One Of Each

On Tuesday morning Will and I met up to have a go for Linnets and anything else in the offing. Firstly I stopped off along the A585 main road and checked on the small group of Mute Swans, a couple of Whooper Swans and egrets that have spent a number of days on a single field. 

Two days before I saw two small, crouching white egrets that upon closer views were Cattle Egrets and not the usual Little Egrets that frequent these fields. There was Little Egret too, picking through the recently cleared crop of maize.

Cattle Egret

Little Egret

 

Our catching was extremely quiet even though there seemed to be lots of birds on the move in the way of 30+ Skylark, 15+ Pied Wagtail, 30 Greenfinch, 3 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 8 Redwing, 10 Reed Bunting, 8/10 Tree Sparrow, 12 Chaffinch and a dozen or more Meadow Pipit. 

Meadow Pipit

 

So many birds around attracted the usual raptors looking for a meal with single sightings of Merlin, Sparrowhawk and a fine “cream head” Marsh Harrier. 

Linnets came and went in their usual frustrating fashion, dipping in and out of the target area without staying long enough to be caught. The number of parties noted added up to 150+, therefore a catch of just two proved how difficult it can be to catch Linnets in any numbers when the species is so wary and flighty. Hardly surprising considering the attention their flocks receive from raptors looking for a snack. 

A Chaffinch and two Linnets was the sum of effort however both Linnets proved to be of the “Scottish” type, our eyes now well trained to pick out them out in a crowd. Look at the example below, a female with a very dark, almost black streaked cap with equally dark grey ear coverts and general dark streaked appearance. 

Scottish Linnet

 

Unexpected came two new Cetti’s Warbler that we were able to age and sex as both birds of the year, one male and one female. With wing and weights of 62mm and 15.3 gms; 56mm and 10.8 gms, the two displayed no overlap, unlike Cetti’s Warblers that remain unsexed in the winter months when biometrics fit into both camps, male or female.

Cetti's Warbler

 

Cetti’s Warbler first appeared in this area known as the Fylde in the early 1990s at Marton Mere, Blackpool. There then followed a series of sightings of single birds and ones or two through the 1990s and into the new millennium whereby the species became well established but never numerous in a small number of mainly coastal or near coastal wetland localities. 

The species remains very difficult, almost impossible  to see in the field, often the only clue to its presence the rattling burst of loud song that emanates from a patch of unkempt scrubby growth or reeds adjacent to water. 

Stay tuned folks for my look at a stunning new bird book sure to appeal to birders, everywhere, here in UK and for sure the United States.

Terns of North America by Cameron Cox

I have a copy of Terns of North America. A Photographic Guide. Coming soon on Another Bird Blog. This one you will definitely want. 

The End

Well that’s it, the end of the ringing year. The weather forecast is so bad that it’s highly unlikely we can manage a ringing session until 2023. 

At least here in the UK we are not suffering from the violent and extreme weather occurring across North America, conditions causing severe disruption and deaths at a time of year that is for celebration. 

It mostly happens that we in North West England receive the tail end of North American weather via Atlantic weather systems and already our own forecasters are predicting New Year snow and ice for us. 

This morning I made my usual trip out Pilling Way to drop supplementary Christmas Fayre for our feathered friends. This will pay dividends soon by way of preventing the premature deaths of birds unable to find their customary food in snow and ice. 

Just two days after the Winter Solstice a Cetti’s Warbler sang out from the edge of the reedy scrub, the exact same spot of November after which all appeared to go quiet. I rather hoped the Cetti’s had looked in his diary and thought this was the time to strike up the band. 

Perhaps not as the extra daylight is not too noticeable just yet but the sound of the Cetti’s and then another sighting of the now confirmed wintering Marsh Harrier gave me positive vibes for the weeks ahead. There's little doubt that both species could breed in this area with sympathetic ownership and management of certain tracts of land.

Cetti's Warbler

Marsh Harrier

I saw no birds on or around the plot prepped for whoosh netting but where many tiny footprints told a different story. Our time will come as the weather turns colder when perhaps even the Linnets may return. The normally dependable Linnets are not around at the moment and it could be that many have gone even further south during the freeze of early and mid-December. 

