Some You Win

The weatherman kindly told us that Thursday 31st August was the Meteorological End of Summer. I tried to recall more than a handful of summery days during of May, June, July and August that resembled summer but I quickly gave up. 

Friday 1st September. I took a flying visit to Conder Green where a distant Kingfisher proved the only bird of note as it dived into the now shallow water from the top of the marker post. Otherwise there was the usual fare – An increase to 17 Teal, 9 Little Grebe, 80 Lapwing, 5 Snipe, 1 Goosander and 1 Common Sandpiper. The female Tufted Duck is reduced to just three youngsters now. A few pairs of Tufted Ducks have bred on the pool for the last three years but always struggle to get more than one or two youngsters up to full size. 

Kingfisher

Tufted Duck

I was on the way to Gulf Lane to unload a bucket of rape seed into our net ride in preparation for a ringing session on Saturday. The seed is back-up to the natural food that the 300+ Linnets and Goldfinch now target because those large numbers of birds will soon make a large dent in natural food availability. 

Saturday 2nd September dawned misty but bright with the promise of sun and little wind for our ringing. I met up with Andy at 0630 just as the sun rose over to the East. 

Pilling sunrise

Looking West at Pilling

Unfortunately the Linnets didn’t perform as well as have come to expect and we ended up with a meagre catch of just five birds, a total quite unlike our catches to date this autumn.  Howver, all is not lost as those five bring us to 150 newly ringed Linnets so far this autumn.

Linnet

The composition of the flock has changed considerably this week with now something like 50/50 Linnet/Goldfinch and just 200 birds in total this morning. Given the natural abundance of food at this time of year, both on site here and in the local area, the birds have many choices of where to feed. Additionally, the preferred feeding patch on site is some way from our single 80ft cut through the crop. 

We have seen a Sparrowhawk on at least three recent spot visits which leads us to think the hawk is a very regular visitor and may be deterring the finches from their usual habits. As Sparrowhawks are liable to do, once they find a reliable source of food, they come back time and time again. The hawk made two visits today, once trying to snatch a Linnet in the air and then later, moving along the fence line from where it could wait to pounce. The hawk flew off when I walked along the road towards its lookout post. 

Sparrowhawk

 

Some you win, some you lose and it won't stop us trying again soon.

We may not have had the biggest catch of the year but it was certainly good to be out in the sun for a change. 

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

Boxed In

Friday, and once again the week’s weather dictated a lull in ringing, birding or photography. July will surely end as one of the worst ever. 

The rain held off long enough for Andy and I to meet up at Gulf Lane on Thursday to cut a net ride for the continuation of our Linnet project. While doing so we noted a flock of 40 Linnets and several Tree Sparrows using the crop of bird seed mix. Such a relatively high number of Linnets in a flock situation in July suggests that many Linnets have finished their breeding season and that numbers will climb quickly in the coming weeks. We will set a few nets just soon as the weather reverts to summer or at least a settled autumn feel. 

Linnet

We called at another farm where the owners regularly see Barn Owls and now wish to attract the species to breed. We looked around the many buildings and suggested a couple of spots where suitable boxes might be erected, using plans and ideas found on www.barnowltrust.org.uk. 

The Barn Owl Trust website is a useful and informative for farmers and landowners looking to attract owls onto their property. There is lots of practical advice on nest boxes plus guidance on how and where to locate a box for best results. For the lazy or like me, the simply unskilled at woodworking, they sell nest boxes ready assembled and suitable for Barn Owl, Tawny Owl or Little Owl. 

Barn Owl nestbox

In a couple weeks we’ll call back at the farm and see how their work is progressing. Fingers crossed for a suitable outcome for owls, famers and ringers alike. 

Barn Owl

I called at Conder Green where the wind whipped across the pool and many Lapwings sheltered on the grassy island. I had a good count of returning Black-tailed Godwits - 46 to add to the 140 Lapwing, 40 Curlew and 30 Redshank, but no show from either Greenshank or Common Sandpiper. In the choppy conditions I noted just a single Little Grebe but expect more were sheltered in the lee of the islands. Three Pied Wagtails and 2 Stock Dove around the margins, plus 2 Little Egret partially hidden from sight. 

There was a Tufted Duck with five fluffy youngsters and I think this was a different female to the one noted here a week earlier with just four young. The family swam across the water to avoid marauding Carrion Crows looking for a meal. 

Tufted Duck

A Kingfisher put in a brief appearance low down in the channels and out of the wind. Sand Martins rather liked the conditions as 40 or more plus a few Swallows flew continuously up, down and around the hawthorn hedgerow to pick off the many highly visible flying midges. 

Saturday morning looks slightly better and I’m sure I will be out somewhere or other bins and camera at the ready. Read about it here soon.

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday,  Anni's Birding  and Eileen's Saturday Blog.

