Chaffinches Lead The Way

I tried another ringing session out on Rawcliffe Moss this morning. On Sunday Goldfinches made up a good proportion of the catch. Today it was the turn of the Chaffinches to come good with a less busy morning and catching at just a steady rate which yielded finches only - 20 Chaffinch, 3 Lesser Redpoll and 2 Goldfinch. 

Later the IPMR database showed 152 Chaffinch caught at this site so far this autumn, the number comprised of 134 (88%) juveniles and 18 (12%) adults. The ratios are very much in line with those of the last two autumns here - see Those Chaffinch.

Chaffinch - male

Chaffinch - female

The morning started frost again, cold and clear, the type of weather where it is hard to spot birds moving high overhead even though some of their contact calls are audible. Lesser Redpolls were the early movers today, the earliest birds soon after dawn and a minimum of 15+ birds until 1100. In contrast, although starting much later than usual the Chaffinch movement remained steady with approximately 60+ birds throughout the same period. 

Lesser Redpoll

Other visible migration, 2 Grey Wagtail, 12 “Alba” wagtail, 5 Reed Bunting, 18 Meadow Pipit, 2 Siskin, 2 Blackbird. Good numbers of Pink-footed Geese moving about in all directions this morning, no doubt unsettled from feeding by the surge in farming activity due to the unaccustomed spell of dry weather. “Otherwise” birds - 12 Snipe, 140 Lapwing, 2 Jay, 3 Buzzard, 1 Kestrel, 2 Great-spotted Woodpecker. 

Pink-footed Geese

Just 2 Jays today - probably local birds. Following a poor acorn crop there has been a large influx of Jays to the UK from Continental Europe this week, with literally thousands of Jays arriving in the east and south east of England. While a few of those individuals may have reached the west of the UK, it is also likely that our resident Jays are moving about the countryside in search of food if the low acorn harvest is replicated here. 

Jay 

The Jay is one of the most important natural planters of acorns with the distribution of several oak species somewhat dependent on the birds’ presence. In autumn and winter large numbers of acorns are brought back to Jay territories and hidden for future retrieval. It has been estimated that a single Jay could bury up to 3000 acorns in a single month, not all of which are found by the birds when they later look for them - hence the growth of oak saplings.  

More soon from Another Bird Blog. Stay in touch.

A Quieter Day

Theories abound when ringers don’t catch many birds, or in some cases no birds at all. This morning when I looked North, South, East and then West from Rawcliffe Moss at 0615, I was surrounded by low lying grey cloud and the omens weren’t good. Although it stayed dry the cloud didn’t break except for a fifteen minute spell about 8am, and it was only then that there seemed to be sign of just a little migration. 

By 10 o’ clock I had caught 20 new birds with no sign of any more to come so decided to call it a day at 16 Chaffinch, 2 Willow Warbler, 1 Goldfinch and 1 Greenfinch. I caught four Chaffinches at first light, a suggestion of roost dispersal, with the remaining dozen soon after the brief brightness about 8am. In all I estimated 40+ heading over and then in a southerly direction in a good three hours, with a single Siskin and 4 Lesser Redpoll interspersed with the Chaffinches. 

The first Willow Warbler caught was a small female, and with a wing length of 60mm, the size of a Chiffchaff. 

Willow Warbler

Another 3J Goldfinch today with absolutely no sign of moult into an adult plumage. 

Goldfinch

 

As I drove off-site at 1045 I came across a huge but distant mixed flock of c300 finches, many of which were Greenfinches and perhaps the origin of the few caught here lately, like today’s young male. 

Greenfinch

There was brief interlude of Meadow Pipit movement this morning with about 10/12 singles arriving from the gloomy east and then heading west. Otherwise, and excepting the finches mentioned earlier, “vis” was zero. 

Other birds, 2 Tawny Owls calling at dawn, likewise a single Buzzard calling but not seen, 18 Snipe, 1 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 30 Swallow, 10 House Martin, 1 Sparrowhawk, 2 Blackcap and a single Jay, a white rump disappearing into the plantation. 

Jay

I’m ready for a lie-in tomorrow, but who knows there may be a spot of birding at some time in the day. If so log in Sunday for more news from Another Bird Blog.

Taking It Easy.

Three times in ten days the A588 to Pilling, infamous as one of the most dangerous roads in England, has been closed off by police. Once for the stolen car slewed across the road, the second time for a burning barn on the appropriately named Burned House Lane, and again this morning for what appeared a nasty smash near Lambs Lane junction. A roundabout route go me to Pilling where three hours later the police still manned the closed road entailing a second detour over Pilling Moss, Union Lane and Stalmine Moss; let’s hope no one was seriously hurt.

