The Last Post?

Here’s wishing Seasonal Greetings to readers old and new of Another Bird Blog. The blog is taking a few well-earned days off to join in the festivities before returning soon. In the meantime there are a few highlights and favourites from the year gone by with words and photographs by way of illustration. 

In January 2015 we left the grey skies of England and escaped south for a few weeks to the warmth of Lanzarote, Spain. One thousand eight hundred miles from home on the island of wide blue skies the weather was spring-like with many birds engaged in the throes of breeding. 

 Berthelot's Pipit, Lanzarote - January 2015

The Desert Grey Shrike is very common on Lanzarote. It is also very vocal and fearless, as proven when I watched one attack and chase a feral cat from an area where both of the adult shrikes fed youngsters out of the nest. 

Desert Grey Shrike

The centre of a thorny bush in the desert like landscape makes for a secure nesting site; this female had yet to lay eggs but was pretty insistent on staying put just yards from the car window. 

Desert Grey Shrike

Lanzarote - January 2015

During February and March Andy and I began to catch both Lesser Redpolls and Siskins at the ringing site near Oakenclough, where to their credit United Utilities invested a large amount of cash in improving the site by removing rhododendron and then replanting. The redpoll passage was more noticeable than the number of Siskins, but by early April the less than spectacular movement of both was virtually over. 

Siskin

Lesser Redpoll

Replanting at Oakenclough

March and April saw the usual spring arrival of Wheatears, coupled in March with a very noticeable arrival of Stonechats whereby to see at least half-a-dozen Stonechats lined up along a barbed wire fence is fairly unusual. Meanwhile the cool, windy spring restricted opportunities for catching Wheatears with a measly three my sum total for the year. 

Stonechat

Wheatear

The wet and cool spring didn’t help Skylarks much. At Pilling two out of four Skylark nests failed at the egg stage when heavy rain washed out the nests, a third proved inconclusive, with only the fourth nest being successful at “ready for fledging” stage.

Skylarks

Skylark

“Travel broadens the mind” goes the well-worn phrase so the month of May found Sue and I widening our horizons by spending a couple of weeks in Menorca. When we come back to Earth next time we both want to be landed on this beautiful island and sit in the plaça drinking coffee all day - in between birding (and shopping!) of course. 

Alaior - Menorca 2015

Audouin's Gull

Egyptian Vulture

Back home during June and July around the local patch were a few unexpected Lapwing chicks. Rather perversely the wet spring for farmers and birders proved to be something of a blessing to the beautiful bird which likes wet meadows but struggles to survive the modern world of intensive farming. 

Lapwing - 2015

Lapwing - 2015

During late May, June and July just four timed visits to a local Sand Martin colony produced reasonable early season catches without proof of a good breeding season in the way of many youngsters. We suspect the cool and wet year played havoc with the martins just as it did with many other species during 2015. 

Sand Martin

It might seems strange to mention the common Bullfinch as a highlight but the single bird I caught at Oakenclough on the 28th August was the first I’d handled in almost thirty years. Yes, the Bullfinch is that scarce in this part of Lancashire. 

Tree Pipit was top of the pops at Oakenclough on 16th August when during a quiet ringing session four of the striking pipits found their way to the mist nets. Meanwhile the other fifteen birds of the day divided between a few each of Willow Warblers, Lesser Redpolls, Goldcrests and titmice. 

Tree Pipit

Bullfinch

September saw Sue and me adventuring in Skiathos, Greece, yet another beautiful sunny island. There’s a definite island theme going on here. 

 Skiathos - 2015

Skiathos isn’t a famed birding spot, thank goodness. But it may well be the best place on Earth to watch Eleonora’s Falcons in action. On other days I managed to find a good mix of species during and after a particularly violent and historic thunderstorm which wrecked the neighbouring island of Skopelos. Who says it only rains in Britain? 

Yellow Wagtail

 Eleonora's Falcon - Skiathos 2015

October proved a fine autumn month for birding and ringing before the downhill slide which brought major floods to North-West England. By the end of October our ringing sessions at Oakenclough had provided 60 Redwings, a handful of Fieldfares, continued redpolls and even a couple of bonus Sparrowhawks to enliven unwary fingers. 

Sparrowhawk

Redwing

There’s not much to say about November and December other than I wish it would stop raining and blowing a Hooley. We’ve managed three ringing sessions while the birding has been dire. 

BBC Weather Forecast, NW England - 24th December 2015

Roll on 2016 for longer days, brighter weather, birding and blogging. And SUNSHINE.

Linking today with Eileen's Saturday.

What's The Weather Back Home?

Here are a few more pictures from Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain where the temperature hovers around the 21°C mark, just the job to shift those winter blues. 

