Underground And Overground.

We’ve had a few dreary mornings and I’d waited days for a bright, clear morning to drive into the hills with camera at the ready. Tuesday looked promising so I was up early and then drove north and east with fingers crossed as I left the coast behind. This was probably the last chance of the year as upland birds have already started their return journeys to coastal locations. "Click the pics" for close-ups. 

To The Coast 

There are not many Lapwing around now and I was counting ones and twos only, with little sign of late breeders. In my experience, Lapwings tend to give up rather than try again if their early breeding fails with small flocks appearing as early as mid-June. I found a good number of Curlew, some with large “running” chicks but also a good sized one learning the ropes of calling from a drystone wall. 

Lapwing 

Curlew 

Curlew 

There were still good numbers of Oystercatchers but all seemed to be adults lounging around and content to watch the world go by. Even Snipe proved elusive today with plenty of “chipping” from the fields where they have youngsters in tow but none posing along the lines of fence or wall; but I did find one close to a roadside pool that took off as soon as a vehicle came by. 

Oystercatcher 

Oystercatcher

Snipe 

Tower Lodge is a gateway to the country estate beyond but it is no longer inhabited by employees that safeguard the gentry and the grouse. 

Tower Lodge - Bowland 

A farmer had been trapping moles quite recently. 

Moles 

This part of Lancashire is meat rearing country; beef and sheep. Sheep that eat dirt from molehills can die from listeriosis, while winter feed for dairy cattle can become foul-tasting or toxic if contaminated by soil bacteria. So there’s a long tradition of mole trapping - showing the moles who’s boss and proving to neighbours that your farming is “reet”. 

The word “mole” is thought to derive from the old English word mouldwarp, which literally means earth-thrower. The animals’ forelimbs are large, pink and practically hairless, and, apart from an extra digit, have the appearance of a doll’s hands. So prized were moles’ hands that farmers once kept them in silk bags as talismans for good luck and to ward off toothache, epilepsy and scrofula. 

Mole 

Moles dig their tunnel systems to catch earthworms, shoving the excavated earth out of vertical passageways to produce molehills. In a 1976 study, researchers counted 7,380 molehills on a single hectare of English pasture, estimating their total weight to be 64,500kg. 

Mole Hill 

Mole control became a national policy in 1566, when a bitter cold period known as the Little Ice Age threatened England’s food supply. Queen Elizabeth passed “An Acte for the Preservation of Grayne”, which would remain in force for the next three centuries. The law prescribed bounties paid for the destruction of a long and dubious list of agricultural vermin, including everything from hedgehogs to kingfishers. Some parishes paid out a half-penny per mole, others appointed mole-catchers with contracts lasting up to 21 years. In addition to their salaries, mole-catchers sold the silky mole skins, which were prized for the tailoring of waistcoats. 

In the early 20th century worms dipped in strychnine became the preferred method for controlling moles on farms. Because strychnine doesn't break down in animal tissue, it can also work through the food chain when a bird of prey or even a domestic dog consumes a poisoned mouse or mole. 

In 1963, when the House of Commons debated a bill to ban the poison, David Renton, the minister of state for the Home Office, testified that moles “strangely enough” failed to show “the same symptoms of pain” as other animals. In the end the law banned strychnine for mice and rats, but exempted moles because no ready substitute existed. 

In the following decades, British farmers purchased more than 50kg of strychnine each year – enough, in theory to kill half a billion moles. The poison was eventually phased out with new pesticide regulations in 2006. 

Summer moves on with as Swallows and Grey Wagtails feed young plus countless Meadow Pipits both young and old along the walls and fences. While there are insects Meadow Pipits tend to stay around but come late August/early September there is a mass movement of the species south and west. 

Swallows 

Swallows 

Meadow Pipit 

Grey Wagtail 

Other birds today: Redshank, Willow Warbler, Blackcap, Red Grouse, Pied Wagtail, Tawny Owl, Common Sandpiper, Pied Flycatcher, Lesser Redpoll.

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

Bright And Breezy

The forecast said bright and breezy and it was spot-on for birding if not for ringing at our exposed sites. I travelled over the moss roads where I hoped for a Barn Owl or two; but no luck this morning, just a pair of Buzzards leaving their overnight roost.

At Gulf Lane the Linnet flock has increased to 200+ birds but no sign of the Stonechat from earlier in the week. With luck we’ll get a crack at catching more Linnets this coming week. Lapwings and Curlews filled the wet fields alongside the A588 with several hundred of each before I even reached Braides Farm.

