Friday's Fields

The Pink-footed Geese - “pinks”, “pinkies” or simply “geese” to us locals are in huge numbers this week, perhaps up to 20,000. I think there's been an influx from South Lancashire and Norfolk with many beginning their leisurely journey back to Iceland via Scotland in time for the breeding season. They will not be the first on territory though as following a whole series of mild winters, some say global warming, many pinkies now spend the winter in Iceland and so save themselves the danger and energy requirements of a 2,000 mile round trip to the UK. 

Usually the geese stick to the flat-as-a-pancake fields of Cockerham/Pilling/Stalmine area and don’t often venture even the few miles north to the pastures of Thurham. Here Lower Thurnham stays at sea level but Higher Thurnham can rise to the dizzy height of 50 metres above.

"Click the pics" for a chance to count the silent pinkies. Sorry there's no soundtrack.

Looking down from the A588 onto the partly flooded fields gave a new perspective to the challenge of counting geese when each and every field held hundreds, sometimes thousands of our pink-footed friends. And then towards the coast just half-a-mile away were something like 500 wild swans, a mix of Whooper Swans and ten or twelve Bewick’s Swan. 

Pink-footed Geese at Thurham

Pink-footed Geese

"Pinkies" at Thurnham

Pink-footed Geese

Pink-footed Goose

 Wild swans at Thurnham

Whooper Swans

Geese at Higher Thurnham

Down to Cockersands the fields swarmed with both Lapwings and Golden Plovers, impossible to count with accuracy but certainly numbering in the early thousands of each. 

There was nothing much doing at the caravan site except for a number of Greenfinch, Goldfinch and Tree Sparrow although a Chiffchaff at the entrance gate was a pleasant surprise. 

Greenfinch

Conder Green proved quiet birding with a reduction to 95 Teal, 18 Redshank, 2 Little Grebe,2 Wigeon 1 Little Egret and 1 Spotted Redshank. Noticeable were the three pairs of Oystercatchers and now clearly on territory in three distinct locations across the pool and islands. 

I travelled back via Gulf Lane where there are still 170 wintering Linnet. Also here - 8 Stock Dove ,1 Little Egret, 1 Kestrel and 1 Reed Bunting. 

I drove back home via Pilling/Rawcliffe and Stalmine mosses where I saw 4 Buzzards and then 2 Kestrels and also caught up with 20 or so Corn Buntings in the usual spot. Maybe it’s not just geese on the move as I found 3 separate flocks of Fieldfares totalling 425 individuals but managed to see just a single Redwing. At one tiny flood were 8 Pied Wagtails. 

Fieldfare

The weekend weather forecast looks dire to say the least but with luck I will be out there birding. Stay tuned to see what turns up on Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to Anni's Birding and Eileen's Saturday.

Choices, choices

The sunny start left me with a dilemma. Paint the walls of the spare bedroom or go birding? 

Do It Yourself

 

After their overnight roost on Pilling Marsh geese were dropping in some numbers when I arrived at Backsands Lane. Several thousand pinkies led the charge with many heading to inland fields across to Bradshaw Lane and Eagland Hill a mile or two away; but the several hundred keen for an early breakfast settled into the immediate pastures. I counted 24 White-fronted Geese more or less together across the same pasture, plus their hanger-on again, the feral/escape Red-breasted Goose. 

Pink-footed Geese 

White-fronted Goose

Note the picture below. While hordes of geese feed there will always be lookouts assigned to watch for danger. One wrong move from a birder, a slammed car door, or a passer-by with a barking dog and the geese are off into the air to find a safer place. 

 Pink-footed Geese

Pink-footed Goose, White-fronted Goose, Red-breasted Goose

There’s a really dark pinkie that doesn’t look too well, perhaps suffering from a recent dose of steel shot from the now almost finished shooting season. 

Pink-footed Goose

I motored on up to Gulf Lane where although we can’t ring birds at the moment because of the outbreak of avian flu 3 kms away, we can still feed the Linnets. The Linnets were around in their usual numbers with 300+ feeding in our drop-spot of millet and rapeseed. Walking through the set-aside I flushed a Snipe from underfoot, a Grey Wagtail from the ditch and a Skylark from the next field. 

As an aside, the latest figure from the avian flu outbreak is that 65,000 birds used for breeding in the shooting industry are to be “humanely slaughtered” in several locations. Suffice to say that the whole episode is a shocking indictment of the business of breeding birds for pleasure shooting. 

