Never Say Die

It was meant to be a day off birding with bits of both dog and child minding, but as very birder knows, bird watching never really stops. In between pottering about, mainly sorting the lawnmower out after a winter’s torpor, I noticed several things happening in the garden; or as is more often the case, in next door’s garden, full of old apple and pear trees and untidy corners, a plot mostly neglected and annoyingly bigger than our postage stamp of green. Unlike us, our neighbour always gets a spring Chiffchaff, chiff-chaffing away for a day or two until the bird re-orientates and heads off again, so it was not a surprise to look over the fence and see one today; it even visited our budding damson trees for a minute or two.

Chiffchaff

The Greenfinches are back, the male singing away above to last year’s nest site, and the female close by, but I’ve yet to find the latest nest in the row of conifers.

Greenfinch

At weekend I even had a Siskin or two on my home made Niger feeder, but then who hasn’t had garden Siskins this winter? But I must say the Goldfinches don’t seem to have reappeared in any numbers yet with just 2 or 3 beating of them off the occasional Siskin, unlike the Garstang Siskins that monopolised the feeders there.

Siskin

None of that bothers the Blue or Coal Tits that come and go in an instant before scooting off to the fence with a beakful of best mixed seed.

Coal Tit
Blue Tit

It’s a great weather forecast for the remainder of the week and hopefully I’m back to normal tomorrow with both birding and ringing to look forward to.

Pluck Me!

Once the frost played out and the sky turned blue again it was a few hours on Rawcliffe Moss this morning, mainly to suss out the state of the plantation in readiness for spring ringing. As is often the case I got diverted, this time by Buzzards yet again with a count of 6 birds, three pairs over three woods. Maybe all those birds from last week sorted out their differences then sent the intruders packing, tails between their legs or whatever Buzzards do when they lose out on a good breeding site. So for the third time recently I got more less-than-ideal pictures of distant Buzzards. But if all goes to plan we might just get to catch a few of them soon when I can get close-ups.

Buzzard - Buteo buteo
Buzzard - Buteo buteo

I went into a wood where I found the Buzzard’s plucking post with evidence of more than one meal of Woodpigeon, many of which roost in the wood, day or night.

Plucking Post

Finding a plucking post surrounded by feathers and fur is often a way of finding raptor nests, indicating that a nest is close by or in this case that a bird regularly uses the spot in its winter territory. The Buzzard’s plucking post was on the upper side of a large fallen tree, the elevated nature of which allows for a safer landing with a heavy load of prey like a Woodpigeon, as well as being a good vantage point to scan for other predators while the bird is vulnerable and involved in the relatively complex process of plucking then consuming the prey.

I think the Buzzards saw me enter the wood because they weren’t in there and probably left long before I quietly walked in hoping to get closer views of them. I confirmed their secretive nature ten minutes later when from a path outside the wood I saw two Buzzards heading back to their now undisturbed territory.

Our ringing planation was pretty quiet but I did find 2 Blackbird, 3 Reed Bunting, 12 Chaffinch, 11 redpoll feeding very quietly amongst the alders, and also surprised a Woodcock which exploded from the ground cover then through one of our soon to be used net rides. Several Wood Pigeon also crashed out of the plantation at my coming and headed off towards the safety or maybe not of the dense trees in Buzzard Wood.

On the moss proper the Skylarks thin out with only 10 today, chirruping off the deck when the Lapwings and corvids flapped and called noisily over the stubble. The Tree Sparrows make as much noise as ever, but the noise has shifted somewhat to spots where there are nest boxes with holes designed just for them, along the track and at the edge of the wood. Meanwhile at the food drop about 60 of them still loitered waiting for the next bucketful, and I didn’t have the heart to explain that The Man With A Bucket may not be along for a while. Six Yellowhammers today also waited around the much better bet of a still full pheasant feeder.

Tree Sparrow

As I left the moss a flock of Lottis and Blutis sped along the track ahead of my car and then, pluck me, I took yet another picture of a Blue Tit, many a ringer’s Nemesis bird, but a favourite creature of a regular blog reader who must remain anonymous for fear of reprisals from British ringers.

Blue Tit

First Of March

There was just a slight frost this morning on the car windscreen but within half a minute of starting the car the film of ice cleared; I set off to meet Will and Craig for a ringing session in Will’s garden at Catterall with hope of the first catch of March. Along the road the morning bode well for a few birds when a Barn Owl flew ahead of me in the half light of Hambleton village then disappeared over nearby fields.

Barn Owl

By 0715 the 60 foot net was up and we began to catch finches as the Siskin arrived first, followed by the larger finches. This morning we caught 37 birds, 25 new and 12 recaptures. New birds, all but one of them finches: 16 Siskin, 6 Chaffinch, 1 Greenfinch, 1 Goldfinch and 1 Blue Tit. Recaptures were: 3 Siskin, 2 Chaffinch, 2 Dunnock, 4 House Sparrow and 1 Great Tit.

