St. James Park in London: What is wild and what isnt? (3 Viewers)

[Something Fishy]

I spent a few hours in St. James Park today for the first time. I'm not at all familiar with the local birds and I can't figure out what is wild and "countable" and what isn't.

Some things are obvious - the black swan for example, and I believe the pelicans are captive as well. But what about the geese? The myriad of ducks? I'm guessing those marked as rare by ebird are captive...

See attached for an unsubmitted ebird checklist listing all the birds I saw. Any insight on what I should remove and what I should keep?

 

[Something Fishy]

The Mandarin was hanging around people begging for bread, so I'm guessing that's captive too.

 

[THE_FERN]

Difficult with some of these. Ruddy shelduck no. Goldeneye unlikely. Red-crested pochard perhaps. Basic q is, is it pinioned or not? (How many full wings does it have?)

Some of these have established feral populations in the area now. Obviously mandarin but also red-crested pochard. (Green-winged teal if really that ssp would be captive.) With shelduck unless regular birders to the area know then it's difficult to tell. There are genuinely wild birds about, and some are quite habituated. Probably they are feral, though, like the barnacle geese in walthamstow.

This partly depends on what you want to tick. For me there's a clear divide between a pinioned bird and everything else. I record the latter since it's of scientific interest

 

[Swindon Addick]

From the more common ones, I'd be wary of the Common Pochard at this time of year, and the Mandarin and Egyptian Goose I'd want to see evidence it could fly. With both of those species, it's not massively unlikely to find them in the wild as there are established breeding populations that derive from escapes long ago, but I wouldn't go looking anywhere that has a waterfowl collection. I'd take a similar line with the infrequent ones - if they can fly and they're not obviously part of the collection then maybe, but none of them are very likely to be wild.

Away from the waterfowl you'll be on firmer ground. The parakeets, for example, are everywhere in London and well established.

 

[Farnboro John]

I wouldn't normally bird in Central London parks and this thread illustrates the reason perfectly. That said I've twitched birds in them either when it's obvious they are wild (Iberian Chiffchaff last year) or on the assurance of a relevant authority (Lesser Scaup in Regents Park declared wild by the collection manager who knew exactly what he'd got): in the latter case the bird had also been seen previously elsewhere, it might have been Brent Reservoir?

Under normal circumstances wildfowl in Central London are best ignored. Apart from stuff easily seen elsewhere just about everything is plastic.

John

 

[THE_FERN]

But it's a "nice" distinction. As ebird was so keen to point out (at least until recently) many of our birds like mute swans probably mostly derive from populations with some form of human intervention. So greylags are found in truly wild forum only in Scotland etc. how can you tell which is which?

Actually you can't with certainty in most cases. (I'm reminded of the wild white-fronted goose influx of a winter or 2 ago where birds associated with park geese and were remarkably approachable). Looking more broadly we can't rule out human intervention in other places too where you might not expect it (magpie-jays)

These birds like Egyptian geese, certainly common pochard, are probably best viewed as interesting encounters regardless of status.

 

[THE_FERN]

Under normal circumstances wildfowl in Central London are best ignored. Apart from stuff easily seen elsewhere just about everything is plastic.

John

Totally disagree. And this ignores the fact that those parks are the most accessible places for many of us.

("Plastic" is a bizarre, largely indefensible and subjective term which has no scientific justification.)

 

[Swindon Addick]

("Plastic" is a bizarre, largely indefensible and subjective term which has no scientific justification.)

"Plastic" is used by birders to mean the bird is either captive or immediately escaped from captivity. The scientific basis is whether a bird is part of a self-sustaining breeding population. No-one (well, OK, almost no-one) rejects a feral bird on the basis that that specific individual may have recently escaped, if it's part of an established feral population. There are huge arguments about birds in the grey area where it's not clear if the population is self-sustaining, but in most cases the distinction is extremely clear and completely justifiable. The pelicans are plastic, the parakeets aren't.

 

[Farnboro John]

Totally disagree. And this ignores the fact that those parks are the most accessible places for many of us.

("Plastic" is a bizarre, largely indefensible and subjective term which has no scientific justification.)

Much birding language doesn't have scientific justification. Why would it need it? Birding is a hobby.

Plastic is excellent shorthand for uncountable escapes and unescaped collection birds, is applicable to the vast majority of waterfowl in St James's Park and Regents Park, and gives an easily understood, easily defensible simile for environmental junk, which is what the ornamental wildfowl are.

It being generally understood to be derogatory (if not derisive) also doesn't invalidate it.

You are entitled to disagree, and if that's the only place you can go birding, of course you must - I would - but that doesn't change the status of the inhabitants.

