Pilling Plod

Both overnight and early morning rain plus predictions of heavy showers put paid to any mist netting plans. So it was birding only for me this morning and a trudge along the familiar but now saturated fields of Pilling.

I started at Fluke Hall with Sylvia warblers, a loud Lesser Whitethroat, singing again from close to the wood and 8 Common Whitethroats, with at least one pair of the latter feeding young in a nest close to the road. It’s always worth a stop here, if only to clock the Swallows that perch overhead or a listen to all the Tree Sparrows and Linnets hiding in the hedge. Today a Greenfinch sang from the hawthorn and I counted 7 Linnets there too. The Swallows obviously have young in the nest now as they came in from the fields with food.

Swallow

Lesser Whitethroats are impossible to photograph in the field, at least for me, but here’s a picture of one in the hand and a reminder of that wonderful, flamboyant song. The Lesser Whitethroat song is very far carrying, and in this morning’s still air I could hear the bird from the sea wall 100 yards away. One could be forgiven for thinking that the brash, rattling flourish is the whole of the Lesser Whitethroat song, and it only when close that the initial scratchy Sylvia type part of the song is heard.

Lesser Whitethroat

I walked out to the sea wall giving my boots and socks a good soaking from the earlier downpours but found 30+ Lapwing plus a welcome surprise, an adult with 3 tiny, newly fledged chicks. I looked in vain for Redshank or Oystercatcher chicks, counting just 8 and 15 adults respectively. Although the Oystercatchers didn’t have young, several of them were still in display mode, flying in pairs above and around me. None of the Redshanks acted as if they had young but hopefully there may be at least a nest or two of Oyks soon. Like elsewhere in the Fylde the Brown Hares are in good numbers here at the moment, with lots of leverets.

Oystercatcher
Oystercatcher
Brown Hare

A look on the pools at Lane Ends produced 50+ Greylag, single Tufted Duck, 2 Little Grebe, 2 singing Reed Warbler and a singing Reed Bunting. In the plantation were 1 Sparrowhawk making a dash for Blackbirds, 1 Blackcap, 1 Jay and 10+ Blackbirds and a singing Chiffchaff. The Chiffchaff is newly in to the site so I assume it bred or failed elsewhere and is now trying its luck here.

Chiffchaff

From the top car park I watched a fly-past of 6 Grey Herons heading up towards Cockerham, the largest gathering of Grey Herons I’ve seen for a while - perhaps a prelude to the return of the Little Egrets.

Grey Heron
Later I had to dry my socks on the washing line but it was well worth it.

It’s A Hard Life

Will and I met at Our Rawcliffe for our first ringing session since September 8th. The intervening period had seen poor weather synopses with periods of rain and wind, the twin enemies that frustrated our eagerness to continue the good results we obtained through the summer and early autumn. It was a hesitant start at 0630 under threatening rain clouds, but both the weather and our mood improved enough to say that by 1100 when we packed up, we had enjoyed a brilliant morning full of birds.

In total we caught 51 birds of 8 species, 48 new birds, 2 recaptures and 1 bird previously ringed elsewhere, a “control” in ringer’s terminology.

New birds: 21 Chaffinch, 18 Meadow Pipit, 4 Long-tailed Tit, 1 Goldfinch, 1 Chiffchaff, 1 Robin, 1 Lesser Whitethroat and 1 Dunnock. We recaptured a Chiffchaff and a Dunnock from previous visits, and the control bird was a Long-tailed Tit; Ring number 6O9704 anyone?

Meadow Pipit
Meadow Pipit
Lesser Whitethroat
Dunnock
Chiffchaff

Capturing a number of Meadow Pipits for the first time since last autumn allowed us to “get our eye in” again with separating adult and juvenile autumn Meadow Pipits. In general adults have all tertials, greater coverts and median coverts of the same age with the pattern of the greater and median coverts having a rather evenly broad olive-toned buff tip with only a slight “tooth” and well defined and indented buff margin to the greater coverts. In contrast, first year birds have a pronounced “tooth” on the median coverts and rather pale buff tips to these, and the outer webs of the greater coverts are edged paler and more whitish. So in general the wing of an adult appears darker and more evenly olive toned whereas a juvenile wing looks more variable by virtue of most of its buff and pale tipped coverts or the contrast between its juvenile coverts and any newer, replaced “adult” type coverts. What we also have to bear in mind when ageing Meadow Pipits is that early broods may have been out of the nest from mid or late May, four months ago, whereas birds from later in the season may have plumage characteristics dating from several weeks ago only.

Meadow Pipit - Adult
Meadow Pipit - Juvenile

After a series of mornings in August and early September whereby we reported little or no visible migration, in contrast the difference today was quite striking, perhaps helped by the very light south easterly wind that blew from 0630 until about 10am when it swung round to the predicted north westerly direction. There were noticeable, mainly south or south westerly movements of 200+ Meadow Pipit, 250 Swallow, 20 House Martin and 50+ Skylarks which arrived from a true north or even north easterly direction

Other birds seen this morning included 190 Pink-footed Goose over in various directions, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, several Goldfinch, 1 Jay and 1 Grey Wagtail. As on the last few occasions, the movement of Chaffinch was not especially marked or obvious, but as we caught 21 we can only assume this was small percentage of those moving through the site for the four hours we remained there.