Our overall finch count today was of 60 Siskin, 60 Chaffinch, 6 Greenfinch, 6 Goldfinch and 2 Brambling. So the numbers of new Siskins meant a decline from recent catches of 30ish birds, as did the three recaptures of the same species; these figures plus Will’s daily observations, suggest that Siskins are still moving through and probably north but perhaps in lesser numbers. We still had low numbers of Goldfinch, with no Lesser Redpoll today, with numbers of Bramblings now unlikely to increase.

Siskin

Siskin
Blue Tit

Other birds this morning: 22 Curlew, 15 Fieldfare, 8 Cormorant over, 300 Starling, 2 Nuthatch, 2 Treecreeper, 8 Jackdaw, 2 Song Thrush, 80 Wood Pigeon.

It was a cold morning but once the sun rose and the spring air warmed up the Buteo theme of last week resumed when 6 Buzzards appeared circling together over adjacent fields and woods as they searched out thermals on which to ride.

Buzzard - Buteo buteo
Buzzard - Buteo buteo
A successful if fairly quiet session but its always nice to start the month with a few new birds.

Yuk!

Here we were happy with zero snow, and then last night it came with a vengeance when the wind went westerly to blow the white stuff in from the Irish Sea instead of sending it down to Wales. So to answer one of my reader’s questions yesterday, we rarely get any up here on the north-west coast of Lancashire, but last night we got about 5cm. That’s nothing like the quantity they get up in Maine USA, where the last time I passed through the Airport on my way to some Caribbean sunshine, there were 2 metre high drifts alongside the runway.

So I stayed around this morning, caught up with paperwork and IPMR and took a few photographs of birds in the newly snowed back garden where I dumped more apples and bird seed.

A couple of Redwings spent the morning at the far end of the garden in the holly trees where they took the last of the berries.

Redwing
Redwing
Redwing

The Redwings neatly avoided the Starlings whereby the shy thrushes would have lost out against the voracious beasts.

Starling

There was only one Collared Dove this morning but it posed for me.

Collared Dove

The Goldfinch didn’t turn up this morning, just the Chaffinches.

Chaffinch
Chaffinch

The Blue Tit came frequently but didn’t hang around, unlike a couple of “Lottis” that hung on my fat balls briefly.

Long-tailed Tit
Blue Tit
And what is the season of cheer without a good old British Robin?

Robin

Grammie G, it may not be up to Maine’s excesses but this is what I woke up to today. With a bit of luck it will all disappear overnight and I can get out ringing tomorrow.

Yuk!

Bunting Bonanza

Will couldn’t make it to Rawcliffe Moss with me this morning; that ugly four letter word “work” put paid to his morning of ringing. So I went on my own and put up a couple of nets that targeted thrushes, Reed Bunting and Chaffinch.

It was a clear, another cloudless, frosty start again, and as I worked quietly in the dark erecting the nets several Redwings and Song Thrushes were leaving thick cover they roosted in overnight. This departure seemed to stimulate several Snipe to leave the adjacent soggy potato field where they roost, and I could hear their rasping calls flying off into the dark.

Migration slowed up during the week and I must admit I wasn’t too optimistic about catching thrushes, but as we ringers say, “You don’t know until you try”. It took until 0740 before the first Redwing came from the north, a party of about 40 dropping from the sky with a couple of Fieldfares, an arrival that led to my first catch. Ten or so minutes later another few small parties, but it soon dried up with just ones and twos throughout the rest of the morning until I had recorded about 80 Redwings and 11 Fieldfares from 0730 to 11am.

As in recent weeks it was Reed Buntings that proved to be the consistent element of the ringing and the visible migration. For the reason that they don’t move in huge parties, or maybe because they are not as conspicuous as some other species, it is possible to overlook or even disregard the almost constant calls of Reed Buntings passing nearby, overhead or landing in the plantation.

Anyway I caught another 15 new ones this morning to add to the 35 caught in the last three weeks or so which rounded the total up to 50 individuals. 14 of today’s Reed Buntings were birds of the year, juveniles, with just 1 adult male to break the spell. But if I caught 15 without too much effort, how many Reed Buntings were on the move on this and every morning of recent weeks?

So, birds caught totalled 26 new; 15 Reed Bunting, 7 Chaffinch, 2 Redwing, 1 Fieldfare and 1 Blue Tit.

Fieldfare

Redwing
Reed Bunting
Reed Bunting
Chaffinch
Blue Tit

In between the ringing, other visible migration and even the birding was on the thin side: 1 Sparrowhawk early doors, 18 Tree Sparrow over, 3 Siskin over, 6 redpoll sp over, 3 alba Wagtail.

On the way down the track I stopped to take a picture or two of another Pied Wagtail. Well it makes a change from birds in the hand.

Pied Wagtail

Windless Wednesday

Since the weekend Will and I did our homework via the regular crowd, The Met Office, XC Weather, Wind Guru and the BBC. You name it, we’ve looked at it, so we pencilled in a hopeful Wednesday window for a ringing session. They were all correct as the wind dropped from a raging westerly at 9pm last night to a big fat zero at 6am this morning when we landed at Out Rawcliffe.

