Staying Grounded

Saturday 26 March. There was a cold start at 0600. The temperature gauge displayed 2°C as I erected nets alone while musing over what the next four or five hours might bring. 

During the week bird news from Merseyside, North Morecambe Bay and North Wales confirmed my observations of the early week - low-key migration with small arrivals of Chiffchaffs, Lesser Redpolls, Goldcrests and Wheatears, together with unusually low numbers of Meadow Pipits in the run of clear-cold mornings. 

In North Wales there was an early Willow Warbler on Thursday 24 March together with nine Black Redstarts! I was expecting most of the above but definitely not a Black Redstart, although it was almost 12 months ago to the day of April 1st 2021 that I unexpectedly saw a Common Redstart perched at the gateposts. 

Common Redstart

By 0630 I was up and running with a cup of steaming coffee, the car ticking over and the heater turned to “Hi”. 

This site at Pilling is certainly good for Reed Buntings, already the most ringed bird here for 2022 with another three on the books today. 

Reed Bunting

Reed Bunting

In the furthest mist net lay yet another Brambling, one that at first glance looked identical to the Brambling caught on Thursday. When I turned the bird over to begin extracting there was no ring on either leg and I could see that this was also a second year female, marginally paler than the one of Thursday. 

Unlike us in the grey winter of Northern England the Bramblings may have faded in their winter sun destinations of France, Iberia or The Cornish Riviera. 

Brambling

Brambling

From here on the west coast Bramblings have a long journey yet before they reach their eventual destinations of Scandinavia and further east, into that presently troubled part of Northern Europe. Bramblings breed in coniferous and birch woodlands in much of Scandinavia, a large part of Russia, and northern Kazakhstan and Mongolia. 

Brambling Range in Europe

 

I gradually shed layers of clothes as the sun rose higher and grew increasingly warm. Unfortunately the clear blue skies and zero wind probably helped birds to move off site very quickly. A couple of Lesser Redpolls, 2 Pied Wagtails, Blackbirds and a singing Chiffchaff all evaded the nets and I was left to birdwatch rather than ring birds. 

Chiffchaff

 

There were lots of “pinkies”, Pink-footed Geese, around this morning, with perhaps an influx of those that wintered in Norfolk and South Lancashire, birds now ready to set off for Iceland. There seemed to be many hundreds, even thousands, over 3,000 of them when they panicked from their feeding in the Cockerham meadows when the regular aircraft climbed off from Black Knights Parachute Centre loaded with thrill seekers. 

Pink-footed Geese

 

For adrenalin junkies there’s the opportunity to throw your body out of a light aeroplane for as little as £199 with a “One Jump Taster”.  With luck you will land in Cockerham and not in Morecambe Bay.

Black Knights Parachute Centre - Cockerham Marsh

  

I think I will give that a miss, stick to solid ground and watch from below rather than have the ground rush up to meet me. 

Other birds seen today – 3 Little Egret, 2 Skylark, 1 Buzzard, 8 Linnet, 1 Lesser Redpoll, 2 Meadow Pipit. 

Andy is back from Egypt this weekend, keen to show off his sun tan and eager to get out ringing again, if slightly miffed to miss two Bramblings. Let’s hope bird numbers improve soon for his ringing fix. 

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

Quality Not Quantity

There goes that old chorus again, the one that ringers use when numbers are low but there are a few goodies to shout about. 

Until today the week was a little breezy for the Pilling site where even a breath of wind blowing through the bare hawthorns wafted a mist net around and made it visible. This morning was slightly better with zero wind and by now, after a couple of sunny days, green leaves and blossom in place of bare branches. 

Although by the end of March there are migrant birds to see the main bulk of migration of insect eating passerines is still three, four and more weeks away. I hoped to catch a few Meadow Pipits, a species that migrates north in good numbers in March but there seemed to be few around and I thought maybe they were high up in the cloudless sky with no reason to landfall. 

In fact visible migration was rather poor with small numbers of Lesser Redpolls and Reed Buntings being the most numerous. Just 9 birds caught – 5 Reed Bunting, 1 Goldcrest, 1 Blue Tit, 1 Lesser Redpoll and 1 Brambling. 

The Brambling, the second one caught here this spring, was a subtle looking second year female without the black and bright orange shades of the male caught here a few weeks ago. 

 

Brambling

 

The redpoll likewise proved to be a second year female. A second Lesser Redpoll escaped the net before I could reach it when I was forced to deal with a Mallard crashing about in another mist net. The nets are not designed to cope with wayward Mallards. Fortunately the duck found a way out without damaging the fairly new £90 net. 

