Click Bait

OK, due to a combination of factors I have somewhat neglected posting on the blog. That doesn’t mean that I have been sat at home twiddling my thumbs or watching daytime telly. Does anyone still watch daytime telly to be entertained or informed? Definitely not the latter. Sources of news and entertainment on the Internet are more varied where by hitting the right buttons, the actuality & truth, as opposed to mainstream media who like to tell us what to believe, is there for all to discover. BBC, ITV, C4, Sky – they are all liars with biased and well-oiled axes to grind. 

Today there's a selection of pictures shot in-between bouts of bad weather that hit the North West from January and into May when I ventured out with bins and camera if the sun appeared and winds subsided. I felt so sorry for our local farming community when days and weeks of rain swallowed their crop fields; more knocks to a hard-working fraternity who receive little or no credit for their contribution to our British Way of Life. 

My mostly mornings with camera, plus a couple of ringing sessions confirmed that all is not well with birds. Where this year are Swifts, Sedge Warblers, Blackcaps, Swallows, Whitethroats, House Martins and Willow Warblers? - to name but a handful of supposedly “common species”. Luckily, Wheatears and ever curious Pied Wagtails  seemed in good supply with the jury out on seemingly low numbers of finches and buntings.

Adult Swallow

Whitethroat

Sedge Warbler

Wheatear

Pied Wagtail

Linnet

Reed Bunting

Pied  Wagtail - looking for the other one 

While saturated fields held no joy for farmers, a few waders took advantage by managing to rear chicks on fields into which a tractor would sink. Out Cockerham way a pair of roadside Lapwings I watched for weeks managed to grow all four chicks to adult size. All the time with crows looking on but chased off by sharp eyed parent Lapwings.

Lapwing

Lapwing chick

Carrion Crow

At another field nearby a pair of Shoveler took up residence where a male left his mate in an adjacent ditch while he stole minutes alone at a water flash. . 

Shoveler

Finally and into June the ground in parts dried out by which time both Oystercatchers and Lapwings could search the recently ploughed and now drying clumps of earth.

Oystercatcher

Male Lapwing - dig that crest!

And then in late June for a week and a day Sue and I ate out in the garden, enjoying the evening sunlight. A chance to try our own versions of Greek classics, Lamb Kleftico, Baked Feta and souvlakis together with a bottle of Ampelicious that too quickly ran out, the bottle courtesy of our lovely friends, Family Karaboula at Maistrali. 

 

Maistrali Taverna, Skiathos, Greece 

Ampelicious  Red

Bouyiourdi - Baked Feta

The first week of July. There's more rain in the forecast but I will be out whenever I can. 

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August Time

After the relative quiet of birding of June and July, the first days of August sees many birders pick up their bins again. There’s hope that the new month will bring post breeding dispersal with signs of true autumn migration and a wealth of birds that may arrive with unsettled weather and cooling temperatures. 

Sunday morning at Cockerham was cool with a pronounced westerly breeze and ever changing bouts of sun and cloud. I had single panel nets in the four foot high seed plot where I hoped to catch the first Linnets of the autumn. Hidden in the lee of the car as protection from sun, the cool breeze and the threat of a shower I switched a couple of times from a shirt to adding a jacket and then back to jacketless as the sun returned.

All the while Linnets arrived from both west and east, individuals, small groups and even a flock of 25+ that eventually gave a count of 60 or more Linnets; a clear sign of the autumnal flocking behaviour of small finches. 

A couple of Linnets escaped as I walked to the net however I did capture six, 3 moulting adults and 3 juveniles of the year. There was also an adult female Blackbird. 

Linnet - adult male

Linnet - adult male

Linnet - juvenile/first summer

Blackbird - adult female

 

Perhaps and in view of the weather it was no coincidence that the morning produced a clear movement of Swifts heading south, singles and twos at first. And then rather suddenly about ten o’clock and directly above the nearby pool came a vortex of Swifts, 50 or more feeding below the billowing grey cloud. Within minutes they were gone, back on high and out of sight to continue their southerly flight. 

Swifts

 

Other species seen and heard – 190/200 Carrion Crow, 12 Curlew , 1 Willow Warbler, 1 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 2 Tree Sparrow, 15 Swallow, 2 Goldfinch, 2 Little Egret, 2 Grey Heron, 1 Buzzard. 

