A Spanish Stopover

2023 was such a poor year for ringing birds that our site at Pilling yielded just 2 Common Whitethroats, one in July and one in August. Neither were caught after the initial day of ringing. They both moved on elsewhere. 

Imagine our surprise, a notification from the BTO this week told us that ACV6277 a juvenile we ringed on July 9th was caught in Spain later in the year. If only this particular recovery rate of 50% could be replicated with all ringed birds. 

Common Whitethroat ACV6277

 

ACV6277 was recaptured by Spanish ringers at San Roque-Darbo, Cangas de Morrazo, Pontevedra on September 1st 2023, some 54 days later. 

Whitethroat ACV6277 - Cockerham to Pontevedra

I looked up the place name of Cangas de Morrazo and discovered it to be a small coastal town in Northern Spain close to the city of Vigo and to the border of Portugal/Spain. It looks a great place for a September break, a traditional Spanish fishing village that is close to a nature reserve - Zonas de Especial Protección para las Aves (ZEPA). A pure guess but there is a good chance that ACV6277 was recaptured in this very place and soon afterwards set off to continue its first ever journey to Africa. https://www.mardeons.es/blog/observar-aves-en-cies-y-ons/ 

A summer visitor to the UK from Africa, the Common Whitethroat is small, brown warbler that frequents hedgerow and scrubby areas across Britain & Ireland from April to October. Its winter quarters in Africa occupy the dry Sahel just to the south of the Sahara. This area is subject to prolonged periods of drought which affect Whitethroat overwinter survival. Such conditions led to a crash of 90% in UK Whitethroat numbers in the late-1960s, from which this species is still recovering. 

Whitethroat

Whitethroat

Whitethroats breed throughout the UK and it can be found from Cornwall to northern Scotland, as well as across Ireland. The Whitethroat has suffered a 63% decrease in its population in the years 1967 -2020, hardly surprising given the way that the UK continues its desire to concrete over the entire landscape. 

No One Cares. Money speaks louder than wildlife.

For example.

“A holiday village and eco-park with up to 450 lodges, a hotel, market place, virtual reality wildlife experience and craftworkers’ pods is proposed for land south of Lancaster in a planning application.

Land at Home Farm, Ellel Grange, near Galgate, near the M6, is the proposed site for the scheme by applicants TNPG Sandeman Trust and Ellel Holiday Village Ltd.

But the outline application has prompted hundreds of objections along with some letters of support, according to Lancaster City Council planning reports”.

This really does beggar belief but many have seen for years where we as a nation are heading when wildlife and the countryside is to be destroyed and replaced by virtual wildlife and craftworkers' pods.

You really couldn't make this shit up if you tried.

Linking this week to Eileen's Blog.

 

Hobby Times Two

The Hobby is still something of a scarcity in this part of coastal Lancashire known as The Fylde. The sighting of a Hobby adds more than a smidgeon of excitement to an often mundane day. Even better when a single sighting of the will o’ the wisp raptor becomes a double whammy. 

The Hobby, a Schedule One Species, breeds inland not too many miles away, just a car ride away, a location already subject to  interest from too many bird listers.  It would be easy to add to the database  of visitors and potentially draw attention to a breeding locality but how much better is it to meet and to enjoy a Hobby or two in the course of a normal day's birding?  

  

My latest encounter of this pacy raptor came about today while Andy and I were out bird ringing over Pilling way, catching the bits and pieces of a normal day.  A quiet spell had us sitting in the sun watching Meadow Pipits surveying a walk-in trap placed about 40 yards away on the farm track. We’d had some success with eight Meadow Pipits caught but frustrated by the sight of two Yellow Wagtails not finding their way into the metal maze while pipits had no such problems.

From the north and east came two Hobby (is that Hobbys or Hobbies?) in close unison, playing in the breeze like the juveniles they were as they drifted over the nearby sea wall and continued their leisurely way west. It was yesterday evening when the farmer Richard told me of his sighting while tending livestock of a “large swift” - “going like the clappers”, one of those sightings that goes into the memory hole to often resurface another day. 

Hobby

 

We caught other species in a single, slightly blowy mist net and ended up with 14 ringed – 8 Meadow Pipit, 3 Sedge Warbler, 1 Reed Warbler, 1 Whitethroat and 1 Pied Wagtail. 

Meadow Pipit

Reed Warbler

Whitethroat

Pied Wagtail

Birds that got away or didn’t come near the nets included 70 or more Swallows,40 Meadow Pipits, 4 Wheatear, 25 Pied Wagtail, 4 Yellow Wagtail, 8 Goldfinch, several Linnets, Grey Heron, Common Sandpiper. 

