Date With A Needle

For 1300 I had an appointment for a dose of ‘flu vaccine to look forward to, but at last a bright, wind and rain free morning in which to enjoy a few hours birding. 

From Fluke Hall I set out towards the sea wall across the maize and wheat fields where there’s a reasonable path which avoids slushing through the soggy stubble. There are always birds to see about the shooter’s fields, ditches and pools, as long as you take care to miss the actual shoot days when there are no birds about and steel shot will fall on your head. 

Pilling, Fluke Hall fields

On the edge of the wood I could see 4 Jays moving through the trees calling as they went. There were a number of Chaffinches about but too far to count, although I found 5 or 6 Tree Sparrows and a couple of Reed Buntings near the gate again. Skylarks weren’t as obvious today with none passing overhead just 4 or 5 resident ones on the sea wall and stubble, plus another 2 Reed Buntings along the ditch. 

The Red-legged Partridge still number in the hundreds, so I’m thinking there haven’t been too many shoots just yet. From the stile I even managed to get close to one of the white ones which are as wild and wary as the normal brown ones. Close to they are actuallly quite smart looking. Pity they end up in a cooking pot.

Red-legged Partridge

From the fresh 4x4 tracks on the mud I knew the guys who feed the pool had beat me to it, so no Teal or Black-tailed Godwits to enjoy today, just the usual single call and then brief views of the back end of a Kingfisher whizzing along the dyke and over the sea wall. So I thought to check where the blue flash had gone and also count the Whoopers as well - no sign of the majestic fisher from the wall but 74 Whooper Swans, 2 Greylag and 8 Mute Swan to count. So more pictures of Whooper Swan to follow, and a Mute Swan for size comparison. 

Whooper Swan and Mute Swan

Whooper Swan

With not much else doing I realised I’d missed out on Conder Green for a week or two so motored towards there. 

Interestingly a Spotted Redshank is still there in the main creek, as is a Common Sandpiper and it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that both might winter on site, the latter species the favourite to do so. Just 12 common Redshank and a single Curlew in the near creek with circa 60 Teal and a Grey Heron. 

Spotted Redshank

Common Sandpiper

Two Tufted Duck on the pool together with yet more Teal to make a total of more than 80 of the tiny duck. Looking for a fishy meal were a Little Egret, 7 Little Grebe and 2 Cormorant. 

A walk along the railway track produced odds and ends like 5 Long-tailed Tit, 15 Chaffinch, 3 Goldfinch, 4 Meadow Pipits, 2 Skylark and 2 Pied Wagtail. 

But I was running out of time and my appointment with a large, unfriendly needle beckoned. Log in soon to see how Another Bird Blog survived the ordeal and whether pain killers were required.

Linking today to Camera Critters and Anni's Birding Blog.

Tuesday’s Trip

Today there is detail of a Brambling recovery plus a little birding news. 

On March 2nd 2013 at Out Rawcliffe I caught an adult male Brambling bearing a Norwegian ring - Stavanger ED78766. The photograph below is of the actual bird after I managed to locate the pic on my PC. 

Brambling

The details have just arrived from the BTO via Norwegian ringers who inform us that the Brambling was originally ringed at Randaberg, Rogaland, Norway on 11th October 2011. Randaberg is close to the Norwegian coast and just north of Stavanger, an area where many, many thousands of Bramblings pass through each autumn on their way to winter in Europe. We don’t know where ED 78766 spent the winter of 2011/12 but we do know that 2012/13 was a good winter to find Bramblings in the UK, this being the second such recovery from the ringing at Rawcliffe in 2012/13. 

Brambling - Norway to Out Rawcliffe

This morning I headed to Conder Green for a spot of birding. Just through Cockerham village I noticed many hundreds of Swallows along roadside wires and in the air. Looking right I remembered the large field of maize crop I pass often and from where the Swallows had obviously just woken up after their overnight roost.