Here at the farm were 500+ Lapwing and similar numbers of Curlew, and on the flood itself, 80+ Black-tailed Godwit. A mile away I stopped on the rise of Bank End Lane and viewed the fields below. Here were several hundreds more of both Lapwing and Curlew, dozens of Redshank, and once again a large number of Black-tailed Godwit, 130 or more.

The area around Chris the farmer’s midden/slurry pond is holding a good number of insects as well as small birds, mainly pipits and wagtails, but also a few Tree Sparrows and Reed Buntings. After a while the count came to 120 Meadow Pipit, 8 Pied Wagtail, 1 Grey Wagtail, 4 Tree Sparrow, 2 Reed Bunting and a good number of Starlings.

Pied Wagtail

Grey Wagtail

Grey Wagtail

Meadow Pipit

Meadow Pipit

 

Pied Wagtail

Starling

There is a huge southerly migration of Meadow Pipits during August to October, a movement involving birds from Scotland, Scandinavia and Iceland, after which the UK wintering population is quite small. No one is quite sure of the origins of any wintering birds and their numbers can vary enormously according to the severity of the winter. While the weather is mild at the moment whereby there is plenty of insect food, cold and especially frosty weather will see the birds quickly depart south and west.

Meadow Pipit

Conder Pool is pretty much off the boil for now although the cold northerly appeared to have increased the Teal count to 230 together with the first Wigeon (15) for some weeks. Otherwise - approximately 30 each of Lapwing, 30 Redshank and Curlew, 3 Little Grebe, 2 Goosander, 2 Little Egret and 1 Kestrel. Two Ravens flew over heading inland and in a north easterly direction.

There is such a spectacle of noise and activity that it is hard not to drive up Moss Lane where the Whooper Swans have made their winter home. With 450+ Whoopers and a few dozen Mutes there’s enough action to satisfy most observers, the only problem being to isolate a single photo subject  or small group from the multitude packed into the field.

Whooper Swan

 
Just along Slack Lane there was quite a lot of activity around the now redundant set aside field and hedgerow with more Meadow Pipits, Pied Wagtails, Linnets, and even half-a-dozen Greenfinch. It’s not so many years ago that most birders, me included, didn’t bother to record the overly common Greenfinch in their notebooks. Look at it now – a sharp population decline, a now scarce sight and a rare visitor to many a garden.

Greenfinch - BTO

Greenfinch

On the way back up Moss Lane and around Jeremy Lane were hundreds of very mobile Fieldfares. They tried to feed in the roadside hedgerows but fled as each vehicle whooshed by. My estimate of 3/400 is just that. There could have been lots more but they weren’t in the mood for stopping.

Fieldfares

Fieldfare

A successful morning then!  I really should get out more often.

Linking today to World Bird Wednesday.

Take Your Pick

Friday. After clearing frost from the screen I set off into bright sunshine. Things rapidly went downhill. 

I found a nice selection along Lancaster Road – 2 Buzzards, a Kestrel and about 40 Fieldfares in their usual field. The farmer recently cleared his midden and left some puddles, still unfrozen in the shelter of the hedgerow. Here were a dozen Chaffinch, a Grey Wagtail, a Pied Wagtail, a couple of Meadow Pipit, and then a pair of Mistle Thrush rattling off at my arrival. 

Grey Wagtail

At Gulf Lane the Linnets numbered 250+ and there was another Buzzard circling behind the farm where 4 Stock Doves eyed up the barn. There was little to see at Braides Farm where the frosty flood had deterred the usual melee of waders and wildfowl. I made do with a Kestrel and a mixed flock of several hundred Golden Plover and Lapwing partly hidden in the distant and undulating pastures. 

At Conder Pool I caught up with the Great White Egret, perhaps the one I saw some months ago leaving the mainly Little Egret roost at Pilling But since then there have been multiple sightings of more than one Great Egret, the next candidate to become a more common occurrence in our area. 

Also on the pool - 3 Little Grebe, 40 Wigeon, 2 Goosander, and 5 Black-tailed Godwits “over”. 

Great White Egret

Black-tailed Godwits

On the incoming tide the Spotted Redshank flew over the water, east to west.  Across to the distant bridge I could see the wintering Common Sandpiper bobbing along the water’s edge where the count of Teal here and on the pool surpassed 150 again. The light was failing with patchy mist on the way and by now I was on ISO1200. 

At Pilling I happened upon some geese where amongst a couple of hundred Pink-footed Geese were ten “Russian” White-fronted Geese and the single Red-breasted Goose. The latter, almost certainly a feral/escape bird has been a major target bird of recent weeks to the car loads of bird watchers heading into the Fylde. 

But the first mentioned are the truly wild geese, here to spend time many miles from the freezing Russian winter. 

