The Third Ladybird Book of British Birds – #8 The Whitethroat
I’m currently reading the third volume of the Ladybird Book of British Birds and their nests from the 1950s.
Times have changed:
“England”? They also come to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. They’re here to breed in the brief period we have enough insects to sustain them. They live most of the year in the Sahel, south of the Sahara desert. If there’s a drought there our population can crash, as it did in the late 1960s when 75% of the population failed to make it back to the UK.
It’s an 11,000km round trip with two crossings of the Sahara desert a year.
I like the name Nettle-Creeper as it’s very descriptive. I dislike the Ladbybird book’s insistence that Whitethroats are ‘useful’. Birds are useful to themselves and there’s no obligation upon them to be useful to us. However, since we became sentient it’s incumbent upon us to be useful to the rest of the natural world.
Here’s a Whitethroat singing. According to the book, there should be a ‘flimsy affair’ nearby.
More Greater Whitethroats
Greater Whitethroat One of the most distinctive features of the Greater Whitethroat, or Common Whitethroat, or just Whitethroat, is, well, yes, its… read more
South of the Sahara to here I'm in Oxfordshire, and a photograph of a Greater Whitethroat in deep pink cherry blossom is my aim. Especially if… read more
The Nettle-Creeper Last year, when I was in Oxfordshire, chicken-sitting for my friends, a Greater Whitethroat was in the garden scratching its… read more
Singing again Our resident Common Whitethroat is still singing for as much of the day as he can manage. The garden at… read more
Common Whitethroat scratching incessantly We're in Oxfordshire house-sitting for my friends. The weather is stunning and there's a dizzying number of places here we… read more
Whitethroat There's a bird I think is a Common Whitethroat, Curruca communis, in the bushes here in Capri. The light here… read more
Whitethroat Here are a couple of photographs of a Common Whitethroat, Curruca communis, which I took last summer. It's a chunky… read moreMore Ladybird Books
The Third Ladybird Book of British Birds – #17 The Great Crested Grebe I’m currently reading the third volume of the Ladybird Book of British Birds and their nests from the 1950s. Times… read more
The Third Ladybird Book of British Birds – #16 The Curlew I’m currently reading the third volume of the Ladybird Book of British Birds and their nests from the 1950s. Times… read more
The Third Ladybird Book of British Birds – #15 The Oystercatcher I’m currently reading the third volume of the Ladybird Book of British Birds and their nests from the 1950s again.… read more
The Third Ladybird Book of British Birds – #14 The Stonechat I’m currently reading the third volume of the Ladybird Book of British Birds and their nests from the 1950s. Times… read more
The Third Ladybird Book of British Birds – #13 The Rook I’m currently reading the third volume of the Ladybird Book of British Birds and their nests from the 1950s. Times… read more
The Third Ladybird Book of British Birds – #12 The Herring Gull I’m currently reading the third volume of the Ladybird Book of British Birds and their nests from the 1950s. Times… read more
The Third Ladybird Book of British Birds – #11 The Blackcap I’m currently reading the third volume of the Ladybird Book of British Birds and their nests from the 1950s. Times… read more
The Third Ladybird Book of British Birds – #10 The Tree Sparrow I’m currently reading the third volume of the Ladybird Book of British Birds and their nests from the 1950s. Times… read more
The Third Ladybird Book of British Birds – #9 The House Sparrow I’m currently reading the third volume of the Ladybird Book of British Birds and their nests from the 1950s. Times… read more