A Funny Old Morning

It started off with a fine, clear sky and the promise of a scorcher as I met Will at Out Rawcliffe, following my lie in until 0530. Mist nets were up in good time but then at 8am the cloud increased from the south west and brought with it a blanket of mist of such intensity it was almost fog. At 0905 the mist cleared as quickly as it had set in, but by then it was too late, the murk had put paid to the possibility of much happening bird wise. We caught just 9 birds, 5 new and 4 recaptures. The new birds were 2 Whitethroat and 1 each of Chaffinch, Goldfinch and a Tree Pipit to add variety to our 2011 totals.

Tree Pipit
Tree Pipit

Today’s recaptures were 2 Willow Warblers, a Chaffinch and a Whitethroat.

Chaffinch

The strange old weather also put a stop to visible migration, with just a single Lesser Redpoll and a dozen or so Swallows heading north.

Other birds lingering in the mist this morning were 1 Jay, 1 Kestrel and a single Wheatear that defied our efforts to catch it with the usually trustworthy spring traps. Yes, a funny old morning.

Wheatear

Short Saturday

I woke at 3am due again to Ringer’s Sleep Syndrome, the unconscious fear of missing or being late for a ringing session that causes a person to wake long before the alarm clock but unable to go back to sleep. So not long after I got up, made a cup of tea then blogged yesterday’s late news before I headed off to meet Will at Rawcliffe Moss again for a 6am start.

Although the wind blew at less than 5mph we knew the forecast promised it would increase quite quickly, so we set nets accordingly and hoped for an hour or two to catch early movers. Our nets went up in the more sheltered western side of the plantation, away from the east wind. It was just as well we did because by 9am the wind blew quite stiffly, enough to make the nets very visible so we took them down.

In the continued clear conditions visible migration was quiet and birds high overhead. Early moving wagtails numbered one or two albas and 3 Grey Wagtails, and by now the 4th of September, a very thin movement of Meadow Pipits numbering less than 10. Tree Pipits featured again in what is proving a mega autumn for the species. We saw and heard at least 5 birds and caught another two. Similar to the past ten days or so Chaffinches proved the most numerous migrant/local dispersal with more than 40 individuals passing south overhead, sometimes unseen because of the height they flew at. We noted our first autumnal Woodpigeon movement as a tight flock of c30 birds sped west.

We caught 15 birds today, 12 new consisting of 2 Tree Pipit, 1 Chiffchaff, 1 Whitethroat and 8 Chaffinch plus recaptures of 2 Long-tailed Tit and 1 Blue Tit.

Tree Pipit
Tree Pipit
Chiffchaff
Whitethroat

Other birds seen this morning: 4 Grey Partridge, 3 Buzzard, 1 Kestrel, 1 Golden Plover, 10 Linnet, 15 Goldfinch and 1 Jay

Jay
Rawcliffe Moss Morning

September Start

Will and I kicked off the month with another ringing session at Out Rawcliffe. It was a slightly misty morning as the dull sun promised to burn off the thin layer of murk and leave us with clear conditions again.

Dawn Mist

Both the morning itself and our catch proved similar to other recent sessions, with not much on-going visible migration as the sun did its job. We had a mixed bag of birds, mainly warblers and finches, and for the second session in a row, no recaptures. We caught 23 new birds of 10 species: 1 Tree Pipit, our 7th of the year and 6th of the autumn, 10 Chaffinch, 2 Whitethroat, 2 Chiffchaff, 3 Great Tit, and singles of Blackcap, Robin, Wren, Long-tailed Tit and Blue Tit.

Tree Pipit - juvenile
Blackcap
Chiffchaff
Great Tit
Blue Tit

We kept eyes and ears open but logged little genuine migration with 4 Tree Pipits, 8 or more Meadow Pipits high overhead and 1 Alba wagtail, this paucity enlivened only by a party of 5 Sand Martins plus several Swallows heading rapidly south. Otherwise we thought even the local Swallow and House Martin numbers were down this morning with many birds having moved on following the several days of fine weather. Up high we also noted a dozen or two Chaffinch heading south, some we saw, and with others we just heard the characteristic autumn flight calls.

