Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Mixed Results

Bird ringers around the country report mixed results with Barn Owls this year. Some say productivity is down while others say “normal” and yet others think the season is late. The Pilling owls were at it again this morning, hunting in bright sunshine for all to see. Maybe they are struggling to find food? 

One owl appeared to want to hunt the roadside where the car was parked so after a few snaps I motored off and left them to the job in hand. 

Barn Owl 

Barn Owl 

Barn Owls are highly dependent upon a healthy population of their main prey voles, both water vole and field vole, but they also take mice, shrews and rats. The abundance of voles in particular fluctuates strongly with peaks occurring at intervals of three to four years. 

The peculiar feature of voles is that autumn population densities can attain a couple of thousand individuals per hectare in peak years whereas during population lows the numbers may decrease to virtually zero. This lack of food puts extra pressure on owls and raptors that feed on small animals. 

In contrast to owls which prey on animals, Sparrowhawks, as their name implies, feed entirely upon birds mostly smaller than themselves. At Cockersands I came across a blotchy young Sparrowhawk sat upon a handy wall from where it surveyed the immediate scene of feeding Starlings, Tree Sparrows and House Sparrows. A veritable bundle of nerves, when it sensed the click of the camera might pose a threat, off it shot, pursued by Swallows. Later in the morning I saw another Sparrowhawk, this one chased away from farm buildings by a posse of Swallows. 

Sparrowhawk 

A circuit of the lanes between Conder and Cockersands gave a fairly healthy count of small farmland birds which included at a minimum, 12 Sedge Warbler, 10 Whitethroat, 10 Skylark, 8 Reed Bunting, 6 Tree Sparrow, 4 Reed Warbler and 3 Pied Wagtail. The fields around here are drained by a network of ditches, conduits which eventually feed into coastal waters. At this time of year the channels overflow with the likes of common Phragmites reed and similar plants which provide linear wetlands for the species mentioned above. 

Reedy Ditch

Sedge Warbler 

Pied Wagtail 

It’s a couple of years since I’ve seen our native UK Grey Partridge in this part of Lancashire known as The Fylde, an area bounded to the North, South, East and West respectively by Morecambe Bay, the River Ribble, the Pennines and the Irish Sea. That’s an awful lot of landmass in which to confidently state that the Grey Partridge is now completely absent, but I believe it be so. It seems we have to accept the inferior, introduced and now feral Red-legged Partridge as a substitute. Sad to say the red leg is here for all the wrong reasons and stands as a testament to the dreadful state of our once thriving bird populations. They're photogenic but I hate the damn things. 

Red-legged Partridge 

No change on the pool at Conder, the highlight being 175+ Redshank. And I’m not mentioning Common Terns, Avocets or Common Sandpipers today. 

I called in to our Sand Martin quarry and where unfortunately we have not been able to reach just lately for a ringing session. There are still 200+ martins around, numbers swelled of late by the first flush of young from the nest. Hopefully we may get there soon and catch up with our catching. Around the area of the pool and in nearby field were 40+Curlew, 150 Starling, 1 Grey Heron, 4 Tree Sparrow and a single Linnet. 

Linnet 

The Linnet may be either poorly recorded in our area or the lack of summer records an indication of its decline. I suspect it is the some of the first but mainly the latter so will give impetus to our Linnet ringing project due to commence again on 1st August. This has already shown that the Linnets wintering alongside our marshes are from further afield, sometimes considerably so.

Linking today to Anni's Blog and Eileen's Blogspot.


20 comments:

Rhodesia said...

Great mixed results, and that barn owl yet again :-) I love the sedge warbler I am sure I would have struggled to identify that but it is really cute. I need to get out with someone who is good at identification as I am sure I miss a lot! Have a good reminder to the week Diane

David M. Gascoigne, said...