Swallow

Conder was pretty quiet, just as it has been in recent days. The now single Little Ringed Plover was still there, as was the Spotted Redshank, 3 Greenshank, 1 Common Sandpiper, 60+ Redshanks and 300+ Lapwings. The rest of the birds came in two by twos - 2 Teal, 2 Wigeon, 2 Stock Dove, 2 Pied Wagtail, 2 Cormorant and 2 Little Egret. 

Little Ringed Plover

Little Ringed Plover

Little Ringed Plover

 

Mute Swan and Cormorant

With nothing much happening at sleepy Glasson I decided to try my luck at Pilling and the incoming tide. 

Canal Boats at Glasson

This wasn’t much better, a walk to Fluke and back giving a good show of herons - 5 Little Egret and 4 Grey Heron, but the tide a little too distant for decent wader numbers. There was a Buzzard circling over Lane Ends and when I approached Pilling Water, 2 juvenile Kestrels from the nearby nest box. 

Kestrel

There are released Mallards at the wildfowlers pools and in the ditches, easy to identify as they just stick together in a tight bunch on the water as if still in penned captivity. Teal are beginning to arrive in numbers with 140+ today, some already finding the wheat put out for them about the pools. A Green Sandpiper today but no sign of the usual Greenshank. 

Any day now the 2000+ Red-legged Partridge will be released - that should bring in a few harriers and Buzzards, keep the Peregrine happy and also provide some entertainment for Another Bird Blog. 

Linking today to Stewart's Gallery.

Toughing It Out

My early morning car journey produced another Barn Owl this morning, the bird flying across Head Dyke Lane just ahead of a cyclist. So close was the owl the cyclist might well have been surprised enough to stop for a closer look. He didn't, so maybe he needed to get to work and not clock in late after lingering to bird watch. 

I had about five seconds with the owl before it continued on its way across the roadside fields. Further along the road a Kestrel sat atop a roadside pole. After a horrific winter and spring Kestrels in these parts are definitely scarce this year with my own sightings limited to one or two a week. I fear many starved to death in the new year. 

Kestrel

There's been a high turnover of birds at Conder Green this week, the twice a day very high tides serving to clear birds from the marsh, many being pushed firstly into the creeks and eventually to the pool beyond. But when I arrived at Conder this morning there wasn't much doing on the pool or in the creek so counts are on the low side. 

After high counts of Little Egrets this week, think of a number between 1 and 16, today just two. Three Grey Heron, one on the pool, two on the marsh. One Greenshank, 35 Redshank, 24 Lapwing, 2 Common Sandpiper and 1 Little Ringed Plover. Yes, the plover that has been playing hide-and-seek with birders reappeared along the muddy edges before quickly trotting off to conceal itself on the back pool. Two Stock Doves and 2 Pied Wagtails picked through the muddy margins where the swans and now the cattle are doing a splendid job of turning it to wader heaven. 

 The wildfowl at least are mostly consistent even though I couldn't see/find any Little Grebe today, just 1 Goldeneye, 2 Wigeon, the Tufted Ducks with 4 young, and 4 Canada Goose. 

Canada  Goose

Goldeneye

Wigeon

Lots of Swifts this morning, 40+ here at Conder with 15 more at Glasson. A decent number of Swallows at Glasson, with 30+ hawking the walkways, the yacht basin and the dock. 

Barn Swallow

Black-headed Gull

There were 8+ Whitethroats alongside the churchyard and the canal tow-path, all skulking in the flower-filled brambles. It's going to be one hell of a year for blackberries. I stopped to take a picture of a family of Mute Swans, Mr Swan being especially assertive and more than a liitle aggressive. I reminded him that I may well have upended him to fit that blue ring some years ago, and if necessary I could defend myself. 

Whitethroat

Mute Swan

Mute Swan

Linking today to Weekly Top Shot,  Camera Critters and Anni's Blog.

Mostly Thrushes

A bitterly cold northerly wasn’t the best prospect for today but after a few hours I came home with a bit of news from far and wide plus plenty of photographs of thrushes. I hope Another Bird Blog readers are Turdus fans. 