Other birds logged this morning were 2 or possibly 3 Jays, 1 Kestrel, 2 Buzzard, 15 Tree Sparrow, and the inevitable Goldfinches, with the distant but local Marsh Harrier putting in another fleeting appearance as it headed off over miles of open country.

Kestrel

Four Of A Kind

It’s getting to be a bit of a habit this ringing lark with our third session at Out Rawcliffe in a week when Will and I found yet another opportunity this morning with an overnight zero wind and a forecast for another fine morning.

I woke at 0430, too late for a short doze until the alarm but early enough for leisurely breakfast number one before a relaxed drive made me first on the moss. I logged the initial birds of the day with 2 Grey Partridge calling before both birds flew across my line of sight and landed deep in the potato field. This sighting was quickly followed by the loud calls of a nearby Tawny Owl in the plantation. Will arrived soon after to tell me of a Kestrel in the half-light hawking around the field next to the barn, but I think I won our “first birds of the day” competition this morning. We set up shop then set the nets.

The Ringing Shop and Cafe

Our very first net round caught a Blackcap and a Chaffinch but as we waited for the next circuit we saw and heard Tree Pipits overhead, with at least 6 birds involved, as four of them dropped into the trees. In fact not only did four birds descend into the trees but all four of them found the same net together. It’s not often a mist net holds four Tree Pipits in these parts. When released the pipits all flew off strongly south and resumed their migration. That little interlude proved a good omen as we enjoyed a successful morning with 30 birds of 8 species caught, 29 new and 1 recapture.

New birds: 4 Tree Pipit, 3 juveniles and 1 adult, 13 Chaffinch, 1 Blackcap, 2 Great Tit, 3 Long-tailed Tit, 1 Wren, 3 Whitethroat and 2 Willow Warbler. That takes our total of new Whitethroats for the site this year to only two short of the ton at 98 individuals; Willow Warblers to 76.

The single recapture was a Great Tit from this summer.

Tree Pipit
Blackcap
Long-tailed Tit

We almost caught 2 Sparrowhawks. As we checked along the net from the end of a ride a small male bounced off the net then flew away as almost immediately a second bird, this time a female, fell into the pocket from the other side. The larger bird freed itself as female Sparrowhawks often do because of their sheer size. Two that got away then, but we consoled ourselves with the thought that they were possibly the same birds we caught a few days ago. But in all truth they probably weren’t because of the number of small birds on or around the moss at the moment that will atract in raptors like Sparrowhawk, Kestrel and possibly Hobby.

Sparrowhawk
As well as the visible migration of Tree Pipits heading south we logged a small number of Meadow Pipits, with 10 or more high flying individuals. Associated with the pipits were 5 or more autumn calling Reed Buntings, but we didn’t catch any today.

Reed Bunting

Other birds seen this morning included 2 distant but loudly croaking Ravens, 2 Skylark, 7 Linnet, 18 Goldfinch, 3 Buzzard 2 Kestrel, 11 Tree Sparrows and 24 House Sparrows. I must say that both House Sparrows and Tree Sparrows appear to have completed a very successful breeding season and it does beg the question whether the cold winter actually suited our sparrows better than the warm winters of most recent years.

House Sparrow
Tree Sparrow

We remarked this morning how we hadn’t seen the regular Marsh Harrier of six or seven sightings in recent weeks but as I drove off the moss I saw it over to the east near the big field, its favourite hunting spot.

Windless Wednesday

Since the weekend Will and I did our homework via the regular crowd, The Met Office, XC Weather, Wind Guru and the BBC. You name it, we’ve looked at it, so we pencilled in a hopeful Wednesday window for a ringing session. They were all correct as the wind dropped from a raging westerly at 9pm last night to a big fat zero at 6am this morning when we landed at Out Rawcliffe.

The morning was fairly slow as we expected now that many warblers have gone, but we hoped to pick up the stragglers plus anything else that came along. We certainly found some variety with 17 birds but of 14 species, 12 “new” birds and 5 recaptures. Of the first timers we caught one each of the following: Tree Pipit, Yellowhammer, Jay, Sedge Warbler, Whitethroat, Reed Bunting, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Robin and Wren, with 2 Chaffinch.

Recapture were made by 2 Willow Warblers and 1 each of Chiffchaff, Wren and Great Tit. The Willow Warblers and Chiffchaff were adults with almost completed moult so will very soon be on their way south.