Rawcliffe Moss held a good variety of birds by way of at least 8 Buzzards circling in the morning air plus a couple of Kestrels on roadside lookout posts. Many thousands of Lapwings and Gulls crowded the still partly flooded fields but unfortunately I’d no inclination to count the masses involved. 

I stopped in the spot where earlier in the week were thrushes, buntings and a Stonechat. Lesser numbers today but still 40 Fieldfare, 22 Corn Bunting, 12 Stock Dove, 2 Mistle Thrush, 2 Yellowhammer, a Stonechat and a couple of Skylarks. I noticed today that Skylarks are suddenly becoming more vocal, not necessarily singing but certainly chirruping as they go about their business and a probable prelude to their season starting soon. 

Corn Buntings

 

Skylark

I was pushed for time and with the cloud increasing I headed slowly home. 

Now where’s that paint brush?

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday, Anni's Birding and Viewing Nature with Eileen.

Last Post

Just one day to bird before the end of 2016, and I finished on a reasonable high. 

There seemed to be Lapwings everywhere I went this morning. In virtually every field I passed I heard the calls of Lapwings and saw their black and white patterns against the sky, or when I stopped to scan, found more hidden amongst the black peaty fields. 

Lapwing

It’s not too surprising as mid-winter is when widespread counts reveal the UK and Ireland winter population to be between 2 and 3 million individuals. That number includes a high proportion of birds from Scandinavia, Denmark, Holland and North Germany that join Lapwings from Northern Britain that move to more coastal and warmer locations.

If here in Lancashire we have one of our rare sustained spells of ice and snow many of these same Lapwings will move even further west over the Irish Sea to spend the winter in Ireland. But for now there are many, many thousands of Lapwings in this small part of Lancashire we call The Fylde, a coastal plain in west Lancashire, England. It is roughly a 13-mile (20-kilometre) square-shaped peninsula, bounded by Morecambe Bay to the north, the Ribble Estuary to the south, the Irish Sea to the west, and the Bowland Hills to the east. The eastern boundary is approximately the location of the M6 motorway. 

Fylde, Lancashire

Flat Fylde

My early route took me over Stalmine Moss, Union Lane, Lancaster Lane and then Skitham Lane towards Garstang and then the same in return mode. Stopping here and there I clocked up brief views of a Barn Owl which at least made me pause and look harder. It was then I started to count 1000+ Lapwings in many fields as well as to discover 60+ Fieldfare, 25+ Chaffinch, 2 Yellowhammer, 8 Stock Dove, 2 Buzzard, 1 Kestrel, 1 Grey Heron and 1 Little Egret.

It’s a good bet there’s not been much traffic, motorised or pedestrian, if there are Pink-footed Geese in roadside fields. As usual and for weeks the geese have hid themselves away from the prying eyes of both shooters and birders so I was surprised to see 500/600 in the field closest to Lane Ends and the A588. Needless to say at the first sign of pedestrians and birders standing up beside their car, heads lifted and the geese stopped their feeding to go walkabout in the opposite direction. 

Pink-footed Geese

For goodness sake birders. The geese need to feed after spending the previous 14 hours of a dark and cold winter’s night out on the saltmarsh. These geese are shot at on a daily basis. They are extremely wary and will take flight at the first hint of trouble, more so if folk leave their car to clatter about with tripods and then stand in full view when they could just as well stay in the car and observe the geese from a wound down car window. It’s called “fieldcraft”.

After watching the geese move to a quieter spot I tackled the A588, Murder Mile, where good numbers of Lapwings fed in the roadside fields but where it’s too dangerous to stop a car at almost any time of the day. 

At Gulf Lane I counted 200 or more Linnets finding natural food while a single Stock Dove helped itself to our millet/niger mix. We’re adding rape seed any day now to hopefully make a difference to the Linnets’ feeding routine. 

Linnets

At Braides Farm and hung over the gate was a Christmas gift, a meal of roast goose waiting for collection. "Pluck it yourself". there's no fast food in Pilling and Cockerham.

Pink-footed Goose

Also - 800 Lapwing, 400 Golden Plover, 80 Black-tailed Godwit, 40+ Redshank, 30 Wigeon, 15 Teal, and 9 Shoveler. 

 Lapwing

Redshanks

The tide was in at Conder Green where the wintering Spotted Redshank “showed well” among 120 Teal, 30+ Redshank, 6 Curlew, 6 Little Grebe, 1 Grey Heron, 1 Little Egret and then 1 Jack Snipe which didn’t show at all well. 

