Twenty Ten Vision.

Hurricane Ian dropped a number of rare birds all over Britain and Ireland but it seems that not many came to this part of Lancashire - unless anyone knows different? 

After the wind and rain of last week and this Monday there appeared to be window of opportunity on Tuesday so I met up with Andy and Will for a spot of ringing. 

The morning calm of 0630 hinted that thrushes in the shape of Redwings might be on the cards. But came there none, not even a Blackbird, and certainly not a Song Thrush, as rare as anything that Ian might bring. 

We peered through the semi-dark and saw that a roost held seven or eight Little Egrets and bigger than the others, a single Great Egret. Before too long they all went their separate ways, croaking their good byes as they went to leave us setting mist nets alone. 

Great Egret

Little Egret

A quiet session ensued with an unlucky-for-sum 13 birds caught whereby the morning flight of Linnets saved us from an even more embarrassing total - 8 Linnet, 1 Greenfinch, 1 Robin, 1 Great Tit, 1 Chaffinch and 1 Grey Wagtail. Damn, I forgot to alter the focus point. And it’s not too often we catch a Grey Wag. 

Grey Wagtail

Chaffinch

The Linnets arrived in quite small groups of 5-15 and a morning total of 100+ in the niggling and increasing breeze of 5-10 and then 15 mph, all interspersed with bouts of drizzle. 

Maybe it was the cloud and mizzle with odd breaks in the grey that brought the many Skylarks pouring over from North and North East and heading relentlessly South? Most were very high, a height impossible to guesstimate other than some were in acute hearing range only and visible to 20/10 vision or better. When we packed in at a relatively early 1030 we estimated 90 and more Skylarks had passed our watch point. 

Skylark

There was just the one raptor today, a single Sparrowhawk that shot across the field towards the seed crop hoping to catch something unawares. We saw Reed Buntings, Greenfinches, Chaffinches and Meadow Pipits but not in any great numbers. It just wasn’t our day. 

Better luck next time. Thursday is looking a possible. Excuse me I have a phone call to make. 

 

A Tale Of Two Halves.

Wednesday morning produced yet another icy start at Oakenclough. After a few dire days of catches and thinking along the lines of that old upbeat Howard Jones song, we imagined that “Things could only get better”. 

How wrong we were as we failed to even reach double figures. Just 5 birds caught and once again, virtually zero visible migration of note in the bright blue skies above. Throughout four hours we noted three or four Swallows heading north. Luckily the four (2 x 2) Siskins overhead drew our attention by their distinctive piercing flight calls or may have missed them too. 

Our catch - 1 Lesser Redpoll, 1 Goldfinch, 1 Blackcap, 1 Wren and 1 Willow Warbler. 

The second year male Blackcap was the first to be caught this year when normally we might expect to be in double figures by early May. 

Blackcap

Lesser Redpoll

 

The single Willow Warbler was a recapture from the week before, so new birds numbered four. In the plantation ten or twelve Willow Warblers sang from their now established location without us catching any females. From this, and the lack of chasing around, we deduced that female Willow Warblers had yet to arrive to our site. This is a natural enough lag in timing for Willow Warblers and many other species, accentuated in 2021 by the icy spring. 

Although by 1030 temperatures had climbed to the dizzying heights of 11 degrees, we knew to call it a day. 

=============================

Friday dawned bright but slightly breezy with the decision not to go ringing already made. I headed off Pilling way for a spot of birding alone. 

Swallows were more obvious with a number of them seen to fly north and quickly out of sight. In my two plus hours I counted more than 20, a vast improvement on recent days. But still no Swifts or House Martins, the latter still absent from their breeding eaves in our semi rural location and now two weeks behind schedule. 

I searched a stretch of land I'd not done in weeks and found 3 Lapwings sitting while their mates chased off gulls and crows that showed too much interest in the very obvious nesting pairs. In the same area were two or more pairs of Skylarks, a single Wheatear, a male Pied Wagtail and ten to twelve Linnets. 

Pied Wagtail

Skylark

Linnet

 

In wetter areas came 11 Little Egret, 2 Great Egret, 1 Grey Heron, 3 Tufted Duck, 4 Shelduck, 5 Mute Swan, plus both Canada Geese and Greylags with youngsters in tow. Also, 6 Reed Warbler, 4 Sedge Warbler, 8 Oystercatcher, 6 Redshank. 

