Fifty Up

All week we had Friday pencilled in for a trip to Oakenclough where the hillside location a mile or two above Garstang requires a still and preferably sunny day. The Autumn/Winter weather of 2022/23 had kept us away for months. 

Fortunately for us and any birds still around the area, Will had kept the feeding regime going with good numbers of finches in attendance. He confidently predicted a catch of 20 plus birds. 

We met up at 0730 to a cold but fairly bright start. The morning improved, cloud broke and the sun arrived following a spot of drizzle and a rainbow to the north that lit up distant Morecambe Bay.

Will’s prediction was off the mark when we finished at 1130 with 54 birds in the bag. Goldfinches formed the majority of the catch - 37 Goldfinch, 9 Chaffinch, 4 Blue Tit, 3 Coal Tit and a single Lesser Redpoll. 

Chaffinch

Goldfinch

Lesser Redpoll

It wasn’t too obvious that so many Goldfinch were around, they just arrived in fours and fives all morning. We counted about 15/20 Siskins flying over while the Lesser Redpoll seemed to be the only one of their kind. 

Otherwise a quiet morning with a single Grey Wagtail at the water’s edge and a distant Raven. 

Grey Wagtail

Morning Rainbow 

There's more birding, ringing and photos soon here on Another Bird Blog.

Linking this weekend to Eileen's Blogspot and Anni in Texas.

At Last

At last, a cause for celebration via a ringing session at Pilling planned for Friday morning. The one prior to recent foul weather was more than 6 weeks ago, back in early December 7 of 2022. That six weeks of zero ringing is something of an unwanted record breaker. 

Whilst the lack of ringing meant we caught no birds it was essential to continue the supplementary feeding regime set up in November, a system designed to help wild birds negotiate the winter. However the weeks of wet, windy and occasionally cold weather also caused birds to leave and seemingly not return. 

During December hungry sheep had stripped the seed plot of remaining growth whereby the few Linnets that remained had departed wholesale along with the few Reed Buntings, Chaffinches and Meadow Pipits that began to use our open buffet. 

Last week we took the opportunity of a frosty morning of minus 4° to conduct maintenance work – cutting stray branches, widening net rides and constructing skulk piles in readiness for the coming spring. A few hours on site gave optimism with sightings of Reed Bunting, Chaffinch, Blackbird and even thirty or so Fieldfares that stopped by briefly to chuckle at our endeavours. 

 

Fieldfare

Blackbird

On Friday I met up with Andy and Will for the 0745 start and a slight improvement in the temperature to -1°. 

As expected the ringing was quite slow, the birding interesting, but not thrilling apart from a lightning fast Merlin. We caught just 13 birds – 4 Robin, 3 Reed Bunting, 3 Chaffinch, 2 Blackbird and 1 Blue Tit. 

Three of the Robins were seen to be recaptures, individuals that have survived the winter so far and probably now in the business of sorting out territories for the coming weeks. 

Robin

 

All three Reed Buntings were new to us birds in what is prime wintering habitat of farmland with reed and woodland edge. 

 

Reed Bunting

Chaffinch

A female Merlin appeared as if by magic when a handful of Meadow Pipits lingered around the remnants of the game cover crop, the pipits split up and scattered by the speed of the Merlin’s approach and their own panic attack. The Merlin singled out a pipit to chase but didn’t catch, flew off out of sight and then came back, as if to see if the pipits were still around. When the pipits were not to be seen the Merlin flew off into the distance before settling in a bare branched tree some 200 yards away. The raptor stayed in the tree for twenty minutes and more before departing at some speed. 

Merlin

Other birding gave us a single Grey Heron, 2 Little Egret, 1 Mistle Thrush, 13 Linnet, 8 Reed Bunting, 12 Meadow Pipit, 65 Whooper Swan. 

 

Whooper Swans

Grey Heron

 

A good if cold morning was had by all. And it was simply so good to get outdoors again. 

Join me soon at Another Bird Blog for more birding, bird ringing and bird photos.  

Linking this weekend to Anni in Texas and Eileen's Saturday.

Down To Zero

“Crisp” might be the best description of the start to Wednesday's birding.  At -3º a layer of white frost covered everything in sight at 0730. The several forecasts all agreed, sunshine by midday. This was another day for five or more layers of gear. 

There was a good start to the morning with a ghostly Barn Owl along the farm track and then a Great Egret that left the roost with 15/20 Little Egrets. 

Barn Owl

The three of us set about our usual routine as we tick-boxed the extra work we now carry out as precautions against HPA1 avian flu - disinfection of all of equipment: nets, bags, pliers, weighing scales and clothing. 

