Monday’s Birds

After a weekend of dire weather it was raining and blowing again on Monday. The only feasible birding was a pre-determined trip to the ringing site at Oakenclough where the birds need feeding every few days if they are to stay around. Eventually we’ll fit a ringing session in between the bouts of wind and rain but that looks unlikely all week. 

At Rawcliffe I clocked up the regular Mistle Thrush, Kestrel and Buzzard without stopping. Towards Oakenclough the sky was definitely brighter than down on the coast with even a hint of unaccustomed sunshine so I looked in the fields where last week I’d seen so many Fieldfares. The thrushes were there again but this time no Redwings mixed in, just Starlings. The flock was very flighty and stayed distant although I was eventually able to estimate their numbers as 350 Fieldfare and 300 Starlings. 

  

Fieldfares and Starlings

Fieldfare

Oakenclough, Lancashire

Closer to the roadside wall was a pair of Red-legged Partridge, a species I’m reluctant to photograph as they are the product of releases of many thousands of bird captive bred for winter shooting and therefore not a truly wild bird. After a month or two of shoots they become “wild” enough and prove difficult to approach, some even surviving the shoots and the winter to breed in coming years. It’s not the birds’ fault that our native Grey Partridge is all but extinct while this introduced invader inhabits the places that our Grey Partridge once did. The UK shooting industry seems to be a law unto itself, not subject to the proper checks, controls and public scrutiny that other businesses have to comply with. 

 Red-legged Partridge

At the feeding station a Kestrel sat perched above the feeders, keeping the small birds away for a while as it watched the ground below. We regularly see voles as we walk through the rank grass and heather and from the Kestrel’s position it appears that voles come out to feed amongst the seed we drop on the ground for finches. 

Kestrel

Around another set of feeders were the usual 20+ Goldfinch, 8 Chaffinch and good numbers of Blue Tit and Coal Tit plus lesser numbers of Great Tit. The feeders are emptying pretty quick and I’m sure that my numbers are gross underestimates, a simple snap shot of the small time spent on site when topping up. The next ringing session will reveal the true throughput of birds. 

I drove home via Winmarleigh stopping briefly for a distant fence-hopping Buzzard and a field with 160+ Lapwings ready for flying to roost. Yes it was 1530 too soon, the sun going down but just the right time for a Barn Owl, and even at 200 yards who could mistake that ghostly shape on the fence post? 

Buzzard

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

Fingers crossed for more birding soon despite that rotten forecast.

Linking this post to Theresa's Thursday Blog and Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

Short Saturday

There was rain until 8am and even though the sky brightened a little I kept one eye on the threatening grey clouds, the other on the birds. Out on Pilling Sea wall there’s nowhere to shelter should the heavens open. 

There was a Peregrine way out on the sands but on a closer tidal flood, a gang of Whooper Swans which take up residence here each winter. Forty-five Whoopers plus two Mute Swans, 30+ Shelduck, 7 Little Egret and 3 Grey Heron. 

Whooper Swan

Whooper Swan

On the wildfowler’s pools just 40 Teal, 2 Pintail and 150+ ex-release Hi-Fly Mallard. There have been at least 3 or 4 Wednesday shoots already this autumn so the numbers of Mallards is way down. There are still many Red-legged Partridge across the stubble and maize, probably 300+ left over from the release of 2,000 of them for the shooting season. Interestingly, I was told that the wildfowler’s peak (and quite staggering) count of 6/7000 wild Teal occurred in September, probably when I was away in Skiathos. 

 Red-legged Partridge

On and near the stubble field - 15 Skylark, 1 Meadow Pipit, 1 Snipe, 100+ Jackdaw and 140+ Woodpigeon. 

By now the promised wind was brewing up. It’s the legacy of Gonzalo, so I headed for the relative shelter of the trees at Fluke Hall. A good number of Chaffinches were around today, with a higher number of contact calls than of late and also more small parties of birds moving through the tree tops. There was at least one Brambling so a count of 40+ Chaffinch and 1+ Brambling. 

Chaffinch

Also in the trees and along the roadside, 1 Pied Wagtail, 2 Goldcrest, 1 Jay, 1 Nuthatch, 1 Buzzard and 15+ Long-tailed Tits. I think the splendid looking male Pied Wagtail has recently completed its summer moult. 

 Pied Wagtail

Here's a sepia-style Fluke Hall for old times sake.

 Fluke Hall - Pilling

There’s meant to be even more wind tomorrow which if true rather limits any birding opportunities. But as ever for Another Bird Blog, if it’s half decent there will be more news and pictures soon.