Sedge Warbler 

Back home today we sat with a coffee and watched a male Sparrowhawk sat on a neighbour's garden wall. After a while the hawk dropped to within inches of the ground, accelerated like a rocket and crossed into another garden.

Sparrowhawk

That's all for now folks. The forecast for Saturday is rain and wind so it looks like a day doing nothing but chores. Don't go away, see you soon.

Linking this weekend to Eileen's Blogspot and Anni in Texas.

A Waiting Game

Five in the morning and I lay wide-awake, mulling over the weekend gone and the days ahead. With another morning of waiting around for a promised delivery, I felt a rant coming on and sat at the keyboard with one eye trained along the road outside. 

For three days we watched for a delivery that never arrived. But the neighbours' did. White Van Man and then another food drop as Sainsbury’s green one failed to stop at Number 3. I swear those neighbours are stockpiling the garage, cupboards and freezers for the next pandemic or the newest Project Fear, inspired by our unbiased and impartial but highly predictable media. 

I have news for BBC, ITV, Channel Four and Sky - We, the public who pay your wages, know what you’re doing, your hidden agendas.  For sure it’s the re-election of President Donald Trump in November 2020 and Real Brexit of 1st January 2021 when the media’s EU funding dries up. 

I left Sue on lookout Monday afternoon and snuck out to Cockerham for a look along the sea wall. Richard had newly fixed Covid signs to gateposts to deter social distancing doggie and cycle folk from their recent and ongoing trespass through his sheep and cattle. None had bothered to seek permission for their jaunts. So it continues - farmers versus townies and never the twain shall meet. 

I had a good selection of birds where the pool, reeds and hedgerows provided the best. At least six singing Reed Warbler and three pairs of Reed Bunting proved easy to find by their respective songs. More difficult to see were now quiet Sedge Warbler, Blackcap and even Chaffinch, all of which by June have less need to display their desirability.

Reed Bunting 

Reed Warbler 

The water held several Greylag, Mute Swans with 2 young, 4 Tufted Duck, 2 Shelduck, the inevitable Little Egret, and whinnying but unseen Little Grebes. The grebes may be on their second brood by now because ten days ago I saw a flotilla of young and old disappear into the pool margins. 

Little Grebe 

Along the sea wall the Environment Agency had found work for idle hands whereby three x four by four vehicles and a JCB were sent to drive up and down the bund and shift tidal wrack a few yards higher up the sea wall. The story is that the lower down debris stops the growth of grass that binds the grass to the substrate which in turn maintains the strength of the bund. The bund/sea wall serves as a defence to high tides that might one day engulf the land behind. Mystified? Yes, me too. 

Needless to say, I saw few Skylarks, the single species that actually nests on the same ground during May, June and July and along which the vehicles drove up and down for some hours. In several visits I have seen no evidence of Skylarks nesting along here this spring. I also think The Environment Agency could do with a makeover that includes a different title.

Skylark 

Along the ditches and dykes came 6 Oystercatcher, 5 Redshank, 4 more Little Egret, a single Pied Wagtail and several Linnets. Out on the marsh were distant gulls, more Shelduck and 2 Eider ducks, male and female but as far as could tell, no young in tow. Half-a-dozen Swallows and a lone Swift drifted by. 

I bumped into Richard, out to survey his barley, a crop struggling for height in this driest of springs. As we spoke a Roe Deer crashed from the dense hedgerow, bounded through the crop and disappeared out of sight. 

Richard told me the family had not ventured out onto Murder Mile last weekend because they could see and hear the probable aftermath of release from lockdown. They were right to stay safe. Bikers hurtled full throttle along the A588 where 100 yards up from the farm another middle aged wannabe racer bit the dust by landing head first into the roadside ditch. Six kids and a wife left behind. Another needless death caused by the China virus. 

I heard tell via the Internet that all three Avocet nests at Conder Pool had failed so motored on for a gander. Indeed all gone with not a one to be seen, least of all little fluffy grey ones. There’d been a little unanswered discussion online as to why the Avocets failed so miserably, perhaps sheep or mink, even though Oystercatchers and gulls yards away produced fine chicks? 

No one seems or even wants to know except that grazing sheep or a mink might carry the unopened can of worms, but not bird watchers. 

Luckily, another pair of Avocets half a mile away on a stony island encircled by comatose, immobile anglers succeeded where others failed. There they strode, three healthy looking chicks and two proud parents who for weeks saw off Grey Herons, gulls and Greylag Geese with no interference from trespassing birders. 

