Chiffchaff and Whirligig beetles

[johnpw]

I thought the Chiffchaffs feeding on my pond were catching flies but it turns out they are also eating Whirligig beetles. Perhaps this is well known. Hopefully I'll be able to improve on the image. Regards, John

[Tursiops2]

Nice one! Never heard of that before. Just goes to show, ponds are not just good for frogs
T2

[aeshna5]

Excellent + interesting observation/photo. It's possibly a new observation + may be worth sending a note with this photo to British Birds magazine who have a monthly digest of unusual bird behaviour- I've certainly never heard of this before!

[Wild-Woman]

That's quite remarkable! It's a fairly risky thing to do I should think if it misjudged and ended up with a dunking. Can't say I've ever seen behaviour like this.

[johnpw]

Thanks a lot for the feedback. I couldn't find any reference to Chiffchaffs doing this so I might send something in to the British Birds magazine as suggested if no one else pops up to say that it has been observed before. Shame there is no sun to try to get a better image of it.

[Fourwings]

An excellent observation and well done for catching it on camera.
I have never seen anything like this personally, thing only thing similar was seeing Black-tailed Skimmers picking pond-skaters of the surface of the water whilst in-flight, but that was far too fast to capture on camera!

[johnpw]

Just a follow-up note to this thread. I did send it to British Birds and I've just heard that my note on this is due to be published next year (together with a note I've done on the predation of Great Crested newts by birds). Thanks to Aeshna5 for the suggestion.
This Chiffchaff behaviour had been seen before, but not photographed, in 1958, also in Kent, at a time of heavy snowfall. The day I took the photo was exceptionally cold so presumably the behaviour occurs when no insects are on the wing.

[aeshna5]

Originally Posted by johnpw

Just a follow-up note to this thread. I did send it to British Birds and I've just heard that my note on this is due to be published next year (together with a note I've done on the predation of Great Crested newts by birds). Thanks to Aeshna5 for the suggestion.
This Chiffchaff behaviour had been seen before, but not photographed, in 1958, also in Kent, at a time of heavy snowfall. The day I took the photo was exceptionally cold so presumably the behaviour occurs when no insects are on the wing.

Pleased you're making your mark in the annals of field ornithology- congrats!

[Jason Green]

~ What an amazing photo, caught with such precision timing ~

Chiffchaffs are predominantly spring/summer visitors, aren't they? If so and this was behaviour was photographed in the UK then I wouldn't have thought it would have got cold enough during that time to drive birds into less-expected behaviours like this. If that is the case then maybe it's this particular birds' party trick making it more unusual??

Congratulations

[Deer Stalker]

Originally Posted by Jason Green

~ What an amazing photo, caught with such precision timing ~

Chiffchaffs are predominantly spring/summer visitors, aren't they? If so and this was behaviour was photographed in the UK then I wouldn't have thought it would have got cold enough during that time to drive birds into less-expected behaviours like this. If that is the case then maybe it's this particular birds' party trick making it more unusual??

Congratulations

Hi Jason,

A certain percentage of the Chiff Chaff population overwinters in Britain now. Also I usually start hearing the first Chiff Chaffs singing in March (the same month as johnpw's first post) & as you know, we can still be getting very cold weather (snow etc.) into April.