskin Range Map
Because field markings are not as striking, siskins may be confused with other types of finch and sparrows, especially the house finch, similar and related to the linnet in the UK, and named by the French for the habit of eating flax seed (from which linen is made). The female and juvenile house finches do not have red markings on the breast and forehead as displayed by the adult male, and can cause confusion when identifying a pine siskin.
North America House Finch
Eurasian Linnet Male
Both species of siskin travel in small and large flocks, sometimes in the 100’s or even 1000’s, especially outside the breeding season, and occasionally with other finches and similar-sized birds. They display a rapid, undulating flight pattern; also, siskins can hover and transit sideways while feeding, and you will see them spread their tails and wings to frighten off other birds while at the bird feeder. The species also forages in trees and on the ground for seeds, and during summer will catch insects for their young.
Eurasian Linnet Female
In many ways, the Eurasian and North American species behave similarly:
Both species of siskin appear to have been highly successful in adapting to human intervention and have benefited from increases in commercial forestry and the availability of garden food supplies. Both are of Least Concern from a Conservation perspective.
European goldfinch (left) and American goldfinch (right) The European goldfinch, a native of Europe, North Africa and central Asia, was such an attractive bird that hundreds of thousands were taken from the wild to become cage birds in Britain less than 100 year ago. This …
Blackbird male I recorded the blackbird virtually every time I went out bird watching during the 1950s. Along with the starling and house sparrow, it was the most common bird in the York area, and I enjoyed its presence. I often followed it to its …
Growing up in the countryside of Britain during the 1950s, I always was fascinated by the sight and sound of the yellowhammer. It belongs to the bunting family and is sparrow-sized at 6.5 inches (16.5 cm) in length. The males would sing from the tops of hedges “tehe-tehe-tehe-tehe-tehe-tehe-tehe-tehe-tehe-e-e-e-se” (last note drawn out), which was translated in English to “a-little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheese”. It was all part of the countryside charm that I describe in my novel Unplanned. Supposedly, the song inspired the four-note opening motif (dit-dit-dit-dah) of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, when he heard the yellowhammer sing as he walked in Prater-park in Vienna, or so the story goes.
The male yellowhammer has a bright lemon-yellow head and yellowish underparts, a chestnut rump, greenish olive on the nape, wing feathers that are red-striped black, and white on its outer tail feathers. The female is more drab and streaky. Walking home from primary school, these birds would regularly greet me from the hedgerows and road margins. They were delightful. At the time, there was probably around four million of these birds across the British countryside, and the bird was described as “abundant in the York area” in the late 1950s, with the addendum that “no walk or cycle ride in the York district fails to disclose the presence of these birds, especially during the breeding season”. They are typically residents, and gather in large mixed flocks during winter, with other buntings, finches and sparrows. They feed mainly on seed, especially foraging for spilt grain and where cereal is fed to cattle. Yellow hammers typically build their nests on or very near the ground among vegetation or low bushes. I watched these birds as a young child to locate their nests, and took some ogf their eggs for my collection.
Yellowhammer nest
This situation began to change in the UK, slowly at first, but by the 1980s, yellowhammer numbers were under threat from agricultural interventions. Hedgerows were removed to increase the acreage of farmland, changes in agricultural practices reduced the amount of seed available, urbanization took away habitat, the greater use of pesticides harmed the population, and crows and cats found it easier to catch these birds.
Today, the number of British yellowhammers has fallen by well over 50 percent since 1970 to approximately 1.5 million, and the species is now on the UK Red list of Conservation Concern. For unknown reasons the yellowhammer has not chosen to use back yard bird feeders.
Yellowhammer range map
It is widely distributed across Europe, and its Asia range includes northwest Turkey, the Caucasus, and northern Kazakhstan. It was introduced by humans many decades ago into New Zealand (where it is widespread and common), South Africa, and the Falkland Islands, but it is not found in North America. There are alternative buntings in North America, but not many in California. Of the 9 North America species, only the Lazuli bunting is seen in my state, and is uncommon where I live.
Curiously, you will hear people in North America talk about yellowhammers, but they are not the bird that I grew up with. It is the local nickname given to the northern flicker (or eastern yellow-shafted flicker) that is present in Alabama. The underside of its wings and tail are bright yellow feathers and it “hammers” away (drums) with its beak when searching for food. The rumor is that the bird’s nickname was first given to Confederate soldiers in Alabama who wore pieces of yellow cloth attached to their uniforms as they went off to battle. It became recognized as Alabama’s state bird in 1927.