John

 

[Bismarck Honeyeater]

As a long-standing (now ex-London birder) of 50 years, I would happily count everything on your first list but just Barnacle Goose and Red-crested Pochard on your 2nd list. Those two are the most recent feral birds to be acceptable in a London listing scenario. Neither are very satisfactory from a purist point of view. But even six on your first list are naturalised birds.
The common Shelduck are debatable, they could be wild birds but I don’t know if they have them in the collection.

 

[THE_FERN]

Much birding language doesn't have scientific justification. Why would it need it? Birding is a hobby.


John

Let's jump on one of several terms I used and not address the others... ...Never said things had to be scientific.

It's not true that everyone has the same definition of "plastic" (i.e. it's subjective), also not the case that everyone views ornamental waterfowl as junk. I don't: not when the mandarin population here is as great or greater than in its original home...

The "largely indefensible" refers to the fact that's it's impossible to determine the origin as many waterfowl---why people who care about these things fuss about what list category they have.

The point about birding in parks is personal choice to a degree but it's also worth bearing in mind the fundamental science which has been conducted there (e.g. herons by bto): so not without value. Of course, increasingly these places are more biodiverse than the "countryside" (at least if we can persuade the boroughs to stop planting non-natives all the time)

 

[THE_FERN]

Neither are very satisfactory from a purist point of view.

Would you tick northern populations of white-throated magpie-jay in Mexico or Northern bobwhite in Cuba?

 

[Bismarck Honeyeater]

Would you tick northern populations of white-throated magpie-jay in Mexico or Northern bobwhite in Cuba?

I don’t know the status of those, but from the question I deduce that they are naturalised in those locations. So yes, I would tick them, the same as if I were a US birder to tick the feral stuff mentioned above, in London.
I would get more satisfaction ticking a flock of wild Barnacle Geese in Scotland or a genuine (so hard to tell) vagrant Red-crested Pochard in East Anglia however.

 

[Mysticete]

I spent a few hours in St. James Park today for the first time. I'm not at all familiar with the local birds and I can't figure out what is wild and "countable" and what isn't.

Some things are obvious - the black swan for example, and I believe the pelicans are captive as well. But what about the geese? The myriad of ducks? I'm guessing those marked as rare by ebird are captive...

See attached for an unsubmitted ebird checklist listing all the birds I saw. Any insight on what I should remove and what I should keep?

If you are talking about submitting birds to ebird, you should submit every free-ranging bird you see. Not just what is "countable". Ebird uses that information to track populations trends for non-native species. Non-established exotics like the black swans and such will be categorized as "escapee" obviously on the checklist.

If you go to the barchart on ebird for the site, there are a range of obviously "non-countable" birds on the list, but they are all marked escapee. I'd say its fair to count anything without that tag for life listing purposes.

 

[THE_FERN]

(elsewhere we've discussed ebird's somewhat idiosyncratic choices as to what is introduced vs native. According to their maps, birds are very able to observe and understand human country borders, such that what's native to one immediately becomes introduced in an adjacent realm.

I must admit it's annoying when people put in all the exotica in places like the wetlands trust... Upland goose and suchlike. In those places you get genuine rarities and all the upland geese are pinioned)

 

[THE_FERN]

I'd say its fair to count anything without that tag for life listing purposes.

Or indeed anything else. Your list, your rules...

(Have I seen a wild takahe or Madagascar teal? No, but I count myself lucky to have seen live captive ones)

 

[Andy Adcock]

I wouldn't normally bird in Central London parks and this thread illustrates the reason perfectly. That said I've twitched birds in them either when it's obvious they are wild (Iberian Chiffchaff last year) or on the assurance of a relevant authority (Lesser Scaup in Regents Park declared wild by the collection manager who knew exactly what he'd got): in the latter case the bird had also been seen previously elsewhere, it might have been Brent Reservoir?

Under normal circumstances wildfowl in Central London are best ignored. Apart from stuff easily seen elsewhere just about everything is plastic.

John

This.

 

[davewalters]

Basically just assume everything you see on the water is St James Park is escaped or at best feral. If it isn't it's common - Come on peeps the stuff there is so plastic I'm surprised people aren't gluing themselves to Pelicans to stop them polluting the water when they die and break down!

 

[Andy Lakin]

What does the bloke do in between feeding the pelicans?

 

[01101001]

I wouldn't normally bird in Central London parks and this thread illustrates the reason perfectly. That said I've twitched birds in them either when it's obvious they are wild (Iberian Chiffchaff last year) or on the assurance of a relevant authority (Lesser Scaup in Regents Park declared wild by the collection manager who knew exactly what he'd got): in the latter case the bird had also been seen previously elsewhere, it might have been Brent Reservoir?

Under normal circumstances wildfowl in Central London are best ignored. Apart from stuff easily seen elsewhere just about everything is plastic.

John

Scores of Nightingales in Hyde Park (apparently) going unrecorded because of that?