First Chiffy, First Nest

Yet another sluggish start led me to think the morning would lead to a lack of notebook entries and little substance to today’s blog. Slowly but surely birds appeared whereby I recorded a little visible migration, saw the first warbler of the Spring and then found my first nest of 2014. 

In the darkness I stopped at Lane Ends to count the Little Egrets in the roost - 47 birds scattered through the tall trees. For readers who don’t know Pilling, or the roosting habits of the Little Egret, the roost is situated within a public amenity area of pools and walkways, the birds spending the night in the safety of tall trees on an island of one of the small lakes. It’s quite a sight to see so many ghostly egrets in one location but difficult to take photographs with the birds fairly well distributed in the vegetation. They also vacate the roost in the half light of pre-dawn as they fly off to daytime feeding spots. 

It’s no good planning to see Barn Owls, they invariably don’t turn up in the anticipated spot or when they’re meant to; much better to let one happen. After the egrets I checked a “regular” owl spot with camera at the ready but no Barn Owls appeared, so I motored on up to Cockerham and Braides Farm. 

Here was quiet with just 60+ Golden Plover, 20+ Lapwing, 6 Curlew and 1 Grey Heron for my troubles. 

Grey Heron

Passing Damside I noted both Kestrels in attendance near the regular nest box. Things also picked up at Fluke Hall. On the flooded maize at least 4 Lapwings were in tumbling display mode and 40+ others moving about the wet areas. Also, 70+ Redshanks feeding and one or more birds in both calling display flight and ground chasing. 7 Dunlin and 5 Curlew completed the waders with 30+ Shelduck and 2 Little Egrets in attendance. 

Lapwing

Redshank

The sea wall gave the best count for a while of Pink-footed Goose at 750+, with both pipits and wagtails flying north across Morecambe Bay - 15+ Meadow Pipit and separate gangs of 15, 8 and then 5 Pied Wagtails. Several Skylarks in territorial song, mental notes made to check each location in more detail very soon. On and about the wildfowler’s pools I found an eclectic mix of 2 Pintail, 1 Green Sandpiper, 1 Buzzard, 1 Linnet, 2 Greenfinch and the third Kestrel of the morning. 

Pintail

The walk along Fluke Hall Lane was for change a pleasant one, breeze and bluster-free, a rare opportunity of recent winter days to listen out for birds without the rustle and rush of swaying trees and falling branches. 

There was a Chiffchaff singing from a garden, a regular spot of recent years but away from the denser woodland; Goldfinches, Tree Sparrows and Long-tailed Tits along the hedgerow, and when I reached the woodland the single “chick” call of a Great-spotted Woodpecker. From tall conifers I heard the contact calls of Siskins and then straining my neck almost vertically I could see four or maybe five of the tiny, fork-tailed finches moving through the dark branches above. 

 Chiffchaff

In the wood a pair of Long-tailed Tits quickly gave the game away, nest building in the fork of a roadside hawthorn, the nest in the early construction stage but with the pair constantly toing and froing with beaks full of nest material. 

Long-tailed Tits construct their nest as a domed structure of moss woven with cobwebs and hair covered on the outside with camouflaged greyish/white lichen. I took a few pictures through the maze of branches where within in a few short weeks of vegetation growth the nest will become totally invisible. 

Long-tailed Tit

Nest of Long-tailed Tit (under construction)

Nest of Long-tailed Tit (partly constructed)

A rewarding end to a fine morning’s birding, as when I later checked my notebook there were over 40 species recorded, much of the everyday stuff like Dunnocks, Robins, Wrens and Blackbirds omitted from the above. 

Please now excuse me as I must go online and record my first Nest Record of 2014, but fear not there's more soon.

And remember, you read it on Another Bird Blog first. 

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday. 

Brief Sign Of Spring

At last on Monday a touch of overnight frost followed by a sunny day without wind and rain, and a chance to get out Pilling way for a few hours. Such has been the ferocity of the weather that my notebook told me I last walked Fluke Hall/Pilling Water on January 2nd, with in the meantime lots of sitting around the house, doing chores, blogging, and a brief but welcome respite of two weeks in Lanzarote. 

Here in Lancashire we have escaped the worse of the wet, windy and woeful winte, unlike the good people of Somerset suffering weeks and weeks of floods. And now it’s the turn of the Thames Valley to feel the pain as the UK suffers its officially wettest winter for 250 years. Roll on Spring. 