Russsian White-fronted Geese and Red-breasted Goose

Thirty years ago White-fronted Geese, both “Russian and “Greenland” used to be more common amongst our huge wintering flocks of Pink-footed Geese but nowadays both races of white-front are very scarce. So uncommon are they that they have become a target for recent convert birders who may have never seen the species. Likewise the white-fronts are a “must see” for those bird watchers who maintain a year-list in keeping up with the Joneses. 

As the name suggests the white-fronts originate from western Russia where the breeding population numbers some 200,000 adults. The adults together with their young of the year, in total up to about 600,000 birds, spend the winter in some numbers in the Low Countries of Europe. There are up to 300,000 in Holland alone. In recent years the Dutch afforded extra protection to the similarly wintering but seriously endangered Lesser White-fronted Goose by way of safe roosting areas and tighter regulation of shooting. This policy also helps the White-fronted Goose and probably accounts for the reduction of numbers seen in the UK and here locally in Lancashire as the white-fronts now have less reason to leave Holland and fly the North Sea to the UK. 

Meanwhile the Red-breasted Goose breeds in Arctic Siberia, mainly on the Taymyr Peninsula with a summer population of around 80,000 adults, much further east than the Russian White-fronted Goose. There has been a strong decline in numbers of Red-breasted Goose in recent decades but most winter along the north-western shores of the Black Sea in Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine (occasionally moving further southwest to Greece). Some birds may now winter farther west as indicated by recorded counts of 2,000 birds in Hungary as in the winter of 2014, whereas counts previously only accounted for a few hundred. Given the worsening outlook for the species as a whole, the Red-breasted Goose was lifted from a species of Least Concern to that of Endangered status in 2007. 

Our single Red-breasted Goose Branta ruficollis turned up at at Pilling a couple of weeks ago and seemed to arrive with a number of Russian White-fronted Geese, up to twenty of the latter. The usual 'carrier species' for a genuinely wild Red-breasted Geese is the related and dark-bellied form of Brent Goose, Branta bernicla bernicla, another resident of high Arctic Russia which also winters in the area of the Baltic Sea coasts of Denmark and Holland. 

Red-breasted Geese are common in captive wildfowl collections, most notably in the UK at Wildfowl Trust collections at Minsmere, Sussex and Martin Mere, Lancashire where the species has bred in recent years. Here they mix freely with captive, feral and wild geese that inhabit the many acres of managed wetland and where a feeding policy is employed. 

As a very attractive and ornamental goose it is also popular with private collectors with a couple of hundred pounds spare with which to enhance their assortment of exotic waterfowl. Despite the purchase cost escapee Red-breasted Geese are fairly frequent given the amount of skill, time and experience required to prevent the geese from reverting to their natural inclinations to fly. 

In Holland the Red-breasted Goose sells well. 

"Out of devoted love for waterfowl, the founder Mr. P. Kooy established our breeding farm on a 12 acre area bordering the sand dunes in the most northern part of the province of Noord-Holland. A most ideal spot due to the freshwater supply of the dunes and the sea-climate. Several first breedings were the result. 

Among these first breedings we achieved, were the Eyton's Tree Duck, Hottentot Teals, Baer's Pochard and the Radjah Shelduck. Jean Delacour and Sir Peter Scott mention this achievement in 'Waterfowl of the World'. Besides all species of swans we keep almost every species of geese on our farm. 

Many pairs of Red-Breasted Geese lord over the many other species on our beautifully planted ponds. The Orinoco Goose, the Emperor Goose, the Hawaiian Goose and the Cape Barren Goose are always available as well as many others. We have on our farm about 150 different species of waterfowl and the stock fluctuates between 1500 and 3000 birds.” 

Red-breasted Geese

“You pays your money and takes your pick” goes the saying.

Linking today to Anni's Birding and Eileen's Saturday.

Grey Or Yellow?

A couple of days of wet and windy weather have restricted my birding for a while. So for today I hope to answer the question “When is a grey wagtail not a Grey Wagtail but a Yellow Wagtail”?

It’s a subject that cropped up on my last post at Another Bird Blog when a reader suggested via a comment that my image of a Yellow Wagtail was in fact a Grey Wagtail.  The photograph is the one below. 

Yellow Wagtail

The species under discussion are two closely related ones, Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava and Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea. 

The images below are pages from the The Crossley Guide that show not only the plumage differences between the two wagtails but also the different habitats and situations in which each is usually found. I’m sure that at most times of the year almost everyone can identify the adults of both species as they are really quite different in appearance.