Kicking off at Lane Ends gave 4 Little Egrets, 1 Grey Heron and a walk to the pool just 2 Tufted Duck. It was too cold to hang about on the sea wall with a trip around Cockerham Moss ensconced in a warm car seeming a much better prospect. 

Most of the Whooper Swans from last week seem to have moved on, with a meagre count of 32 today, and 3 Mute Swans well separated from their noisy cousins. The gangs of corvids alerted me to a Sparrowhawk flying low across the stubble towards flocks of feeding Starlings and when they all panicked into the air I made an approximate count of 1500. Hundreds of gulls remained uncounted, but I did pick out 10 Redshank working their way through the flooded stubble. Further round the moss and on a less flooded field were 300+ Lapwing and 18 Curlew. 

I stopped at Braides to count more waders on the flood there: 1200 Golden Plover, 420 Lapwing, 18 Dunlin and 40 Redshank. Two Kestrels here too. 

Kestrel

Conder Green next where I found a good selection of birds, starting with a Peregrine over the pool which circled briefly before flying off towards Glasson and the marsh. On the pool and creek: 110 Teal, 2 Goosander, 1 Goldeneye, 3 Little Grebe, 2 Snipe, 15 Curlew, 3 Lapwing, 2 Oystercatcher, 1 Little Egret, 10 Redshank and 1 Mute Swan, the latter a little more approachable than the wild and wonderful Whooper Swans. 

Mute Swan

Smaller birds around the car park area: 2 Greenfinch, 4 Goldfinch, 1 Tree Sparrow, 3 Redwing, 18 Fieldfare and 12 Blackbird. It was here I spent a while trying to obtain shots of the shy thrushes feeding in the hawthorn bushes. So thrushes below, not in any particular order. 

A single Fieldfare had taken ownership of one hawthorn, chasing all the other thrushes off, its own species as well as the Blackbirds and Redwings. Occasionally the other thrushes would sneak back for a quick berry or two until the Fieldfare chased them off again to the next hawthorn.

Fieldfare

Fieldfare

Blackbird

 Redwing

Fieldfare

 Fieldfare

Fieldfare

Blackbird

Redwing

Fieldfare

Weekend beckons, so does more freezing weather with frost and snow. Not to worry because Another Bird Blog will surely find somewhere to go. Log in soon to discover where.

This post is linking to Anni who would rather Be Birding Anytime soon.

Catching Up

Before this morning my last notebook entry for Pilling was 26th April, so there was a lot of catching up to do after missing three weeks of birding there. 

Looking at blogs and web sites for the period I was on holiday, it seems I didn’t miss much at Lane Ends, but then not a lot of people bird properly there to find much; a sit in the car park, telescope the tide in, a bit of chat, and maybe a cursory walk to the gates 50 yards either way, but no searching of the trees before heading off to a target bird. Seems there was a Cuckoo a week ago but not much else throughout the whole of May! 

Two pairs of Lapwings had young this morning, two big “runners” and then two smaller ones with another pair of adults, the little ones too far away and too public for a ringer’s pursuit. In song in the plantation was a very loud Blackcap, with 2 untiring Willow Warblers and a Reed Warbler. Overhead a late presumed (Lesser) Redpoll flew over calling with a couple of Chaffinch giving “nest-nearby” warnings, plus a Great-spotted Woodpecker. The pair of Little Grebes still trill on the water while nesting Greylags control the island. 

Little Grebe

Pilling Water to Fluke was I admit fairly uneventful, save for 5 Wheatears, 2 Linnet and several pairs of Lapwing, Redshank, Oystercatcher and Skylark. I guess by now the Wheatears must be Greenland types, the one I managed to photograph a big and bright male. 