The huge numbers of predatory Carrion Crows in recently cut fields suggests a very successful breeding season but does not bode well for small birds and breeding waders in 2022. 

Carrion Crow

In other news. It was here in Cockerham that a Great Egret lingered through May and well into into June 2021 and where earlier in the spring there has been two or even three individuals.  At one point I hoped that the egrets might join the Little Egret by becoming a breeding species of this part of Lancashire. It was not to be but now comes news of Great Egrets from the South West of England. 

Great Egret - Fylde, Lancashire

 

From Bird Guides.“Great Egrets have enjoyed a record-breaking year on the Somerset Levels, as the species continues its rapid colonisation of Britain. An estimated 50 chicks fledged this year on the Avalon Marshes. Nesting took place at 10 separate locations across Shapwick Heath, Ham Wall and Westhay reserves, with 25 of the 37 nests found going on to successfully fledge young. "

"Great Egret joined the list of breeding British birds as recently as 2012, when a pair nested at Shapwick Heath Somerset – the epicentre of the current population in the country. For much of the 20th century the Great Egret was restricted to the wetlands of Eastern Europe but, since the 1990s, the species made a comeback, nesting in increasing numbers across Europe and then spreading west." 

"Since 2012, numbers of breeding birds in Somerset increased steadily. In 2017, a pair of Great Egrets fledged three chicks at Holkham Nature Reserve Norfolk, marking the county's first successful breeding attempt.” 

In 2019, a single pair nested in Cheshire for the first time, at Burton Mere Wetlands, a flap and a glide into to Lancashire for a Great Egret. 

More news and views soon. Stay tuned to Another Bird Blog. 

An Unfunny Game

The release of non-native game birds and their impact upon the environment is in the news again this week. It is an issue mentioned several time on Another Bird Blog with the intention of alerting Joe Public to elements of the countryside that David Attenborough does not show. 

An estimated 40/50 million Common Pheasants and up to 10 million Red-legged Partridges are released into the countryside prior to the shooting season opening each 1 October.  

Red-legged Partridge 

Pheasant

The current pheasant and partridge shooting seasons draw to a close at the end of January 2020. The 2020 season opens on 1 October for Common Pheasant and 1 September for Red-legged Partridge. Releases of captive-bred birds occur prior to this, usually in July when trailer loads of pen-reared game-birds are transported to the shooting fields and released. Being pen-reared and regularly fed from leaving the egg the youngsters find most of their food from bins spaced at regular intervals throughout each shoot. 

Pen Rearing

 Off To The Shoot - Raptor Persecution Scotland

Feed Bin

The waste from transportation and feed bins provides rich pickings for predators of the crow family, mainly Carrion Crows. This easy availability of food throughout the winter months may have been a factor in the crows’ increased population since the 1960s, a trend associated with increases in nesting success/earlier laying. 

Carrion Crows take nestlings of small farmland birds and the eggs & chicks of waders, a fact of life easily witnessed by field workers. Some studies have found that crows along with their cousins the Magpie and the Raven have surprisingly little impact on the abundance of other bird species. I’m pretty certain those studies have not taken place in the Fylde Lancashire where it is not uncommon to see many hundreds of Carrion Crows on fields that are regularly shot and where lines of feed bins cross the landscape. 

A white Red-legged Partridge 

Carrion Crow 

Around 60% of game-birds released for shooting in the UK, an estimated 25/30 million birds, do not end up at their intended fate of being shot. This constitutes wastage, raising economic, environmental and ethical questions. There are four main reasons: predation, disease, starvation and dispersal into the wider countryside. Roadkill and agricultural operations contribute yet more often unquantifiable deaths. Early morning drives through areas of shoots will see many fresh corpses on carriageways where inexperienced and newly released game-birds meet the combustion engine. 

Pheasant Roadkill

The National Gamebag Census (NGC) records information provided by around 600 participating estates throughout Britain on shooting bags. There is no actual quantification of releasing as the NGC is a fraction of the actual shoots, many of which are on a small scale basis of individual and/or neighbouring farms. This I know because there are a number in this part of Lancashire and where gamekeepers are reluctant or evasive in revealing the number of game birds they “put down” (release). 