Grey Wagtail - Richard Crossley (The Crossley ID Guide Britain and Ireland) [CC BY-SA 3.0 a/3.0)] via Wikimedia Commons 

 Yellow Wagtail Yellow Wagtail - Richard Crossley (The Crossley ID Guide Britain and Ireland) [CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The Yellow Wagtail, male or female, is an overall shade of yellow, whereas the Grey Wagtail while having parts of striking yellow plumage in both male and female, is an overall grey colour above.  No problem there then. 

 Yellow Wagtail

Grey Wagtail

Less practiced bird watchers may experience confusion and misperception when dealing with autumnal “grey” Yellow Wagtails such as the one in my picture at the top of this post, a very pale and quite fresh Yellow Wagtail in its first autumn plumage during September. At this time of year juvenile Yellow Wagtails are greyish/brown/olive above and buff whitish below, with a partly yellow belly and yellow under tail. Rather than the bright yellow and immaculate males of some field guides, autumn encounters of both species usually involve less bright and slightly worn plumaged adults of either sex, or duller juveniles. 

My pictures below show the typical dark, almost black legs of a Yellow Wagtail and not the flesh coloured legs of a Grey Wagtail. The Yellow Wagtail has clearly defined wing bars as formed by the pale covert feathers. By comparison a Grey Wagtail of any age always displays slate grey wing feathers together with narrowly edged greyish coverts rather than the much whiter ones in the wing of a Yellow Wagtail.

Grey Wagtail

Yellow Wagtail

 

Grey Wagtail

Yellow Wagtail

Grey Wagtail

Yellow Wagtail

Yellow Wagtail

A feature that is less obvious unless the two species are side by side is that the Grey Wagtail has a very long white edged tail whereas a Yellow Wagtail has a shorter tail. This is a useful separation tool in the field when the long tail of a Grey Wagtail “bobs” and “pumps” almost incessantly as opposed to the less mobile and much shorter tail of the Yellow Wagtail. A Yellow Wagtail has a demeanour rather like a pipit, often standing taller than the similarly sized Grey Wagtail that can appear quite "crouching". 

Another separation in the field is the differing calls of the two species. The Yellow Wagtail has a sweet “tsee” or “schlee” or a louder “suree”. The call of Grey Wagtail is totally different with an explosive, metallic “zi-zi” or “tsvit”

Below is a great video from the BTO which not only sets out the difference between Yellow and Grey Wagtails, but for good measure also includes the Pied Wagtail Motacilla alba, yet another “grey” wagtail.

I hope this post has been helpful to anyone unsure about separating Yellow Wagtails and Grey Wagtails, or even grey wagtails.

And for anyone looking for a top quality field guide to the birds of Great Britain and Ireland I recommend the following three books:

• The Crossley ID Guide: Britain and Ireland   
• Britain's Birds  
• The Collins Guide 

That's all for now. Back soon with Another Bird Blog. In the meantime I'm linking this post to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday

A Flood Of Fieldfares

Sunday 27th December - a dry, sunny morning. There haven’t been too many Fieldfares in evidence in recent weeks. By mid-winter our hedgerows are more or less devoid of haw berries, a favoured food of the northern thrush. By January Fieldfares feed almost exclusively on the ground and use hedgerows only as a hiding place/escape route when disturbed from searching the ground. 

Out on Pilling Moss I came across a huge flock of 1400 Fieldfares, a necessary approximation of highly mobile birds spread across at least two or three fields. This count is many times the numbers of Fieldfares reported locally in recent weeks. I can only think that the floods of recent days across parts of both Lancashire and Yorkshire had displaced lots of Fieldfares and pushed them west to where our fields are very wet but do not resemble the huge floods of TV news reports. 

Fieldfare

While so many Fieldfares proved difficult to count the sight was one to enjoy, with lots more to see by sticking around the immediate area for a while. Nearby fields and hedgerows plus a particularly good-looking flooded stubble held 150+ Starlings, 100+ Linnets, 80 Skylark, 70+ Chaffinch, 12+ Meadow Pipit, 3 Reed Bunting, 5 Pied Wagtail, 1 Grey Wagtail, 2 Mistle Thrush and 2 Yellowhammer. By now Starlings can be sporting their spring plumage - a male below.

Starling

Close by were 3 Kestrels - a pair and a single bird. Kestrels mate for life so it is not unusual to see pairs in mid-winter, especially since the shortest day is past and more daylight beckons. Buzzards were about, keeping their usual low and distant profile, leading me to think that at least three were in the immediate area. 

Kestrel

At Cockerham the Linnet flock of late was in the expected place with about 80 birds and a single Stonechat sitting up briefly before doing the usual disappearing trick. Extra today was a single Grey Wagtail and 2 Reed Buntings frequenting the roadside ditch. 

