Down To Zero

After yet another windy week our one out of seven days a week of ringing turned out to be Saturday. Overnight Friday/Saturday the temperature gauge dived to 0° whereby the Fiat’s heated seat and windscreen proved worth their weight in gold. 

I met Will at 0730 up at Oakenclough and where as I arrived he was already on with the mist nets. The sun stayed hidden behind the horizon as winter gloves made their first appearance. 

A quiet session ensued, highlighted by singles of Redwing and Lesser Redpoll included in our meagre catch of just 13 birds – 4 Chaffinch, 3 Robin and singles of Blackbird, Redwing, Lesser Redpoll, Coal Tit, Wren, and Blue Tit. 

Blackbird

Chaffinch

Lesser Redpoll

Redwing

More frustration followed by our failure to catch birds that we saw but which avoided our nets completely, e.g. Crossbill, Bullfinch, Siskin and Sparrowhawk. 

Loxia curvirostra, the Red Crossbill (North America) or Common Crossbill (Europe) is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae. Crossbills have distinctive mandibles, crossed at the tips, an adaptation enables them to extract seeds from conifer cones and other fruits. Adults are often brightly coloured, with red or orange males and green or yellow females, but there is wide variation in beak size and shape, and call types, leading to different classifications of variants, some of which have been named as subspecies.

   

Two parties of Crossbills, a gang of five then a larger party of 7 or 8 made their way and calling overhead as we watched a number drop into the area of a mist net. 

We failed to catch any but as the breeding season for Crossbills approaches we hope that some will stick around for the next several weeks. Common Crossbills nest very early in the year in English pine plantations, hatching their chicks in February and March to take advantage of the new crop of pine cones. 

Linking today to Eileen's Weekend.

Back soon with more pics, news and photos. Stay cool but stay warm and come back to Another Bird Blog on another day.

The First Of July

Last weekend saw hints of an early irruption of both Siskins and Crossbills from their summer breeding haunts in Scandinavia. So far, the migration had occurred on the east coast, the part of England closest to Scandinavia. 

“24 June - After an amazing 327 Crossbills at Scarborough, South Cliff, Yorkshire yesterday (23 June) blown away by an incredible 610 Crossbills between 0430-0700 this morning together with a supporting cast of 601 Siskins” 

“25 June - Another day on Scarborough South Cliff dawns & incredibly, even more Crossbills on the move! Over 1200 flew south this morning (with 1100+ in first two hours)." 

Would the change to July bring some of these birds here to the west of the Pennine Hills that divide Yorkshire and Lancashire? As expected we’d had a couple of low number catches during June but with a definite autumnal feel to the week gone by we felt that July might bring change.

This morning I met Andy at Oakenclough to a dull, mizzly morning. Full of optimism and imaginings we added Crossbill to our autumnal bird callers and laid a tray of water in the net ride nearest the confer plantation. It’s said that because Crossbills feed mainly on dry conifer seeds, they are always thirsty and that a good supply of water is really important to their survival.

Gradually the mist and drizzle cleared before the sun finally arrived around eleven o’clock. Needless to say, we caught no Crossbills but we did enjoy an unseasonable adult male Siskin amongst our catch of 17 birds - 5 Willow Warbler, 4 Blackcap, 2 Robin, 2 Great Tit, 1 Blackbird, 1 Garden Warbler and 1 Siskin.

Apologies for the not so good pics today, most taken at ISO1600 in the drizzly light of 0630 to 1000 hours.

Siskin - adult male 

Willow Warbler - juvenile 

Garden Warbler - adult female 

Blackcap - adult female 

Meanwhile, the captions for Caption Contest continue to arrive for my last post of Friday 26th June. 

Kestrel chicks 

Thank you everyone for your topical, inventive and funny captions. And for those readers yet to enter the competition, it is not too late.

Read the captions so far and just enter your suggestion in the comments box of this or the last post of Another Bird Blog.

Back soon with more news and views. And ......................

Crossbill 

Crossbill

............... keep eyes and ears open for those Crossbills.  You just never know.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday and Anni in Texas.

Indoor Post

Looks like I won’t get out birding or ringing for a few more days. To put it mildly, the weather is crap by way of the usual wet and wind. 

But hopefully 2018/19 may turn out to be a “Brambling Winter”, an irruption year for this close relative of the much more common Chaffinch. Migration watch points and Bird Observatories are reporting abnormally large numbers of Bramblings when in more typical years the numbers of Bramblings seen is low in comparison to other autumn migrants and to species that overwinter. 

