Salvage Hunters

Was that the phone ringing in the dining room two walls and two closed doors away? Sue and I were in the bedroom watching Salvage Hunters with Drew just about to pay a crazy sum for a piece of old tat. I reached the phone before it cut off but because of the ensuing conversation I never found out how much Drew wasted. 

It was Peter on the line, he of Peter and Dot fame, lovers of the great outdoors, birdwatchers, travellers in the best sense of the word, and residents of Garstang Town. Peter had seen that Another Bird Blog lay dormant, near to death condition, and wondered if “everything was ok?” 

I reassured him of our as-good-as-can-be situation and asked about their own. We shared our thoughts about the last seven months of lashing rain, wind and unprecedented weather via the Atlantic Jet Stream, plus our frustrations in being unable to find birdwatching spots not besieged by microlites, bicycles, dogs and normies out to make birders’ lives a misery. 

A mile or so from Garstang the ringing site of Barnacre has been unworkable, deep in water & slime, now a no-go for weeks if not for smonths ahead. 

On the way back from Garstang and one of our trips to Booth’s for their bargain £10 for two bacon butties and cappuccino (with loyalty card) Sue and I called at our ringing site out Pilling way to drop seed. There are meanies who refer to Booth’s Café as God’s Waiting Room because it’s popular with oldies, more so on pension day.  A rather unfair naming don’t you think? 

God's Waiting Room aka Booth's Café, Garstang

A mile or two away along a farm track I managed to get the car stuck in a nasty, sticky, and uncompromising muddy spot. It was lucky that Sue was able to push the car while I completed the manly manoeuvres of combining clutch & steering wheel to free the car.  Sorry about your trainers Sue. 

In between times, hunting for and grabbing sunny intervals that came along, I managed to salvage a few new pictures. 

Meadow Pipits have these incredibly long hind claws as seen below. When you live in long grass like a Meadow Pipit, you need long hind claws to help you stand tall and keep a watch out for predators. 

Meadow Pipit

Our wintering Whooper Swans have no problem with flooded fields as it makes hunting for goodies a little easier and encourages spring grass to grow tall.  I counted more than 220 Whoopers on one day alone and where another more distant party with Canada Geese remained uncounted. 

Whooper Swans

It’s noticeable how Goldfinches, Chaffinches and Reed Buntings have begun to make their way back north with increased numbers at the feeding station where Blackbirds abound and even a rare Song Thrush put in a brief appearance. 

Song Thrush

Goldfinch

Chaffinch

I had about 10 seconds to picture a hunting Sparrowhawk, a large female that took a momentary rest on a wire fence. And then it was gone, off to cause bedlam amongst a flock of birds or to pick out a likely looking victim followed by rapid death from those huge talons. 

Sparrowhawk

 

On Wednesday came a message from The Florida Lovebirds, Wally and Gini, concerned about the lack of activity from Another Bird Blog. They had read about “a bit of extra dampness in far away lands but details were lost in the alarm over melting glaciers – or was it unusually high snow fall amounts – I forget. I just know it was something catastrophic so we’re still hiding under the bed until it passes.”. 

Luckily Wally and Gini “have it on good authority from a little orphan girl that The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow.” Thanks folks, I will look forward to that. 

But I think they must mean in Sunny Florida because there's little sign of the yellow orb in our Wild West skies. 

Come back soon everyone. I will try not to leave the blog in sleep mode again. 

 

Cold with sunny intervals.

They are trying to frighten us again. 

“Arctic blast incoming! Britain faces a 383-mile blizzard as temperatures to plummet to -10C: Map reveals where 5cm of snow is set to fall with yellow warnings coming into force!” 

Of course using the number 5 makes for more impact than telling us that 5cm is less than 2 inches, not enough snow to wet your toe caps. But never allow truth get in the way of a good click-bait headline. 

It’s no surprise that hardly anyone buys newspapers nowadays, instead preferring to find alternative news and current affairs outlets on the Internet where an enquiring mind can delve into a wide spectrum of views and opinions rather than to read constant lies and propaganda. 

Rant over and excuse the pun but the headline cut no ice with me as I headed out on Sunday morning into the rising sun as a thin layer of ice swished from the windscreen. 

Into the morning sun

 

A pair of Stonechats greeted me at Gulf Lane where three parked and icy cars told me that wild fowlers had set out very early towards the marsh. The female Stonechat was more accommodating than her pal who maintained a safer camera distance.

