Daylight Robbery

I've been robbed of a number of days birding lately by our November weather, the month that invariably brings gloomy, wet and windy days across the Atlantic from the direction of North America.  I blame Donald Trump. There’s no other feasible explanation. 

It wasn't much different on Saturday morning after a bright start that quickly went downhill, until by 11 am there was rain and I was back home. After soup and a sandwich I sat at the keyboard only to see the sky lighten once more. Too late. 

Our Pink-footed Geese aren't playing ball with birders yet. They are shot at every day and prove hard to find, even harder to watch. At Lane Ends, Pilling was a flock of several hundred, maybe a thousand and seemingly entirely “pinkies” - unsurprising when the odds of finding the oddity goose is several thousand to one.  A large tractor drove slowly past, followed by a brightly clad jogger as the geese peeled off from their brief feed and gradually flew inland in tens, twenties and thirties in search of peace and quiet. 

Pink-footed Goose 

Out on the marsh were about 800/1000 Starlings in a tight flock, a Buzzard, a Grey Heron, plus a good number of Skylarks - perhaps 40/50 but most of them distant. 

I stopped at Gulf Lane hoping to see a good number of Linnets but best estimate was 40+ birds and none especially interested in the bird seed crop. About half a mile down the road at Braides Farm I noted that a flock of 150 or so Linnets fed along the weedy track and in the extensive fields there. It seems that the lack of Linnets at our own project site, probably as result of the good summer, mild autumn and warm-wet, early winter, has produced an abundance of food. The Linnets can pick and choose where they eat most times, more so this year. 

Linnet 

Braides Farm produced some exceptional counts of waders. The aircraft from the nearby parachute centre was around and about, often overhead at very low altitude upon which the massed waders would all take off into panic flight mode. Mostly they settled down again and I was able to achieve good but approximate counts of 2800 Lapwing, 2000 Golden Plover, 200 Redshank and 120 Curlew. Throughout all of this a Kestrel sat unperturbed along the fence line, waiting I guess for an opportune meal. 

Lapwing 

Of late there has been much disturbance at Conder Green with both habitat improvement on the pool and major construction around the old road bridge and the A588 road to and from Lancaster. That explains the relatively poor counts here of 130 Teal, 22 Black-tailed Godwit, 12 Redshank, 5 Little Grebe and just one Little Egret. 

I was about to spend an hour at Glasson, viewing the dock waters from the car, waiting for the wildfowl to come sailing by as they mostly do on quiet mornings. But then I saw that, where parking on this huge expanse of land has been free for as long as anyone can remember, folk are now expected to cough up via shiny new "Pay Here" machines.  In the village 50 yards away the little shops that sell bacon butties and ice cream to summer tourists are unhappy at the greedy tactics on display.   

Daylight Robbery 

Worse still the Canal and River Trust have sub-contracted the job to a company based in the south coast town of Brighton! Trendy Brighton, where (I'm told) bars like WTF and Naked Day fleece the sheeple punters, shops have names like ‘Vegetarian Shoes’ and ‘Choccywoccydoodah’, and kids have laughable names such as Lettuce, Rainbow and Daisy Boo. 

No, I can’t see birders paying for fancy parking here in Lancashire where folk are careful with their brass and where in the not too distant past in-your-face constructions demanding cash have been chopped at the knees during the darkest of winter nights. 

So instead I took a freebie ride in the direction of Moss Lane and Jeremy Lane and spent time watching a pair of Buzzards, about 150 Fieldfares and a dozen or more Redwings. 

Both Buzzards used a hawthorn hedgerow as a vantage point from which to watch the adjacent field. The Buzzards totally ignored the many Fieldfares that flew back and forth along the line of hedge as they scattered for no reason and then returned in unison. The Buzzards showed no interest at all in three Pheasants that walked along the hedgerow below them. No, the Buzzards were after small prey in the alongside field as one after the other they flew to ground where if necessary they ran to pounce upon the morsel they had spotted from their vantage point. 

Buzzard and Pheasants 

Buzzard 

Buzzard 

Noted many times on this blog. Buzzards principally eat small rodents, but also take birds, reptiles, amphibians, larger insects and earthworms. Buzzards do sometimes take game birds but such items make up only a tiny proportion of the diet. Buzzards are more likely to feed on carrion. 

Buzzards use three main hunting techniques. They locate prey from a perch and then fly directly to it. They may also soar over open terrain, occasionally hanging in the wind before dropping on to the prey and following up the attack on the ground. Alternatively they may be seen walking or standing on the ground looking for invertebrates. The photos are as close as we can get to Buzzards in this part of the world where the species is persecuted for any excuse and little reason. 

It was interesting that as I watched the Buzzards, the many dozens of Fieldfares using the same stretch of hedgerow displayed no fear of the Buzzards and at no time flew off because of the Buzzards’ feeding activity. 

Fieldfare 

Another thing. The fine, dry summer of 2018 produced little in the way of hawthorn berries and even now in early November, there are few berries left for wintering thrushes. Anyone who has yet to connect with a Fieldfare will find that they become scarce very soon if there is no food. 

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday and Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.