Trektellen shows a clear spike in UK numbers in late October early November 2018 with three or more days of 2000+ Bramblings at Hunstanton Cliffs, Norfolk and at Spurn Bird Observatory. There are also several days of counts in the high hundreds. 

Brambling 2018 - https://www.trektellen.nl

Brambling 

Brambling 

However, sightings here on the west coast are not nearly as high which is not unusual given that the range of the Brambling is biased towards the east by stretching from Scandinavia and then east through an enormous swath of taiga forest across to Sakhalin and Kamchatka. This area is at the most extreme eastern edge of the Russian Federation at the Pacific Ocean and very close to the northern tip of Japan. 

In "Brambling winters" it is often into the extremes of January and February and icy temperatures before Bramblings find their way to the warmer west coast of England. Such irruptions in a number of birds of Northern Europe most often involve species like Hawfinch, Brambling, Chaffinch, Waxwing, Bullfinch, Siskin, Coal Tit and Crossbill. The common factor is each species’ reliance upon the various seeds of trees found in northern taiga, also known as boreal forest. 

Crossbill 

Waxwing 

These irregular migrations are difficult to study because it is hard to predict when they will happen or where the birds will go each year. In each case, however, irruptions follow some type of boom-and-bust cycle of food sources. It is important to note that many winter birds will gather in flocks for the season, but that does not mean they are irrupting. An irruption is characterized by a distinct shift in the birds' typical winter range, with many birds appearing well outside the normal boundaries of their winter homes. 

Waxwing

The most common cause of this phenomenon is called “masting,” which occurs when a single tree species produces a large number of seeds across thousands of miles of forest in the same year. When the conifers in the boreal forests of Northern Europe experience a masting year, the abundance of seeds gives some species of bird a boost. The birds begin breeding earlier than usual and produce more offspring, resulting in a population boom. When autumn arrives, the bird population has doubled or even tripled, but the available habitat hasn't. Many birds move south, and young birds in particular may be pushed further and farther south and west in search of both food and somewhere to spend the winter. 

Other causes for bird irruptions include unduly harsh cold or severe weather that may force birds to find more temperate wintering grounds, or over-breeding that may deplete even plentiful food supplies. No matter what the cause of the irruption, however, it is difficult to predict where or when irrupting species may appear.

It is known that the Brambling’s strategy during winter, to roost in large dense flocks, is superior to those of other passerines. Also during summer Brambling densities can be very high even at breeding sites when food is abundant. Thus the Bramblings seem to prefer wintering in flocks as large as the available food supply allows permits. 

This may explain why flocks estimated at between 2 million and 5 million Bramblings are sometimes recorded in Scandinavia, Central Europe and Japan. Such flocks can even occur in good years for beech mast, a favoured food of the Brambling. 

Take a look at the video below. At first glance it appears to be a video of a murmuration of Starlings, but in fact all of the birds are Bramblings. The video was shot in Japan, sometime during the winter of 2015/16.  

Back soon with an outdoor post. Until them linking this post to Anni's Blog and Eileen's Saturday.

Finches Again

The weather is staying cool with the lack of summer/spring birds unsurprising despite in recent years our becoming accustomed to many species appearing somewhat early. But then we are still in March with the weather and winds less than ideal to help birds travelling many miles to get here to North West England. In some years nothing much happens until April and it looks like 2016 is shaping up to be one of those. 

With rain forecast for both early and late week Thursday was pencilled in as the possible day for a ringing session. The prediction was spot on when at 0545 the sky was clear with a hint of frost in the air. I switched on the heated seat and set off for another 0630 start up at Oakenclough. 

Andy and I met up in the car park and then we set to with a couple of nets. The morning was mainly slow and steady with a sudden rush of Siskins after 1030 which boosted our catch to 32 birds of a mixed 8 species, dominated once again by finches: 13 Siskin, 10 Lesser Redpoll, 2 Chaffinch, 2 Goldfinch, 2 Coal Tit, 1 Blackbird, 1 Wren and 1 Dunnock. 

Including today and to date in 2016 we have ringed 60 Siskins and 55 Lesser Redpoll here at Oakenclough. One of today’s Lesser Redpolls, a second year female, wore a ring beginning S109, a number sequence not of our own but a “control” – a bird ringed by other ringers on a previous occasion. This is the second “control” Lesser Redpoll of the spring here, details of which we will be notified to us and the original ringer once the BTO database records are matched. 