Hereabouts and from 7am onwards some drivers appear so desperate to get to work it’s a wonder there aren’t many more serious accidents on our narrow lanes. For goodness sake, chill out and slow down folks, especially the clown in the silver grey Honda Civic glued to my bumper through Scronkey.

At Lane Ends I have tried for weeks to make the cautious Jays play ball and pose for the camera. Finally today, and although a little distant I managed to grab a few shots in between them scooting back into the trees at the approach of every vehicle.

Jay

Jay

Jay

In the plantation and area of the car park and in addition to 2 Jays, were 3 Blackcap, 2 Reed Warbler, 1 Kestrel and 1 Sparrowhawk.

A slow walk from Lane Ends to Fluke Hall via Pilling Water and then the return journey gave 15 Goldfinch, 15 Linnet, 5 Greenfinch, 8 Pied Wagtail, 3 Reed Bunting, 2 Corn Bunting, 8 Swift and a minimum 18 Skylark. I’m still looking but there’s no evidence of second Skylark nests yet.

 Pied Wagtail

A number of hirundines at Pilling Water included a single Sand Martin with 10 Swallows and 8 House Martin.

Swallow

Sand Martin

Swallow

 Waders today: 230 Curlew, 60 Redshank, 20 Dunlin, 22 Oystercatcher, 90 Lapwing, 2 Ringed Plover and 1 Common Sandpiper.

Ringed Plover

Bang on time today was the first autumn Little Egret out on the marsh. 2 Grey Heron also.

Over Pilling Way even the sheep join in the roost to wait out the tide. There’s no sense in rushing about and ending up in deep water or worse is there?

 Pilling Marsh

A Hundred Plus

Before this morning the last time Will and I managed a ringing session on Rawcliffe Moss was 4th September, the in-between time spent waiting for Irene and Katia to clear our shores. Today dawned cold but fine and bright and without the nagging, sometimes vicious wind of the previous ten days, so we hoped for lots of migrant birds previously held up by the bad weather.

The cold air gave us a fairly slow start which gathered momentum so quickly and successfully that by the end of the 6 hour session we had exceeded the magic one hundred by amassing a total of 122 birds of 12 species, 113 new and 9 recaptures, with the highpoint of the morning being the large number of two species in particular on the move south, Meadow Pipit and Chaffinch. New birds: 52 Meadow Pipit, 45 Chaffinch, 7 Goldfinch, and singles of Garden Warbler, Chiffchaff, Jay, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Sparrowhawk, Robin, Blue Tit, Great Tit and Coal Tit.

Our recaptures were 8 recently ringed Goldfinch, all returnees to the Niger feeders, and a Chiffchaff which has hung around the site whilst completing its adult moult.

Meadow Pipit - juvenile
Meadow Pipit- adult
Garden Warbler
Goldfinch

Whilst we caught both Chaffinches and Meadow Pipits steadily, the peak of catching Chaffinches proved to be between 9am and 10am. There was a noticeable spike in Meadow Pipits numbers between 10am and 11am, in both visual migration and in the numbers we caught which might suggest that the Meadow Pipits had travelled a greater distance or from a wider area than the Chaffinches. Here on the moss we find migrating Meadow Pipits to be more detectable than Chaffinches, and taking this into account the estimate of both species on the move south here this morning is approximately 400 Meadow Pipit and 500 Chaffinch. We noted other finches on the move this morning, mainly 40+ Siskin and 4 + Lesser Redpoll, with small numbers of locally feeding Linnet c30 and Goldfinch c100.

In their different ways a Jay, a Great-spotted Woodpecker or a Sparrowhawk are all capable of drawing a ringer’s blood.

Great-spotted Woodpecker
Great-spotted Woodpecker
Sparrowhawk – juvenile male
Sparrowhawk – juvenile male
Jay

Processing 120 plus birds limited our pure birding somewhat, but we also noted 6+ Reed Bunting, 1 Tree Pipit, 3 Snipe, 1 Yellow Wagtail, 2 Grey Wagtail, 2 Jay, 2 Sparrowhawk, 4 Buzzard and the return of 15 Pink-footed Goose.

Familiar Territory

It was another strange sort of day today; cool this morning with the same persistent north easterly wind so I decided to wait until lunch time to go out birding. The sun came out as promised and the temperature climbed to 22⁰ but now with a breeze from the east.

I checked out Lane Ends, Pilling with a sea wall walk to Pilling Water, followed by the Ridge Farm and the Fluke Hall circuit.