At Fluke Hall I found singing a Song Thrush, a drumming Great-spotted Woodpecker, a singing Goldfinch and a pair of Long-tailed Tits, stuttering signs of spring which quickly abate when we return to the currnet normality. A couple of Chaffinches were about the roadside trees but I heard no song from them even though the species can be an early singer. 

Long-tailed Tit

Now that the shooting season is finished the lessening traffic and disturbance along the sea wall and across the Fluke Hall maize fields may produce more birds. Today, 220 Lapwing, 8 Golden Plover, 6 Redshank, 52 Woodpigeon, 7 Stock Dove, 20+ Skylark, 4 Mute Swan, 165 Shelduck and 6 Little Egret. 

At Pilling Water I found a pair of Skylarks, the wintering Green Sandpiper again, a couple more Little Egrets, 2 Chaffinch and a single Reed Bunting. Looking into the sun I thought I could see ducks other than the few regular Shelducks and Mallards, but when I strode closer to investigate, the duck’s sluggishness and reluctance to fly was explained by the fact that the wildfowlers had yet to collect several of their floating Gadwall x Wigeon decoys. Doh! 

Reed Bunting

It was as well I trespassed over the shoot because trapped in a pheasant/partridge pen I discovered several Red-legged Partridge and a single Stock Dove. Shooters are supposed to check such contraptions regularly to see that birds are not unduly kept there without food and water, so I suspected that no one had been along for a while, even though luckily there was spilled seed to keep the birds going. I opened the door, sent the partridges packing and rescued the Stock Dove, an adult “ringing tick”. 

Until this specimen I’d only ever ringed Stock Dove nestlings so had to look up the ageing and sexing characteristics in the Ageing and Sexing Non-Passerines guide. I’m pretty sure it was a first winter bird due to lots of light brown edging on the lesser and median coverts. A wing length of 220mm gave nothing away. 

Ageing and Sexing Non-Passerines

Stock Dove

Doing It By The Book

Way out on the marsh and towards Cockerham or Cockersands were “many thousands” of Pink-footed Geese, much too far away to count. A light aeroplane sent them into the sky once or twice before they settled back down on the distant marsh. If pushed I’d estimate their numbers at 10/12,000, the picture below a small chunk of the enormous flocks out there. 

"Pinkfeet" over Pilling and Cockerham marshes

Now the shooting season is over the “pinkies” will gradually become more tolerant of humans, less prone to panic at the sight or sound of them while slowly allow bird watchers to study them more closely. I can’t wait, nor to wait for another sunny day like this one. 

Roll on Spring.

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

Bird News, Book News

If there are marks for trying then I surely deserved 10/10 this morning by hitting the road early for yet another mission to find some autumn migrants during the continuing easterlies. 

I was heading north again so called into Lane Ends for an early perusal. The geese were just leaving the marsh, heading inland in search of food. The many skeins totalled more than 2000 birds before the noise of the Little Egrets’ early morning squabbles distracted me. The egrets too were about to set off for the day’s undertakings so I abandoned my goose counting to watch 26 or more egrets leaving the roost and heading off north, south, east and west. Here’s a project for a determined ringer - to find out how far the egrets travel to this roost, the turnover of birds, age composition etc. 

Three Jays were about the woodland and a Kestrel hovering over the sea wall but otherwise quiet. Maybe I was too early for small birds. 

Little Egret

Kestrel

There were small birds at Conder Green, mainly small yellowy-green things called Chiffchaff, and not the widely anticipated and sought after yellowy-green things named Yellow-browed Warbler. There were at least six Chiffchaffs in the area of the railway car park, most of them feeding hurriedly and silent with just the odd one or two giving out their forceful and tell-tale contact calls. Try as I might, the best I could find with the chiffys were migrant Chaffinches, some of those arriving from the north and dropping into the welcoming trees. As I watched Chaffinches arriving from the direction of the Lune a single Swallow flew over and then disappeared beyond the trees. 

Chiffchaff

I couldn’t find the large flock of Goldfinches of a couple of days ago, just a small group of about 15 today, but there was a wildfowler stalking the marsh where the finches had fed. The wildfowler swung a trophy Teal below his shotgun so I cursed him before moving on. 