Spotted Redshank

The “half-snipe” had been moved by the rising water and then flew across my line of vision, landed near a Redshank and tucked itself into a clump of marsh grass from where it failed to show again, despite me watching the exact spot for several minutes. That’s what Jack Snipe do best, squat down and stay dep in cover until something or someone disturbs them. Even then one will fly fly just a short distance before dropping back into vegetation. 

Snipe and Jack Snipe - Henrik Grönvold - wikimedia commons

This is the last post for 2016 from Another Bird Blog. Tomorrow Sue and I prepare for the invasion of New Year’s Day and a house full of eight adults and five grandchildren. If I survive there will be more news soon from Another Bird Blog. 

In the meantime here's wishing every one of my readers a Happy, Prosperous and Bird-Filled 2017.

Linking today to Anni's Birding and Eileen's Saturday.

At the End of The Rainbow

It’s been a busy week with pre-Christmas tasks and events literally taking centre stage by way of preparation for the holiday and three grandkids’ seasonal plays to attend. Add to that mix the ever-present rain or the promise of, and I’ve struggled to find birding time. 

But I managed an hour or two this morning even though I still dodged the frequent showers. Along Burned House Lane my passing car disturbed a Buzzard from the roadside hedgerow leaving the raptor to drift off over the fields and quickly out of sight. 

I stopped at Lane Ends where with the tide well out in the distant channel there wasn’t too much at lurking at the end of the Pilling rainbow except huge banks of dark cloud following on. Ten or twelve Little Egrets can be seen here come rain or shine and everything else was a long way off although vocal by way of good numbers of Whooper Swans and Pink-footed Geese. 

Pilling and Cockerham Marsh

There was a steady procession of Pink-footed Geese heading off the roost towards both Knott End and Cockerham. I found lots on the deck later at the back of Braides Farm but so distant as to make detailed examination almost impossible. I counted more than 50 Whooper Swans flying from the marsh roost and then inland towards their daytime feeding spots. 

Whooper Swans

Whooper Swans

Pink-footed Geese

I stopped at Gulf Lane to feed today’s 130+ Linnets with a millet/niger mix. Andy and I have been putting food out even though there’s not any evidence of the Linnets taking it in preference to the natural food on offer. We think most of the food is being taken by mammals but hope the Linnets find our food if and when cold days and nights arrive. At the moment it is just wet and windy with the prediction suggestive of no ringing opportunities for a week or more. 

Linnets

At Braides Farm it’s 500 yards to the sea wall where there might be birds on the marsh but nowhere for a birder to stay out of sight on the flat lands of South Morecambe Bay. Better instead to look left from the gateway where at a distance of 400/550 yards a large flood holds a constantly changing spectacle of several thousand waders and wildfowl. 

Braides Farm

What a sight - approximates mostly: 600 Pink-footed Geese, 1500 Lapwing, 155 Redshank, 450 Golden Plover, 34 Black-tailed Godwit, 48 Teal, 70 Wigeon, 4 Shoveler, 190 Curlew, 350 Starling and 300 Black-headed Gull 

Lapwing and Redshank

A quick look at Conder Green produced 230 Teal, 18 Redshank, 4 Little Grebe, 2 Goosander, 2 Shelduck and 1 Grey Heron. Herons have been pretty scarce of late and if present always outnumbered by Little Egrets and now in recent times, almost outstripped by sightings of Great White Egrets. How the fortunes of species change! 

Back soon. Hopefully before Christmas.

Linking today Eileen's Saturday. 

Looking For Linnets

Linnets require seeds throughout the year, and they frequent areas where they can find lots of such food. Typical areas for Linnets include rotational set-aside, winter stubbles, root crops and break crops. Break crops are secondary crops grown to interrupt the repeated sowing of cereals as part of crop rotation. Oil-seed rape and associated broad-leaved weeds provide ideal food for Linnet chicks in the spring with Linnets one of the few species to feed their nestlings entirely on seed. Linnets need thick hedgerows and scrub for nesting but will also use bramble areas on grassland, marginal land and waste ground. 

Where can Linnets find all of these things on modern farmland? The answer is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for Linnets to find those things in order to maintain their population. The graph shows the decline in the population of Linnets between 1996 and 2014. Combined figures from the BTO Common Bird Census and BTO Breeding Bird Survey. This is a pretty disastrous fall in numbers for yet another farmland bird. 