In the absence of other news here’s a few paragraphs about the very same feeding station from 13 January earlier this year, a clue as to what may be around two weeks into a new year when winter  subsides and spring is around the corner.  And how time flies! 

January 13th 2022. 

In most UK winters the Brambling is a difficult one to find but a bird to prize. These cousins of the ubiquitous Chaffinch live north and east of here on the borders of Finland & Russia, venturing this far west in irregular numbers and unpredictable years. 

At the feeding station I‘ve listened for the nasal wheeze, watched the feeders and the ground beneath for weeks while studying the hedgerow for a flash of white rump amongst the Chaffinches. And then on Wednesday, joy of joys, at last a Brambling, crouching amongst half a dozen Chaffinches, an orange-tinged one, reward for the seed drops and the interminable car washing after the tortuous muddy farm track.

Brambling

The finches scattered for no reason when I saw that the Brambling, now in a nearby tree, was male, perhaps even an adult but not for definite until and if we catch the star. (We did).   

A couple of Reed Buntings, 3 Greenfinch, three or more Blackbirds and 20 or so Linnets completed the count as I scattered more seed in the base of the hedgerow where even the Sparrowhawk’s long legs won’t reach.  

Greenfinch

Chaffinch

Blackbird

I saw Brown Hares on the move too, three together in the first of their Mad March ways. 

I left the Pilling farm and drove to Cockerham where at weekend Andy and I had prepared the seed plot for our now annual whoosh netting of Linnets and the sometime bonus of Skylarks and Stonechats. 

Happy Christmas and a Bird-Filled New Year everyone. Linking today to Eileen's Blogspot 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

A Mixed Bag

We took advantage of Friday's clear but frosty morning with a six-thirty start to the ringing session. Will arrived on site at Pilling from an easterly direction and was lucky enough to see a Barn Owl cross the road in front of his car. By then Andy and I who arrived from the opposite direction were halfway down the access road and missed seeing the owl in our haste to get the nets going. 

It was a shock to the system to discover that a number of the guy ropes we leave on for early speed were solid with a layer of ice. For the first time this autumn/winter we needed gloves to hand. 

More than 20 Little Egrets left the tree roost when the car lights disturbed their sleep and we heard Redwings flying over. We didn’t catch Redwings or Little Egrets and at first it seemed that there weren’t too many birds around in the minus temperatures. 

Things improved as intermittent sun arrived to give us a mixed bag of 21 birds of 8 species - 9 Greenfinch, 3 Linnet, 2 Reed Bunting, 2 Goldcrest, 2 Wren, 1 Chaffinch, 1 Blue Tit and 1 Cetti’s Warbler. 

One of the first birds out was our second Cetti’s Warbler at this site, this latest a male, following the tiny female we caught on October 4th. 

Males are larger than females and some can hold large territories with up to three females. Consequently, the UK population of around 3500 territories is now judged on the number of singing males present rather than “pairs” with the population as a whole thought to be resident rather than migratory. 

The early morning sun enhanced the red/brown tints of the Cetti’s plumage.  

Cetti's Warbler

Although the number of Linnets around was not huge today (70/90 birds) we caught a couple of obvious Scottish types. The first winter female below was especially striking through the dark mantle and its dusky and heavily streaked breast feathers, quite unlike the softer tones of local Linnets. 

"Scottish" Linnet

 

At last there seems to be Reed Buntings around and of the seven or eight we saw, two new ones was an improvement on recent numbers. We think that our provision of winter supplementary food for all will see more Reed Buntings in the weeks to come.  

The Reed Bunting is one of the species that suffers from the "winter hunger gap". This is the time of year when winter is at its harshest and natural food like seeds, berries and insects are scarce or unavailable to farmland birds. Typically, it lasts from December until March. 

 

Reed Bunting

This date in November might be a little late for migratory Goldcrests. It’s a species that is in short supply through the winter months where overnight frosts can quickly kill off a tiny bird that weighs less than six grams. 

