City nature notes: Up on the roof

Great roof garden!

Just a couple of recent city wildlife observations that I have to put somewhere! The other day I noticed this unusual wild “roof garden” among some chimney pots…

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Beachcombing: Birds on holiday…

Feral pigeon (Columba livia) on the shore in Poole – with wing colour not too different from the original wild rock dove type…

I have just come back from a few days in Dorset (mostly Poole) and will no doubt share my snapshots with you over the next few weeks – or months!

But as a bit of a bridge between the last post about feral pigeons and my holiday excursions, here are some

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Seagull surprise for a hungry crow…

This seagull was interested in the crow’s meal…

I don’t usually do short posts, but I just wanted to share this picture, as it was such a surprise.

On Sunday I heard a crow making a lot of noise, so grabbed my camera with a longish lens and went to find out what all the fuss was about. All I could see was the crow on a neighbour’s roof, with some scavenged food. So I pointed the lens through the window and snapped, just hoping to get a reasonable portrait.

I swear that as I pressed the button, the seagull wasn’t there, or even on my radar, but I saw a flurry of wings as it went click!

So that’s why the crow was making so much noise…

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A second look at seagulls, a beautiful pest…

A young lesser black-backed gull in a lane near the office, July 2011

This time last year I took some pictures of a baby lesser black-backed gull (Larus fuscus graellsii) on a building site near our office in the city centre.

This time last year the gull chicks were fluffy and new...

But

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Recognising seagulls, a beautiful pest…

The cute seagull chick that started it all - pictured on the building site behind my office...

I wasn’t expecting to write about seagulls. They are not my favourite birds and apart from the black-headed gull I have never been able to tell the various species apart and I have never really tried.

Cardiff has the second-biggest urban seagull population in the UK, a close second to Aberdeen with around 3,500 breeding pairs. They are

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