Stonechat

 

I headed down Moss Lane where I hoped there might be a few Fieldfares looking for the last of the now threadbare hawthorns. Yes, and even a few Blackbirds temporarily losing their shyness to grab a few juicy red ones. 

Blackbird

Fieldfare

Constant traffic, including sizeable farm vehicles, made the birds flighty and skittish with 30 or forty chuckling Fieldfares flying off and then returning within minutes. The light was poor for pictures so I set off in search of other birds, promising to come back with sunshine. 

Almost at the corner of Jeremy Lane a male Hen Harrier flew across in front of the car and carried on over the fields towards Glasson Dock/River Lune. It could end up almost anywhere, this one of two harriers, a male and a ringtail both seen with regularity and ranging across a large area for three or four weeks now. According to our Government Ministers, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.

“Hen Harriers have enjoyed a better breeding season in 2023 whereby 141 chicks fledged successfully, the seventh successive year of population growth with 54 nests observed across the upland areas of England including County Durham, Cumbria, Lancashire and Northumberland."

https://deframedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/09/18/encouraging-population-growth-for-hen-harriers-as-141-chicks-recorded-in-2023/ 

Alternatively, a search on the Internet finds “Raptor Persecution” telling us that “2023 has been the worst year for the illegal killing of Hen Harriers on grouse moors since the ludicrous DEFRA / Natural England hen harrier meddling trial was given the green light in 2018”. 

https://raptorpersecutionuk.org/2023/12/11/2023-worst-year-for-persecution-of-hen-harriers-on-uk-grouse-moors-since-brood-meddling-began/

Dear Reader. DYOR - Do Your Own Research and make up your own mind. 

I turned the car around around and tried again but the light was no better for Fieldfares hiding in the Hawthorns. 

Blackbird

Fieldfare

 

Further up the lane I found 40 or more Whooper Swans and several Bewick’s Swans.  At Cockersands, 4 Cattle Egret, several Reed Buntings, 8 Goldfinches, 15 House Sparrows and a Barn Owl. 

Barn Owl

Whooper Swan

Starling male

 

 And yes, the sun came out again.  Maybe next week too, despite the Arctic Blizzards set to engulf us. 

 

Back In The Old Routine

It’s the routine excuse too; the weather - relentless rain, stormy wind and endless grey days take the rap for my lethargy in neglecting the blog. Three weeks have flown by, twenty one days which included Christmas, New Year and all that entails and where the few remaining days were of the type where even cats and dogs stay by a roaring fire. 

But now in 2024 and following a rare sunny beginning I left Sue with a cup of coffee and her laptop catching up with soaps while I set off for a spot of birding. Maybe I would nab a few pictures during a few hours without wind or rain? 

Things kicked off well near Pilling Village, a roadside Kestrel, one of the pair that live most years at a nearby farm. In some years there will be Barn Owls at the same location and where the two predators exist side by side because their respective lifestyles and feeding requirements do not clash. 

Kestrel

 

I spent a little time at Conder Pool where the erstwhile “pool” now resembles Lake Coniston following five months of rain and where the expanse of deep water means that birds, mainly wildfowl, can keep their distance from curious camera-carrying birders. At best, 50+ Wigeon, 80+ Teal, 6 Tufted Duck and 8 Little Grebe. A single Little Egret in the creek where the water is more suited to wading than the “pool”. 

I found 15-20 Linnets above Glasson Dock in their yearly haunt alongside the village hall on the edge of the Lune/Glasson marshes. But less than a score of Linnets in now the coldest months of the year is a lowly total for a location that can record 200/400 Linnets. The species seems low in numbers at the moment and perhaps there are many yet to arrive from the colder parts of Scotland if and when the predicted cold snap arrives.

Linnet

 

A look towards Cockersands proved the most productive time of the morning with first a Barn Owl exiting a building before taking a quick circuit of the nearby marsh. When I drove around the corner to see where the owl had gone, there it was,  sat along the fence line before it headed off again, this time out of sight. 

 

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

 

At my parked gateway spot were both Grey Wagtail and Pied Wagtail, also 15-20 House Sparrows and 70 or so Starlings. The bright sunny morning had sent the Starlings into song and conversations, melodies that included Redshanks, Curlews and others. 

 

Pied Wagtail

Starlings

 

“Starlings are really excellent at mimicking the sounds of other birds and, in fact, any other sounds they hear in their environment. While maybe occasionally the mimicry is spontaneous, mostly it is carefully practised and woven into phrases, which are then arranged into songs"

  

Along Moss Lane I saw and heard small numbers of Fieldfares alongside the roaming Starling flocks. Because hawthorn bushes are now stripped of berries any remaining Fieldfares now use the Starlings to their advantage and join in searching for earthworms in the still saturated fields. 