Linking today to Anni's Birding Blog.

Slowly Does It

Mid-June and It’s a struggle to come up with news or pictures today. Many birds are lying low, in the throes of breeding, moulting their feathers or in some cases both. But Another Bird Blog doesn’t give up that easily and I was out Pilling way as usual even though a little later than normal. 

Imagine my surprise to see at 0930 a Red Fox strolling across the often busy lane, the animal crossing from one part of the wood towards another. I saw it early and then slowed the car hoping the fox wouldn’t notice before I stopped for a photo, but just as the car came to a halt the animal melted into the undergrowth, so no picture to show. 

As usual I was left with mixed feelings about the thrill of seeing and wanting to photograph a predator with a repuation as bad as a fox. This particular fox may be living on borrowed time if it chooses to stay around “the shoot” environs. Come the month of August thousands of Red-legged Partridges will be released in preparation for the sporting season whereby nothing should hinder its success. 

Red-legged Partridge

There were 3 Kestrels this morning, the pair at Fluke Hall and one near the nest box at Damside. I think both pairs now have young to feed so actively do they hunt at the moment. One male had leftovers of the last meal attached to his bill and was already on the lookout for another family meal. 

Kestrel

In the woodland and along the hedgerows I found 6/8 Whitethroat, 1 Blackcap, 1 Chiffchaff, 2 Song Thrush, 2 Great-spotted Woodpeckers and a single Buzzard. Later another Buzzard was circling over Head Dyke, for such a large raptor an effortless flap and glide from Fluke Hall. 

Needless to say, I walked the (sea) wall where I suppose that even now I’ve not abandoned all hope of finding evidence of Lapwing, Oystercatcher or Redshank chicks. It can be the case that adults lead their broods of young from inland fields to the coast where they all feed in the still wet drainage channels and ditches, but still no sign of new youngsters today, just the calls and brief attentions of the one Lapwing pair with their single chick. Half a dozen Redshanks and five or six Oystercatchers showed no signs of concern at my passing by or even to escort me off the premises as they do when youngsters are in tow.

Along the sea wall signs of post-breeding with several extra Curlews, 3 Grey Heron and 50+ Shelduck. 

Back home has seen a number of Goldfinches in the garden, up to 15 at a time, with a number of fresh juveniles learning the whys and wherefores of niger seed. It’s hard to believe that those rather dull looking juveniles will turn into our handsome UK Goldfinch. 

Goldfinch

Goldfinch

Rather unexpectedly I caught a Treecreeper, an adult female which showed signs of feathering over a recent brood patch. The Treecreeper is another of those species which has suffered local declines and although there are copses and stands of trees quite near home, Treecreepers are generally much more difficult to find than ten or twenty years ago. 

 Treecreeper

There’s a full day pass tomorrow. Log in to Another Bird Blog on Friday so see if the birding moved up a gear or two.

That Kestrel on a barbed wire fence means a link to Theresa's Run A Round Ranch is in order. 

Linking Saturday to Eileen's Saturday Critters.

These Sporting Times

I like to think of myself as a “proper” birder. Like most dedicated bird watchers I made a contribution to the just published British Trust for Ornithology BTO Bird Atlas 2007-2011, the very latest in a long line of awe inspiring BTO publications. This is the culmination of four years of fieldwork whereby over 225 million birds of 578 species were recorded online. 

 The Bird Atlas 2007-11 -  BTO Bird Atlas

There are seriously worrying statistics in this book, many related to declining farmland species which I mention frequently on this blog in an attempt to draw attention to their plight in the part of Lancashire I live. I make no apology for returning today to a couple of those species and a topic which concerns me greatly. 

On Wednesday I discussed with a fellow birder whether he should enter into his notebook the 7 Grey Partridge he’d seen that morning. Knowing of both the serious local decline in Grey Partridge plus the fact that numerous partridges are now released for sport by the shooting fraternity, most if not all of the releases undocumented, I suggested he err on the side of caution. As recently as 2011 in the final year of the Atlas surveys, I was recording Grey Partridge, but I no longer do so locally as I believe that our native species is to all intents and purposes locally extinct. 

Grey Partridge - Photo credit: Langham Birder / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

The BTO Atlas tells me there has been a 91% population decline of Grey Partridge in the UK between 1967-2010, during the Breeding Atlas of 1968-72 and the Breeding Atlas of 1988-91. “Local extinctions may be masked in some areas by the release of captive-bred birds onto shooting estates: about 100,000 captive-reared Grey Partridges are released in Britain each year”. The Atlas gives no figures on the number of captive-bred birds subsequently shot for sport; neither does it give any indication of how any surviving birds impact upon any truly wild Grey Partridge population. Given that the species is in any case a secretive and difficult species to study, any such investigation would by now be almost impossible to conduct. 

