What A Week

Another week goes by. There was more rain and wind with no chance of another ringing session and little in the way of productive birding. 

But Sunday dawned much better and a promise of sunshine so I set off birding over Stalmine and Rawcliffe Moss in the general direction of Cockerham. 

It wasn’t long before I met up with not one but two Barn Owls in the half-light of dawn. The owls hunted almost in tandem with at times both in the binoculars as they traversed the same stretches of grassland and hedgerows, probably an area of past success. I parked the car, wound the window down and hoped the owls might show better in the improving light, but after just a few short minutes of circling the area they flew into the farm buildings and out of sight. 

Barn Owl 

Something of a raptor hour ensued with 2 Sparrowhawks, 2 Buzzards and 2 Kestrels seen before any small birds of note. 

I stopped at Gulf Lane where 160+ Linnets was a welcome sight but I scattered a whole bucket of seed into our catching area on the basis that the heavy rain this week has either washed seed away or made it unpalatable to the finches. With luck we’ll fit a ringing session into the week ahead. 

Although Conder Green didn’t have a great variety of birds a count of 210 Teal was mighty impressive. There was a party of 60 Wigeon feeding on the far bank, with 6 Little Grebe, 2 Goosander and 2 Little Egret on the water. 

Little Egret 

Waders were less numerous, just 30 Curlew, 22 Redshank and 2 Oystercatcher; the reason I found later, many, many thousands are now feeding on fields saturated and softened by two weeks or more of often heavy and persistent rain 

At Glasson Dock the numbers of both Tufted Duck and Goldeneye proved quite high, probably because of the rising tide i.e. 70 Tufted Duck and 29 Goldeneye with a single Goosander. 

Tufted Duck 

 Goldeneye

Up on the hill above the village is a flock of at least 200 Linnets and down on the marsh at the incoming tide, 7-8,000 Lapwings. No wonder then that I saw a large female Sparrowhawk try its luck and then a Peregrine do the same. 

Linnets 

On the drive towards Cockersands I encountered another Sparrowhawk, a Buzzard, 3/400 Starlings and also 90 or so Fieldfares. Fieldfares are now feeding alongside Starlings in wet fields as there are very few berries to be had. 

Fieldfare 

I also met up with two species of swans that winter in the UK, Whooper Swan and Bewick’s Swan that are superficially alike and hence sometimes misidentified. From Moss Lane and Jeremy Lane and up to Cockersands were more than 450 Whooper Swan, while at the junction of Moss Lane and Slack Lane were 6 Bewick's Swan. While both species are winter visitors to this area, the Whooper is much more numerous than the Bewick’s with this ratio of c100/1 typical of their occurrence. 

Bewick’s Swans breed at high latitudes in Arctic Russia from the Fenno-Russian border east to the Lena Delta. They spend the winter mainly in Britain, the Netherlands and Germany, with smaller numbers in Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and France. 

Whooper Swans breed exclusively in Iceland and winter primarily in Britain and Ireland, with smaller numbers remaining in Iceland while low numbers winter on the near Continent. Whooper Swans undertake what is probably the longest sea crossing of any swan species, migrating 800-1,400 km between Britain/Ireland and Iceland. 

Whooper Swan 

 Bewick's Swan

Of the two, the Bewick’s has a more goose-like appearance but like the bigger Whooper Swan, an adult Bewick’s is snow white all over. Bewick’s has a shorter neck and proportionately bigger head than Whooper, as well as a smaller body and bill. However, this can be difficult to appreciate on lone birds or in single-species flocks and it is the bill pattern which can clinch a firm identification. 

A basal yellow beak patch is common to both species, but Bewick’s has the colour extending to less than half the length of the black bill and it generally has a squared-off appearance, always finishing behind the nostril. The beak itself is subtly more slender with a very slightly upturned shape at the tip. 

Whooper Swan’s beak is more of a Roman nose, with the yellow extending in a pointed wedge shape to the very front of the nostril. The beak shape itself is longer and more triangular than Bewick’s. 

Whooper is a larger species with a very long neck, often held erect, and a bulkier body and longer legs, making it stand out straight and tall when the two species are together. 

On the way back home and at well flooded Braides Farm I noted several thousand each of Lapwing and Golden Plover with hundreds of both Redshank and Curlew. But time was short. I’d had a good morning and a hot coffee beckoned.

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.