No Merlins Thank You

On Friday the catching and ringing of Sand Martins didn’t go too well; but then in 10 years of working this quarry site, a morning often doesn’t go to plan when Sand Martins have alternative ideas to combine with their instincts for survival. Before this latest visit and since 2015 we had caught 997 Sand Martins here, not a huge number considering that in most years the colony can hold up to 400 individuals on any given day at peak periods  April to August. 

The quarry and its exposed face is of varying degrees of often loose material – sand, gravel and stones of all shapes and sizes where the returning Sand Martins excavate in situations that suit their own requirements rather than those of bird ringers. Mostly the birds choose a high elevation to minimise disturbance and to deter predators. This year’s nesting chambers are high on the quarry face. The positioning of the holes is such that the ground yards below and upon which we have to erect nets is treacherous underfoot and not ideally placed to catch many of the 250+ martins returning to or leaving the nest holes some 20 yards above. Sand Martins also have incredible eyesight that combines with their unerring accuracy to fly above, below or parallel to a mist net placed to intercept a flight path. 

Sand Martin

Sand Martin

Sand Martin

 

After three hours we called it a day but delighted in just 5 new Sand Martins to take us over 1000 captures here. Hard work but someone has to do it. The bonus is a few photos when the martins rest up between bouts of hawking insects from the surrounding farmland. 

Sand Martin

 

We had visits from both Sparrowhawk and a Kestrel, the Kestrel hovering directly above the quarry face so as to spot unwary birds around entrance holes and thus vulnerable to attack rather than hiding in the darkness. The martins saw both raptors off by a noisy rush of wings and in the case of the hawk, chasing it into the near distance whilst giving out warning calls. 

Kestrel

Other birds seen consisted of Buzzard, 4 Common Tern, Pied Wagtail, Grey Heron, Tree Sparrow. 

Buzzard

 

Grey Heron

In other news and thought for the day I am told that the popular magic eye/ear of the Merlin App for lazy birders is not all it is cracked up to be. This piece of whizz-bang technology struggles to ID the quiet squeaky birds like Robins, Flycatchers, the Regulus family and probably others too. 

Earlier this year the app caused a local frenzy by telling a user that a Blackbird was a much rarer Golden Oriole. The AI software will surely struggle with bird mimicry from species like the Common Starling, thrashers, catbirds and the aptly named mockingbirds (family Mimidae, Latin for mimic). I also doubt that the technology is advanced enough to analyse a song/call in conjunction with the relevant season of the year and/or a location's habitat  so as to give useful advice or reach meaningful conclusions.  

The “magical” Merlin app requires access to a user’s location and to a phone's microphone where the software employed may be more advanced than the listening device already installed, rarely turned to "off" on most Smartphones. 

I know of people who take their Smartphones literally everywhere, allowing the machine to track and listen in to their sometimes very personal daily activities and conversations wherever they may be. Go to “Settings” and click your buttons to “off”, preferably "FO". 

Rather than signing up to more of Google’s Big Brotherly love it may be better for budding birders to learn their birds another way. Find the bird then ID it through watching & listening in conjunction and comparison with the entries in a book? 

Books, remember those? 

Back Soon. Don't go away. I will be tracking you.

 

Slowly Does It

The ringing squad aka The Old Crocks could not make it this time. Too much beer/wine, baby sitting and/or too many aches & pains left me alone to seek birds. Better luck Friday when we hope to tackle the Cockerham Sand Martin colony for the first time this year. 

A sunny morning beckoned as I set off north along the notorious A588 through Stalmine, Pilling and Cockerham, FY, PR and LA respectively, not as far apart as those differing post codes might imply. The tortuous road is less dangerous since at great cost and much protest from late-to-work boy racers a large number of average speed cameras made everyone slow down; we are told the bright yellow devices work in the dark, can detect drivers using mobile phones and record a driver’s eye colour. 