Lesser Redpoll

Lesser Redpoll

Upon examination a number of Siskins displayed accumulated fat in three areas; the furculum (the so-called wishbone), the wingpits and the abdomen. One individual weighed in at a magnificent 16.2 grams. This almost equalled the weight of the morning’s Chaffinches and exceeded the weight of both Goldfinches. 

Visible Fat

Siskin

Siskin

Siskin

A reader was intrigued by a picture of two Siskins in last week’s post which showed the plumage differences between second year and adult male Siskins. As a broad rule that applies to most passerine species, second year birds can be separated from an adult, especially at this time of year. This isn’t always strikingly obvious but can be found by looking closely at the flight feathers of the wing and tail. First year birds will retain into their second year many of the feathers they were born with because their autumn moult is partial only. In general, adult birds have a complete moult of their flight feathers once they have finished breeding. At the present time of year and in comparing adults and second years side by side, an adult will have some newer, brighter and fresher feathers than a second year bird that still sports much of last year’s juvenile plumage. 

Siskins - second year and adult

We don’t catch many Wrens or Blackbirds at this location. 

Wren

Blackbird

Siskins dominated the visible migration this morning with small parties of up to 6 or 7 birds passing overhead south to north most of the morning whereby Lesser Redpolls were less evident. We looked and listened hard for Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler or an early Blackcap, Sand Martin or Swallow but none appeared. 

We made do with resident Buzzards, Oystercatchers, Pied Wagtails and Great Crested Grebe until the highlight of a single Common Crossbill “chup, chupping” overhead. Crossbills breed not too far away but are just occasional visitors to the site even though there are extensive pines in the immediate area. 

Common/Red Crossbill - Loxia curvirostra by "Wiki".

Stay tuned to Another Bird Blog and more birds soon. Linking today to Anni's Birding and Eileen's Saturday.

We Finally Made It

At last, the wind and rain relented and Will and I met up at Out Rawcliffe and the first ringing session for 11 days since the last rain aborted session of October 2nd. The dark, cloudy filled morning gave us a fairly slow start, but quickly picked up to provide a very steady, varied and interesting morning of ringing and birding, the overhead birds being particularly diverse.

We continued where we left off in early October by targeting finches, buntings and Meadow Pipits, ending up with a catch of 48 birds of 6 species, 44 new and 4 recaptures. New birds: 13 Chaffinch, 12 Goldfinch, 11 Meadow Pipit, 6 Reed Bunting, 1 Robin and 1 Treecreeper. The 4 Goldfinch recaptures were from recent weeks.

It took almost 30 minutes after dawn before the Chaffinches and Meadow Pipits began heading south, parties of less than 10 for the pipits, with bigger groups of Chaffinch, sometimes 10-15 together. By the end of our 5 hour session we had counted 350+ Chaffinch, 250+ Meadow Pipit and 25+ Reed Buntings. It’s pretty impossible to count Goldfinch migration here as there is still a local roost of Goldfinch, a gathering that translates into a feeding flock of 130+ later in the morning. Other finches were less numerous with just 8 Siskin and 5 Lesser Redpoll over.

Chaffinch
Meadow Pipit
Goldfinch
Reed Bunting
Reed Bunting

In the first hour or two after dawn there was a very strong movement of Alba wagtails heading south, at one point a party of 18 birds passing over, then later other smaller groups and individuals. Our 5 hours gave a total of 60+ Albas with at least 1 Grey Wagtail. Skylarks were also conspicuous with a minimum of 120 birds arriving from the west and north-west and then heading south-east. Our first Redwing of the season flew south early on, followed by a party of 5 Fieldfare much later in the morning but also going south. 3 Song Thrush were scattered throughout the five hours, with 3 late Swallows together about 11am.

A couple of unusual birds for out here on the moss came in the shapes of a party of 7 Crossbill heading north-east, and a single Common Sandpiper flying south.

Crossbill- naturespicsonline.com

Raptors today: 1 Kestrel, 1 Tawny Owl, 1 Buzzard, 2 Sparrowhawk, and 1 Peregrine briefly chasing a Lapwing. Others: 800+ Pink-footed Goose, 2 Raven, 45 Lapwing, 2 Jay, 11 Snipe.

Wow! What a great morning’s birding, shame we had to wait so long.