From "Birdwatch" magazine 21 January 2020. 

The non-profit legal entity Wild Justice revealed this week that it has sent a second letter to The Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) about the effect of releasing millions of non-native game-birds into the British countryside. 

Last July Wild Justice challenged DEFRA's failure to assess the ecological impact on sites of conservation interest of releasing approximately 50 million game-birds into the countryside. The government department took two months to respond, but agreed that the Secretary of State would undertake a review of the release of such birds on or near protected sites. 

Since July 2019 DEFRA has failed to act. With zero progress, Wild Justice pursued the challenge and wrote again urging DEFRA to act quickly. 

In the letter, Wild Justice's lawyers Leigh Day stated that, with DEFRA having recognised the problem in September 2019, "it would be unlawful for those releases to take place in 2020 unless the possibility of them having detrimental impacts on the sites in question had been properly considered and specifically ruled out ahead of time".  As such, "the Secretary of State needs to initiate those processes now". The lawyers added: "To hold off doing that would lead to illegality later and so be unlawful now." 

Mark Avery, a co-director of Wild Justice columnist, commented: "We started this legal challenge last July, DEFRA took two months to respond (mid-September) and now we are past mid-January, only six months from the time when game-bird releasing might start again. DEFRA needs to get moving. This legal letter is designed to give them a very firm shove." 

It’s good news that Wild Justice should tackle this subject but I question their limiting the campaign to “sites of conservation interest”. The release of non-native game-birds is a problem that impacts the whole of the countryside, all of which is of conservation interest given the catastrophic decline of so many birds of farm and field during the last 40 years.

Linking this post to Eileen's Blogspot and Anni's Birding.

If At First You Don't Succeed

For once there was no early morning Barn Owl. I motored past a couple of sentinel Kestrels but no ghostly owls crossed my path. I guess the owls must be sat tight on eggs by now, early May. 

The morning was to be pretty quiet for new migrants but there was evidence that the recent cold weather had not held up some birds’ urge to procreate. 

I soon found myself at Gulf Lane where Richard the farmer has tilled and then seeded the set-aside field, the scene of our winter Linnet project. A pair of Oystercatchers moved in pretty smartish with the female already sat on eggs and the male on sentry duty just yards away. The sitting female is highly visible in the bare field and already the focus of attention for marauding crows with their eyes on the eggs. Hopefully the seed will sprout and grow quickly to give some element of cover and camouflage to both the female and the eggs. The incubation period for the eggs will be between 25-30 days; it’s a long time to keep those determined crows at bay. 

Oystercatcher 

Oystercatcher 

Carrion Crow

There were 6 Stock Doves and a handful of Woodpigeons picking over the ground as well as four of our Linnet friends. 

At Conder Green the high water level dictates the presence of five pairs of Oystercatcher as the sole representatives of wading species with no sign of the several Avocets that in recent weeks took a passing interest. There are signs that Tufted Duck and even Shelducks will breed again with three pairs of the former and two or more pairs of Shelduck. 

Along the hedgerow here was at least one each of Willow Warbler, Whitethroat and Reed Bunting. 

I’m still not seeing many Swallows although it was good to note about 10/12 of their House Martin cousins at Conder Green. The martins were in their usual place at the houses and the café that overlook the muddy creeks of the River Conder. Having arrived only in the last day or two they were already collecting mud for their homes on the sides of the buildings. A Goldfinch came to see what all the fuss was about and perhaps thought the martins collected food rather than mud. 

House Martin  

House Martin 

Goldfinch 

The Jeremy/Moss/Slack lanes circuit proved quiet with little out of the ordinary. It does seem that the two species most lacking in numbers this year are two small warblers, the Whitetroat and the Sedge Warbler. These are just two of the many bird species that winter in the Sahel region, the south side of the Sahara Desert shown in orange on the map. 

It is here that birds and people literally live on the edge and  where both rely on the same natural resources of trees, water and land. It’s a landscape that is often plunged into a prolonged drought and subject to other threats such as expansion and intensification of arable & livestock agriculture, and the cutting of trees for fuel. 

If such species can survive the Sahel winter they must then embark on the long and perilous journey to and from Northern Europe. No wonder then that so many do not make it back to the UK. 