The quiet ringing left time to survey the scene without the need to shelter from wind or rain but simply to sit in the sun, that strange yellow thing in the sky that we see occasionally.

Jay - juvenile
Tree Pipit - juvenile
Yellowhammer - juvenile
Reed Bunting – juvenile male, partial moult
Sedge Warbler - juvenile
Chaffinch
Blue Tit

Following the overnight clear sky the morning’s visual migration was very thin, the highlight probably a single Swift heading south west in a light movement of Swallows and House Martins. We did notice a number of Chaffinches about this morning, “pinking” and contact calling as they flew over or dropped into the plantation. They are a sure sign of the real autumn to begin soon.

Chaffinch

The inevitable Marsh Harrier put in a showing as it patrolled the set aside but at one point had to fend off the attentions of a Buzzard that spotted the harrier taking a rest in a recently cropped field. Two other Buzzards today plus a single Kestrel completed the raptor scene.

Buzzard

A Little Is A Lot

It was an early start, but nothing new there. I met Will on the moss at 6am where we put up our standard mist net quota for the site of 320ft of net. Pretty hard work for a reward which isn’t necessarily of huge quantity in a normal Fylde spring when birds head straight for previous breeding haunts without stops in the middle of nowhere. This is how an unkind, unknowing soul might well describe Rawcliffe Moss, but any coastal situation is usually more productive in terms of both variety and numbers of migrants in both spring and autumn than the moss, some 7 or 8 miles inland.

But we enjoy the peace and quiet of the moss land, and the often lack of numbers allows us in between net visits to indulge in plenty of sky and land watching for local birds and at the right times of year, visible migrants. The ability to enjoy both is the joy of being both a ringer and a birder, and it is so sad that a few people think that a person must be exclusively one or the other to qualify as legitimate. Those are our reasons for actually enjoying this morning, despite the fact that for our herculean efforts we caught, some might say, a paltry 8 birds of 2 new and 6 retraps.

The two new birds were a Tree Pipit and a Blackbird, as diverse a pair as anyone might expect out on the moss. I took the pipit from the net and pondered, “When was the last Tree Pipit I handled?” suggesting to Will it was probably 15 years ago. I got back home and checked on IPMR - May 1996 at Lane Ends, Pilling. That is how scarce Tree Pipits are locally, and apart from overflying, calling birds in Spring and Autumn, it is not a species seen on the deck very often.

Tree Pipit
Tree Pipit
Our retrapped Whitethroat we first ringed here in 2007 as an adult and it has
returned in 2008, 2009 and now in 2010.

Adult Male Whitethroat
Similarly, a retrapped Willow Warbler was first ringed as a fresh juvenile and probably born on site in 2009.

Willow Warbler
The other retraps were 2 Willow Warbler, 1 Reed Bunting and a Goldfinch from 2008.

Local birds evident today were still small groups of Goldfinch and Linnet with singing Skylark and Corn Bunting plus resident Tree Sparrows ensconced in boxes.

Tree Sparrow
Corn Bunting
Visible migration was extremely interesting this morning in the form of a steady but slight passage of about 20 Swallows and a similarly thin movement of approximately 30 Meadow Pipits. The mid week migration of Wheatears noticed at many locations continued on the moss this morning with at least 16 bright “Greenland” types noticeable on the black, peaty fields. Two distant but obvious White Wagtails also stood out against the intense dark soil. There was a little movement of Redpoll again with a minimum count of 12 birds passing north throughput the morning. Waders on the move were mainly Whimbrel with at least 7 heading west and other unseen ones calling more distantly.

Raptor sightings were of the Kestrel and Buzzard variety, especially the Buzzard that has a favoured perch with a panoramic view of the moss and which overlooks the legions of tiny bunnies now evident in the fields. Raptor surprise this morning was a Merlin that put in a brief appearance over the plantation before heading out west, but the almost unseen bird of the morning was a Ring Ouzel in the plantation, loudly “tac-taccing” at our approach to the nets before flying off north and giving brief views to Will.

Kestrel
I can't hope to ever get a photograph of a Ring Ouzel so here is an absolute corker of a portrait by Andreas Trepte http://www.photo-natur.de/ .

Ring Ouzel
What a cracking morning, more please.