The chances of us handling a small passerine with avian flu seem quite remote, especially since the prevalence of HPAI in asymptomatic birds is currently unknown. However, while minimising the risk of transmission should diseased birds be encountered, our continued ringing activities carried out with suitable precautions provide a net benefit in terms of data collection and spotting anything untoward.

As we erected nets we flushed a couple of Snipe from nearby wet areas. This Snipe rush continued through the morning as 20 or more Snipe arrived in ones, twos and threes to feed in areas of grass that remained unfrozen from the overnight temperatures. 

The Snipes' arrival coincided with the incoming tide out in Morecambe Bay where the secretive Snipe are common but mostly unseen feeding in salt marsh ditches and pools. The ones we saw had arrived to roost where they would likely stay until the tide receded and darkness fell. 

Snipe

Not surprisingly the ringing was off to a slow start with just a couple of birds every now and again. We finished with 14 birds of 7 species: 4 Chaffinch, 3 Linnet, 2 Robin, 1 Blue Tit, 1 Wren, 1 Reed Bunting,1 Greenfinch, 1 Blackbird. 

Reed Bunting

Greenfinch

In addition to the earlier Barn Owl and white egrets more to look at arrived in the form of a 'cream top' Marsh Harrier, a Buzzard, and good numbers of Golden Plover, Lapwing & Whooper Swans. 

Buzzard

When I went yesterday to drop supplementary seed I counted approximately 400 Whooper Swans out Cockerham way. 

Whooper Swans

Stay tuned folks. There's more to come and we are due to get real snow. We'll see.

Linking this week to Eileen's blog and Anni in Texas.

 

Sticky Times

The forecasts for Wednesday proved to be on the wrong side of marginal. Luckily I’d already decided to drive and top up the feeding station without taking the ringing gear. The Fiat splashed through deep puddles of the days and weeks before as I looked for a less sticky spot to park up and disembark. 

I’d made a good decision as the wind was a tad strong for any netting and this would be a day for dropping a bucketful of supplementary seed and a quick look around. 

A Cetti’s Warbler greeted me with a burst of rapid-fire song as if it was trying to attract attention but I didn’t even look from where the song came because I knew the chances of seeing the bird were close to zero. And anyway, a few seconds later it would be gone and singing fifty yards away. 

Fifteen and more visits to Spain’s Balearic Islands where the Cetti’s is both common and widespread taught me not to waste time in trying to actually see a Cetti’s but to instead enjoy its song and eccentric behaviour. While morning and evening can be best, the colour, size and the habitat a Cetti’s chooses makes for challenging birding. 

Cetti's Warbler

 

It’s no different here in the UK where hardly anyone sees the skulking, evasive Cetti’s Warbler, a little bird with one of the UK’s loudest and most distinctive songs. It’s thought that by hiding away and singing loudly and forcefully from different parts of its territory, a Cetti's can fool rivals into thinking there are several males present, making the interlopers less likely to stick around. This behaviour allows a male to then have two or three females in his territory and thereby increase the success of his own lineage. 

Chaffinches, Reed Buntings, Long-tailed Tits and Greenfinches criss-crossed the net ride in search of the scattered seed. I watched for a while and then dropped seed on the whoosh netting square where the cleared and flattened ground held puddles formed by the days and weeks of rain.  A couple of days of wind and sun would dry the square - if only. 

Long-tailed Tit

Reed Bunting 

Chaffinch

It was Saturday before the wind and rain presented a real window of opportunity by way of a 5mph wind or less across a number of forecasts. It was time to have another go. I met up with Andy and Will at 0700 where the partly flooded farm track glinted in our combined headlights. There was mist which hung around until the sun burnt it off around 10am.

With a little drainage work we made the whoosh net area usable if a little muddy, dropped more seed, set the single panel net to one side of the flooded walkway and erected three nets in the woodland edge.

The morning began, the mist refused to clear, but eventually it did and the catch improved a little. We finished at 1130 with a nice and varied catch of 25 birds -  7 Chaffinch, 5 Linnet, 4 Meadow Pipit, 3 Redwing, 2 Reed Bunting, 1 Greenfinch, 1 Wren, 1 Robin, 1 Blackbird.

Meadow Pipit

Reed Bunting

Greenfinch

Linnet

Redwing

Redwing

Today was one of the better Chaffinch days, yet another farmland species that is seeing a serious decline in its population. One of the males today, with a wing length of 95mm, was possibly of Northern European origin, a type we are seeing less of in recent years. Our UK Chaffinches are generally smaller, both males and females.  