Birding here isn’t the easiest in the world with a limited number of species, some of which are difficult to find and none provided on a plate but it all makes for interesting and often exploratory days. This all works quite well as it leaves time for Sue and I to enjoy the touristy parts of the island or simply relax on a sunbed around the hotel pools. 

The tourists don’t hit the beaches too early after sampling the nightlife of Purto del Carmen the previous night so a morning walk surveying the deserted beach while looking for a coffee stop provides an agreeable morning. 

Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote

Not too far from the promenade, the shops and the lines of sunbeds there’s an area of rocks and sand which hold Yellow-legged Gulls, Turnstones, Sanderlings and maybe one or two Whimbrel. 

Whimbrel

Sanderling

In the old and very picturesque part of the harbour Little Egrets and Turnstones search through the fishing boats hoping to grab a bite to eat. There are lots of gulls and at the harbour mouth a number of Sandwich Terns loafing away their time until a passing boat sends them back out to sea looking for a meal. 

Puerto del Carmen

Turnstone

Little Egret

Sandwich Tern

The waters off the Canary Islands are rich in Atlantic breeding seabirds, including large numbers of Cory's Shearwaters, Manx Shearwaters, the rare Barolo's Shearwater, White-faced Storm-petrel, Madeiran Storm-petrel and European Storm-petrel, while the list of other regularly-occurring pelagic seabirds includes Wilson's Storm-petrel. 

Watching the sea along the southerly coastline here can result in sightings of whales and dolphins including the Short-Finned Pilot Whale and Common and Bottlenose Dolphins, and it is said that Hammerhead Sharks and Loggerhead Turtles are present. The Canary Islands were also formerly home to a population of the rarest pinniped in the world, the Mediterranean Monk Seal. 

From the hotel I have seen distant whales in past years so keep a look out although I’m more likely to see one of the many ocean going yachts moored locally. 

Yacht at Puerto Calero, Lanzarote

Back at our hotel there are a couple of walks across the often parched landscape might provide Houbara Bustard or Cream-coloured Courser. Oases of greenery including gardens can turn up the goods like Trumpeter Finch, Desert Grey Shrike, Collared Dove, Lesser Short-toed Lark, Berthelot’s Pipit and Spanish Sparrow.

Calero, Lanzarote

Spanish Sparrow

Trumpeter Finch

Desert Grey Shrike

Hotel Costa Calero

This week I found nesting Desert Grey Shrike, breeding Stone Curlew, Houbara Bustards and a pair of Trumpeter Finches yards from the hotel.

It’s back to normal in the UK very soon on Another Bird Blog. Stay tuned.

Anti-Social Birding

Sunny Sunday mornings present the problem of where to go birding in the crowded isle that is The United Kingdom - 60 million and rising daily thanks to our useless politicians and the EU. Oops, that broke a rule of “no politics” on Another Bird Blog but I made an exception for this topic as all the political parties are equally guilty. 

So, where to go? There was a Great Grey Shrike to chase 10 or so miles away, or alternatively set off on a real life wild goose chase to find the Snow Goose spotted recently amongst the thousands of Pink-footed Geese out on the Pilling mosslands. 

But then there would be dozens of birders about looking either for or at the same things, even though to me birding is best served and appreciated not in gangs but singly or in twos and threes only. And anyway a Snow Goose isn’t exactly rare and when you’ve seen one you have seen them all. Likewise, members of the grey shrike complex are easily come by in the Canary Islands so I will wait until January in Lanzarote to see Desert Grey Shrikes again. 

Snow Geese - Photo credit: A Vernon- Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

Desert Grey Shrike 

So I headed inland for a walk and across the moss of Out Rawcliffe, one of the largest parishes in England and one which thankfully is usually quiet and peaceful if a little breezy today.

Out Rawcliffe

After recent rain there was a good mix of birds on a particularly flooded field - 40 or more Black-headed Gulls, 16+ Pied Wagtails, 14+ Meadow Pipits and 2 Green Sandpipers. Naturally the sandpipers flew off calling but with so many flashes of water in the sodden fields they won’t be far away and pipits and wagtails are always worth a look. 

Pied Wagtail

Along a couple of hedgerows there was a good mix of farmland birds - 35 Tree Sparrow, 18+ Chaffinch, 8 Goldfinch, 4 Linnet, 2 Yellowhammer, 2 Reed Bunting and 2 Corn Bunting. With so many small birds in the immediate area it was no surprise to see a Merlin dash low across the landscape, the falcon sighting followed quickly by a Sparrowhawk heading in the opposite direction. 

Sparrowhawk

Three Roe Deer stood ahead of me, spotted my approach and broke into a run, scattering the hundreds of Jackdaws and crows feeding in the stubble. In the woodland - 4 Buzzards, more Chaffinches, and at least one noisy Jay. The Chaffinches were fairly numerous and also vocal with almost constant chippy contact calls that pointed to their being on the move south and west, a scenario far from unknown in early November when some might imagine migration to be done. 