The problem is further complicated by the release into the same environment of Red-legged Partridge, a picture I know only too well from local farms.  

"As more farms diversify into shooting, the number of Red-legged Partridges released has increased and this is illustrated by the National Gamebag Census, where numbers shot quadrupled between 1990 and 2005 (Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust 2013). It is estimated that 6.5 million partridges (Grey and Red-legged) were released across the UK in 2004, and 2.6 million were shot. There has been little research on the impacts of released birds on native species, but there is some evidence that shooting operations based on large-scale releases of Red-legged Partridges could be implicated in local extinctions of Grey Partridges.” To my unscientific but daily birding eyes that last sentence would seem to be a gross understatement. 

Red-legged Partridge

Turning to the non-native Pheasant, the Atlas tells me that the numbers of captive-bred Pheasants released into the wild has increased fivefold since the early 1960s to around 35 million birds annually. Some 15 million Pheasant are shot annually. “High densities of Pheasants potentially have negative effects on native species, but these have been poorly studied. Indirect effects possibly include modification of the structure of the field layer, the spread of disease and parasites and competition for food. Recent research indicates that infection with caecal nematodes from farm-reared Pheasants may be contributing to the decline of Grey Partridge.” When I watch hordes of young Pheasants thundering through late summer fields and woodland edge there is no doubt in my mind that their effect on the environment is wholly negative. 

Pheasant

The entire picture is a sad and sorry one worthy of proper debate but the BTO cannot be seen to take sides in this matter. 

“The BTO is an independent charitable research institute combining professional and citizen science aimed at using evidence of change in wildlife populations, particularly birds, to inform the public, opinion-formers and environmental policy and decision-makers. Our impartiality enables our data and information to be used both by Government and NGO campaigners. Our long-term monitoring data on the status of UK birds sets the standard worldwide for understanding the effects of environmental change on wildlife. Over 40,000 volunteer birdwatchers, in partnership with professional research scientists, collect high quality monitoring data on birds and other wildlife. The combination of professional ecologists, long-term datasets some in excess of 50 years, and volunteers participating all over the country gives the BTO a unique, impartial and knowledgeable voice in nature conservation.” 

I’m left trying to think of an organisation that might be willing to take on the vested interests of landowners and the sporting fraternity in ending what is a national disgrace? 

Browse sample pages and then buy a copy of the BTO Bird Atlas 2007-11 here. 

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.

Saturday Sun

The egrets had already left the Pilling roost this morning. It must have been the bright sunny start which set them on their way. The roost breaks up into small groups which spend a short time on the marsh before heading separate ways - 22 birds this morning. 

Little Egrets - Pilling Marsh

I didn’t wait for the Pink-footed Geese to leave the marsh as I would see plenty in the next three or four hours, in fact a large count of as many as 6,500 in total. The picture below shows just a small fraction of the geese about this morning. 

 Pink-footed Geese - Pilling Marsh

There was a Kestrel along Backsands Lane and a Sparrowhawk heading rapidly south. I’ve seen more Sparrowhawks in the last day or three than almost the whole of the summer and I imagine that the recent ones are migrants. 

Fluke Hall to Pilling Water proved very productive, mainly due to the number of birds about Hi-Fly’s land. I don’t think there’s been a shoot yet judging by the huge numbers of Red-legged Partridge still frequenting the fields and the maize crop. I haven’t seen many large raptors around so maybe the partridge numbers are still circa 2000, the number released for "sport" some weeks ago. I did see singles of both Peregrine and Buzzard at Fluke Hall but apparently showing no interest in the partridges. 

Red-legged Partridge

Red-legged Partridge

There were good numbers of Skylarks on the fields and a steady stream of Meadow Pipits going over, the mipits heading east along the sea wall. My notebook records 24 Skylarks and 160 Meadow Pipits in 3+ hours. The maize crop and ditch held more than 10 Reed Buntings too, as well as 3 Jays paying a flying visit and looking for an easy meal. It was while watching their antics with the Jackdaws that I caught sight of a Kingfisher flying rapidly along the ditch towards Fluke Hall. 

Reed Bunting

Meadow Pipit

Wildfowl numbers on the shooting pools, and without counting the many tame Mallards - 40+ Wigeon, 300+ Teal 300, 1 Cormorant, 1 Black-tailed Godwit and 1 Green Sandpiper. 