Lane Ends started quite well with three singing Willow Warblers, a Reed Bunting, a Reed Warbler in the patch of reeds next to the road and the frantic song of a Garden Warbler below the car park, but I wondered about all of their chances when I spotted one of the two now resident Jays searching about the undergrowth. Make no mistake about it, Jays may be attractive beasts but just like other crows they are fully paid up members of the bad guy’s brigade, and will take eggs, nestlings and even the adults of other bird species. A study in the south of England in 2005-2006 (Bird Study 2008/55, 179–187) found that woodland Jays were major predators of the nests of the red-listed Spotted Flycatcher.

Willow Warbler
Jay

I set off to walk to Pilling Water just as 12 Whimbrel flew over, fast and silent without their normal seven whistles but heading north across Morecambe Bay. My walk to Pilling Water produced almost zilch apart from a couple of Linnets, with no Meadow Pipits, no Skylarks, no Wheatears and no Wagtails, all birds that should be around in profusion by late April. The meagre highlight was a procession of Swallows heading across the bay, Heysham bound. As I sat on the stile the silence was remarkable, more like a mid-summer day with just the occasional local Redshank, Oystercatcher or Lapwing announcing their territorial presence from the maize stubble of the wildfowler’s pools, or the resident Shelduck pair taking to the skies. A Greenshank put in a brief appearance, calling and circling before dropping back into the deep dykes; my third siting here this spring but all different birds I think.

Greenshank
Lapwing

The Hi-fly tractor was busy ploughing in the few early Lapwing nests next to Fluke Hall, and added to the lack of rain on the already baked ground, it seems odds-on for zero young Lapwings in Pilling again this year.

On the other hand, I suppose Hi-fly would claim credit for all the Linnets, Tree Sparrows and Whitethroats that inhabit the hundreds of now healthy hawthorns planted along Fluke Hall Lane some years ago. A few days ago I counted 18 Whitethroats between Pilling village and Ridge Farm; today was similar with the difference being there are now females to double the score, with the emphasis less on the male’s incessant song flights but more on the churring calls that accompany nest building. To advertise their presence male Whitethroats often build up to 3 or 4 so called “cock nests” in readiness for the later arriving females, allowing one to choose a nest that suits her. After choosing one she strips it of his unsuitable, mediocre, DIY decorations and finishes the nest herself to a better specification before taking up residence and laying eggs. It all sounds a bit familiar chaps!

Whitethroat

Fluke Hall held lots of Blackcaps, several Willow Warblers, Chiffchaff, resident Tree Sparrows and softly calling Sparrowhawks at a nest.

It’s still only April but for most of this week’s unsuitable migration weather it has felt like spring is over, as we desperately await warm southerly winds to bring in the remaining migrants.

Long Time No See

A spot of just birding at Pilling this morning where I didn’t see many species and not in any numbers, but the ones I saw were pretty interesting.

I’d gone armed with spring traps looking for Wheatears but saw only two, neither of them interested enough in a meal-worm, although the male spent quite a while watching a trap intently before wandering off up the fence line. So I sat on the sea wall where I could see the traps but also look out to the distant tide line, some four hours to high-tide. There was an Osprey out there in the sunny haze, on top of the tallest post that sticks out of the sand, halfway to Heysham, where it just sat and sat waiting for the tide to come in I supposed, just occasionally changing its perspective or stretching its wings. The bird was just too far out for a picture, but below is an archive shot from Egypt as today’s Osprey reminded me of “the big white hawk that lives in the sand”.

Osprey

I walked along towards Fluke Hall where I found several Linnets and 2 White Wagtail, and at the wildfowler’s pools, 2 Grey Heron, 4 Teal, several Shelduck, plus plenty of territorial Lapwings and Redshanks. There have been Golden Plovers on the partly ploughed field for a week or two, up to 170, camouflaged in summer plumage against the brown, dry earth, but today a distant 40 or so that flew around a couple of times when the Lapwings spooked off for nothing.

Golden Plover
Lapwing

More territorial Lapwings at Fluke Hall with pairs of piping, displaying Oystercatchers and protesting Redshanks, but nothing on Worm Pool save for more Shelduck and Oystercatchers.

Shelduck

I got back to Lane Ends where upon setting off earlier I had noted the now resident pair of Jays, 2 singing Willow Warblers, singing Reed Warbler, 2 overhead tree Pipits and a single Redpoll. The pools held the now resident pairs of Tufted Duck and Little Grebe.

Jay

I sat at the picnic table, making notes when from towards the western end of the plantation I heard the unmistakable bursts of a Wood Warbler in song, but try as I might I couldn’t get any pictures of the said bird.