Linnet

Wheatear

Wheatear

Goldfinch

Yellow Wagtail

Swallow

Swallow

Yes, it was a very young Wheatear that has quickly joined in the action, already setting off  on the long journey to Africa. 

While the sun shines I’m making hay too.

Weekend is not looking good but two more days of bright weather means more news, views and photos on Another Bird Blog. Don't miss it folks.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday Blog.

 

Sunny Days

Here in coastal Lancashire we’ve had no rain for four weeks and the summer is beginning to look like an old-fashioned one but where the inevitable thunderstorms are due this evening and into Sunday. This should remind us that this is Britain and not the Sahara Desert. 

It’s similar across the country where millions of people are out enjoying the weather, despite the UK Nanny State who think that the public cannot understand a weather forecast so choose to bombard us with Health Heat Alerts to ramp up the global warming scare at every bit of sunny weather. They really do take us for fools who they can continually scare, manipulate and thus control. 

On my Pilling travels on Friday it was hard to miss the dried out landscape and the lack of rain puddles in familiar places. Birds were laying low, many feeding young and others simply hard to find. Along a track lined with reeds and vegetation I found Common Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler, both still in song and seemingly yet to reach the stage of collecting food for nestlings. 

The breeding year was slow to start, an April and early May of cold northerlies and late arrivals of African migrants. Even now there appears to be a shortage of Reed Buntings, House Martins, Swifts, Swallows and even Wrens. Those of us close to the action think that there could be Avian Flu in passerines and small birds. But how would we know when millions of small birds die of both natural and unnatural causes and then simply go missing never to be found? 

The Whitethroat is pictured against a green background of newly growing maize crop, the Sedge Warbler against a freshly cut and now parched field of silage. The bokeh of the Sigma lens is really good at most times.

Sedge Warbler

Whitethroat

A couple of Lapwings inspected in turn a newly sown seed plot and then a two inch high maize crop. The Lapwings may have failed their first attempt at raising a family so may return and lay in what appears ideal and now undisturbed spots. If we get rain both crops will thrive and grow like giant beanstalks so it’s a hard decision for the Lapwings. 

 

Lapwing

Little Egrets have been thin on the ground just locally until one appeared below my slowly moving car hide. Along another ditch a Buzzard stood sentinel and then took off to circle and find the rising thermals. 

Little Egret

Buzzard

The cut silage field had half a dozen Curlews scratching a living on the rock hard ground. Even in the height of summer it is not difficult to find handfuls of upland waders that return quickly to the coast when their upland adventures turn sour. Soon there will be masses of both and it will be interesting to see how the inland wader season fared. Just last week Curlews gave me a hard time and something of the run-around when I tried to picture them in their other world, the uplands of the Pennine Hills.

Curlew

I found a couple of Oystercatchers hanging around on gate posts where they seemed unconcerned at my being close by as if they had no young in tow.

Oystercatcher

Once the rain leaves us there's a visit to the Sand Martin colony planned mid week. We need a light easterly and not much sun that will light up our mist nets. 

Log in soon folks. And enjoy the sun. Winter will come soon enough. You know it makes sense.

Linking today to Eileen's Blogspot.

 

Three in One

There are three updates in one here. Never let it be said that Another Bird Blog doesn’t give regular readers value for money. 

On Monday we had two trainee ringers/helpers. M & S are on school holidays so Granddad took them out Pilling way to join up with Andy & Will for a ringing session. Sue said, “Take as long as you like”. 

It was a 0630 start for Andy and Will and then 0800 for the three stragglers who saw that the nets were already set with a few birds ready for ringing. The morning was pretty quiet although M & S enjoyed seeing the ringing and then handled a number of species while learning about how to age and sex the birds we processed. 

Birds caught - 7 Linnet, 2 Greenfinch, 1 Sedge Warbler, 1 Willow Warbler and 1 Great Tit. 

Linnet

Greenfinch

The weather continued in good spirits on Tuesday when Andy and Bryan met up and travelled to Oakenclough. I couldn’t make it because of more school holiday duties but the guys ringed another 15 birds – 5 Willow Warbler, 3 Chiffchaff, 3 Lesser Redpoll, 1 Goldcrest, 1 Garden Warbler, 1 Great Tit and 1 Grey Wagtail. 