Wigeon

Wigeon and Teal

Other ‘bits and bobs’ - 1 Wheatear, 1 Chiffchaff, 15 Long-tailed Tit, 1 Siskin. 

The sun brought out a good few butterflies whereby even I can identify a Speckled Wood, one of several found naturally enough in Fluke Hall Wood. 

Speckled Wood

Another Bird Blog is linking today to Camera Critters  and to Anni's Blog .

On The Up….

Are the numbers of Spotted Redshanks at Conder Green. There were three this morning, 2 juveniles and 1 still dusky adult bird, all three feeding together in the roadside creeks where 30/40 Common Redshanks also fed. 

The overall Common Redshank numbers are harder to fathom since there’s a constant movement of birds to and from the marsh where distant Redshanks numbered 4/500 when I looked along the river from Glasson. The picture shows part of the flocks along the river where 2000+ Lapwings outnumbered Redshank by a ratio of 5 to 1, and where 5 Curlew and a single Dunlin were clearly outnumbered.

Curlew

Lapwings and Redshanks

Below is a nicely shot video of a Spotted Redshank by Luuc Punt.

A Spotted Redshank feeds in noticeably deeper water than is the case with the Common Redshank, a difference which shows a distinction in the ecology of these two closely related species. The Spotted Redshank often feeds with the bill at a small angle to the water and the bill swept rapidly from side to side, also feeding by probing with a nearly vertical bill in a similar manner to Redshank. The bill of a Spotted Redshank is noticeably thinner and longer than that of a Common Redshank. While both species have bright red legs, the Spotted Redshank has the longer of the two. 

 

Redshank

Similar number of other waders and wildfowl with 2 Common Sandpipers, 3 Greenshank, 10+ Snipe, 10 Teal, 2 Little Egret, 2 Grey Heron and 3 Cormorant. No sign of Little Grebes today.

I paid Lane Ends a visit where a slow walk to Pilling Water and back revealed 20+ Goldfinch, 1 Skylark, 1 Sparrowhawk, 1 Green Sandpiper, 2 Greenshank and 10 Little Egrets.
  

Sparrowhawk

The Sparrowhawk was a young female and taking an unsuccessful pop at one of the recently released white Red-legged Partridge. HiFly have released lots of birds in recent days with hundreds of normal red-legs and dozens of the white variety now swarming through the fields.

Red-legged Partridge

Flying against wintry clouds the white birds may be difficult for shooters to target but for birds of prey like Peregrine, Marsh Harrier, Buzzard and female Sparrowhawks the white blobs in the green and brown landscape must provide a tempting and easy target.

More blog and more birds soon. Stay tuned to Another Bird Blog. Linking today to Anni's Blog.

Taking Stock

It’s a short update today after Will and I went to Out Rawcliffe to check out a few Stock Dove nest boxes. In the first box where we expected to find young doves a week or more old, the box was now empty, predated of the small young by an unknown bird or animal. In a nearby natural tree cavity a second Stock Dove nest held broken, probably predated eggs. Of two other boxes, one had evidence of fledged Tree Sparrows and the other a Great Tit nest tucked neatly in the corner of the large box. Oh well we drew a blank, but as we like to say, “If you don’t try you don’t get!”

Will - “Boxing”

As we drove past a nearby wood we both heard alarm calling Tree Sparrows and Chaffinches, so went to investigate the possibility of young Tawny Owls. We didn’t find any owlets, just an adult Tawny that watched us from high in the dappled shade of the canopy.

Tawny Owl
Tree Sparrow
Chaffinch

In the wood Will pointed out a couple of deer sleeping “beds”, flattened vegetation in the woodland floor, then close by we found the carcass of a long dead Roe Deer where it probably lay down one night and inexplicably died.

Roe Deer
Roe Deer

In contrast to many of our local birds Brown Hares seem to be doing rather well at the moment, and whilst I haven’t made any counts, suffice to say they are plentiful and now is a good time to get a few pictures. And although the countryside is devoid of Grey Partridge, there’s plenty of the red-legged variety happy to pose for a picture.

Brown Hare
Red-legged Partridge

Other birds seen on our little foray: 2 Yellowhammer, 3 Buzzard, 2 Oystercatcher, 30 Lapwing, a Blackbird on 5 eggs high in the barn, and 1 Kestrel. Will remarked that he hadn’t seen many Kestrels about this spring. After a little recollection of birds I’d seen in recent months I had to agree, Kestrels are rather scarce this year so maybe it’s another species which suffered from last winter’s long frozen periods; just as well I archived a few pictures when more Kestrels were about.

Kestrel