A little late but 1984 is definitely here with Tory Boy followed seamlessly on by Starmergeddon; more taxation and then The Magic Money Tree to stoke inflation. More surveillance, nanny statism and nationalised services about to make everything worse. Wait until 80,000 new windmills sit proudly across every rural constituency in the cause of Joke Zero. What a coalition that will create - anarchists, useful idiots and environmental swampies, as middle class retirees fight for their property value with lumps of newly laid concrete. Sit back with the popcorn and enjoy the show. Only five years to go. 

Mind you, the A road is still dicing with death as I found out when slowing to an almost stop at double white lines and then a sharp bend at the sight of Barn Owls, first at Pilling and then at Cockerham. Some fool almost took my door mirror off! Hanging around for more pics was definitely dodgy so luckily the blog archive of circa 90/100 Barn Owls pics saved the day. 

Barn Owl

After a slow start with flooded fields and dykes in early 2024 it’s clear that the local and ever adaptable Barn Owls are now feeding young in a number of scattered locations. 

Barn Owl

A flash, a putative pool, some 60/70 yards distant at Cockerham held three brown Shoveler ducks, the species now quite scarce, distinctly wary & unfriendly to those bearing a camera (or a gun). Some weeks ago I saw the male alone on a different flash of water from where he flew in the direction of this latest sighting, thus making a record of likely breeding for this overlooked species. 

Shovelers

Shoveler

Nearby were a couple of Golden Plover, a colourful adult and a spangled individual; a rather unusual time of year but a species which may still breed on high ground inland not  too many miles away in the Pennine Hills. 

Golden Plover

Golden Plover

Lapwings are beginning their autumn gatherings with 40/60 on Conder Pool, the once peaceful area of water loved by birders, now transformed by experts and renamed Gull Hell in homage to the several hundred Black-headed Gulls that now call it home. 

To be fair the gulls give protection to a number of Common Terns that nest on rafts where no raptor worth its salt would want an onslaught of hundreds of Black-headed Gulls.  

Common Tern

We gained a cacophony of noise - gulls, terns and Avocets while losing breeding Lapwings, Redshank and Tufted Duck but left Oystercatchers hanging by a thread. Such is progress. 

Oystercatcher

 

I drove to a quiet spot and took a few pictures of common birds in the bright light of morning. 

Linnet

Woodpigeon

Reed Bunting

Pied Wagtail

The forecast looks good for Friday and Sand Martins. Take a look soon and see how The Old Crocks performed. It may not be pretty or at a fast pace but we try hard. 

Bargain Birds

Thursday. A grey day where the sun may appear after lunch but probably not. The Good Old British Weather has its own plans when no two days are ever alike. Following the ringing session of Monday Sue and I sat out in the sun-filled garden throughout the rest of the day then ate an evening meal basking in the warmth of the slowly vanishing sun. Tuesday and Wednesday - a little mixed with showers and sunny intervals. 

Today I may be forced into a shopping trip, acceptable only because it’s for food and wine. Like most blokes of a certain age, I don’t shop; even more so nowadays when that wonderful British invention the Internet provides all the shopping a man desires. Where else could I stock up with spare Canon eyepieces when the originals mysteriously vanish into thin air ? Or where can I buy socks that fit size 9 rather than 6-11 that fit no one? 

I appreciate that ordered goods via the Internet have to be delivered by crazed White Van Man clogging up the roads and scaring timid drivers but surely this is preferable to a hundred cars with two occupants each setting out for a day at the shops? Home shoppers are doing their bit to save the planet. 

The Internet, especially Ebay, is a reliable source for finding bargains, birdy or otherwise, deals that others may miss whilst lulled into thinking that Amazon is the tops which it ain’t! Before Christmas Sue and I acquired a beautiful & early Lladro figurine, a retired piece that arrived in the original numbered box, all for the princely sum of £45. More recently, a stunning peint-de-main Limoges lidded tabac jar that cost all of £15. “Buy stuff you like” - Ebay in this case. 

Typing “bird art” or similar into a search engine delivers many strange results, very often incorrectly named birds, birds with no names, birds in completely the wrong colours or birds that resemble nothing known to science. I look for the quirky, unusual and collectable.