Avocet 

 Avocets

We’re still waiting for the van. Watch this space.

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

Goldfinch Gone

Three days of sunshine and all the Goldfinches suddenly vanished from my garden. There's been 15-20 most of the winter so bang goes my plan to do a little garden ringing while in lockdown.

Goldfinch

So here's a post first published at the end of 2013 to celebrate the year's pictures in a month by month sequence. It’s mostly the birds which stirred the senses with odd shots of the places where memories are made. 

January is time to escape from the grey, cold skies of a UK winter and grab some welcome sunshine, if only for a few weeks. We were stunned by the long, wide, sandy expanse of the beaches of Fuerteventura, some several miles long and just begging to be walked. When tired of the walking I sat on some quiet rocks near the shore and took pictures of a Whimbrel, a shy wader species I had longed to photograph. 

Fuerteventura

Whimbrel

February continued where I left off in the early part of the year in ringing birds out on the frozen mossland. Brambling winters don’t happen too often, 2012 and 2013 being the first for several years and a winter when I caught 66 of the striking finches. One bore a Norwegian ring, another one later captured in Norway. 

Brambling

March, and as the ice lingered on there were still Bramblings to be seen along with a good number of common Reed Buntings. Bird ringing is not about catching rare or scarce birds. Catching and ringing birds is about monitoring the populations of common birds, an important and vital job in these worrying days of wholesale declines.

Many a trainee ringer has fallen by the wayside when realising that rare birds appear in mist nets on equally rare days and that the humdrum of catching common birds is mostly unexciting hard graft. Imagine my surprise on 15th March to find a Little Bunting in the net, an agreeable but unimportant addition to the winter catch of 72 Reed Buntings. That Little Bunting was still around into April when I guess it felt the urge to migrate.

Little Bunting

April is Wheatear Time. The migrant chats appear along the coast on their way to the uplands of the UK or Scandinavia. A few are destined for Iceland or even distant Greenland. The birds are hungry following their journey from further south and can rarely resist a mealworm, so I send them on their way north bearing a ring which tells others that they arrived there via the UK. 

Wheatear

May usually involves Menorca. The island draws us back with its rugged and gentle landscape, quiet roads, friendly locals and spring sunshine. Birds are hard to find but rewarding when you do, unimpeded by crowds of target birders running here, there and everywhere. The Hoopoes use the same nest site and feeding locations every year. Creatures of habit also use the same café for a spot of lunch. 

Hoopoe

Menorcan lunch

June and it’s time to find and ring some wader chicks. The task is to find them in the literal sense but also find them before they disappear as a species from our diminishing wetlands and intensified farms. Redshanks aren’t the easiest to come across, in fact they are damned difficult to locate, sprint like Usain Bolt and have protective parents that shame many a human. The first I ringed for a good few years. 

Redshank chick

July is a time when birds and birders go quiet. There nothing much to do except feed the kids and stay around the house, least of all travel very far to discover new things when migration time is far away. Skylarks aren’t the easiest of nests to find but I daren’t go near this one as the size of those grubs says the chicks are big and possibly out of the nest. Skylark chicks often leave the nest long before they can fly, an evolutionary adaptation which increases their chance of survival. 

Skylark

August often sits on the fence between summer and autumn not knowing which way to jump. The cold, late spring of 2013 made late broods last into August and wader chicks about to fly. My personal favourite picture of 2013 just happens to be my favourite species the Lapwing. With luck the spikiy young Lapwing below will live 15/20 years. Let’s hope there are places for it to live 20 years from now. 

Lapwing

September produced an unexpected holiday in Greece when our daughter Joanne married on the island of Skiathos. Two weeks of unbroken sunshine with a few birds thrown in. A battered old Suzuki Jimny served as a passable hide to photograph the normally unapproachable Woodchat Shrike and a superb vehicle to reach Kastro where we enjoyed numerous Eleanor’s Falcons. So many reasons to return in 2014 to the tranquil haven of Hotel Ostria owned by the delightful Mathinou family.

Skiathos, Greece

Makis and aubergines at Hotel Ostria

Woodchat Shrike

October was quiet with subdued migration on our west facing coast. Red-breasted Mergansers eluded me for years, shy birds unwilling to have a portrait taken until after a couple of days of rough weather I came across a young bird at Pilling. I got my picture on a grey, cloudy day but wonder what happened to the bird and if there will be another chance to photograph a merganser so close. 