The morning was fairly slow as we expected now that many warblers have gone, but we hoped to pick up the stragglers plus anything else that came along. We certainly found some variety with 17 birds but of 14 species, 12 “new” birds and 5 recaptures. Of the first timers we caught one each of the following: Tree Pipit, Yellowhammer, Jay, Sedge Warbler, Whitethroat, Reed Bunting, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Robin and Wren, with 2 Chaffinch.

Recapture were made by 2 Willow Warblers and 1 each of Chiffchaff, Wren and Great Tit. The Willow Warblers and Chiffchaff were adults with almost completed moult so will very soon be on their way south.

The quiet ringing left time to survey the scene without the need to shelter from wind or rain but simply to sit in the sun, that strange yellow thing in the sky that we see occasionally.

Jay - juvenile
Tree Pipit - juvenile
Yellowhammer - juvenile
Reed Bunting – juvenile male, partial moult
Sedge Warbler - juvenile
Chaffinch
Blue Tit

Following the overnight clear sky the morning’s visual migration was very thin, the highlight probably a single Swift heading south west in a light movement of Swallows and House Martins. We did notice a number of Chaffinches about this morning, “pinking” and contact calling as they flew over or dropped into the plantation. They are a sure sign of the real autumn to begin soon.

Chaffinch

The inevitable Marsh Harrier put in a showing as it patrolled the set aside but at one point had to fend off the attentions of a Buzzard that spotted the harrier taking a rest in a recently cropped field. Two other Buzzards today plus a single Kestrel completed the raptor scene.

Buzzard

More Warblers

Another 0530 start saw Will and me at Rawcliffe Moss squeezing a ringing session into the promised window of weather. But at 0900 we took the nets down when a heavy rain shower came in from the North West and the wind picked up to put paid to our successful few hours.

We caught 35 birds of 8 species only, most of the birds either Sylvia or Acrocephalus warblers.

New birds: 1 Blackcap, 3 Sedge Warbler, 1 Reed Warbler, 1 Goldfinch, 1 Blue Tit, 1 Dunnock, 1 Willow Warbler and a surprising 21 Whitethroat, twenty of which were juvenile birds of the year.

Recaptures: 1 Sedge Warbler, 2 Whitethroat, 1 Dunnock, 1 Willow Warbler.

Blackcap
Whitethroat
Willow Warbler
Blue Tit
Goldfinch

So the apparently successful year for Whitethroats and Goldfinch continues, and even though we caught only one Goldfinch this morning, there were plenty zipping around. But we discussed the spring and summer birds we haven’t been catching, seeing or hearing and which we normally expect in or near the plantation and woods out on the moss. While Goldfinches go from strength to strength Linnet numbers are not comparable with its close relative and it is now unusual to see large flocks of Linnets but not of Goldfinch.

On our last two visits in July the Willow Warbler numbers dried up a little, but August will tell if this is a momentary blip. Wrens are conspicuous by their absence; we haven’t caught one for months. Dunnock numbers are also down with probably one pair only in the plantation. On the farm as a whole Grey Partridge seem non-existent, and all three latter species are almost certainly missing as a result of the severe winter. Sometimes it’s not so much what birds are seen but the species absent that gives insight into the overall picture.

Other birds seen this morning were 2 Buzzard, 2 Kestrel and a single Sparrowhawk. 130 early morning Swallows may have exited a roost but the 10 Swift and 3 Sand Martins we saw later in the morning all headed determinedly south.

Up, What A Lark

I must say these early starts don’t get any easier, particularly after a winter respite of 8 a.m. beginnings; but if the birds want worms and the ringers want birds, they both must make the effort and get out of bed early.

I met Will at 0615 on Rawcliffe Moss to a red sky in the east and the usual glow of optimism and anticipation that ringers possess in abundance. It was a very quiet session of ringing with very little grounded, but as is often the case, enough to keep us interested and occupied for four hours with a dribble of visible migration that added to the ringing. In the nets it was a slowly, slowly two birds an hour with only five new and four retraps, although we did catch our first Willow Warbler of the year. Other birds: Reed Bunting 4, Dunnock 2, Blue Tit 2 – I said it was quiet. One Reed Bunting provided us with a good example of an adult’s spring tail shape and condition.

Dawn Pheasant
Willow Warbler
Willow Warbler
Reed Bunting Tail-Adult
Reed Bunting
Blue Tit
Visible migration, all south to north this morning came as 22 Redpoll, 2 Sand Martin, 1 Swallow and 8+ Meadow Pipit. “Other” birds seen and heard but not directly attributable to today’s migration included another 5 Willow Warbler, 28 Curlew, 7 Linnet, 6 Goldfinch, I Sparrowhawk , 1 Buzzard, 1 Kestrel , 3 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 6 Corn Bunting and 4 Skylark, with perhaps the surprise bird of the morning, a Greenshank. The latter noisily circled the steep sided wildfowler’s pool before realising it was too deep to linger before heading off north again.

The Sparrowhawk picture is dedicated to Will who doesn’t believe that Sparrowhawks ever do anything but fly over, round or through mist net rides and probably only after the nets have been taken down.

Greenshank
Sparrowhawk