Roe Deer

Maybe the warm and fine morning made the Buzzards active, so after being concerned about the lack of sightings of the species lately, I actually saw a more reasonable number in my three hours of birding. On the way back home via Pilling and Stalmine mosses I clocked up 2 more pairs of Buzzards to add to the four birds seen at Out Rawcliffe. If there is one Buzzard about, there is almost certainly another one close by as pairs mate for life.

However there are still local places where Buzzards appear to have gone missing, so all bird watchers need to know their own local patch and to remain vigilant. 

Buzzard

Other birds over the moss roads - 1 Kestrel, 8 Stock Dove, 6 Pied Wagtail, 90+ Linnet and 20 or more flighty Goldfinch. 

A very enjoyable morning and guess what? I didn’t see any other birders but did wonder where many might be on such a fine morning for birding.

Linking today to  Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

Out Of Touch

There’s no local news today because Sue and I are grabbing some winter sunshine on the island of Lanzarote and hoping to see a few birds along the way.

Lanzarote is a Spanish island in the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, about 125 kilometres from the coast of Africa and 1,000 kilometres from the Iberian Peninsula. In 1993, the island of Lanzarote was declared a Biosphere Reserve as it conserves one of the most exceptional ecosystems and volcanic landscapes in the archipelago. Lanzarote was born through fiery eruptions; the solidified lava streams and extravagant rock formations bear witness to that.

The island along with others in the Canary Islands emerged about 15 million years ago after the breakup of the African and the American continental plates. The greatest recorded eruptions occurred between 1730 and 1736 in the area now designated Timanfaya National Park. This is an area where most tourists head to in order to see the spectacular displays of cold water poured onto the ground turning immediately to a spout of steam. As we drive along stopping here and there to explore it is impossible to pause without taking pictures of the dramatic and often deserted landscapes.

Timanfaya

 Lanzarote

Lanzarote

The number of bird species is quite low in Lanzarote, even more so during the winter, so anyone arriving here expecting to add a few dozen new species to their list might be sorely disappointed.

The tiny Berthelot’s Pipit is endemic to the Canary Islands and is very common on Lanzarote, almost impossible to miss until its grey-toned plumage melts into the rocky backdrops.

Berthelot's Pipit

The common gull around here is the magnificent Yellow-legged Gull, looking all the more stunning against the volcanic shorelines.

Yellow-legged Gull

The vineyards of La Gería with their traditional methods of cultivation, are a protected area. Single vines are planted in pits 4–5 m wide and 2–3 m deep, with small stone walls around each pit. This agricultural technique is designed to harvest rainfall and overnight dew and to protect the plants from the winds. The vineyards are part of the World Heritage Site as well as other sites on the island.

 La Geria, Lanzarote - Photo credit  Foter.com / CC BY-SA

 
We plan at least a couple of visits to the saltpans and tidal lagoons at Janubio in the south west of the island where we hope for a good variety of very common waders. Almost guaranteed here are scarce UK birds like Black-winged Stilt and Kentish Plover mixed in with the everyday Ringed Plover, Little Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Redshank, Greenshank and Grey Plover of home.

Saltpans - Janubio, Lanzarote

Kentish Plover

Black-winged Stilt

Along the beach and rocky shore near our hotel are Common Sandpiper, Turnstone, Sanderling, Whimbrel, and a steady stream of Sandwich Terns fishing the clear waters. Near our hotel in Puerto Calero there are residential streets with large gardens and decent amounts of shrubbery where the common birds are Collared Dove, Chiffchaff, House Sparrow and Desert Grey Shrikes. The shrike, part of the "Grey" shrike complex and formerly known as Southern Grey Shrike, is now considered to one of the several sub-species of  Lanius elegans, the North African Desert Grey Shrike.

Desert Grey Shrike

Where the avenues peter out into the typical dusty, dry Lanzarote landscape the Linnets and Berthelot’s Pipits appear, and with luck a few Trumpeter Finches or Lesser Short-toed Larks. I am told that the related Short-toed Lark (the one with the unstreaked breast) is but a rare visitor to Lanzarote.

 

Lesser Short-toed Lark

Trumpeter Finch

We’ll choose a sunny wind free day to go looking on the plains in the area of El Jable and Teguise for Houbara Bustard and Cream-coloured Courser, never easy to find but two of the real speciality birds of Lanzarote.

Cream-coloured Courser - Photo credit: Tarique Sani / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

Wish us luck - back soon. In the meantime I’ll try to keep in contact with Blogger friends through my netbook and the hotel WiFi.