Perhaps these late Goldcrests are ones from northern Europe, like the similarly sized Pallas’s Leaf Warbler seen on Thursday just across the water in Fleetwood’s Mount Park? The Pallas’s had travelled over 3,000 miles from the mountain forests of southern Siberia, east to northern Mongolia and China. 

Goldcrest

 

Other birds seen today - Buzzard, Sparrowhawk, 2 Stonechat. Fifteen or twenty Meadow Pipits and several Skylarks. 

The weekend beckons. Back soon with more news, views and photos on Another Bird Blog.  

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

 

Monday, Monday

The tail end of Hurricane Ian assured us that Monday would be the only morning for a spot of ringing. I was on the school run so met Andy and Will out Pilling way two hours after their start time of 0630. The weather forecast predicted the wind to steadily increase throughout the morning from a lowly 5 mph right through to 15mph, the latter a speed that would curtail the session early.

The boys had started well with Blackbirds, a rare Song Thrush,  several Linnets and a new bird for the site in the shape of a tiny female Cetti’s Warbler. 

The Cetti’s Warbler is a species still on the increase in this the Fylde plain. Further expansion may be difficult as potential sites get swallowed up by the creation of new build at the expense of green land as homo sapiens escape inland towns and cities for a healthier environment. 

Cetti's Warbler

There was a strange looking male Blackbird that exhibited pale emarginations to much of its underside plumage, the like and extent of which I’d not seen before. 

Blackbird

 

We continued in the same vein, interspersed with sightings of dashing Merlin, Peregrine and Sparrowhawk all looking for a slice of the action. Perhaps they were drawn in by the small flocks of Linnets that arrived, along with a Stonechat, several Meadow Pipits or the steady stream of Skylarks flying from North to South West. 

By 1100 the wind became too strong and we packed in after 29 Birds caught - 1 Goldfinch, 1 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 1 Goldcrest, 1 Robin, 1 Blue Tit, 1 Song Thrush, 1 Cetti's Warbler, 2 Blackbird, 2 Wren, 18 Linnet. 

We noted good numbers of Linnets around, c150-200, and would probably have caught more but for the increasing wind speed and a billowing net. 

There were darker headed and longer winged Linnets, signs of Scottish birds leaving the highlands and islands in readiness to escape the first frosts and to spend winter in the relative warmth of the Irish Sea gulf stream. 

Linnet

 

Great-spotted Woodpecker

There’s more soon on Another Bird Blog with a trip across North America. Don’t miss it. 

 

Demo Time

On Tuesday I joined Andy at Marton Mere Nature Reserve Blackpool to help out with a demonstration of bird ringing. A start time 7 a.m meant a bit of a lie-in. 

Demo Time 

Events like this present a great opportunity for non-ringers to see birds in close-up instead of through a pair of binoculars.  It’s an opportunity to learn a little about how bird ringers’ age and sex birds by using techniques involving the taking of biometric measurements, studying feather wear and moult or by simple but sometimes subtle differences in appearance.  

The morning dawned bright with a few cursory showers but not enough to deter the 12 or so people who initially turned up. A good number of those volunteer at the reserve and give freely of their time and energy to make the nature reserve a better place for visitors and birds alike. 

Maybe the 7am start did not encourage many more to join in but the smaller group allowed everyone to get a close look and for us to answer their many probing questions.. 

Reserve Warden Rick at centre stage 

Ready to go.

After a couple of hours we’d caught 4 Whitethroat, 4 Reed Warbler, 2 Cetti’s Warbler, 1 Sedge Warbler and 1 Blackcap, not a tremendous total but enough birds to allow close examination and explanation for the appreciative visitors. 

Andy holding court

The two Cetti’s Warblers, both adults, a male and a female, proved to be object lessons in how our UK summer warblers moult. The two had quite recently finished breeding and one in particular was in the advanced stages of complete moult of wings, body and tail. Not the prettiest of Cetti's to be sure.

Cetti's Warbler 

Cetti's Warbler

No wonder then that adult warblers hide away during the height of summer when their lack of fully working plumage makes it harder to avoid predators. Cetti's Warblers are secretive at the best of times so our visitors enjoyed seeing the pair we caught as it is a species they mostly hear but rarely if ever see well in the field.