Conder Pool and the nearby creeks held 7 Little Grebe, 40 Teal, 25 Redshank, 4 Snipe, 2 Cormorant, 2 Lapwing, 1 Grey Heron and 2 Pied Wagtail. The pool surface looked too rippled to expect the Kingfisher to sit around but it put in an appearance by flying upstream towards the road bridge. 

Fluke Hall seemed a likely spot - an infrequent haunt of less than annual rarities but “a needle in a haystack” job if ever there was one in the lush vegetation. A Peregrine on the sands greeted me, and it then flew around slowly as if to taunt “camera-in-the-car” me. 

Two Sparrowhawks along the road, and at last a gang of small birds to search. Fifteen or more Long-tailed Tits, 2 Chiffchaff and 2 Goldcrests, plus odds and ends of Blue Tit and Great Tit was the sum of my efforts. Better luck tomorrow. 

Long-tailed Tit

Back home the postman had left a parcel. So the new Crossley ID Guide: Britain and Ireland is here on my desk for a pre-publication gander. The official publication date is 6th November but Princeton University Press sent me a copy knowing that regular readers of Another Bird Blog would be more than interested to hear all about this third volume in the ground breaking series, Crossleys’s invasion into the European market. In a week or two, and to coincide with official publication, there will be other UK bird bloggers joining in for a regional blogathon to take a close and detailed look at the book. 

 The Crossley Guide: Britain and Ireland 

 

The Crossley Guide: Britain and Ireland 

First impressions of Crossley ID Guide: Britain and Ireland just as soon as I’ve taken a sneaky look - stay tuned to Another Bird Blog.

What Waxwings?

Everyone is seeing Waxwings at the moment. All except me that is, even though I’ve been looking and listening most days this week and last. The answer could be to go chasing the ones being seen in regular spots miles away but that rather takes the fun, excitement and skill out of finding birds for oneself doesn’t it? No worries, I’ll see a Waxwing or two before the winter’s out, just like last year when I got a few photos near home. 

Bohemian Waxwing

It’s doubtful any Waxwing will be eating out of my hand like they do on Fair Isle. Nice jumper - just the job for winter birding at Knott End. 

I went looking at for Waxwings at Knott End this morning, a little coastal village with a distinct lack of trees bearing red berries, or fruit of any sort really. So I didn’t find any Waxwings, just the similarly shaped Starlings and un-waxwing like Pied Wagtail, Linnet and Goldfinch. The shore does have lots of grey undistinguished, boring waders though: 950 Oystercatcher, 140 Knot, 125 Redshank, 15 Turnstone and 8 Curlew. 

Knot

Turnstone

Couldn’t find any Waxwings out on the moss either, just an early morning movement of 20+ Redwings, 30+ Fieldfares and 4 Lesser Redpoll chattering overhead. Even the nets didn’t turn up a Waxwing, just darned Lottis and Blutis, but a bonus couple of male Reed Buntings. Now there's a real bird in the hand. 

Reed Bunting

Long-tailed Tit

 Another Reed Bunting

There no option really, everyone’s gone Waxwing crazy, so that’s where Another Bird Blog will be on Sunday - looking for Waxwings. Log in later to see more Waxwings or not.

This next week I'm linking to The View From Right Here, and I'd Rather Be Birding so I hope there's some Waxwings.

Kingfisher Saves The Day

 A wind free morning should have brought about a ringing session but a sleepless night followed by lethargy and a lack of motivation meant a few hours after-lunch birding at the usual spot would have to suffice. 

With a high tide due at 1345 I made my way up to Pilling Water, stopping briefly in the car park to watch a Chiffchaff flitting through the trees with a party of Long-tailed Tits. As I left the wood behind there was a single fence-hopping Wheatear and then a Skylark flying across my path and into the field. Skylarks have been very scarce along here since the end of the breeding season, and although it is a species adept at being inconspicuous there just aren’t any around until we receive an influx of migrant and wintering birds. 

Long-tailed Tit

 Skylark

It was a quiet sort of day for counting with a tide that although full, did not reach sufficient heights to fetch birds in, so just 18 Pintail, 25 Shelduck, 9 Cormorant, 140 Wigeon, 75 Teal, 3 Snipe, 300 Curlew, 8 Little Egret, 2 Grey Heron and 1 Raven. 

This is getting to be something of a habit, but there was a Marsh Harrier again today, this one confounding my previous theory of different individuals by appearing from near Fluke Hall then flying rapidly north-east, and last seen high over Cockerham Marsh. Below is a very distant shot of the characteristic “V” shaped flight pattern with Heysham Power Station getting in on the act. 