Good evening Phil: I am happy to hear that you will be soon be starting up again with your Linnet project. No doubt my interest pales in comparison with yours, but I followed your various reports quite avidly over the past couple of banding seasons, and I am looking forward to seeing what results might be discovered this season. Hard to believe that we are mentally gearing for fall banding. On our side, however, this is a very busy period with the Barn Swallows and pretty soon we will be looking for second broods.

Lowcarb team member said...

Just lovely to see the owl in flight.
Liked the sedge warbler too.

Have a great weekend.

All the best Jan

Stuart Price said...

Nice Barn Owls Phil: hope they can find enough voles this summer........

betty-NZ said...

What a fabulous variety of gorgeous birds, even if they are just 'mixed results'! Thank you so much for the information on NZ native raptors! I appreciate the effort you made and will try really hard to remember it all!!

eileeninmd said...

Hello, Phil! I love all the birds, especially the Barn Owl. Great collection of photos. Thank you for linking up and sharing your post. Happy Saturday, enjoy your weekend!

sandyland said...

a crane handed me a dead snake this week has been living in my yard - somewhat crippled so I feed

Jane said...

Great captures!

~Lavender Dreamer~ said...

I love the owl in light too! He is awesome! And I like seeing the Sparrowhawk. We always called any small raptor a Sparrowhawk when I was younger. Now I'm not even sure if I've ever really seen one. Enjoy your weekend!

Jean said...

Always enjoy your barn owl photos so much! And so interesting to read about all your other birds (and see the wonderful photos).

Powell River Books said...

Some day I hope to see an owl in the wild. We hear them at night quite frequently, but I know they are way back in the bush. - Margy

Anni said...

Excellent Phil ....super photos, I favor the partridge (never seen one before)

I want to send along my sincere thanks for your sharing this fabulous post this week with us birders!

A Colorful World said...

Even if the vole population is down I can't imagine the owls not being able to find plenty of mice! Isn't lack of barn structures more of a factor in the abundance of barn owls? Loved the partridge and also that sweet sedge warbler. Great shots and such interesting info, as always Phil!

Mary Howell Cromer said...

Hello my friend, it's been a while since I felt up to visiting bloggers. You may not know, but something has gone wrong with Blogger and me and I am truly very upset about it and so far after checking the Help Forums online, I am dizzy with the "Expert" suggestions that for a few, based on replies do work, but for the most of us, those remedies either don't work, or just as you are about to click on SAVE changes you get these blinking warning lights, that you are about to have changes that may not be in your blog's favor. Oh My Gracious I am just at the end of my thread and have been searching for hours on end what to do to fix it. Wee hours of the morning, all throughout the day I have been consumed with finding the remedy. Phil on my Dashboard I am missing at least 11,511 comments. They are still under the post they were published under, however I can only view the latest 1000 of only the last two of my 9 years of blogging, and I am feeling like I have been hit hard.
I always enjoy when you share the Barn Owls and WOW I guess if I ever knew, I had forgotten about the years and how full a menu they might enjoy one year, and have none another season. The Snowy Owls come down into the lower states now because the Lemming populations go down from time to time as well.
Anyway that's what's going on here.
Hope all is well with you and Sue~

Mary Howell Cromer said...

I almost forgot...my oldest daughter Hillary arrived in England yesterday and will be studying at Oxford for the next few weeks before her family arrives to tour and then on to Belgium~

Carol @Comfort Spring Station said...

Beautiful photos as usual Phil. I have a thing for owls and you had me right at the start.

Fun60 said...

Another interesting post Phil but the photos of the barn owl are a joy.Let's hope they can find enough food.

Kay L. Davies said...

As always, Phil, I enjoy your blog posts but only understand every third bird, or maybe that should be every third word. You birders are certainly the most dedicated wildlife admirers I've known.
All the best.
Kay
An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel

Gattina said...

I love owls ! they have such a cute face with these round eyes, some look like my cat Rosie !

Lady Fi said...

Fabulous owl shots.

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