Lesser Redpoll

Lesser Redpoll

 

Reed Bunting

  

Goldcrest

 

Other birds seen and heard - 20 Linnet, 6 Lesser Redpoll, 3 Blackbird, 1 Kestrel and 1 Snipe. Wintering birds comprised over 300 Pink-footed Geese on nearby meadows where their stay will soon be ended by a flight to breeding grounds in Iceland. 

Kestrel

 

I disturbed the Snipe when crossing a still soggy field on my way to the seed plot and where over the winter we had caught Linnets. An escaping Snipe or two became a regular feature of most days when splashing across to the seed plot. The Linnets are no longer with us in any numbers with so many gone north, hopefully to the top of Scotland where with luck one or two will be recaptured by Scottish colleagues. 

Snipe

Back soon. Maybe even Saturday if these winds stay down and high pressure stays around.

Linking this weekend to Anni's Blog and Eileen's Saturday.

 

In Like A Lion

“Comes in like a Lion, goes out like a Lamb.” - attributed to Thomas Fuller’s 1732 compendium, “Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings”.

Thomas - I am not amused by your witty saying.  Another week of weather watching has seen a couple of pencilled in days scrubbed from the ringing diary as March roars like the proverbial Lion. Thursday was looking good, Thursday moved to Saturday and now that too looks unlikely. And there’s little sign of lambs gambolling in spring sunshine.

So friends, it’s back to the archives today with a few pictures of Bramblings and others from December 2012 when there was something of a “Brambling Winter” and our ringing group processed more than 70 Bramblings between September 2012 and April 2013.          

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Did last week’s blizzards in Eastern Europe, dubbed “The Beast From The East” cause Bramblings to head west? This morning I caught 4 new ones in the plantation at Out Rawcliffe, making nine this week. It’s not a huge number in the grand scale of the millions in which Bramblings can flock in Europe, but it could mean many more are heading this way soon. 

Bramblings can be overlooked in apparently single species flocks of very flighty Chaffinches, the Bramblings giving away their involvement by the slim, white rump. Very often a Brambling will give out a nasal contact call but sometimes not, when the unremarkable chattering flight call can be overlooked in the calls of accompanying Chaffinches.  Click on the "xeno canto" button to hear Brambling calls.

Brambling

I think the attraction at Rawcliffe is the nyger feeders and the small amount of mixed feed on the ground, a mixture which contains sunflower seed. During the last large influx of Bramblings in 2010/2011 many took to using garden feeders. As a species they were very dominant in the feeding hierarchy by chasing off most interlopers.

Brambling

Brambling 

It was a short session, a late start only when the sun warmed the air, followed by a hasty pack up when a strengthening easterly wind blew through leafless trees and billowed the nets. 

So, 4 Brambling, 4 Chaffinch and a Goldfinch with no recaptures of the Bramblings from Tuesday. 

Brambling

Brambling

The dullish female pictured above had very visible fault bars. 

Brambling - fault bars

There were a good number of birds to take note of this morning, with 2 Buzzard, 2 Kestrel and a Little Owl before I even reached the farm.  The owl had puffed up to keep warm air in those feathers. 

Little Owl

Buzzard

In between the bit of ringing I clocked up 1 Sparrowhawk, 2 Snipe, 35 Fieldfare, 22 Redwing, 32 Skylark, 15 Reed Bunting, 250+ Lapwing, 1500+ Woodpigeon, 1 Mistle Thrush and 2 Raven. 

Fieldfare

There’s more news from North, South, East and West pretty soon from Another Bird Blog, so log in soon to find out just where. 

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Fingers crossed that I get out soon. Maybe a Brambling or two from the supplementary food dropped at Cockerham.

Thursday 10 March 2022.

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

Home Birding

An extract from an email all ringers received this week.

“BTO SURVEYS IN THE WIDER COUNTRYSIDE”. 

“Following the Government statement on 23 March, our Senior Leadership Team has reviewed the BTO advice and is asking all volunteers to follow the guidelines presented by the Prime Minister. While the monitoring work undertaken by volunteers is extremely important, it must not compromise public health. 

To avoid this potential risk, we are requesting that all BTO surveyors, including ringers and nest recorders, refrain from undertaking survey work at sites to which they would need to travel by any means until this guidance is reviewed.” 

“All the best and stay safe”. 

Dave Leech, Head of Ringing & Nest Recording 
James Pearce-Higgins, Director of Science” 

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Here's my contribution to "Home Birding", the newest buzz phrase for locked down birders with a post first published on Another Bird Blog on 31/12/2011 - New Year’s Eve 2011. Click the pictures for a close-up.