Marsh Harrier and Heysham

Sometimes, and on a sunny day the incoming tide can make a decent photograph. Don’t worry about the sheep, they can swim and are able to judge the rising tide to perfection, knowing exactly when to seek the safety of higher ground. Heysham Power Station vies for attention again. 

High Tide at Pilling  and distant Heysham

From the stile I watched as hordes of Swallows hawked insects over Broadfleet and Pilling village. I think there had been a hatch of flying ants, an event which probably accounted for the sudden concentration of birds and my count of 300+ Swallows and 20+ House Martins. 

While scrutinizing the Swallows I spotted a Kingfisher sat quietly in a streamside bush. Within seconds the Kingfisher flew across to the outflow fence from where it proceeded to fish in the tidal water. Not daring to move I snapped a number of shots as the Kingfisher dived a number of times before emerging with tiny fish. Each time the Kingfisher would batter the tiny fish against the concrete apron, before twisting them around so as to allow the bird to swallow the fish head first. What appears to be to be some sort of line or string is vegetable matter that the Kingfisher pulled out with the fish.

Sight of a shy Kingfisher makes for a special birding day, more so to watch one fishing rather than the more familiar frustration of a flash of blue disappearing into the watery distance. For the benefit of blog readers from North America who are more accustomed to seeing Belted Kingfishers, our European Kingfisher at about 6 inches, is half the size of the Belted Kingfisher. 

Kingfisher

 

Kingfisher

Kingfisher

Kingfisher

Kingfisher

 Kingfisher

 

 Kingfisher

Kingfisher

For Kingfisher fans, there are lots of better pictures at an earlier Another Bird Blog post, here.

Today’s post links up with Stewart’s World Bird Wednesday at  http://paying-ready-attention-gallery.blogspot.com.au/

More news fron Another Bird Blog pretty soon, stay tuned.

Goldfinch News

Today we pay the price for the week or two of fine weather as cold northerly winds with snow hit Cumbria, Yorkshire and Derbyshire, north, south and east of this coastal location. This April surprise brought down the curtain on any springtime birds likely to head this far north and so put paid to any birding or ringing for me today. 

We received yet another Goldfinch recovery in the south of the UK. L863394, a fresh juvenile bird of the year caught on 2nd September 2011 during one of many ringing sessions at Rawcliffe Moss. It was recaptured at Cadborough, East Sussex just 44 days later on 16 October 2011. On 2nd September Will and I caught a total of 19 Goldfinches, a number which made up the majority of the catch of 31 new birds, so we probably hit an autumn movement of Goldfinches that day. 

During 2011 we ringed 280 Goldfinches at this site and this latest recovery is similar to ones notified in the past which show how Goldfinches from the north of England travel south in the autumn to spend the winter near the south coast and then return north in the spring. Yet others may hop across the English Channel to France, Belgium or Holland and we await a record of this type. I plotted the most recent example on the map below together with others involving the Fylde area of Lancashire. Three of those shown involve birds from Rawcliffe Moss, two individuals from mine and Will’s gardens respectively and the final one a road casualty. Interestingly five examples involve sub-adult females, the road casualty of unknown age. Juvenile and females Goldfinches are known to migrate further than males. 

In recent years the population of Goldfinches has increased tremendously in this part of Lancashire whereby they are now a very common garden bird plus a bird of farmland and woodland edge, all of which makes it possible to catch numbers only dreamt of ten years ago. So all you ringers there in the south of England, keep catching those winter Goldfinches, there’s a good chance one will be recaptured up here or you will find one originally ringed in the Fylde. 

 Goldfinch

Goldfinch movements

 

Those lottis of mine just completed the nest before the cold winds came. The feathers should keep the eggs warm. 

Long-tailed Tit

More Redpoll, Chiff, And Lotti

More settled weather meant Will and I could try for more migrants on Rawcliffe Moss today. There was no mist this morning, even with the clear skies overnight. The 0630 start gave little sign of overnight migration in the quiet plantation with the only hint of newly arrived birds a single Chiffchaff on the first round of the nets at 0715. Once again most of the action began soon after dawn with birds overhead, the major players being a count of 65 +Lesser Redpoll heading north in four hours. Smaller numbers of Siskin today with, less than 12 and a stifled Meadow Pipit passage of 6 single birds noted.

