Autumn Arrives

Friday produced my first autumnal Kingfisher of 2024, whizzing back and forth across farmland drainage ditches, enough stimulus to inspire another visit on Sunday morning where I hoped for more pictures. At the same place, and if the wind speed stayed low as predicted, maybe catch and ring a few other species. 

Kingfisher

 

As an early season  breeding species of inland waters the Kingfisher is a surprisingly early returnee to coastal Fylde where the tiny and seemingly fragile fisherman is able to make a winter living wherever there’s a spot to watch, wait and then plunge. 

August and September can be an ideal time to look out for their arrival. Warmed by The Irish Sea our coastal waters here remain ice and snow free during most winters when just 15/20 miles away near Preston or Garstang the reverse can be true. 

Almost four hours later there was neither sight nor sound of a Kingfisher; such are the vagaries of trying to predict migration or to second guess a species like Kingfisher, its habits or whereabouts. 

At first, and for an hour or so, the wind was non-existent. A single net in the open except for the minimal background of vegetated fence posts remained unwavering and strangely still, quite unlike our frequently blown away ringing sessions. It wasn’t to last but in the meantime I caught in double figures, 9 Meadow Pipits and a single Willow Warbler. 

Meadow Pipit - first summer

Willow Warbler - first summer

As the wind speed increased so did the birds with a rather sudden but splendid arrival of dozens of Meadow Pipit, Linnet and wagtails, as if they had all waited for a breeze to give them lift off from the runway. Bright morning sunlight gave photo opportunities whereby the strengthening breeze mattered not. 

By now Meadow Pipits poured through with a rough count of 100+, joined in their arrival with mainly Pied Wagtails (30+), Linnets (45+) and even a couple each of Great-spotted Woodpecker and Sedge Warbler. 

Click the pics for close-ups.

Pied Wagtail

Meadow Pipit

Pied Wagtail

Stock Dove

Linnet

Linnet

 

Great-spotted Woodpecker

Linnet

Meadow Pipit

Sedge Warbler

Back soon folks. Take care out there, it's a funny old world at the moment.

Another Bird Blog.

 

 

It Only Takes One

ALZ8035, the single Sedge Warbler we caught on 3 August 2024 at Cockerham had been ringed elsewhere. The morning was one of excruciating slowness with just 3 birds trapped. Fortunately ALZ8035 now reminds us that catching even low numbers of birds can produce interesting results. 

Birds are such creatures of habit that ALZ8035 was first ringed at Icklesham, Sussex on 1 August 2023, a juvenile of that year, and then recaptured by us almost exactly a year to the day and now an adult. 

Sedge Warbler - Icklesham and Cockerham

 

Sedge Warbler

Icklesham is a coastal migration hot spot where many species migrate from and to France in autumn and spring with April, May and then August/September the peak times when migratory birds cross the English Channel to winter further south. 

Sedge Warbler

The Sedge Warbler is a summer visitor to Britain and spends winters in Africa, south of the Sahara Desert, a long journey in both directions. We are pretty sure that ALZ8035 had not bred at our Cockerham ringing site but almost certainly travelled there from north Morecambe Bay or further afield. 

We did not catch this individual either before or after 3 August, nor would we expect to do so, such is the rapid onward migration of Sedge Warblers. 

There has been a considerable amount of work done on the feeding ecology of the Sedge Warbler Acrocephalus schoenobaenus as well as on the related Reed Warbler Acrocephalus scirpaceus. Bibby et al (1976) studied the feeding behaviour of Sedge Warblers in Dorset UK prior to migration. 

Available food in the places frequented by the birds consisted almost entirely of the reed aphid Hyalopterus pruni, also known as the mealy plum aphid, or plum-reed aphid which frequently occurred in hundreds per leaf or per flower. 

Mealy plum aphid on phragmites reed

The weight gains of birds feeding on these aphids varied greatly, both amongst individuals and between years. Many of the birds stayed for very short periods. Most left after just two days. 

Bibby & Green (1981) went on to compare the patterns of migration of Reed and Sedge Warblers, both of which migrate between Britain and Africa, to see how food supply distribution might influence migration. Most Sedge Warblers fattened in southern England or northern France, and overflew Iberia, while Reed Warblers paused and fattened in Portugal. The occurrence, duration of stay and rate of weight gain of Sedge Warblers depended on the abundance of Hyalopterus pruni whose seasonality and distribution was broadly sufficient to predict the migration pattern. 

Reed Warbler

Reed Warblers showed no similar restrictions of diet, did not respond to aphid abundance and were able to achieve a similar rate of weight gain any time in September or October in Portugal. 

Back soon folks. Take care, it's a dangerous world out there.

There's rain for a day or two but Saturday is pencilled in for being outdoors.

 

Olympics Free Zone

The forecasts didn’t agree; now there’s a surprise, not. Maybe rain, maybe dry. So we decided to give it a go and I met up with Andy at 0700, far from the crack of dawn but best we could manage. 

