A Sunny Day

It was a bright sunny day so although I did some birding, I concentrated on getting a few pictures while the light was helpful.

At Lane Ends I heard at least two Willow Warblers calling from the trees below the car park, but there is so much cover at this time of year I can’t imagine those two are the only ones there. I also heard a Kingfisher call once from the pool that no one can see thanks to Wyre Borough and The Environment Agency failure to maintain the place; a single call means a fly past usually. All was not lost as when I walked to the east pool the Kingfisher sat on the fence in the nearest corner, but flew back to no man’s land as soon as it spotted me. There seemed to be a movement of both Swallows and House Martins as small parties arrived from the marsh, fed for a few minutes then moved on. The now resident Kestrel was pretty obliging today so I took a few shots whilst it fence hopped. The Woodpigeons here get used to the comings and goings of cars so I stopped to get one in the half sunlight as it preened the mass of feathers.

Kestrel
Kestrel
Woodpigeon

At Pilling Water the wildfowler’s pool held 200 Teal, flushed by the chap on the quad bike with his sack of duck grub; the Teal fly off to the shore, the Mallards will find how the free grub system works in two weeks’ time. The Green Sandpiper also came off the pools and settled briefly on the near pool before it skittered off with its weird melody and not a hope of a photo.

I sat on the stile and watched a couple of Little Egrets along the ditch when one decided to fly towards the wildfowler’s pools, not knowing quad man was there. The egret circled back in mid-air and re-joined the other one, so Little Egret picture number 140 coming up. There was a single Wheatear again today, which could be the one that has been around for a few days considering how it avoided me. Wheatears are harder to come by, less predictable in both numbers and dates in autumn than spring. April and May will see a rush of birds with falls on the west coast of small groups, tens and twenties, sometimes many dozens but in contrast the autumn passage is more protracted through July, August, September and October. I did catch up with the Wheatear for a fresh picture, where else but the wheatear rocks? I also snapped a Brown Hare, muddied fresh from a run through the saltmarsh.

Little Egret
Wheatear
Brown Hare

I counted more Linnets this morning, with 30 or more here and a similar number of Goldfinch. Like at Lane Ends there were parties of both Swallow, about 30 with similar numbers of House Martins.

On my way to Bank End, where I had a single Greenshank and nothing else, I called in at Hillam where I found a flock of 80 Linnets, 2 Grey Heron, 2 Buzzard, 40 House Sparrow, 9 Goldfinch, 2 Pied Wagtail, 25 House Martin and 20 Swalllow.

House Martin
House Martin

That was a nice morning, with a few pictures in the bank too.

Scops Owls, Help!

I finished sorting through the last of my photographs from holiday, perplexed over how best to remove the “red-eye” from my Scops Owl photographs. The red eye certainly made them look fierce but obviously it wasn’t entirely accurate in depicting them. Eventually after a bit of trial and error I found that IrfanView did the job best.

A pair of Scops Owls roosted opposite our Menorca hotel in trees in the grounds of some large villas and houses; not the best place to go wandering about with a large telephoto lens and binoculars on an island where bird watchers are largely an unknown species. So we just waited for the owls to come to us as they did every night. The hotel grounds were well lit at night by ambient brightness from the building itself but also from guest’s balconies, sources of light that allowed the owls to hunt for e.g. large beetles, moths and centipedes. After dinner and sat with a sun downer each on the room balcony we set our watches by the owls, calling at 9pm from the distant trees, then between 920pm and 945pm one or the other or both would fly calling into the nearest palm tree before landing at the top of the trunk just below the fronds, from where they surveyed the immediate ground. After a minute or two they would go off to hunt, either dropping to the ground, flying to other palms or watching the ground from the top of the daytime sun canopies, a convenient perch.

Getting the pictures was a bit hit and miss, as in the darkness the camera autofocus couldn’t work leaving me to try manual focus through the dark tube of the telephoto. So I set the ISO at 3200, and using the inbuilt flash, crossed my fingers at f5.6.

Scops Owl
Scops Owl
Scops Owl
”Red Eyed” Scops Owl
A dozen or so pairs of House Martins nest in the hotel’s rear entrance, and one night there was an almighty din when one of the owls may have gone into the roosting birds to try and take a sleeping bird. This caused all the martins to panic and fly around the grounds calling, until they either went elsewhere or settled back to rest. Scops Owls are known to take small birds, possibly up to Redwing size.

House Martin
One night we were watching the Scops when a Barn Owl flew into the hotel grounds and landed in a palm tree. It was a bit far away but in the ambient light also clearly visible as it went off briefly to hunt then return to the same spot to eat its prey. I think that Barn Owl is a pretty good species to see in Menorca and it certainly made that night memorable for two other hotel guests who joined us on our grandstand balcony to see the Scops Owls.

In the daytime the canopies the owls favoured were also utilized by the hotel’s resident Kestrel, a convenient stopping off place between its vantage points of the hotel roof and balconies and thence to the ground. If it couldn’t find morsels of its own the Kestrel was not averse to robbing the efficient Hoopoe of its large insect prey.

Kestrel
Kestrel
Kestrel
Hoope
Who ever said that holiday hotels are dull?

Oh,I think I might use one of the Scops as a header picture but can't decide which one. Help!

Windy Wheatears

Today I’m struggling to post anything except a letter through a doorway. Even that could get blown from my hands.

After a morning swim I hoped the overnight and morning gusts would drop for me by afternoon but they didn’t. The wind was really potent here today, too strong really for passerine birding but I thought I would go out to look for a few Wheatears out Pilling Way on the basis of a good count of more than 70 Wheatears on Bardsey Island on Monday 19th April. Bardsey Blog.

For anyone unsure of the geography up here, Bardsey is just off the tip of the Llleyn peninsula, North Wales, approximately 170 miles by road to the southern part of Morecambe Bay. To a Wheatear, especially a fuelled up specimen, it’s but a short flight from Bardsey or North Wales to any part of Morecambe Bay and a quick top up of food before the next leg of their journey. That’s not to say that any Wheatears I might find would definitely be part of the Welsh contingent, but they may have been. Equally Wheatears have been rather held up lately by the constant northerly winds and there must be many more heading this way quite soon.

Wheatear
Bardsey Island and Morecambe Bay
My walk along the Pilling wall in the north westerly proved difficult and uneventful, so hard that the best birding option was to walk behind the grassy wall out of the wind but not so to speak, stick your head over the parapet for fear of being blown back below.

There were at least 8 Wheatears, mobile, fence hopping specimens hard to study through binoculars shaking in the blustery wind. Needless to say with being so active they weren’t tempted by meal worms but quickly continued their part journey in an easterly direction.

A quick count around the Lane Ends pools revealed 6 Tufted Duck and several Swallows plus 2 Sand Martins hawking over the windswept pools.

Back home I did notice both Swallows and House Martins in our cul-de-sac inspecting last year’s sites.

Swallow and House Martin
Swallow
Swallow

Sorry folks, that’s all my news for today.

Swallows and Martins

It got pretty warm this afternoon, but a birder’s work is never done. I was picking the damsons that filled a bucket off just one tree when I noticed how the local Swallows and House Martins had gathered on a neighbour’s south facing roof. Didn’t count them but it makes for a different photo?



I didn’t count the damsons either but if you want some there is another tree to do tomorrow