Red-breasted Merganser

November turned up a few Snow Buntings, scarce in recent years. So infrequent have they become in recent years that any discovered immediately become target birds for those less inclined to actually find any birds for themselves. I had a Snow Bunting to myself for a while at Pilling and spent time lying spread-eagled on the tideline to take a few portraits as the bird fed unconcerned at my presence. 

Snow Bunting

December 2013 is ending as it began in a raging storm and more to come. In between the birding was hard slog with not much to show for time spent in the field. I searched my archives for December to find the best picture of a month’s efforts, a mediocre shot of an above average bird. Things can only get better in 2014. 

Curlew

As a footnote to the above. we won't get to Skiathos in May 2020 and maybe not in September.  The people of Skiathos suffered a financial blow in 2019 at the time of the Thomas Cook debacle - car hires, holiday lets, hotels, cafes, shops and restaurants, many of them small family businesses. Now those lovely people will be hit again as the island is already in lock-down. 

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday.

Keep Calm And Carry On

It seems that modern weather forecasts emanate from just a few sources that syndicate their findings. It’s no surprise then that mainstream TV channels have remarkably similar forecasts when most of the announcers read from a rehearsed script rather than share their thoughts as informed and knowledgeable meteorologists. The best bet is to find an Internet forecast that updates time slots regularly and one that suit a particular preference or pinpoints locations for the activity that is to be pursued. After all,  a windsurfer’s needs are quite different to those of a bird ringer! 

Andy and I continued our search of weather forecasts for one that might allow us a morning in the fresh air and a ringing session. By Thursday evening there was a chance that Friday morning might provide the requisite window so we duly pencilled it in for a trip to Project Linnet. 

It could be that continued bad weather has delayed the Linnet departure north whereby in a normal spring winter flocks have separated and individuals gone their own ways. We’ve had 35/40 around all week when I checked and dropped more seed to keep the birds interested. 

Friday saw the regular Stock Dove or two and a couple of Reed Buntings and Chaffinches feeding in the penalty area. The now resident Kestrel hovered overhead for while during its customary circuit.  

Kestrel 

Reed Bunting and Chaffinch 

A male Blackbird holds territory, and this morning at least five Skylarks in song in the immediate area where the many fence posts come in handy. 

Blackbird 

Skylark 

Stock Dove 

Many people will be unfamiliar with the Stock Dove. A quick glance confirms their fears that it is one of those messy creatures that hang around city streets. Look closer; while the Stock Dove is indeed a member of the pigeon family this small version nests in holes in trees and in farm buildings. It’s a bird of woodland edges and parkland during the breeding season and can be seen in small flocks on winter farmland. Unlike the Woodpigeon and the Feral Pigeon, the extremely shy Stock Dove is very rarely found in towns, cities or suburban gardens.  

This morning looked ideal with less than 10 mph wind and wispy cloud above. Unfortunately the Linnets didn’t play ball by refusing to visit our seed in anything other than ones and twos but instead sunning themselves in the bramble. We noted that the recently depleted Linnet flock is now quite “loose” and “stretched” compared to those of mid-winter when the birds pack tightly together. As soon as the weather takes a real turn for the better the Linnets will be long gone. 

Linnets 

We caught not a single Linnet and had to settle for a second year male Reed Bunting instead. We suspect this to be the male on territory and paired to the female seen earlier. 

Reed Bunting 

When opportunities arrived to catch three or four Linnets, we declined in favour of a bigger haul that never materialised – isn’t hindsight wonderful? We also suffered “near misses” of two or three of those Skylarks, the ones that sang on high and came down for a too brief look and didn’t stay long enough for capture. Better luck next time. 

Dear Readers, stay safe and well. Carry on as normal and keep calm is the advice from here. I have no elderly parents to worry about, but I do have five young grandchildren. Take sensible and personal precautions to avoid contagion is the key, but life must carry on.

H L Mencken in 1918:

“Civilisation  grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes. The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

Back soon on Another Bird Blog.

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

Signs Of Spring

Finally, on Wednesday a break in the weather allowed a spot of ringing at Project Linnet. I met Andy at 0700 and we set a whoosh net then poured a coffee.  

During February and after our last visit of 13 February, I maintained visits so as to keep a tally on numbers. It was vital to continue our supplementary feeding rather than suddenly stop and leave the Linnets without regular food. 