Sedge Warbler 

juvenile Blackcap 

Whitethroat 

Reed Warbler 

A good morning was had by all. And there's more soon from Another Bird Blog - ringing, birding and photos.

Linking today to Eileen's Blog.

Must Do Better

At the end of December the BTO encourage bird ringers to renew their ringing permit by submitting returns and confirming they are fit to continue ringing for the coming year. Fit in mind and body for now, but it gets more difficult each year, especially those 4am summer starts or scrambling up and down a quarry face to catch Sand Martins. 

So now my permit for 2018 just arrived hot from the Canon Pixma. This rather exclusive piece of paper will reside in the glove box of the car for the inevitable, often puzzled but mostly interested, occasionally irate questions from onlookers. 

Bird Ringing Permit

“Why are you trudging through that muddy field in the middle of a cold, grey January morning picking up wild birds from that funny looking net? Are you harming them? Are you catching them to eat ?” Then try explaining how the vital scientific work is also rewarding enjoyment,  see the look on their face as you show the rings, pliers, scales and other equipment, and then watch their reaction as the tiny Linnet they hadn’t spotted in your hand is released to fly away. 

Yes, each UK bird ringer must have a licence to capture and ring birds. They pay yearly for the privilege of being involved in the national ringing scheme, as well as buying their own equipment and the rings they use; unless of course they are fortunate in having sponsorship or a rich benefactor. A busy day of ringing 100 small birds costs about £25 for the “A” sized rings that passerines take. Donations readily accepted or just send a sort code. I’ll do the rest. 

A check of my personal ringing data on our Fylde Ringing Group database showed I processed 516 birds during 2017. An average of ten a week for a year is pretty pathetic by past performance of almost 25,000 birds since 1985 thanks to last year’s foul weather of summer, autumn, and early winter. But there’s a reasonable mix of species in that 516 and as it’s raining and snowing today, chance to recall a few of the highlights, guess where we went wrong and surmise how to be a ringing superstar in 2018. 

During 2017 Oakenclough near Garstang proved the most productive of sites and where ringing with pal Andy I processed 268 birds. Most encountered species was Goldfinch at 57 and Lesser Redpoll at 47 followed by 22 Redwings ringed during October and early November. 

Redwing

Redpoll

Goldfinch

In amongst the dross of tits and wrens that ringers choose to forget were singles of Sparrowhawk and Redstart; and always welcome, a couple of Tree Pipits, all worthy of bold lettering as is the custom of bird blogs in identifying the more exciting species. 

Tree Pipit

Redstart

Sparrowhawk

For the moment we have given up on Oakenclough, a very finch orientated but also weather dependent site where autumn migration hardly took place when many northern finches chose to fly over Yorkshire, Humberside and SE England on their way to the Continent rather than chance the series of storms that hit the West Coast. With luck there will be a strong movement back north in a few weeks’ time when we can return for Redpolls and maybe even Siskins. 

The weather also limited our visits to the Cockerham Sand Martin colony at the aforesaid quarry. Two visits only during the summer months resulted in my poor number of 33 Sand Martins, just half the full total shared with Andy. Normally we would hope to get in four or maybe five visits to measure breeding success but it wasn’t to be. 

Sand Martin

A few summer visits to Marton Mere realised 28 new birds including a small number of Reed Warblers and a couple of the recent colonist and now proved breeding Cetti’s Warblers. 

Cetti's Warbler

Regular readers will be familiar with, probably even bored by the blog’s continual mention of Project Linnet. Suffice to say that it is a very worthwhile project, so much so that during the year we had guest appearances from other ringers keen to get their hands on Red-listed Linnets. There was the added bonus last year of a single Stonechat to add to the Linnets and a handful of Goldfinches.

Stonechat

Of 70 birds ringed in my garden on lazy days, 51 were Goldfinches and just 3 House Sparrows. There are no prizes for guessing the most common bird in this part of Lancashire and probably the whole of the UK. How times change. 

Goldfinch

Here’s hoping for better ringing weather in 2018.

Linking today to  Anni's Blog , Eileen's Saturday Blog and Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.