Ebay was the source of a recent watercolour painting, a one-off original that succinctly depicts birders in action rather than birds, a painting signed simply “Stuart” who I believe to be Stuart Peters but have yet to confirm. 

"Stuart"

Twitchers/Birders

 

This little gem of a painting that cost me £19 including postage accurately portrays a typical “twitch”, a bunch of morose and bored birders in uniform waiting for the bird to “show” on a typically grey morning somewhere on the East Coast of England. Already I have been offered a sum of money that would give a handsome profit but the painting is staying on the wall of the office. It needs more detective work to find Stuart who I suspect was/is a somewhat casual birder, an artist who derived great pleasure from this particular piece of work. 

The latest bargain bird is another original (1976) watercolour of the beautiful and often unloved Fulmar, a gull-like, a grey and white seabird related to albatrosses. Fulmars fly low over the sea on stiff wings, with shallow wingbeats, gliding and turning to show white underparts then grey upperparts. They defend their nests from intruders by spitting out a foul-smelling oil, an experience to which every birder should succumb so as to earn their own wings bars.  

Fulmars (1976) - Fraser Symonds

OK, for £1.99 and the slightly scruffy appearance without glass in place there's a little fettling required for Sharon over at Garstang Fine Arts but very soon I will be left with a lovely investment that fills a gap in the hallway walls. This very accurate and wholly sympathetic painting is by the well-known Sutherland artist and ornithologist Fraser Symonds, almost certainly whilst he sat yards away from the very subjects whilst covered in their spittle.

Sutherland Birdlife

 

“PAINTING BIRDS WITH FRASER SYMONDS. East Sutherland Art Society has some places available for this workshop on Saturday 26th January 2019 in the Masonic Hall Golspie OPEN TO MEMBERS (£20) & NON MEMBERS (£25)” 

Another auction in 2022 and my parting with £195 resulted in the acquisition of the Printer's Proof (P/P) lithograph by Bernard Cheese – Picnic On The Beach, a humorous, quirky work that depicts Sue and I on Knott End beach with our fish & chips, fighting off hungry and persistent gulls. Well it’s not really us two but it could well be. If, Dear Reader you can today find a good framed & original Cheese for less than £1000 then think about splashing out. Or tip me off.

Picnic on The Beach - Bernard Cheese

Works of Bernard Cheese (1925-2013) were acquired for many important collections, from the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal Collection (one of the largest and most important art collections in the world, and one of the last great European Royal Collections) to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and New York Public Library.

Maybe after today's missive I have inspired readers to invest in Bargain Birds? 

Let’s face it, your money in the bank will quickly depreciate as politicians print more and more notes that will debase our currency, simply to promote and finance their grandiose White Elephant schemes that no one voted for and not one person needs. 

You know it makes sense. Buy collector items, antiques and gold the precious metal, rather then Politician's Pie In The Sky. 

Tomorrow I shall be mostly birding. Join me then. 

Monday Morn

Monday 8 July and an early Barn Owl did not hang around and anyway I was on the way to meet with Andy at 0630 at a ringing site out Pilling Way. 

Barn Owl

 

A more than average morning ensued in the way of 29 birds caught – 26 new and 3 recaptures. The morning showed evidence of post breeding arrivals of both adults and juveniles from the site itself and with arrivals of species not seen here in 2024 until now. Yes, July is Bird Autumn UK when post breeding activity and dispersal points to the beginning of true migration quite soon. 

As can be seen in these few photographs, of the 29 birds caught almost every one displayed signs of moult, post juvenile or adult post-breeding shedding and regrowth. 

Reed Warbler 19 (16 new and 3 recaptures from this year. 

Sedge Warbler 1 

Blackcap 2 - a male and a female both in breeding condition, the male heard in song near our mist nets. Chiffchaff 2 juveniles of this year. 

Goldfinch 2 – a male and a female side by side in a mist net. 