Wheatear

With seeing the young Lapwings At Lane Ends I decided to check out Braides Farm where I have permission to roam and where the RSPB carried out some ditching work in an effort to reinstate breeding waders. After a couple of dry, unproductive years re-profiling a few ditches this year has worked in the Lapwing’s and other species' favour; I found at least five broods of Lapwing chicks, 4 or five displaying Redshank, a couple of territorial Oystercatchers, 6+ singing Skylarks and a displaying Meadow Pipit. It’s not a good idea to search for Lapwing chicks to ring when inquisitive cows follow in your footsteps, so I left well alone content that here at least Lapwings are doing well. So full marks to the farmer and the RSPB that Braides is a now a shining example of wildlife conservation to this stretch of coastline and much of the Fylde. 

 Lapwing chick hiding

Lapwing

When I viewed west along the RSPB’s ditch to see the number of flowers growing in the meadow I thought for a moment I was back in Menorca, but I couldn’t see Cattle Egrets or hear Bee Eaters, just a Mute Swan on a nest. 

 Braides Farm

 Mute Swan

Cattle Egret

The illusion lasted a moment, broken by the sight of the herd of Belted Galloway cattle, a breed which originates in the harsh upland climate of the Galloway hills in beautiful south west Scotland. The “Beltie” as it is affectionately known is one of the most visually distinctive breeds of cattle, its many merits lie not only in its unique appearance and good nature, but also in its hardiness and top quality beef. 

 Belted Galloways - Belties

If I don’t get out birding tomorrow I’ll post pictures of breeding Hoopoes from Menorca.

Follow A Hobby?

I nearly didn’t get out birding this morning. On the strength of the BBC forecast for solid rain throughout the morning I lay in bed until 8am, but when I eventually did reach Pilling I had a great old morning.

Maybe it was the warm but stiff South-Easterly that kept the rain at bay, pushing the clouds out into the Irish Sea. Right from the off there was a pronounced movement of Swallows again, all flying east and south-east into the prevailing wind, difficult to count in the buffeting wind but probably 4-500 in a couple of hours.

Swallow

I sat in my usual spot watching 4 Wheatears, all probably different birds from yesterday since there has been a marked movement of the species in the Fylde all week. I found a single Meadow Pipit there this morning, but It’s slightly odd that we have yet to see any numbers of Meadow Pipits, a species that migrates from much the same locations and in similar calendar time as Wheatears. It is stranger still when at Spurn Point on the East coast on Thursday, 4000 mipits were counted on the move south, the difference probably explained by those being birds of a more easterly origin.

There was no doubting the Wheatear I caught this morning, a big, bright, juvenile male of the Greenland race, Oenanthe oenanthe leucorrhoa, wing length 110mm.

Wheatear
Wheatear
Wheatear

From the stile I could see other Wheatears taking an interest in the mealworms, but the slightly tired, end-of-season wrigglies obviously didn’t gyrate enough for a second catch. After a while the Wheatears flew together along the wall, heading for Fluke or the delights of Knott End, and I didn’t see them again, so I concentrated on the marsh and the sea wall.

It always happens the same way, out of the blue, unexpected, but in view of the Swallows, the muggy air and warming wind, perhaps not totally unpredictable was the appearance of a Hobby - Hobbies are said to follow migrating Swallows. I think it came across the marsh from the North but within a second or two of my spotting it the bird hugged the sea wall for a brief few seconds and then rose up for a fleeting spat with a hovering Kestrel, then dropped low again before continuing its path east. I lost the dark bird against the distant trees of Lane Ends.

It’s difficult to follow a Hobby (pun intended) and so flushed by the shooter’s tractor, even the sight of a Green Sandpiper couldn’t match a peerless Hobby. Other counts today: 3 Little Egret, 2 Grey Heron, 30 Shelduck, 220 Curlew, 75 Lapwing, 140 Teal, 4 Wigeon, 1 Peregrine, 70 Goldfinch, 8 Linnet and 2 Mute Swan.

Kestrel
Mute Swan
My pal in Maine USA said she would send us Katia, thanks a bunch Grace.