Short Saturday Birding

We’ve had the builders in all week which made it difficult to get out birding or to find subject matter for blogging. At last on Saturday I could escape for a while to take in some birding at Conder Green. 

The narrow and undulating road across the farmland of Stalmine Moss is not one that too many people travel on a Saturday morning. That makes the drive a good one for spotting Barn Owls and Kestrels although there aren’t too many places to park unless you cheat a bit by using the widened bits of road set aside as “passing places”, or by parking in farm gateways. Doing either might lead to black looks from the locals who always stick to the rules which make the Over Wyre World go around in a generally sedate manner. 

There was a Barn Owl hunting alongside Union Lane but nowhere to stop with a tractor looming large in the rear view mirror. This at 6 o’clock with masses of fields ready for a trim. Near to Lancaster Road was the expected Kestrel scattering roadside Linnets, Goldfinches and House Sparrows. 

Kestrel

Linnet

At Conder Green there’s chance to stop, look and listen and to soak in the solitude of an early start. Listening provided 2 singing Reed Warbler in the roadside reeds, 2 calling Reed Buntings and a Whitethroat warning from the scrub. Just as a few days ago, and from precisely the same hawthorn came the loud rattling song of a Lesser Whitethroat. 

Whitethroat

Reed Warbler

From Wiki - The Lesser Whitethroat has been commonly assumed to be closely related to the Common Whitethroat, as their names imply. It was suggested that the two species separated in the last ice age similar to the pattern found in the Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler, with their ancestor being forced into two enclaves, one in the southeast and one in the southwest of Europe. When the ice sheets retreated, the two forms supposedly no longer recognised each other as the same species. However, scientists researching this question have for quite some time realized that these two taxa are not particularly close relatives. It rather appears as if the divergence of the Lesser Whitethroat complex and its closest living relatives are from the southern parts of the Lesser Whitethroat range into Africa and include the Orphean Warbler group, the Arabian Warbler, and the Brown and Yemen Warblers. 

When seen in the hand the two species are more markedly different than in the field and it is hard to see how they became supposed close relatives. 

 

Lesser Whitethroat

Lesser Whitethroat - Photo: oldbilluk / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

There wasn’t too much in the way of waders today with perhaps a slight increase of Lapwings to 18+ while 15 Oystercatchers and 70+ Redshanks remain steady in numbers. Otherwise - 2 Common Sandpiper, 2 Curlew, a single male Teal and 1 Grey Heron. 

There’s more birding from Another Bird Blog just as soon as those builders are finished.

Linking today to Anni who would rather be birding, and to Eileen's Blog.