This species is now so scarce in our area that it has become twitchable, a “target” bird. I looked on IPMR and found that I last saw them here at Pilling about 15 years ago, on 2nd May 1995 when one turned up in a mist net, with one again in a net on 19th August 1997. Apart from finding a few nests and ringing nestlings in the Pennine lowlands since then, my sightings of Wood Warbler remain few and far between, and I certainly don’t have any digital images of them. With luck we’ll catch one in the next few days of spring, but don’t hold your breath.

And There’s More

It was too windy for mist-netting again today, but warm enough for a Pilling walk looking for Wheatears.

It’s natural for non-birders to think that the Wheatears at Pilling are the same ones day after day, but new ones arrive fresh in from the south most days now on their way to Scotland and the Pennine uplands. I watched several of them this afternoon make their way from the sea wall and out onto the marsh, feeding as they went but all the time creeping further north and west, no doubt to head off again tonight on the next leg of their journey.

I also caught another two of today’s gang, a male and a female, both of the nominate race oenanthe with wing lengths of 99mm the male and 95mm the female. The second calendar year/juvenile male posed for a photograph but the female didn’t want to. It’s too early in the month to catch any of the Greenland race leucorhoa, but I hope to start catching them from mid-April onwards when wing measurements of 101mm upwards for males and 99mm and above for females indicate birds with much further to travel, Iceland or maybe Greenland itself.

Wheatear – male, second calendar year
Wheatear – male, second calendar year
Wheatear – male, second calendar year
I was talking to a birder yesterday who had yet to see a Wheatear this year. Don't worry there's lots more to come!

Wheatear

When I started out at Lane Ends round about lunchtime there were a couple of unexpected corvid sightings; firstly a group of 5 noisy Ravens flying out on the marsh but heading west, and then in the plantation, an unseasonal Jay squawking through the trees.

Jay

Whilst the Wheatears head quickly north the Pink-footed Geese don’t seem in any hurry to get to Iceland and I logged 1200 of them out on the marsh. The numbers of Redshank continued building today with a count of 270, and they too will head off to Iceland pretty soon. Otherwise counts were much like most of this week with 2 Linnet, 6 Teal, 4 Meadow Pipit, 6 Swallow, 2 Sand Martin, 2 Little Egret and 9 Wheatears.

At home I turned my attention to getting a few pictures of Greenfinches, a species that is also a spring migrants and nesting in the garden once again.

Greenfinch

What a great weather forecast for the next few days, it’s sure to bring more migrant birds. I can’t wait.

Nimble Fingers

I drove through Out Rawcliffe as dawn broke, heading for our farmland site and a 9 a.m. start to the ringing session with Will, our first so far during this winter. On the way there alongside the River Wyre I noted single Kestrel and Buzzard sat on roadside telephone poles and also a couple of parties of Fieldfares in the hawthorns at Rawcliffe Hall, the tall bushes there being a guaranteed haunt of this species.

It was a glove and hat morning for sure as we worked fast to put nets up in thick frost and minus 5 degrees temperatures. We caught steadily for the next three hours, mainly Chaffinch and Tree Sparrow, our target species for this site.

We processed 43 birds, 34 new ones together with 9 recaptures from last winter. New birds: 21 Chaffinch, 3 Tree Sparrow, 4 Blue Tit, 2 Great Tit, 2 Dunnock, and singles of Blackbird and Jay. Recaptures: 2 Chaffinch, 1 Blackbird, 1 Great Tit, 1 Blue Tit and 4 Robin. After the hard winter of 2009/2010 and the very severe November and December of this latest winter we were somewhat surprised that the 4 Robins we caught today had all survived through to adulthood. Also noticeable today were several largish adult male Chaffinch, with 4 birds coming in at 90mm and above wing length. In all this morning we estimated about 80 Chaffinch in the area with at least one Brambling amongst them.

Tree Sparrow
Chaffinch
Robin

The Dunnock blow was made easier to age by the fact it was replacing one set of outer tail feathers - pointed, worn juvenile versus more rounded, fresher adult.

Dunnock
Dunnock

Catching a Jay is fun, mainly for the strong billed Jay itself by nipping unwary and already cold fingers. Our technique is to leave the bird in the bag while fitting the ring and weighing, and only afterwards take the bird out for closer inspection and ageing/sexing

Jay
Jay
Jay

Other birds seen this morning: an additional Kestrel, Grey Heron, 2 Siskin, 70 + Fieldfare, 28+ Redwing, 90+ Woodpigeon.