Better Late Than Never

At last, a break in the wind and rain allowed Andy and me to fit in a ringing session at Oakenclough on the edge of the Bowland Forest. With only a week to the shortest day our starts get later and 0815 today - three or four hours later than a typical start time during spring, summer or early autumn. 

A quiet session saw us catch just 14 birds in 3 hours, slow going by any standards - 6 Coal Tit, 4 Goldfinch, 2 Lesser Redpoll, 1 Blue Tit and 1 Chaffinch. 

Coal Tit

Although the weather of November and December has been wet and windy, the temperatures have been unseasonably high whereby there seems ample natural food for birds and not much reason for them to visit our feeding station, as evidenced today by the lack of Great Tits, Blue Tits and Chaffinches. Any Lesser Redpolls in the area now are winterers rather than migrants, the two today an adult male and a second year female found in the net together. When released they flew off in tandem. 

Lesser Redpoll - adult male

Lesser Redpoll - adult male

Unlike today’s wintering Lesser Redpolls we received notification from the BTO of a same year spring to autumn recovery. Ring number Z312419, an adult male Lesser Redpoll was ringed here at Oakenclough on March 25th 2015. This bird was recaptured by other ringers on November 27th 2015 at Pelsall Common, West Midlands, and 247 days after the original capture. This is a typical spring to autumn capture sequence for this species but where the eventual destinations at each season are probably uncertain. 

Lesser Redpoll - Oakenclough to West Midlands

Other birds we saw in the immediate area this morning - 2 Buzzard, 5 Mistle Thrush, 18 Goldfinch, 30+ Chaffinch. 

On the way home via Nateby, Pilling and at a flooded field on Stalmine Moss, 72 Whooper Swans, a male Sparrowhawk, 1 Kestrel, 2 Buzzard. 

Stalmine Moss

Whooper Swans

After a break in ringing during some six weeks it was good to finally achieve a hard won visit. Let’s hope that’s a good omen for the coming weeks.

Linking today to Anni's Birding and Eileen's Saturday and World Bird Wednesday.

Sunday's Birds

Sunday morning began with an early drive to the edge of The Forest of Bowland at Oakenclough where the ringing site is topped up with bird food twice a week, even when the weather prevents any ringing there. In addition to enabling a study of birds on site the supplementary feeding station adds to natural foods available to birds in the leaner winter months. Studies have shown that giving wild birds’ additional food on a regular basis can assist their survival and enhance breeding success in the following spring. 

All seemed quiet around the feeding spot with no sign of the 40+ Goldfinch from earlier in the week and just two or three hanging about near the Nyger seeds. Goldfinch flocks are highly mobile so I hope the birds weren't too far away, especially as it was last November and into December which produced very good catches of the species.

With the preponderance of conifer trees here Coal Tits are ever present as their small bills allow them direct access to the tiny holes of the Nyger feeders. Meanwhile the Great Tit, Blue Tits and Chaffinches stay around so as to take food from the ground. We avoid the use of peanuts or mixed seed feeders and instead use Nyger feeders and ground feeding as a means of targeting the several species of finches which occur in this area. 

Coal Tit

Great Tit

Additional birds seen this morning included 8 Blackbird, 2 Mistle Thrush, 1 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 1 Nuthatch, 2 Raven and 2 Pied Wagtail. 

Meanwhile there was notification of the recovery of a Lesser Redpoll ringed here on 19th October 2015. A first year male ring number Z652570 was recaptured by other ringers some 16 days later on 4th November 2015 at Woolston Eyes, Warrington, a distance of 61kms from Oakenclough. While the distance involved isn’t tremendous the recovery does once again demonstrate the southerly autumn dispersal of this species, and because the bird is still in circulation it could provide more life history information at a later date. It is probably in France or Belgium right now until the early spring when Lesser Redpolls begin their return migration. 

Lesser Redpoll

Lesser Redpoll - Oakenclough to Woolston Eyes 

From the A6 at Garstang I took a leisurely drive home via the mosslands of Rawcliffe, Pilling and Stalmine where I counted at least 11 Buzzards spiralling over the fields, with at one point six quite close together in a single kettle of air. I suspect that this morning was one of the few in the last four weeks where the sky was both clear and calm enough for Buzzards to soar. 

Buzzard

The fields alongside Lancaster Road are well flooded and it was on just a couple of fields here that I counted 1500+ Lapwing, 30 Golden Plover, 260 Black-headed Gull, 45 Common Gull, 40 Curlew and 6 Skylark. 