We were so busy with ringing, listening and watching that we barely had time to sit down, have a coffee or eat our second breakfasts whilst our luxurious chairs remained mostly redundant this morning. It’s a hard life being a birder.

Redundant

Knowing The Score

I’m sure the car was on autopilot this morning, instinctively heading east towards Out Rawcliffe and the moss lands where Will and I met up again on a fairly calm morning but with a BBC prognosis of worse to come. But as ever optimism is the key, and if we believed everything the experts said about the weather and waited each time for the perfect forecast we would hardly ever get out. Besides which our other philosophy and guiding principle is, “If you don’t go, you don’t know”.

We certainly knew today that it was going to be a quiet session with “phyllloscs” calling at first light but not much else. The Sedge Warblers that until two days ago had sung their hearts out in mimicking Goldfinch, Whitethroat and sundry others, were now silent with not a one caught. Even the Whitethroats dried up this morning. In fact, let’s not prolong the agony; we caught 12 birds only, 7 new and 5 recaptures. Although to be fair to ourselves we did put up two less nets as a safeguard against the likely increase in wind strength, then soon after incoming rain forced an early termination of our efforts.

Consolation for the lack of numbers came in the form of two birds always sought after when we captured a juvenile each of Garden Warbler and Lesser Whitethroat. Other new birds were singles of Robin and Whitethroat. 3 fresh Willow Warblers completed the “new” and 5 other Willow Warblers were recaptures. One of these, an adult male AVC159 had avoided us on our visits since 23 April the previous date of capture – unless of course it had been elsewhere throughout May, June, July and the first few days of August? But on the other hand we first ringed it as a juvenile on 11th July 2009, so we could reasonably expect it to be active around the plantation and find our nets during these summer months. Oh what mysteries these birds provide.

Lesser Whitethroat - juvenile
Garden Warbler - juvenile
Robin
Here Comes That Rain Again

“Others” seen today before the rains came; 100+ Swallow, 6 Stock Dove, 2 Buzzard, Great-spotted Woodpecker and a Snipe.

Finally I must mention the positive feedback from readers of the blog a few days ago when I posted a picture of a Wren. So for those troubled souls, Wren Groupies, who have probably never had to extract one from a mist net, here is another picture of the infamous Wren.

Wren

Decisions

I just had an afternoon available today but faced with so many choices what should I do? The tide somewhere, a quiet inland walk, a bit of ringing combined with a bit of birding in between watching nets? The latter seemed the best bet as by lunchtime the wind appeared to be easing so I made off for Rawcliffe Moss to set a few nets and a bit of birding. Almost immediately I noticed that plenty of Swallows and House Martins fed over the moss, some low over the yet to be cut barley and others taking the higher insects. Both a Sparrowhawk and a two separate Kestrels received a bit of attention for intruding into the hirundine’s airspace. As well as the feeding birds there was a definite steady drip of Swallows moving south which suddenly intensified about 3 o’clock when I guess three or four hundred extra Swallows moved quickly through.

The plantation was really quiet, one Whitethroat, and seemingly singles only of Blackcap and Willow Warbler. This is always the time of year when there seems to be a lull in migration and it starts in earnest again later in September and of course October. Anyway that’s my excuse for not catching much apart from said warblers and a few Swallows plus the fact that the wind picked up a little making the nets visible.





When it’s quiet on the moss without traffic noise you realise just how the calls of Buzzard carry a long way as more than once I heard but failed to spot the Buzzard before being distracted by something else. Eventually I found them soaring miles away and jotted down three in my notebook but I suspect there were more. Often I see them sat motionless for ages on fence posts and a favourite of theirs, hay bales where I guess they have a pretty good spot from which to look out for small animals in the cut fields. How the Buzzard population has taken off around here in recent years. It doesn’t seem that long ago when the nearest Buzzards to the Fylde were those we saw north of Levens on the journey to Walney, then one year I watched one fly past Lane Ends in early April which was so unusual it made the yearly bird report! Now they are just everywhere, quite amazing. But I learnt this year how secretive and inconspicuous they are for a large raptor, when I unexpectedly found some 1J’s i.e. just fledged but unable to yet fly fully, moving through a wood I had visited and passed by a number of times. Even after finding those gigantic young I didn’t see the adults carrying food into the wood despite being close enough to notice. Maybe they were midnight snackers?

Three pictures today. The Blackcap, a Lesser Whitethroat from a previous day and the same Pied Wagtail as yesterday, still finding lots of food around the farm buildings.



I’ve just watched the weather forecast for tomorrow. Don’t ask, but don’t set the bedside alarm.