Fieldfare and Starlings

 

In a field at near Moss Lane junction were 4 Cattle Egrets, almost certainly the same four reported in recent days in this area and further afield, sometimes in twos, other times as a foursome. 

Cattle Egret

I made for home and my own hot coffee. Join me again soon for more birds and photos on Another Bird Blog. 

Bluebirds, Blackbirds, And A Song

All through October and November we looked, listened and waited for Fieldfares to arrive in the west when their size, colour and loud chuckling voices would send our eyes skywards in appreciative glances. 

The Fieldfare is not a species a wide awake birder can miss when the thrushes make it from Norway in their dozens, hundreds, even thousands and drop into glowing-red hawthorn hedgerows to then feast like there’s no tomorrow. 

Fieldfare

Maybe the constant wind and rain of autumn here in the west persuaded many to remain in the North East and then travel quickly south towards France and Spain rather than cross the backbone of England to warm wet Lancashire? 

Whatever the reason for the deficiency of recent weeks it was more than good to catch up with a small number of Fieldfares out Cockerham last week when the sun shone bright and Fieldfares looked their best. But for this interlude it might be February, March or April before Fieldfares make another appearance, this time on their way back to Northern Europe. 

 

Fieldfare

Fieldfare

In the days of the last century, before even me, the thrush we now call Fieldfare was known as Bluebird to distinguish it from its allies the Mistle Thrush, then named Greybird, and the accurately named Blackbird. 

As I focused on the Fieldfare’s multifaceted colours and clicked the button, I thought that Varied Thrush - The Haunting Voice of Ancient Forests, might be a more suitable name but posting pictures on the Internet of a Varied Thrush at Cockerham might cause a stampede through the narrow lanes.  For sure any such mistake, deliberate or otherwise, would upset local farmers and not help my notoriety among local birders. 

Near the top of the hawthorns up popped the ultimate rarity, a shyster; but no, not a politician, the timid, unsure, and now impossible to find Song Thrush. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw one, let alone a half chance at a picture, a species now hardly ever reported by local birders. 

It’s too late to rescue the British Song Thrush. We rip out hedgerows and blanket the countryside in concrete and white elephant windmills where Song Thrushes can’t live; but no one cares. Follow The Money. 

Song Thrush

 

The few Blackbirds around proved harder to picture than gregarious Fieldfares. The Fieldfares might sit there motionless for a minute, eyeing up a bunch of berries until they decided to eat while the Blackbirds stole through the black branches nicking a berry or two if they thought no one was looking. 

Blackbird

Fieldfare

Blackbird

I drove back through Pilling where roadside Lapwings, Golden Plovers and Curlews provided a background symphony of wild calls to the thrum of traffic going nowhere while seeing nothing. 

 

Golden Plover

Lapwing

Lapwing

Curlew

It’s always Lapwing to the fore, Curlews a little further away and Golden Plovers way back, 100 yards or more, out of sight out of mind, except to shooters. Yes in 2023, Golden Plovers are Schedule 2 species, which means that it is legal to shoot them outside the closed season and a feather in a shooter's cap to bag one.  

No one cares. Follow The Money. 

Baby It's Cold Outside (And Inside)

“Minus 4° - potential for ice on roads” read the dashboard. I’d already decided that sunny and dry Wednesday would be a birding day of warm fingers, and hopefully one that might include a few photographs. I set off into the frosty landscape and headed for the A588 towards Lancaster. 

Pink-footed Geese were on the move high, south and east, to escape the inevitable guns, although a couple of hundred had stopped off in a relatively safe field bounded by a sparse hedgerow that gave a semblance of peace & quiet.

Each year becomes more difficult to both to see and to hear our wild geese on the ground as the disturbance to traditional haunts becomes more intense and threatening to feeding geese through "development", traffic - large & small, walkers, shooters, and yes, birdwatchers.

Pink-footed Geese

Approaching Lapwing Lodge and glancing left I couldn’t help but see a large raptor moving very slowly, almost hovering above a reed-fringed ditch that runs north towards the coast. The deep-v profile became more obvious upon closer approach, as did the size. But for the following traffic on the dangerous fast bend, a stop would have confirmed a Marsh Harrier, probably the same bird that has frequented this locality for several weeks now. 