It’s time for recalling the past year’s highlights of birding, ringing and photography. Now is the moment when we choose to forget the low points, the empty pages in a sodden notebook, netting a handful of birds on a seemingly perfect spring morning, or discovering that you set the aperture wrong.

Here we go in rough chronological order with a selection of photos and personal highlights of 2011.

In the early part of the year we holidayed in Egypt at a time when the country was undergoing a revolution, but the confiding birds hadn’t joined in the turmoil and just behaved naturally for a visiting Brit.

Egypt proved to be a wonderful place for bird photography and so difficult to select just a few pictures, apart from the Kingfisher which is just about my favourite photo of the year, taken with a decent choice of aperture for once.

Kingfisher - Egypt

Cattle Egret - Egypt

I’d left Will counting Siskins building up by the hundreds in his garden, together with a dozen or two Brambling and Lesser Redpoll. Within days of returning from Egypt I joined him for some memorable ringing sessions and notable breakfasts.

Brambling

Lesser Redpoll 

Siskin 

Bacon Butty 

Spring and autumn were great for catching and photographing Northern Wheatears at Pilling. With the help of sacrificial meal worms I caught fourteen “Wheats” and clicked the shutter button a couple of hundred times on the beautiful chat, passing Meadow Pipits or the occasional Linnet.

Wheatear

Meadow Pipit

Linnet 

The annual ritual came along, May in Menorca, the island where birds are hard to find but fortunately more numerous than birders. This year a ringed Audouin’s Gull at the hotel pool gave me an excuse to search for that extreme rarity, a Menorcan ringer.

A Ringed Audouin’s Gull -

A Ringed Audouin's Gull

Summer was warm and wonderful, ringing Swallow chicks, finding Skylark nests and stumbling upon young Lapwings or breeding Redshank.

Skylark

Barn Swallow 

Redshank

Lapwing

Then at the end of summer came a chance to take photographs of a species rapidly becoming a rarity, the unfortunately named “Common” Cuckoo.

Cuckoo 

Autumn and early winter was given over to ringing pipits, buntings, finches and thrushes “on the moss”, the satisfaction of working a regular patch with a job well done.

Reed Bunting 

Tree Pipit

Yellowhammer

Don't forget to Spring forward tonight by changing all those clocks. Or not.

Back soon with Another Bird Blog.  Linking this post to Anni's Birding in Texas.

Siskin Control

After almost three weeks of rubbish weather I feared there would be no ringing ever again. The perpetual winds eased on Monday when Andy managed to get up to Oakenclough for the first time since 1st March. I couldn't make it but was hopeful for later in the week. 

Andy caught the first migratory Meadow Pipits of the spring plus 3 Goldcrest, 2 Lesser Repoll and 2 Siskin, all probable migrants. 

The vast majority of Meadow Pipits returning north at this time of the year have wintered in France, the Northern Spanish coast Portugal, inland Southern Spain and Morocco. They often pile through in huge numbers, especially so if they have been held up as they have this year. The early bird catches the best breeding territory as well as the early worm. 

Meadow Pipit 

After a day of mizzle and drizzle on Tuesday the forecast of zero wind for Wednesday gave us more hope so we arranged to meet up at Oakenclough at 0630, despite the chance of early mist and light rain. 

A Misty Day 

The forecast was correct with mist/fog plus visibility down to 70 metres holding until 1130. Although we caught 20 birds, the poor conditions prevented any obvious visible diurnal movement of Meadow Pipits. 

Our 20 birds comprised 7 Siskin, 4 Chaffinch, 3 Goldcrest, 2 Goldfinch and one each of Lesser Redpoll, Brambling, Wren and Blue Tit. In the poor light all today’s photos are at ISO3200. 

One of the seven Siskins, had a ring on the left leg, immediately telling us as right-leg ringers, that we had a “control” – a bird ringed elsewhere. S896866, an adult male had probably been ringed in 2018 or early 2019. We will find out in a day or two. 

Siskin - adult male 

Siskin - adult female 

Siskin - adult female  

The single Lesser Redpoll caught was a rather dull second calendar year female. 

Lesser Redpoll- second calendar year female 

Towards the end of the session came a pleasant surprise by way of second calendar year male Brambling. Bramblings have been especially scarce during the winter, but this can be a good time of year to pick up on species as they head north from places unknown. 

Brambling - second calendar year male 

Brambling - second calendar year male 

 Wren

The Ringing Station 

Stay tuned. There's more birding, ringing and pictures soon if the weather holds good.

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