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. 

 

An August End

It was more ringing this morning when after another clear and windless night, Will, Ian and I met up at for Out Rawcliffe for the last session of August.

It was repetition again in the form of the first birds of the morning when Grey Partridge came off the set aside to fly into the potato field, and although we doubled our previous total by seeing 4 birds, I don’t think that miserable quantity strictly counts as a covey? As we walked up the centre track of the plantation a Tawny Owl flew ahead and back into roosting cover and we didn’t see it again.

Once again we had by our standards a quite productive morning and a mixed bag with 21 new birds of 9 species and unusually, zero recaptures: 2 Whitethroat, 11 Chaffinch, 1 Willow Warbler, 2 Dunnock, 1 Great Tit, 1 Blackbird, 1 Robin, 1 Meadow Pipit and 1 Swallow.

Swallow
Meadow Pipit
Chaffinch

Birds we didn’t catch this morning included a Tree Pipit sat unseen under a mist net until we approached, then later another bird that landed on the farm track and fed for a short time before it continued south. Near the top of the plantation a party of Long-tailed Tits numbering at least 15 individuals thankfully avoided our nets.

It was calm and clear all morning with nil cloud once the sun rose which didn’t help spotting any visible migration taking place, and apart from a soon-after-dawn burst of albas and Grey Wagtails heading south and the afore mentioned Tree Pipits, there was little happening. We think that our second double figure catch of Chaffinch in recent days is related to local movement, but also to the fact that a small number may be roosting in the plantation itself.

Other birds seen this morning; Jay, Kestrel, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Sparrowhawk, 3 Buzzard, Grey Heron and the Little Owl at the “horsey barn” that is so reluctant to be photographed and flies into the roof space when my car slows down. One of these days I'll catch it unawares or when it's just having a doze.

Great-spotted Woodpecker
Little Owl

Bird watchers always like to see birds in immaculate spring plumage, but at this time of year the reality is that not only do lots of adults go through a full moult, but juvenile birds also undergo moult of their body feathers. Here’s a couple of shots of juvenile birds this week, the Blackbird we caught this morning, and a Robin in my garden this week. Give them a few days more and by early September they will look a little smarter.

Robin
Blackbird

... They Keep Fallin......

Yes, it’s still raining but I’m not going to let that get me down because I have just spent an hour fixing the tethers of a mist net then set to on my pliers with WD40 in preparation for Sunday morning and the second coming of Fieldfares.

I’m still going through the old slides so here’s few to be going on with, the theme being “peckers and others” - and they give me the chance to have a rant where necessary.

Lesser-spotted Woodpeckers have never been common in this part of coastal Lancashire, in fact quite uncommon but turning to rare in the 1990’s, then becoming virtually non-existent in the new millennium. I think they last bred in the Fylde in the early 90’s but the picture below was taken in a wood near Salwick, Preston in 1982.



The last regular place to see lesser spots in the Fylde was perhaps Thurnham Hall where the ringing group used to do some work until that too was developed, this time for “leisure”. “Isn’t birding leisure?” I ask myself. What I really meant was the site was developed for someone to make money out of it, selling timeshare flats and opening up the grounds to a free for all. There’s no money in birding unless you are the RSPB, a mobile phone or pager company or import the latest optical must have.

Anyway the next picture was taken on Merseyside some years later when a fluke catch found both Great-spotted Woodpecker and Lesser-spotted Woodpecker in the same mist net. Note the aggression of the larger bird towards the Lesser-spotted Woodpecker.



My own ideas on the demise of the smaller species is that it is linked to the simultaneous rise over the same time span in the numbers of Great-spotted Woodpeckers where both species must compete to a great extent for suitable nesting sites, where the larger species is predatory and where the Lesser-spotted Woodpecker has historically always been on the edge of its range.

The next pictures show Northern Flicker which I likened in habits and looks some weeks ago to our UK Green Woodpecker when one showed up in Poulton le Fylde and which apparently became the subject of some frenzied twitching and listing. Obviously the first two pictures are mine, Long Point circa 1990, the third and superb one, is definitely not.







The next two pictures are fairly old digitised slides, one has clearly taken to the new format better than the other. The first is a Wryneck I found at Marton Mere many years ago one early August morning in 1986BMP (Before Mobiles and Pagers). At first it was easy to watch, I re-found the bird on a later visit where if I remember correctly, several people gathered round to watch it. By the third and forth day it became increasingly difficult to find as it roamed around the site, hiding amongst the old tip material, and some people never caught up with it.



Maybe the second picture from Scilly shows why a Wryneck can be so difficult to see or find unless served up on a plate.



Finally, someone asked me if I had any more pictures of the Pine Bunting because they want to go out and find one this weekend. I found one more picture, but good luck, you’ll need it if it continues raining like this.

Jay Day

I had a pleasurable couple of hours out this morning not seeing anything extraordinary but the weather was a little better and the light was good although I didn’t catch up with anything to photograph.

I started at Fluke where driving through I noted a Little Egret in the pool in the wood. Of course as soon as I pulled up, the said bird took up and off over the trees and out towards the fields and marsh. The Little Egrets I see lately seem a bit more easily spooked than in past years and this impression gained on me later when two more Little Egrets were spooked from near Pilling Water by a lone walker. In previous years I have been able to get reasonably close to Little Egrets, but not now. Maybe they know I have a new camera but I would be interested to hear others experience.

There was also a Kingfisher at Fluke which flew around the pool a couple of times before going quiet.

Autumn has definitely arrived when Meadow Pipits begin to appear and this morning I heard the familiar calls before finding four together with two Wheatears on the rocks west of Fluke Hall. Along Fluke Hall Lane a lone Jay moved warily through the hawthorns and willows before finding some thicker cover in a garden further along the lane. Another sign of autumn came in the form of a flock of 30ish Tree Sparrows sticking to the hedge along the lane.

More Meadow Pipits at Lane Ends but only three, with no signs of “mipit vis mig” here or at Fluke Hall. In amongst the morass of Mallards on the pool were two Little Grebe and somewhere in the trees a Great-spotted Woodpecker “chicked”. I heard Jay call then sure enough two flew together from the area of the car park into the denser trees.

A chap just beat me along the wall towards Pilling but ahead of him I saw the two Little Egrets come off the pool and disappear into the ditches behind HiFly’s trees. I found a couple more Wheatears on the stony banks together with half a dozen Pied Wagtails.

No fresh pics today so I’ll sign off with a garden photo of a nice common bird Collared Dove and some new photographs in the right hand column.

I’m hoping that Cockersands shot is good enough to make a guest appearance on PW's http://pics2blog.blogspot.com/