Mist With Splits And Joins.

Friday. I met Andy up at Oakenclough for a ringing session.  The scene that greeted us was not quite as promised by the weather forecast and nothing like the clear morning I'd left at sea level fifteen miles away. In place of a starry sky was low cloud, fog and far from ideal conditions for catching birds. Our experience is that birds don’t move around much during foggy and misty conditions. 

Misty Start

Towards Bowland

The sun never broke through and as we expected, birds didn’t arrive in high numbers. Nevertheless we left quite happy that we’d managed to catch 16 birds. Unusually for here and for the first time ever, Blue Tit proved to be the most numerous bird of the catch with 7 Blue Tit, 2 Goldfinch, 2 Siskin, 2 Chaffinch, 2 Coal Tit and 1 Lesser Redpoll. 

Adult Male Siskin

 

Adult Female Siskin

Adult Female Siskin

Adult Male Siskin

First Winter Male Goldfinch

We caught our first Lesser Redpoll of the year, a fine first winter male. 

First Winter Male Lesser Redpoll

First Winter Male Lesser Redpoll

The Lesser Redpoll is included in The British Ornithologists' Union (BOU) decision to adopt the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) World Bird List taxonomy for its British list from 1 January 2018. The redpoll complex will be reduced from three species to two - Common and Arctic - meaning the loss of Lesser Redpoll as a species. So after being split into three species in the year 2000, ringers will be lumped back to where we were 17 years ago when the Common and the Lesser Redpoll were as one. Isn’t science wonderful? 

Other changes to the British List will mean that the total of species recorded in Britain will increase slightly by way of a number of 'splits' recognised by IOC but not currently by BOU. Isabelline and Red-tailed Shrikes will become two separate species, as will Bean Goose when there are both Taiga and Tundra Bean Goose to tick. Thayer's Gull will be recognised as a full species and not a subspecies of Iceland Gull. 

Two-barred Warbler will be elevated to full specific status rather than continue as a subspecies of Greenish Warbler. Two other Far Eastern vagrants - Eastern Yellow Wagtail and Stejneger's Stonechat will be given full specific status, as will North America's Least Tern. Each of these will therefore become species additions to the revised British list. 

One loss from the future British list is Hudsonian Whimbrel, which will remain a subspecies of Whimbrel and the two not split into separate species.

Meanwhile, back in the real world it’s now a good 12 months or more since the Oakenclough site was treated to an overdue makeover by way of uprooting the huge stands of rhododendron followed by a replanting scheme of native trees. It gets pretty cold up here on the edge of the Bowland Hills but the new trees do have the advantage of a good supply of rainwater where they are more likely to die from drowning than from drought. 

Replanting at Oakenclough

Other birds today: 1 Bullfinch, 10 Siskin, 2 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 20 Lapwing, 4 Oystercatcher, 6 Curlew.

Linking today to Anni's Birding and Eileen's Birds.