Lifebirds #87-88 - England Day 1
Thursday, July 19, 2006: Two new birds
I have written about the British heatwave that greeted us upon our arrival in a country where the Beatles told us we should expect to get our “tan[s] standing in the English rain,” and where Douglas Adam’s claimed “we British [sit], poor grey sodden creatures, huddling under our grey northern sky that seep[s] like a rancid dish cloth.” The heat was brutal, and Joann and I tried to nap the afternoon away naked in the company of a small oscillating fan in a sixth-floor hotel room that lacked air conditioning.
Sometime that evening we ventured the couple of hundred yards or so across Bayswater Road to see dry-as-a-bone Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. Probably the first birds we saw were Europeans Starlings, Rock Pigeons and Canada Geese. Not exactly target species.
We did, however, see two lifers, one Eurasian Blackbird and several Graylag Geese in and around a small pond.[1] I didn’t manage to photograph either species. The splendiferous photo of the geese used above is from our visit to Denmark in 2013. An image from later in our week in England is included below.
| Species | Graylag Goose / Anser anser |
| Species | Eurasian Blackbird / Turdus merula |
| Where | UK-ENG-Greater London-Kensington Gardens |
| When | Jul 19 2006 |
| With | Joann |
| Numbers | 87-88 |
See lifebird index.
| TITLE |
| England Day 1 – London’s Burning |
| Lifebirds #87-88 – England Day 1 |
| England Day 2 – Take me to the River |
| Lifebirds #89-100 – England Day 2 |
| England Day 3 – Brighton Sunny |
| England Day 4 – Sweet Swans of Avon |
| England Days 5-6 – Cambridge and Bath |
| Lifebirds #101-105 – England Days 3-6 |
| England Days 7-8 – Parks and the Tower |
| Lifebirds #106-115 – England Day 7: MBS! |
—
Notes
- In the U.K. the goose is named with the British English spelling of grey, so these are Greylag Geese to Queen Elizabeth, Ian Dury, Pat Barker, and others. Other differences exist: their Blackbird is the Eurasian Blackbird to us. I will stick to the IOC (International Ornithological Congress) “World Bird List” names in posts that mention birds not found on North America’s AOS (American Ornithology Society) list. Or try to, at least. It can be confusing. The Grey Heron is not found on the AOS list, but the Graylag Goose is, so I’ve gone with grey for the heron and gray for the goose. Clear as mud.
Old birders may scratch their heads at AOS. It was the AOU (American Ornithologists’ Union) until 2016. [^]
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