My chance arrived on Wednesday when another fine morning and no disrupting breeze allowed another visit over Pilling way. We ringed 10 more new birds – 5 Linnet, 2 Meadow Pipit, 1 Greenfinch, 1 Sedge Warbler and 1 Common Whitethroat. 

Meadow Pipit

Common Whitethroat

All ten birds proved to be juveniles/first summer birds. There was something of a passage of Meadow Pipits on Wednesday morning when about 15/20 of them lined up along a stretch of fence together with 2 Grey Wagtails and 4 Pied Wagtails. We caught two of the pipits but none of the wagtails. 

Linnets continued their build in numbers and flock formation whereby we estimated 120/150 throughout the morning in flocks/groups of anything between 5 and 50 individuals. 

A juvenile Peregrine entertained us twice with dashing pursuits and at one point flew directly over our vantage point. 

Peregrine

Otherwise our birding was quiet in the blue sky morning with visible migration at nil. Friday looks another “likely” and the very uncommon possibility of four ringing sessions in one week. Bring it on.  

 

Almost Smartie Time

A week after our return from holiday and the necessary catch-ups completed it was time to check out a few local places. 

I started at Cockerham Quarry where the Sand Martin colony should be well underway. It was - many dozens of holes and a hive of activity as 140 or more Sand Martins flew back and forth to their excavations. The martins were still collecting dried grasses from the quarry floor for lining their chambers situated mostly at the very top of the quarry face. I saw no early fledglings, just adults. 

Sand Martin 

The quarry face is unstable and the entrance holes very high which puts it into the realms of a mountaineering expedition rather than a modest mist netting session. We plan another visit in early/mid June and when there are youngsters about and when the increase in overall numbers may present catching opportunities at lower levels. 

There were a few Sand Martins over the water at Conder Green, just a flap and a glide from the quarry. A few Swallows too, but sadly, no sign of Swifts. Each year sees a decline in Swallows and Swifts all around us but the success of the nearby Sand Martin colony has increased their numbers in the local area. 

Waders and wildfowl now consist of those either likely too or in the actual process of breeding, and counts of 10 Oystercatcher, 6 Redshank, 4 Avocet, 2 Little Ringed Plover, 10 Tufted Duck and 6 Shelduck. The 4 Little Egrets are not nesting but a pair or two of Common Tern seemed to be among the six individuals that I saw argue and display over the islands and nesting platforms. 

Shelduck - male 

 Shelduck - female

Avocets have at least two feeding methods. In clear water, they feed by sight by picking prey from the surface of water or mud. In poor visibility and when locating prey from within the sediments, they forage by touch, sweeping the long, up-curved bill from side to side through water or loose sediment to locate hidden prey. In deeper water they swim readily and buoyantly, up-ending like a duck to reach food below the surface. 

Avocet 

 Avocet

 Avocet

Passerines along the hedgerow were not many - 3 Goldfinch, plus singing singles of Common Whitethroat, Reed Bunting and Blackcap. Just today saw the first juvenile Goldfinches appear in my back garden, fluttering their wings and begging to be fed by accompanying adults. 

Along Jeremy Lane I found the only Reed Warbler of the morning, singing from the roadside ditch but with none in the usual spots in the dense reeds of Conder Green. As ever, it is not necessarily the species and/or numbers seen. It is those birds that are absent which provide clues about the ups but mostly downs of bird populations. 

Further exploration of the lanes produced good numbers of Sedge Warbler, twelve or more singing along the ditches of Moss Lane, Jeremy Lane and Cockersands. In contrast, Common Whitethroats were few and far between with just three songsters along the same circuit, although I did happen upon a Lesser Whitethroat. 

As the name suggests, this warbler is smaller than its cousin the Common Whitethroat. It has dark cheek feathers which contrast with the pale throat and can give it a 'masked' look. Lesser Whitethroats can be skulking and hard to see, often only noticed when they give their very distinctive harsh, rattling song. In contrast, the song of a Common Whitethroat is fast, scratchy and scolding, often delivered from a conspicuous song post for all to see and hear. Today it was a blossoming hawthorn bush.

Lesser Whitethroat 

Common Whitethroat 

Common Whitethroat 

I saw good numbers of Lapwings, Brown Hares and Stock Doves in the cut meadows near Cockersands where I chanced upon a young Lapwing. Just the right size for a "D" ring - the first and probably last of the year. 

 Brown Hare

Lapwing

Lapwing chick

Back soon with more news and views.

In the meantime, linking with Wild Bird Wednesday, Anni's Birding  and Eileen's Saturday Post.