Chaffinch

A good morning was had by all and we'll be back another day on Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to Eileen's Blogspot and Anni in Texas

Picking The Best

Saturday morning was going to be the best of a bad bunch of yet another week of rain blown in from the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Off the south westerly sea currents, air temperatures have been unseasonably but not uniquely warm; but that’s no use if we’re unable to get out ringing. 

During the week Will volunteered for the supplementary feeding and had a good spot count of 70 or so Linnets, a couple of Reed Bunting, Chaffinch and Greenfinch. He saw again the Marsh Harrier that we think may have taken up temporary residence while the weather is so mild. He also saw a single Swallow, again, not unprecedented in wet and warm late autumns. 

With Andy in Pisa for Pizza the team today was me and Will for the 0630 meet at the farm. 

The breeze was too strong across the seed plot for catching Linnets so we stuck to a couple of nets in the sheltered spots. Although we knew we wouldn’t catch many birds it was just good to get out in the fresh air after being stuck indoors so much - 13 birds - 5 Reed Bunting, 2 Wren, 2 Great Tit, 2 Chaffinch, 1 Redwing and 1 Blackbird. 

The Redwing was caught early morning as was the Blackbird, the latter an example of a ‘continental’ first year male with streaky throat, scalloped breast & belly with all dark bill. Both species were in evidence for the first hour or so with maybe 15/20 Redwings and a dozen or so Blackbirds plus a single Song Thrush on the move. 

Redwing

Blackbird

Our supplementary seed drops are now definitely bringing more Chaffinches and Reed Buntings. Our count this morning being 15/20 Reef Buntings (5 new caught) and 15/20 Chaffinches (2 new caught). 

Chaffinch

Reed Bunting

A pair of Stonechats has been in residence for weeks now as they both range across a defined territory, all the while sticking like glue, one to the other. They might well stay throughout the winter but the more likely scenario is that after a couple of days of cold frosty weather they will disappear when their preferred insect food becomes hard to source. 

 

Stonechat

Other birds seen/heard - one large female Sparrowhawk, 1 Kestrel, 1 Cetti’s Warbler, 15/20 Meadow Pipit, 60 Linnet, 12 Skylark, 2 Greenfinch. 

The breeze picked up to turn our nets into wind socks. We called it a day at 1030 but we’ll be back. 

Linking today to Anni in Texas and Eileen's Saturday Blog.

                 

 

Tweedledee And Tweedledum

It was just as we thought. Tweedledee and Tweedledum the two young Greeenfinch we caught last week at Pilling were on a lad’s day out in South Morecambe Bay. Their real titles were of course TY58186 and TY58188 because as we all know, in the twenty first century, everyone and everything is just a number. 

Tweedledee

Tweedledum

In the shadow of Heysham Nuclear Power Station the lads and lasses of North Lancashire Ringing Group ringed TY58186 on the 27 September and then followed this up with TY58188 on 29 September. The two youngsters later ganged up in search of a good time with tasty food and something to drink than headed our way, only to blunder into more ringers’ mist nets on 18 October. 

The journey from Heysham to Pilling around Morecambe Bay has many watering holes and eateries on the edge of the saltmarsh in which to take on supplies. The route is a regular one, with  similar records for a number of species, including Chaffinch, Reed Bunting, Reed Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Lesser Redpoll and Cetti’s Warbler. If there were bird ringers in the coastal communities of Sunderland, Glasson or Thurnham they would for sure catch the very same birds that we do. 

Morecambe Bay

There is no rivalry between our respective ringing groups. In fact the overnight lighting, warm waters and balmy air created by the Heysham nuclear power station is a magnet for large numbers of migratory birds, often rare ones, species we hardly ever see, never mind catch. 

The major advantage of ringing at Heysham Power Station is that when setting mist nets in the dark for overnight arrivals, the ringers have no need to use a Petzl head torch. The radioactive glow from the ringers themselves is sufficient to light up their mist net rides thus saving money in buying batteries, the manufacture of which contributes to global warming and the eventual catastrophe. 

We have no such luck in the dark, cold nights of Pilling where even now and just like the famous Pilling Potatoes, the Over Wyre folk are left in the dark about most things and to simply dream of life in the big wide world. 

It was a glorious day in 1993 when the ramshackle Bridge Over The River Wyre gave way to one of steel and concrete to allow incomers from Blackpool, Poulton le Fylde and beyond to export civilisation. They brought with them all the essential things of the modern world – twitchers,  motor cycle racing, pizza joints, litter, anti-social behaviour and traffic jams; very often all on the same day.  

 

Since then things have never been quite the same in Wonderland. 

Well, what do you know? The weather may relent overnight tonight and present us with a window of weather fit for ringing, the first for ten days. 