Grey Wagtail

The sunny morning and roadside flood of Fluke Hall was an attraction to both holiday bird watchers and dog walkers; too many of each for my liking. After noting 40+ Skylarks and a good number of Meadow Pipits I turned around and walked the sea wall and then the woodland where a couple more Skylarks and Tree Sparrows knocking around nest boxes enlivened a fairly birdless route. 

It was here that I bumped into a non-birder acquaintance, one who knows his birds and someone in close contact with local shooters. He told me of thousands of Mallards, Teal, Wigeon and Pintail frequenting a huge farmland flood some four or five miles inland. It seems that the sportsmen are kicking their heels in despair that the fields are so deep in water that they are unable to get anywhere close to the wildfowl in order to conduct a mass slaughter. 

It’s an ill wind indeed that doesn’t provide even a smidgeon of good news. 

Log in soon for more news and views soon from Another Bird Blog.

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

It’s Wagtime

There seemed to be wagtails everywhere I went this morning, mainly the black & white variety, but also the grey one and even the scarce yellow variety. There was an early autumn Merlin too. 

I started off at Glasson Dock where the Swallow numbers have been tied to the ups and downs of the weather. After the rain and wind of early week and a few blankish Swallow days there was an increase to circa130 on this fine but not entirely sunny morning. There were about 10 House Martins in with the Swallows, all feeding around the moored boats as usual. Also feeding over the water was a single Common Tern, the one I noted as flying back towards Conder Green again and also arriving at the island with fishy food some twenty minutes later. 

Around the moored boats and along the towpath I counted 8 Pied Wagtail, 2 Grey Wagtail and 1 Grey Heron with 70+ House Sparrows and a flock of 30 Goldfinch near the bowling green. 

Grey Wagtail

After a series of high tides there’s lots of water in Conder Pool now, the muddy margins all but swamped just as the water level was looking ideal to attract autumn waders. A Kingfisher showed by flying to the sluice wall and then back along the edge of the pool on two occasions but was so reluctant to stay around that I didn’t get a single picture. 

Also on the water were 1 Great Crested Grebe, 3 Little Grebe, 4 Tufted Duck, 2 Wigeon and 1 Cormorant. Also the previously mentioned 2 Common Terns at the island which have clearly nested this time to become the first pair for a number of years in the Lancaster area. 

Apart from 110 Lapwings roosting on the islands the remaining waders were in the roadside creeks, 4 Curlew, 1 Greenshank, 2 Common Sandpiper, 2 Snipe and 1 Black-tailed Godwit, with wildfowl at 1 Shelduck, 2 Teal and 5 Goosander. 

Curlew

Another 4 Pied Wagtails and a Grey Wagtail on the road to the car park with House Martins much in in evidence near the existing nests and supplemented today by presumed migrants to give a count in excess of 40 excitable birds. 

On the way to Cockersands there were a good number of Swallows and Swifts feeding over the fields. With car window down as ever my attention was diverted to a group of Swallows harassing a slightly larger bird, a male Merlin. The Merlin was flying in that peculiar way they do sometimes by mimicking the Swallows’ flight jizz , a hunting technique which allows it to get close to its prey. I couldn’t stop the car on the single track road but noted the Merlin carrying on towards the coast and then lost it. 

I found 18 or more Pied Wagtails in the horse paddock at Cockersands, together with a single Yellow Wagtail. With the numbers around of late there is no doubt that Pied Wagtails have enjoyed a productive breeding season with even now in August youngsters in in quite juvenile plumage. Conversely the Yellow Wagtail is now so scarce in this part of Lancashire that it has become a “twitch” bird, a species which bird watchers make a beeline to see. 

It’s the only Yellow Wagtail I’ve seen in the UK this year although I do see them in Menorca each year as they pass through the island on their way to Northern Europe. By coincidence or perhaps by a Yellow Wagtail’s preference the Yellow Wagtails in Menorca are generally feeding almost under horses hooves, just as the one today did. Seems like horse manure is good for attracting Yellow Wagtails as well as growing rhubarb.

I took a couple of poor and distant pictures from the car for fear of sending the bird flying off and incurring the wrath of the inevitable weekend twitchers. 

Yellow Wagtail

 

 Yellow Wagtail

Good numbers of Tree Sparrows and Goldfinches here with 45+ of each. A Pied Wagtail and Tree Sparrow were more obliging by coming closer to the car. 

Tree Sparrow

Pied Wagtail

Pied Wagtail

 Please log in soon for more wagtime with Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to Camera Critters and  Eileen's Saturday Blog.