England - Linnets 1996-2014 - BTO

With the above in mind I met up with Andy for another ringing session at a set-aside plot at Cockerham where we hoped we might catch and ring more Linnets and so collect more data for the BTO. The morning was fine, perhaps too fine with sun on the nets but at least very little wind. 

We caught steadily but slowly with a four hour session producing 18 Linnets and 1 Reed Bunting. This increased out Linnet catch to over fifty in just two visits with no recaptures. Once again juveniles/first autumn birds dominated with just 3 adults and 15 juvenile/first years. 

 Linnets - 12th October 2016

Male Linnets are marginally bigger than females as can be seen from the figures above. The wing length of the UK race of Linnet Linaria cannabina varies between 76-85mm (Birds of The Western Palearctic) which serves as a check on our sexing technique of studying the 7-9th primary feathers to separate male and female. We are finding that anything greater than 81mm confirms a male, whereas a measurement below 80mm confirms a female. 

Linnet

Studying the tail is a very reliable way to age Linnets at the moment. The tail feathers of a juvenile/first autumn have a mostly pointed shape, particularly the outermost unmoulted ones. By October an adult Linnet has completely moulted and replaced its tail feathers whereby the resultant shape is both more rounded and less worn than those of a juvenile/first year Linnet. This holds true for many finches and other species at this time of year where adults and juveniles have differing moult sequences. This is not entirely fool proof as a bird might lose all or some of its tail feathers at any time, and ringers must be mindful of that possibility. 

Adult Linnet

Juvenile/first autumn Linnet

Today’s Reed Bunting proved to be a first autumn female. 

Reed Bunting

Our ringing was carried out to a three hour overhead procession of Pink-footed Geese leaving Pilling Marsh for their daytime feeding areas. Several thousand flew south between 0700 and 1000, with many flocks of several hundred birds among the hordes that passed over. 

Pink-footed Geese

Otherwise – a few tree Sparrows and Skylarks plus the now regular Sparrowhawk. On the way back I stopped at Pilling Marsh to see 28 Little Egret and 2 Buzzard.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday Blog.

Comings And Goings

After two weeks in Greece I was keen to get back on the local scene but with an iffy forecast and a grey, overcast sky I thought there might be no birding. And then the clouds lifted a little to brighten both the sky and my mood so I set off over the moss roads. 

Even on Thursday/Friday a few things were immediately noticeable, the seeming lack of Swallows and the sudden arrival of large numbers of Pink-footed Geese. While in Greece I saw thousands of Red-rumped Swallows but our local Barn Swallows have mostly gone. Meanwhile Pink-footed Geese arrived in large numbers from Iceland or short stop-overs in southern Scotland. The pinkies’ route south takes some skeins directly over our house on their way to South West Lancashire, generally their first port of call in England. I saw and heard many hundreds of geese overhead while tidying the garden on Thursday/Friday and then more on Saturday morning. 

Pink-footed Geese

Pink-footed Goose - Iceland to Lancashire

I stopped at Wrampool to look at the field of wild crop set-aside and where I hoped to see finches feeding on the seeds of the now finished flowers. Within fifteen minutes of parking up I noted approximately 160 Linnets arriving in small flocks from several directions as the birds dived into the base of the crop. I imagine the ground would be littered with seeds by now.

Linnet

'Set-aside' was introduced by the European Economic Community in 1988 to help reduce the large and costly surpluses produced in Europe under the guaranteed pricing of the Common Agricultural Policy. It was also designed to deliver environmental benefits following damage to agricultural ecosystems and wildlife as a result of agricultural intensification. Under the scheme farmers claim support payments based on the size of the area used to grow cereals, linseeds, oilseeds and protein crops such as peas, beans and lupins. To qualify for these payments all but the smallest producers must 'set aside' part of their arable land and take it out of production. This helps in the protection of the countryside as it means farmers have no longer financial incentive to remove hedgerows and trees which support valuable wildlife. 

Where such schemes are run with enthusiasm and commitment they benefit declining farmland birds, as proved by the small but valuable plot at Wrampool where Linnets and other species will be able to feed throughout the winter and thus increase their survival chances. Every little helps. 

Later I spoke to the land owner who gave his permission to carry out a monitoring and ringing programme on the plot in the coming months. It will be most interesting to see the number and throughput of Linnets feeding here. The Linnets may be joined by “seven coloured linnets”, a local name for Goldfinch that I learned only today from the friendly farmer, a native of South West England. 