Nearer to Stalmine was a roadside Kestrel as well as a feeding party of half-a-dozen Redwings and 50+ Fieldfares. The autumn berries are disappearing quickly leaving the Fieldfares to live up to their name and search for animal food in the soft ground rather than concentrate on a dwindling supply of berries in the hedgerows. 

Kestrel

Redwing

Fieldfare

Log in next week for more news, views and bird photos on Another Bird Blog.

In the meantime take a look at more birds Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

Good Garden Stuff

The fog didn’t clear until about 1pm. That would leave about three hours birding before the light failed and the return of the evening mist; not ideal. Meanwhile the garden held a few birds by way of mainly Goldfinches, a species which has been unusually scarce here all autumn. 

When I saw a Nuthatch on the feeders and a Mistle Thrush in the apple tree I decided to do a spot of garden ringing. I didn’t catch the thrush or the Nuthatch but 17 new birds was pretty good for a few hours work - 7 Goldfinch, 5 Coal Tit, 2 Goldcrest, 2 Great Tit and 1 Blue Tit. 

Goldcrest

Great Tit

Goldfinch

This autumn has seen good numbers of both Goldcrests and Coal Tits, two species chiefly associated with conifer forest. Although not strictly migratory the Coal Tit is known to experience irregular irruptions caused by food shortages in their preferred woodland habitats. It is during such times that Coal Tits move into gardens and other habitats and when bird ringers catch more Coal Tits than they normally would. The majority of birds are found to be first years and out of an catch of say 15 or 20 Coal Tits it is normal that 99% are birds of the year and that an adult is the exception to the rule. 

“Coal” in the bird’s English name may simply refer to the mainly black and grey colour compared to the more colourful and common British tits, the Great Tit and the Blue Tit. A German name for the Coal Tit is "Tannenmeise" which translates as "fir tit", perhaps a more suitable descriptive name for a species able to exploit an otherwise birdless coniferous forest? 

Coal Tit

The Coal Tit has a huge distribution range occurring from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from boreal forests north of the Arctic Circle to the montane forests of the Himalayas, China and Taiwan. It’s a species to benefit from extensive planting of conifers in Ireland and Scotland by extending its UK range into the Western Isles of Scotland and the Atlantic coast of Ireland and so increase its overall population. 

Range and Distribution of Coal Tit

From Wiki and for my North American readers who will note that the Coal Tit is almost identical to one or more of their chickadees - "Most authorities still treat the Coal Tit Periparus ater in the subgenus Periparus, but the American Ornithologists' Union considers Periparus a distinct genus. This is supported by mtDNA cytochrome b sequence analysis; Periparus seems to be closer to the Poecile tits and chickadees than to the Great Tit and its relatives."

The fog returned for overnight and tomorrow morning but be sure that there are more birds, photos and news soon.

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

Steady If Unremarkable

Tuesday morning I met up with Andy and Craig for a ringing session at Oakenclough. Recent weather and other setbacks delayed the opportunity but at last everything came good in a way best summed up by today’s headline. 

Things were quieter than of late in both numbers and species however we managed to catch 54 birds, 24 new ones, 29 recaptures from recent weeks and a single “control”. 

Control is the terminology ringers use to describe a bird bearing a ring from elsewhere, in this case a first winter male Goldfinch with a standard British ring but inscribed with a letter/number combination we don’t own. In due course, and once the record is submitted to and analysed by the BTO database, the original ringing data of who, when and where will be sent to us. In return the original ringer will find out when and where “their” Goldfinch was recaptured and who captured it on 30th December 2014. 

Our new birds comprised 7 Goldfinch, 4 Chaffinch, 7 Blue Tit, 4 Great Tit and 2 Goldcrest. Recaptures materialised as 13 Coal Tit, 12 Blue Tit, 3 Goldfinch, 1 Dunnock. No new Coal Tits and 13 recaptures of the same species suggest that we may have caught a good proportion of those wintering in the immediate area. 

Coal Tit

Goldcrest

Chaffinch

In between our bursts of ringing activity a little bird watching in the immediate area found 2 Grey Wagtail, 2 Pied Wagtail, 3 Jay, 1 Buzzard, 1 Kestrel, 1 Sparrowhawk and 1 Raven.

Craig located a small flock of 12 Siskin and 6 Goldfinch feeding in the alder trees. We are hoping that the regular catches of Goldfinches will soon be augmented by their two near relatives once they decide to add niger seed to their diet.

Siskin

Pied Wagtail

Further to the problems of last week when some miserable sod stole bird feeders from this site, a kind blogger friend in Kentucky sent me a link to read how others have tackled equally selfish thieves. 