Our catch today was 19 birds, another 17 Lesser Redpoll to add to the 30 of Sunday and 5 of Saturday. Other new birds today: 1 Chiffchaff and 1 Goldfinch. As we expect, there are no recaptures of Lesser Redpolls with all the birds moving rapidly from the site and continuing their journey north. An interesting aspect this morning was the lack of male birds, with just one definite and the remainder of the 17 redpolls first year birds or adult females. It is not always possible to be 100% certain of the sex of brown first year lessers unless they show the beginnings of red admixed with brown breast or rump feathering. Wing length gives a clue but there is overlap between males and females.

Lesser Redpoll
Lesser Redpoll
Chiffchaff

I'm still waiting to see if anyone claims Lesser Redpoll L977497, not one of our birds but one we caught on Sunday.

Birding was subdued again this morning with some familiar counts and observations: 1 Corn Bunting, 4 Yellowhammer, 1 Pied Wagtail, 1 Hen Harrier, 5 Buzzard, 2 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 60+ Curlew, 1 Pink-footed Goose, 5 Roe Deer. Still a single lingering Fieldfare in the same field as recent days.

When I got back home the Long-tailed Tits were busy lining the nest with feathers in preparation for egg laying. Both of the adults’ tails are beginning to show wear as they spend more time in the confines of the tiny nest.

Long-tailed Tit
Long-tailed Tit

Miscellany

There’s a spot of birding to report, a few pictures from the garden, then news of a newly published paperback book.

On my way to Pilling after lunch I saw three pairs of Kestrels, a species very active at the moment and which looks to have survived the mild winter well. An hour at Pilling saw 3 Siskin and 4 Lesser Redpoll heading east into the wind, also a few extra Meadow Pipits, with 15 + at Pilling Water, together with 3 Wheatears. Out on the marsh I could see the 5 Barnacle Geese which spent last week on Hi-Fly’s stubble field. The Greenshank and Green Sandpiper still grace the pools if you know where to look and how to approach the water so as not to scare them both into the inner, hidden pools.

Kestrel

Back home in the garden a pair of Long-tailed Tits are building a nest in a berberis bush, and the Blackbirds are also busy constructing a nest somewhere.

Long-tailed Tit
Long-tailed Tit
Blackbird

Princeton University Press sent me a copy of “Birdscapes- Birds in Our Imagination and Experience”, a book previously published as a hardback and now for the first time published in paperback. Below is the blurb for the book, £13.95 in the UK or $19.95 in the US from Princeton University Press

Birdscapes- Birds in Our Imagination and Experience

“What draws us to the beauty of a peacock, the flight of an eagle, or the song of a nightingale? Why are birds so significant in our lives and our sense of the world? And what do our ways of thinking about and experiencing birds tell us about ourselves? Birdscapes is a unique meditation on the variety of human responses to birds, from antiquity to today, and from casual observers to the globe-trotting "twitchers" who sometimes risk life, limb, and marriages simply to add new species to their "life lists."

Drawing extensively on literature, history, philosophy, and science, Jeremy Mynott puts his own experiences as a birdwatcher in a rich cultural context. His sources range from the familiar--Thoreau, Keats, Darwin, and Audubon--to the unexpected--Benjamin Franklin, Giacomo Puccini, Oscar Wilde, and Monty Python. Just as unusual are the extensive illustrations, which explore our perceptions and representations of birds through images such as national emblems, women's hats, professional sports logos, and a Christmas biscuit tin, as well as classics of bird art. Each chapter takes up a new theme--from rarity, beauty, and sound to conservation, naming, and symbolism--and is set in a new place, as Mynott travels from his "home patch" in Suffolk, England, to his "away patch" in New York City's Central Park, as well as to Russia, Australia, and Greece.”

I studied the contents page, read extracts from reviews on the back cover and then read an early section entitled Witnesses and Prophets which lumps together the reactions to birds from a very diverse bunch of birders - amongst them the likes of Keats, Richard Millington, D.I.M Wallace, Gilbert White and Ernst Mayr - Oh Wow, now there's a mixed bunch to meet in a hide one day!

I missed this book first time around but really must read it soon, so I filed it next to my bed as the next read. At 300 pages of solid reading it will take a week or so but I will let Another Bird Blog readers know all about the rest of the book.