"Seven-coloured linnet"

Further along the coast road I stopped at Braides Farm to survey the puddled field and counted 240 Curlew, 145 Lapwing, 30+ Teal and 3 Snipe. There was a noticeable southerly movement of Skylarks overhead, many high up, others more visible, with 20 or more in the fifteen minutes I spent there. The Skylark movement was also evident at Conder Green, my next port of call. 

In the shallow creeks I noted 7 Goosander feeding in quite separate groups of a trio and a foursome; clearly they were different families and keeping apart from each other. Goosanders breed in the upper reaches of the River Lune north of Lancaster and beyond into the Lake District and Scotland but do not breed in this coastal part of Lancashire. They are also a shy species and subject to some persecution from the angling and fishing fraternity, and hence difficult to approach. 

Goosander

Also in the creeks - 45+ Teal, 4 Snipe, 10 Redshank, 4 Curlew, 1 Spotted Redshank, 1 Common Sandpiper, 1 Kingfisher, 3 Little Egret and 1 Grey Heron. On the now full of water pool - just 11 Little Grebe, a couple of Cormorants, 3 Pied Wagtail and several more Teal. 

At the railway bridge I heard a good number of “chirrups” overhead as Skylarks dribbled over in ones and twos, together with a fair number of Chaffinches and Greenfinches following the tree line of the riverside and dropping into the hawthorns at the car park. 

Chaffinch

I latched onto a Swallow heading quickly south and then saw four more heading the same way. They could be the last of the year!

An Owl Or Two, Or Three Or Four

This morning I set off birding on a regular route north over Stalmine Moss. A telegraph pole Kestrel was the first notable bird, unless I was to count common Blackbirds. There’d been a few near misses of the dark shapes along the way. It’s one of the perils of early morning driving along country lanes in the half light of a springtime morning where Blackbird territories seem to be not linear but to criss-cross east to west almost immediately in front of a moving vehicle. 

Next came a pair of Little Owls sat in a tree alongside Union Lane. The owls may have changed their affections in recent years by crossing to the other side. It was in 2008 and then in 2012 when Will and I found youngsters squashed into the roof space of an outbuilding to the south of the road, but extricated them in order to ring each one. Nowadays the regular Little Owls of the birding tourist trail hang out to the north of the road at a different farm - unless of course there’s more than one pair of Little Owls in the Fylde? 

Little Owl

I tuned right at Lancaster Lane where an early morning togger was on the prowl for an owl or two. A veritable enthusiast and probable expert judging by the car complete with an impressive “OWL” number plate. I turned tail and headed for Cockerham and Moss Edge just in time to see a Barn Owl fly off in the direction of Lancaster Lane. Maybe OWL would see an owl after all? 

Barn Owl

Along Moss Edge was a familiar car so I braked – JR working on a Saturday morning while I worked at birding – such dedication from both. I relayed news of the Barn Owl from two minutes before and then set off towards Braides and Conder Green. 

Beyond Braides Farm were several thousand grey geese where a couple of hours with a scope might reveal an intruder or two amongst the majority pinkfeet. I heard tell lately that thousands of Pink-footed Geese and good numbers of Whooper Swans remained in Iceland during their mild mid-winter when normally both species would migrate and remain here in the UK until March and April. 

On the Braides fields I counted 24 Lapwing, 2 Grey Heron and 1 Little Egret. 

Before hitting Conder Green I detoured around Moss Lane and then Jeremy Lane where as luck would have it there appeared another Barn Owl. The light was better now. 

Barn Owl

At Conder Green all appeared as mostly normal - 52 Teal, 120 Curlew, 30 Wigeon, 2 Little Grebe, 18 Redshank, 1 Spotted Redshank, 8 Oystercatcher, 2 Grey Heron and 2 Pied Wagtail. A flight of 140+ Black-tailed Godwits appeared as if from nowhere but as they turned and headed down I could see they were about to land in the still wet fields south of the canal. 

Black-tailed Godwits

On the way back towards Pilling the Linnets at Wrampool were as flighty as ever with about 40 today along with a singing and territorial Pied Wagtail plus a patrolling Kestrel. 

At Fluke Hall Lane and Backsands Lane - 26 Curlew, 44 Redshank, 26 Lapwing, 350 Pink-footed Geese plus at the hall itself a calling Nuthatch in amongst the nest boxes. 

Pink-footed Geese

Please visit Another Bird Blog soon for more birds and owls. There’s always one but sometimes two, three or even four. 

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday and Anni's blog. She would rather be birding too.