Read about the remarkable things that some folk will steal and have a good laugh about the victims’ understandable outrage and subsequent responses at www.dontbeamiserablesod.com

More birds soon from Another Bird Blog. 

Double Day Birds

I found a couple of hours to go birding on Tuesday morning before granddad duties called. There was even a little sun to help the walk along, and fingers crossed, we so far seem to lack the six weeks of promised wind and rain. 

As per last week a Song Thrush was in unseasonal good voice again from the trees at Fluke Hall. Otherwise it seemed pretty quiet apart from the resident and easily found Blackbirds, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Pied Wagtails and a couple of titmice flocks. 

There are some useful flashes of water on the fields adjoining Fluke Hall and it was here I counted a good mix of 35 Redshank, 40+ Lapwing, 45 Oystercatcher, 15 Curlew, 1 Snipe, 40+ Woodpigeon and hundreds of corvids. 

Redshank

Curlew

It’s often the case; the crows and Jackdaws drew my attention to a Sparrowhawk flying off along the sea wall, and although I followed along, there wasn’t much chance of getting close views of the shy raptor. There was a Rock Pipit feeding quietly along the tide wrack and then a little further along an equally quiet Skylark, and out on the marsh 10 Whooper Swans, 80 + Shelduck and 7 Little Egret. 

On and around the wildfowlers’ pools were still hundreds of “mallards”, dozens of Red-legged Partridge, 6 Teal, 3 or more Reed Bunting, 6 + Linnet. 

With a fine morning in prospect Andy and I pencilled in Wednesday for a ringing session near Oakenclough. The session didn’t disappoint with a catch of 35 birds, 23 new plus 12 recaptures from the last few weeks of ringing. 

The 23 new birds comprised of a good selection of species, finches named first: 5 Chaffinch, 5 Goldfinch, 3 Greenfinch, 1 Lesser Redpoll, 4 Blue Tit, 1 Robin, 1 Great Tit, 1 Treecreeper, 1 Goldcrest and 1 Robin. 

Greenfinch

 Chaffinch

Lesser Redpoll

Rather unusually every single recapture proved to be a Coal Tit. Anyone familiar with the feeding habits of Coal Tits will know how the species does not linger at bird tables and feeders but instead spends as little time as possible at a food source, quickly taking an item, flying off with it and then returning again and again. In can be quite exhausting simply watching this puzzling and apparently tiring ritual but it’s all to do with the Coal Tit’s strategy of taking food and storing it for later consumption. 

Coal Tit

Birding while ringing was quiet with the subdued calls of Bullfinch heard on a couple of occasions as well as the single unmistakeable nasal sound of a Brambling soon after first light. Otherwise we both enjoyed the steady session which allowed us time to study and enjoy in full the birds we caught. 

There’s more birding and ringing soon from Another Bird Blog, assuming of course I survive Thursday’s ‘flu jab.

Linking today to Anni's birding.

In Them Thar Hills

Andy and I made an early start to a ringing session in the uplands near Oakenclogh - 0730 to be precise. There’d been a good number of finches at the feeding station during our top-up visits and we hoped today might be the start of a new era for this previously valued site. 

A Robin greeted us from the fence post as we set up the “office”. 

Robin

The Office

We were busy from the off and by midday we had caught 66 birds with little in the way of surprises. We had zero recaptures as a number of years have elapsed since the site became unworkable for mist-netting when invasive rhododendrons completely engulfed the low and mid-storey habitat. We learnt recently that the land owners will attempt to clear the remnants of rhododendrons in February 2015 and replant with native trees in Autumn 2015. 

Our morning was dominated by Coal Tit and Chaffinches with 14 of each, closely followed by 10 Long-tailed Tit, 8 Great Tit, 8 Goldcrest, 7 Blue Tit, 2 Robin, 2 Dunnock and 1 Reed Bunting. 

A couple of the male Chaffinches proved to be large specimens with wing lengths of 93 and 95 mms respectively, putting them into the category of “possible” Continentals. 

Chaffinch

Of the 8 Goldcrests just one was a juvenile female, the rest juvenile males, their orange crown feathers hidden amongst the overriding yellow ones. 

male Goldcrest

Goldcrest

Coal Tit

Long-tailed Tit

Reed Bunting - first winter female

We were hoping to catch some of the Lesser Redpoll, Bullfinch and Siskin on site and although all three were seen and heard in small numbers, none found our nets. 

Also seen throughout the course of the morning: 2 Buzzard, 1 Kestrel, 1 Jay, 15 Greylag, 40 Lapwing, 2 Fieldfare, 2 Blackbird, 2 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 2 Pied Wagtail. 