The African/Palearctic Bird Migration System

Sedge Warbler 

Whitethroat 

Along Moss Lane was a Lapwing with four tiny youngsters, so small that that they probably hatched just today. There are good numbers of Lapwings on eggs that may get the benefit of the late spring as farmers delay their usual ploughing due to several still saturated fields. The same goes for Skylarks with good numbers displaying and chasing over the rough grass where hopefully the young can soon hide from the crows. 

Lapwing & chick 

The Tree Sparrows were noisy at Cockersands where loud “chip,chip” calls gave away their nesting intentions, not to mention one or two locations. Along the shore - a few Goldfinch and singles of Pied Wagtail and Whimbrel but it was time to head home and pack for warmer days. 

Tree Sparrow 

Tree Sparrow 

Back home a pair of Collared Doves aren't having as much luck. They spent all of Wednesday building a nest in the apple tree. Today the sticks were all over the grass and I suspect the doves need a bit more practice at building a home. It's bit like birding; repetition and training makes for a better job.

Log in soon for some summer sunshine and colourful birds with Another Bird Blog. 

Wading Through It.

It was early doors, 0530 or thereabouts, an unearthly hour when normal folk slumber away as crazy birders prowl the countryside. It was a morning without a plan but one which developed into something of a wader morning and then finished with an unlikely Yellow Wagtail. 

I stopped along Head Dyke Lane at Pilling, waiting for a Roe Deer to cross the road so as to reach a fellow deer which had found a route into a field to the left. It’s best for a car not to pick a fight with a panicking deer, and I hoped no cars would suddenly accelerate past at 60mph as they often do along here. One deer ran off in the direction of Pilling village while the other turned tail, slipped through the hawthorns and ran in the opposite direction. A good enough start but I was after birds not Bambi. 

Things improved near Fluke Hall when an Oystercatcher gave the game away; “kleep-kleep, kleep, kleep”, came the frantic warning. Down below were 2 good sized youngsters already legging it across the field for all they were worth. Too late - 2/2 ringed and the first ones for the year. 

Oystercatcher

Oystercatcher

After complaining a day or two ago of the lack of Lapwings locally I walked the sea wall and found two pairs with youngsters this morning, a brood of three plus a single and quite small chick tended by both parents. Lapwings generally start with 4 eggs so while the brood of three might be considered OK, to have one chick does not provide enough new blood for Lapwings to go forth and multiply. I thought back to the Red Fox of fifteen minutes before which I’d disturbed from the remains of a freshly killed Red-legged Partridge. The fox melted into the undergrowth but was soon replaced by an opportunist crow. 

Both the Fox and the Carrion Crow take their share of our few remaining Lapwings and their eggs and chicks. Local crows begin to have the air of the unchallenged while farmers find better things to do than chase the legions of corvids which throng the countryside. 

Spot the Lapwing

Lapwing

Lapwing

Carrion Crow

There was no success with finding Redshank chicks. When it comes to spotting predators from afar adult Redshanks are simply the best. From a good 75 yards away it was clear the Redshanks had young when the male took up guard on the gate and warned the female. The female took to the air and joined in the distractions with warning cries while circling overhead as the young slipped further away and out of sight. Not to worry, my old legs can’t chase sprinting Redshank chicks which run like the clappers and never stop for breath, unlike me. 

 

Redshank

 

Redshank

Bits and Pieces today - 1 Buzzard, 4 Whitethroat in song, 2 Reed Bunting in song, 1 displaying/singing Sedge Warbler, 1 singing Blackcap. 3 Grey Heron, 2 Little Egret. 

There was an unexpected sighting of a bright male Yellow Wagtail which flew in from the marsh and landed but briefly on top of the fresh midden pile. After a few moments the wagtail flew off south east towards Pilling; most strange as Yellow Wagtails are now simply birds of spring and autumn in these parts, the sighting perhaps best explained as a failed or completed early breeder bird from not too far away. 

Yellow Wagtail- Photo by Nicholls of the Yard / Foter / CC BY-NC

Unplanned mornings often turn out OK don’t they? Join in soon for more accidental birding from Another Bird Blog.

In the meantime linking to Theresa's Ranch.