Stay tuned to Another Bird Blog.  You know it makes sense.

An Interesting Redpoll - Well Aren’t They All?

There’s no birding or bird ringing for a day or two with both rain and wind preventing activities. 

However, there came an interesting if slightly puzzling recovery of Lesser Redpoll AJD6136. 

Lesser Redpoll

 

We caught and ringed redpoll AJD6136 at Oakenclough on the morning of 1st October 2018. The  morning produced a catch of 6 Lesser Redpolls, 4 Goldfinch, singles of Chaffinch and Meadow Pipit, plus a couple of Great and Blue titmice; a typical if not over large mix of early October local and migrant species. 

At this time of year many Lesser Redpolls from Northern England and Scotland are on their way south to winter in France and the hotspot of Belgium, the latter a country with a special attraction to the species. A Belgian winter landscape holds a redpoll's preferred seeds in abundance and the ambient temperatures are certainly preferable to those of Scotland.

Lesser Redpoll from BTO Migration Atlas

“Most recovery data of Lesser Redpolls comes via North and North West European ringing regions. Most populations follow on average a North to South or North West to West/South East axis, with recoveries as far as N Kazakhstan, up to China. There are two recoveries at more than 4000 km, mostly less than 2000 km.”  BTO.

Only this week did we learn that the same Lesser Redpoll AJD6136 was recaptured by Belgian ringers 44 days later at Maubray, Hainaut, Belgium on 18th October 2018. Yes, that’s right; it took four years for the information to reach us that AJD6136 was recaptured in the centre of the Belgium hotspot pictured above. 

Lesser Redpoll AJD6136 - Lancashire to Belgium

 

A likely but only partial explanation for the four year delay is that the Belgian end of the recovery noted the ring as AJO6136 rather than AJD6136, transposing the letter “D” as “O”. 

This simple error would cause confusion plus double checking and detective work in both the BTO UK and Bruxelles, Belgium end of operations with an exchange of emails and phone calls until the true number could be confirmed. The number AJO6136, if it existed and in circulation, would probably refer to a different species, perhaps one that was highly unlikely to be found in Belgium in the month of November. 

All’s well that ends well but the lesson is that once a ringed migratory bird is released it is unlikely to be caught again so the utmost care should be taken with ring numbers and sequences that are not recognised. 

Our own procedure, after first identifying the species and realising that the bird has an unfamiliar ring, is that the ring number, letters, plus country code if applicable, are read and double checked by two people.  One can never be quite sure where that bird was ringed!

European Bee-eater

I just double checked the weather forecasts for the week ahead again. It’s not good news for anyone who likes to be out and about. 

Keep watching for a window of opportunity and news, views and photographs here on Another Bird Blog. 

 

A Whopper Morning

Tuesday had been pencilled in for days. 

This time the forecasts didn’t let us down. There was zero wind and clear dark skies when I met up with Will and Andy at 0700 hours. The starts get later and the mornings darker as we approach the Autumn Equinox and its ritual of changing the clocks. 

As the sky lightened we put mist nets up and saw a Barn Owl hunting the scrubby grass where we parked our three cars. Was this a good omen? Time would tell. 

Barn Owl 

 

Almost six hour later the tired gang of three counted up the catch - 78 birds of 10 species, for us, a whopper of a catch that far exceeded recent efforts. 

The mix of species was good with 35 Greenfinch, 23 Linnet, 5 Long-tailed Tit, 7 Meadow Pipit, 4 Reed Bunting, 2 Blackbird, 1 Song Thrush. 1 Wren, 1 Great Tit. 

Two of the Greenfinch bore almost consecutive rings beginning ‘ZY’ that were not our own. Previous experience has shown that our autumn and spring Greenfinch don’t travel far, and that the origins of these two will likely prove to be the top of Morecambe Bay. It is interesting that the two were almost certainly ringed and now recaptured on the same dates, i.e. still travelling together. 

At this time of year it's not unusual to see a steady stream of Greenfinches on the move if you know where to look and how to catch them. Fortunately the species seems to have now recovered from its drastic fall in numbers during the 1970s and 1980s due to trichomonosis. 

Greenfinch

Greenfinch

Long-tailed Tit

Linnet

Meadow Pipit

Reed Bunting

With the ringing being fairly busy our sighting were restricted to mainly overhead Skylarks and Meadow Pipits - 75 and 30 respectively, a chasing Merlin, and the now seemingly resident Cetti’s Warbler in random snatches of song. 

After our session today it looks as if the weather will turn against us now. Make hay while the sun shines everyone. 

Linking at the weekend to Anni in Texas and Viewing Nature with Eileen.