The Marsh Harrier is no longer a spring and autumn migrant bird to our Fylde coast: it is now a year round resident that can be seen during the winter months, albeit in smaller numbers than at the peak the species’ autumn migration August to October. 

A stop at Gulf Lane found seven or eight Snipe hiding in the furrows of a ploughed field that has yet to dry out from the rains of August through to November. At the approaching car a few “snipped” away to hide elsewhere. A number of Lapwings were easier to spot than the crouching and immobile Snipe using their cryptic plumage to best advantage.

Snipe

 

Lapwing

More Lapwings graced the field from here all the way to Braides Farm, Cockerham where more distant birds gave approximate counts of 490 Lapwing, 150+ Golden Plover, 80 Curlew and 40 Redshank. A single Pied Wagtail pottered along the pooled track. 

This has been a poor autumn for seeing Fieldfares but I caught up with some today on the road to Cockerham Abbey where they were feasting on the now dwindling hawthorn berries. Also a few Blackbirds and one or two Redwings.

Fieldfare

Hawthorn

Fieldfare 

A single Kestrel hunted alongside the road and spent time loitering at lookout spots in the hope of spotting a small mammal meal.  At minus 4 degrees a Kestrel needs to spend more time in search of food. 

Kestrel

Kestrel

Here's that familiar song Baby It's Cold Outside. A new version dedicated to people struggling to pay gas & electric bills and to that eminent scientist recently in the news for expressing very unpleasant views. 

i

Here we come with another masterpiece by @crom_oliver and @shillitz, dedicated to that long-awarded, eminent scientist! pic.twitter.com/TDedeQ7aUb

— Despicable Miguel "Ruz" ™ (@Feldegar) April 10, 2023

Enjoy the rest of your week good people and then come back soon to Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday.

 

Wheats About?

A wander out Pilling way on Sunday saw activity of mainly egrets, pipits and Linnets along the sea wall. Two identical looking Wheatears caught my eye so I stopped for a closer inspection.

The tidal defences here keep Morecambe Bay tides at bay with a high raised earth bank, (a bund) interspersed with sections consisting of large rocks and stones. The rockery is an attraction to migrant birds where crevices and holes out of prevailing winds provide a sanctuary to insects attractive to Wheatears and other insectivores. 

Over many years I have ringed over seventy Wheatears along Pilling shore, until taking a break in recent years when human and canine disturbance made the job impossible. Having recently found a new private spot, and even in the limited possibilities of September when their numbers decline,  the desire to catch Wheatears resurfaced with the appearance of these two Wheatears. I suspect the two were siblings so closely did they resemble each other and to follow in each other’s movements. 

Luckily mealworms were at hand together with a couple of spring traps that caught one bird quite easily as the other scooted into the distance upon seeing its companion compromised inside a tent of netting. 

Wheatear

Wheatear

Wheatear

Wheatear

After a few days off I met up with Will and Andy on Thursday at 0630 for a go at the Linnets and anything else linked to the month of September. Thirteen birds caught/ringed -  6 Linnet, 5 Meadow Pipit, 1 Goldfinch, 1 Robin. 

We have to remind ourselves that male Linnets are normally a touch larger than females but this is never the decider between male or female. The most reliable method is the amount of white on the outer web of the primary wing feathers numbers 7 to 9.  A gap of less than 5mm from the white feather to the centre shaft tells us the bird is a male, more than 5mm a female. In other words, males have more white in the wing, a feature that is sometimes discernible with Linnets in flight, more easily picked out ina large flock rather than isolated birds.

Very often autumn males show brown/rufous rounded markings on the breast, unlike a female which is more streaked. 

Linnet male September

Linnet female September

 

Linnet male September

Linnet female September

It is not surprising that about 80/90 % of autumn Meadow Pipits we catch are first summer/juveniles as the species is able to raise two broods of youngsters in a normal summer. The juvenile below is already part way through its post-juvenile moult. 

Meadow Pipit

Other birds seen and not caught - 50+ Linnet, 50+ Meadow Pipit, 8/10 Tree Sparrow, 2 Blackbird, 1 Kingfisher, 1 Marsh Harrier, 1 Peregrine overhead.

Kingfisher

Fifteen Pink-footed Geese arrived from the north and landed on the salt marsh. The first of the Autumn.

Log in again soon everyone. 

There’s always news, views and pictures of The Real World on Another Bird Blog. 

Linking this weekend to Eileen's Saturday

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