Kestrel

There’s more bird watching, bird ringing and bird photography soon on Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to Run-A-Round Ranch.

More Goldfinch, More Whoopers

Early Sunday and perhaps too premature for Conder Green where an autumn mist lay across the pool so nothing to look at except the farmer’s two cattle. So I motored slowly up to Glasson where there might be a Kingfisher and a Grey Heron or two. 

It wasn’t misty here on the larger expanse of water. And then right on cue a Kingfisher appeared but didn’t stay. There was nothing doing on the water with just the regular 25 Tufted Duck and similar numbers of Coot. 

Tufted Duck

At Conder Green things had warmed up a little, the mist cleared and so I was able to tot up the waders and the Teal. 3 Spotted Redshank, 70 Redshank, 7 Snipe, 6 Curlew, 4 Lapwing, 3 Goosander and 90 Teal was OK but neither sight nor sound of the regular Greenshank or Common Sandpiper rather took the edge off the count.

One of the Spotted Redshanks has a droopy wing, I noticed it earlier in the week. Two of them were a bit far apart to fit in the frame. 

Spotted Redshanks

On the pool a Kingfisher, 2 Pied Wagtail, 5 Little Grebe, 1 Cormorant, 1 Grey Wagtail, 1 Little Egret. 

Pilling next stop. On the wildfowler’s pools I found 34 Whooper Swan, 2 Mute Swan, 38 Shelduck and 8 Wigeon while out on the marsh were “many thousands” of Pink-footed Geese, and I’m thinking 10,000 plus. The whoopers peeled off in small groups to fly south and over Pilling village - on their way to Martin Mere Wildfowl Trust at a guess. The folk at Martin Mere feed them even better than the Pilling shooters.

Whooper Swans

I gave the woodland a go with little to report save for a Nuthatch, a single Kestrel and 3 Jays but still no sign of Brambling or Yellow-browed Warbler despite my persistence. The weather charts suggest that things might happen on Monday/Tuesday in the way of Redwings and Fieldfares and possibly more.

Later and back at home I noted many Goldfinches in the neighbourhood treetops again plus a good number on the niger feeders. So after a leisurely lunch I set about catching more to add to the 19 ringed since Monday. The Goldfinches piled in and I ended up catching another 22 with no recaptures from Monday, Friday or today, thereby confirming once again that the day-to-day birds we see aren’t necessarily the same individuals, especially in the spring and autumn.

Other bits and bobs came in the form of 2 Coal Tits, a single Blue Tit and a Long-tailed Tit with attitude. A young male Sparrowhawk escaped from the net before I could get there and flew to next door's sycamore tree.

Coal Tit

Blue Tit

Long-tailed Tit

Goldfinch - juvenile

Goldfinch - female

Goldfinch - male

More news and pictures soon from Another Bird Blog.

In the meabtime I'm linking to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday. 

Why Worry?

I can’t be bothered chasing about trying to see the first Wheatear or the first Chiffchaff while the weather remains so cold. The birds will come when they are ready, as soon as they sniff warm air up ahead, but there’s no sign of that happening today with another early morning frost. 

In the meantime there are still a few wintering birds about too, as I found out when I topped the feeding station up on the moss. Just 12 birds caught, of which seven were new, 3 Chaffinch, 2 Brambling and 2 Reed Bunting. The other 5 were recaptures of 2 recently ringed Bramblings and 1 each of Goldfinch, Coal Tit and Chaffinch. So it looks like I need to make the effort for more ringing sessions until the finches depart north. 

A male Chaffinch this morning gave an enormous reading on the scales at 28.1 grams, a weight which later on may cause the database to “beep” as a potential input error. Upon checking the weight and examining the bird I found stored fat bulging from the chest cavity. It’s probably a bird going a fair old distance soon, just like the Bramblings heading off to Scandinavia or Russia. 

Below is the fat Chaffinch and then one of the morning’s Brambling, both birds second calendar years. 

Chaffinch

Brambling

Coal Tit

Goldfinch

A few Meadow Pipits overhead this morning, less than five and no other signs of spring arrivals, just wintering and resident birds: 5 Buzzards in the early sun, 6 Yellowhammer, 15 Chaffinch, 8 Brambling, 15+ Reed Bunting, 2 Kestrel, 12 Corn Bunting 

Today's post is linking to Australia and  Stewart's photo gallery.

Don’t forget, tomorrow on Another Bird Blog there's the chance to win the new Crossley ID Guide: Raptors, so don’t miss it. 

Don’t worry if you miss out on the book, I’ll point you in the right direction to order a copy.