A single adult Lesser Whitethroat was in pretty heavy moult, too scruffy a look to display here,  

Wren 2. 

Reed Warbler

Blackcap

Blackcap

Goldfinch

This was a morning of hidden arrival as opposed to visible movement of birds above our watch and ringing station, a shelf of the Picasso hatchback containing rings and ringing equipment. 

A large and partly stooping Peregrine came to our attention thanks to a bunch of ever vigilant crows. Otherwise a few croaking egrets and a handful of Swallows feeding across nearby fields.  The loss of our once numerous Swallows is a national catastrophe that no one seems able or willing to tackle. I now have maybe one or two places where there is a chance of photographing a Swallow. 

Peregrine Falcon

Swallow 2024

 

We heard news of a Sand Martin we ringed at Cockerham last August, a “3J”, the input code for a bird of the year in question. 

Ringed at the quarry site 19 July 2023, ALJ4229 was found dying on May 29 2024 at Pennyghael, Isle of Mull, Argyll and Bute. A sad end to a couple of spectacular journeys. The finder reported the martin as a "swallow" - sadly the Average Joe does not know common British birds.

Sand Martin ALJ4229

Sand Martin ALJ4229

3J Sand Martin

Gone Birding

Back Soon Everyone.

 

Click Bait

OK, due to a combination of factors I have somewhat neglected posting on the blog. That doesn’t mean that I have been sat at home twiddling my thumbs or watching daytime telly. Does anyone still watch daytime telly to be entertained or informed? Definitely not the latter. Sources of news and entertainment on the Internet are more varied where by hitting the right buttons, the actuality & truth, as opposed to mainstream media who like to tell us what to believe, is there for all to discover. BBC, ITV, C4, Sky – they are all liars with biased and well-oiled axes to grind. 

Today there's a selection of pictures shot in-between bouts of bad weather that hit the North West from January and into May when I ventured out with bins and camera if the sun appeared and winds subsided. I felt so sorry for our local farming community when days and weeks of rain swallowed their crop fields; more knocks to a hard-working fraternity who receive little or no credit for their contribution to our British Way of Life. 

My mostly mornings with camera, plus a couple of ringing sessions confirmed that all is not well with birds. Where this year are Swifts, Sedge Warblers, Blackcaps, Swallows, Whitethroats, House Martins and Willow Warblers? - to name but a handful of supposedly “common species”. Luckily, Wheatears and ever curious Pied Wagtails  seemed in good supply with the jury out on seemingly low numbers of finches and buntings.

Adult Swallow

Whitethroat

Sedge Warbler

Wheatear

Pied Wagtail

Linnet

Reed Bunting

Pied  Wagtail - looking for the other one 

While saturated fields held no joy for farmers, a few waders took advantage by managing to rear chicks on fields into which a tractor would sink. Out Cockerham way a pair of roadside Lapwings I watched for weeks managed to grow all four chicks to adult size. All the time with crows looking on but chased off by sharp eyed parent Lapwings.

Lapwing

Lapwing chick

Carrion Crow

At another field nearby a pair of Shoveler took up residence where a male left his mate in an adjacent ditch while he stole minutes alone at a water flash. . 

Shoveler

Finally and into June the ground in parts dried out by which time both Oystercatchers and Lapwings could search the recently ploughed and now drying clumps of earth.

Oystercatcher

Male Lapwing - dig that crest!

And then in late June for a week and a day Sue and I ate out in the garden, enjoying the evening sunlight. A chance to try our own versions of Greek classics, Lamb Kleftico, Baked Feta and souvlakis together with a bottle of Ampelicious that too quickly ran out, the bottle courtesy of our lovely friends, Family Karaboula at Maistrali. 

 

Maistrali Taverna, Skiathos, Greece 

Ampelicious  Red

Bouyiourdi - Baked Feta

The first week of July. There's more rain in the forecast but I will be out whenever I can. 

Did you click the pics to receive the correct message and see the full picture? 

Thank You.  Another Bird Blog is back soon.