Monday March 2 had seen lower numbers with 35 Linnets only plus a couple of Chaffinches and 2 Stock Doves at our seed. An overflying Kestrel seemed also to be keeping an eye on a non-seed food source. A female Stonechat hopped along the fence and the bramble, a migrant that with luck we might be able to tempt into the catching area at the first opportunity. 

 Stonechat

We began Wednesday on 148 Linnet captures for the winter period 1 September to date. Although the figure was somewhat below our ideal figure, the decision to persevere with this project has proved immensely valuable. We have found new information about wintering Linnets and added to knowledge of Linnet migration as a whole. 

The Stonechat wasn’t around today - as suspected it was a one day wonder, a common enough occurrence in March. We saw the usual Little Egrets, Stock Doves and Chaffinches but our main attention was focused on Linnets and singing Skylarks. 

We noted at least 4 Skylarks on the move with two or more in song. We even managed to catch a single Skylark, sexed as a male through its overall bulk and wing length of 115 mm – males 105 - 118, females 98 - 108. 

Skylark 

Skylark 

Linnet numbers had dropped again with a maximum of 30 today. Even so we caught 10 Linnets to push the winter total over the 150 mark. We are pretty sure few ringers elsewhere are catching wintering Linnets and we are the only ones in Lancashire and North West England.

Our ten Linnets comprised of 9 new and 1 recapture - 2 adult males, 4 second winter females and 4 second winter males. Recapture AKE3732 was ringed here at Gulf Lane on 5 February 2020. 

Linnet 

Linnet

If the weather holds we hope for one more go at the Linnets but it seems that the falling number is a sure sign that spring is on the way as the Linnets head north and west to breeding sites. 

The Jet Stream moved south this week so let's hope it stays there so that we experience some dry, warm and sunny weather for a change. 

Back On The Road

I have to say, the weather has been more like April showers than flaming June. At last this morning, a spot of sunshine where I’d arranged to meet Andy to see if we could come up with a cunning plan to catch any of the Sand Martins nesting at the Cockerham cliff face. 

There are huge numbers at the colony where we estimated 400+ individuals, most if not all of which appeared to be adults. This is now a huge colony that some 10/12 years ago began with just a couple of pairs breeding in a tiny face of exposed sand above a fishing pond. 

Looking up at the nests, most of which are at 30/40ft high in soft strata of the dig we decided on a plan of action for the week after next. That will involve staying away from the nesting holes but catching the martins at lower feeding levels before the sun lights up the quarry face.  

Sand Martin 

Sand Martin colony 

Andy was off to the hills to ring some Pied Flycatchers so I drove up to Conder Green. I stopped for a roadside Red-legged Partridge, a non-native partridge of the modern countryside. I have to say that despite their unwelcome status as an introduced species gone wild, the things are rather photogenic. 

Red-legged Partridge 

Red-legged Partridge 

We are into the doldrums of June when migration is over and birds spend all their time and energy in actual breeding or breeding attempts. That much was clear at the pool with identical counts and similar action to a week ago. Counts were of 40 Swift, 18 House Martin, 15 Swallow and 2 Sand Martin hawking for early morning insects over the marsh and hedgerows. 

On the pool - a pair of Oystercatchers with just one youngster plus at least three other pairs without young. 10 Redshank, 2 Avocet, 2 Shelduck, 4 Tufted Duck, 2 Lapwing, 3 Little Egret and 6 Common Tern. Four of the terns seem to be now resident, the others interlopers from the Lune Estuary 100 yards away. 

Passerines were also reminiscent of last week with 4 Reed Buntings, 8 Sedge Warbler, 6 Whitethroats and 2 Reed Warbler in song, plus a number of young Skylarks and Pied Wagtails with adults close by. 

Pied Wagtail 

Skylark 

Reed Bunting 

In the “office” earlier in the week I’d watched a Dunnock circle around the wing mirror of a neighbour's car. It was raining, hence the fuzzy pictures.

Dunnock 

Dunnock 

 Dunnock

Was the Dunnock hunting around the edge of the mirror for spiders which often disappear into the gaps of the movable glass, hide in the dark recess but give the game away with their webs decorating the surface? Or had the bird spotted another Dunnock in the mirror and being more than a little fired up by romance or territorial rights, decided to take a closer look? After three or four minutes of this behaviour it flew off into the garden. 

There's heavy rain forecast for Friday. See you soon.

Linking today with Anni's Blog and https://viewingnaturewitheileen.blogspot.com.