Earlier in the week on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I had seen small arrivals of the usual early birds, the species that breed fairly early and now more or less finished - Pied Wagtails and Meadow Pipits, plus small parties of Linnets numbering 10-20 individuals. Goldfinches at the feeders too, where many in their gingery brown plumage lacked the outnumbered colourful adults. Around the feeding station there is water that attracts the pipits and wagtails in their ever interesting autumnal plumage variations. Even hares stop by for a piece of the action.  

Click the pics for TV size views.

Pied Wagtail

Linnet

Pied Wagtail

Pied Wagtail

Brown Hare

Pied Wagtail

Meadow Pipit

Goldfinch

Meadow Pipit

Pied Wagtail

Woodpigeon

Pied Wagtail

In the week I saw the first autumnal returning Marsh Harrier, a male arriving from the east - dipping and diving, disappearing from view and then reappearing, eyes fixed on the ground in case of a slow moving target below. 

Marsh Harrier

 

He carried on flying west giving just a couple of chances for a picture before he was gone. 

The route is one that the Marsh Harriers always take. We spot them with increasing regularity from July and into November, as they meet the sea wall and the ditches, dykes and farmland of North Fylde after their journey from north and/or east of Morecambe bay. The harriers proceed mainly west , sometimes directly south before taking an inland scenic mostly farmland route south so as to avoid flying over the conurbations of Fleetwood, Poulton le Fylde or Blackpool. 

They are not looking for Big Macs, fish & chips or discarded sarnies, just fresh meat, a variety of prey including birds like Coot or Moorhen, frogs and mammals, especially rabbits. 

Eventually the harriers will meet the coast again around the River Ribble, all the while avoiding Preston City. 

Saturday morning ringing was uneventful, cool with spits & spots of rain and just 15 birds caught - 7 Goldfinch, 5 Reed Warbler, 2 Willow Warbler and 1 Sedge Warbler. 

Reed Warbler

Sedge Warbler

Sedge Warbler

Goldfinch

Goldfinch

The end of an absorbing week. And, dare I say, the weather forecast for the week ahead and into August looks very promising with warm, windless days to spend outdoors. 

Irritable Owl Syndrome

Back soon folks. I'd rather be birding than watching the telly. 

 

Click Bait

OK, due to a combination of factors I have somewhat neglected posting on the blog. That doesn’t mean that I have been sat at home twiddling my thumbs or watching daytime telly. Does anyone still watch daytime telly to be entertained or informed? Definitely not the latter. Sources of news and entertainment on the Internet are more varied where by hitting the right buttons, the actuality & truth, as opposed to mainstream media who like to tell us what to believe, is there for all to discover. BBC, ITV, C4, Sky – they are all liars with biased and well-oiled axes to grind. 

Today there's a selection of pictures shot in-between bouts of bad weather that hit the North West from January and into May when I ventured out with bins and camera if the sun appeared and winds subsided. I felt so sorry for our local farming community when days and weeks of rain swallowed their crop fields; more knocks to a hard-working fraternity who receive little or no credit for their contribution to our British Way of Life. 

My mostly mornings with camera, plus a couple of ringing sessions confirmed that all is not well with birds. Where this year are Swifts, Sedge Warblers, Blackcaps, Swallows, Whitethroats, House Martins and Willow Warblers? - to name but a handful of supposedly “common species”. Luckily, Wheatears and ever curious Pied Wagtails  seemed in good supply with the jury out on seemingly low numbers of finches and buntings.

Adult Swallow

Whitethroat

Sedge Warbler

Wheatear

Pied Wagtail

Linnet

Reed Bunting

Pied  Wagtail - looking for the other one 

While saturated fields held no joy for farmers, a few waders took advantage by managing to rear chicks on fields into which a tractor would sink. Out Cockerham way a pair of roadside Lapwings I watched for weeks managed to grow all four chicks to adult size. All the time with crows looking on but chased off by sharp eyed parent Lapwings.

Lapwing

Lapwing chick

Carrion Crow

At another field nearby a pair of Shoveler took up residence where a male left his mate in an adjacent ditch while he stole minutes alone at a water flash. . 

Shoveler

Finally and into June the ground in parts dried out by which time both Oystercatchers and Lapwings could search the recently ploughed and now drying clumps of earth.

Oystercatcher

Male Lapwing - dig that crest!

And then in late June for a week and a day Sue and I ate out in the garden, enjoying the evening sunlight. A chance to try our own versions of Greek classics, Lamb Kleftico, Baked Feta and souvlakis together with a bottle of Ampelicious that too quickly ran out, the bottle courtesy of our lovely friends, Family Karaboula at Maistrali. 

 

Maistrali Taverna, Skiathos, Greece 

Ampelicious  Red

Bouyiourdi - Baked Feta

The first week of July. There's more rain in the forecast but I will be out whenever I can. 

Did you click the pics to receive the correct message and see the full picture? 

Thank You.  Another Bird Blog is back soon.