Sunday Circuit

The week has been mixed - more of our very special English summer and the longest days when wind and rain battle for supremacy and winner takes all. It’s hard to say which came out on top this week but let’s just say that my suntan didn’t improve and birding was left on hold for a day or two. 

Sunday morning dawned dull and cloudy but I was determined to have a go so set off on the usual circuit. A Barn Owl hunted over Stalmine moss but then dived into the farmyard as the car got closer. Never mind, I saw another one later on the way back home and in broad daylight hunting next to the busy main road. 

Barn Owl

I guess most Barn Owls have mouths to feed at the moment and are spending more time in hunting, even in the daylight. Just three weeks ago Andy and I had a brood of four Barn Owls at an ideal stage to ring but had to call it off as the owls were in an avian flu zone where ringing was suspended. 

Ringing restrictions have been lifted but it seems that the source of last winter’s major outbreak, a game bird hatchery, is now up and running again after receiving Government (taxpayer) compensation rumoured to be around £1,000,000. Now if we could just spend the same amount of money on protecting a few of our local sites for birds and people? 

I stopped at Gulf Lane to survey the set-aside field and where we hope to restart our Linnet ringing project in August. The field is looking good with tremendous growth on the wild bird and wildflower mix and a few birds in evidence by way of 4 Skylark, 4 Whitethroat, 3 Tree Sparrow, 4 Stock Dove and a Kestrel. A Grey Heron flew over – on the way to Pilling duck pond from the direction of flight. 

Whitethroat

 Kestrel

At Conder Green I donned a jacket against the cold north wind and spitting clouds. Likewise and on on the floating pontoon the tern chicks huddled against the plastic cladding and waited for the adults to arrive with breakfast. 

Common Tern

There have been good counts of Avocets in recent weeks. The best I could manage again today was 4 adults and just one half-grown youngster so the overall survival rate here seems very low given that up to five pairs may have bred or partly bred. 

Lapwings are back in some numbers with a combined count of 36 ensconced on the island or feeding in the channels. Redshanks are on the increase too with a count of 30+, also 2 Common Sandpiper, 15 Oystercatcher and 3 Curlew. Duck counts are restricted to just two species at the moment until the Wigeon and Teal arrive, so 6 Tufted Duck, 15 Shelduck and 22 Mallard. 

Tufted Duck

Feeding around the pool and over the hedgerows I counted 10+ Sand Martin, a handful of Swallows and a single Swift. In the creeks - 2 Grey Heron and 1 Little Egret. 

That was about my lot when the rain returned and I headed home. I’m out birding in the week so call in to Another Bird Blog soon and see what you’ve missed.

Linking today to World Bird Wednesday. 

Tuesday Trundle

Swallows were everywhere this morning. I saw them in each place I stopped or noted twos and threes heading north all morning and ended up with 80+ in my notebook. Despite or perhaps because of  the unexceptional overnight conditions new Wheatears and maybe a few Willow Warblers had also found their way north.

I’d started off on the coastal circuit at Conder Green with just the usual species and a few new waders: 2 Greenshank, 1 Common Sandpiper, 1 Chiffchaff, 8 Teal, 14 Shelduck, 14 Oystercatcher, 3 Little Egret, 2 Pied Wagtail. Two pairs of Tufted Duck is looking quite promising, especially since there seems to be a lack of competition for nesting spots around the pool margins this year. 

Tufted Duck

I didn’t catch up with any Avocets again and I’m wondering if the intermittent sightings in recent weeks involve a number of birds moving through rather than the supposed same pair. Interestingly, the species’ numbers at have built in the last few weeks at their stronghold of Leighton Moss some 30 miles away. 

The Cockersands area proved fruitful in numbers; especially so when a Linnet flock numbered 80+, alternating between feeding in the Lighthouse Cottage fields and the shore. In the set-aside field was a pair of Reed Bunting and a few only Meadow Pipit. From here and on the route to the “other” end of Cockersands I counted in excess of 120 (potentially 60 pairs of Lapwings) in the many fields. After a mild, wet winter the fields look very suitable for Lapwing success this year with the proviso that farming activity and predators can and usually do take a huge toll of Lapwing nests. Many seem to be still in display mode but one or two are definitely sitting on eggs. There are pairs of Redshank dotted here and there, also Oystercatchers, a pair of Greylags and the lone drake Shoveler of recent weeks whose partner either “did a runner” or is holed up nearby. 

Lapwing

Also along the route to the caravan park, two or three pairs of Skylark with a good deal of “chasing” in evidence. I saw a couple of Brown Hares too and unusually by now, perhaps because of the cold un-April like weather, I’ve seen none of their customary chasing around the fields nor witnessed any boxing matches. 

Skylark

 

Brown Hare

At the caravan park end of the stretch: 3 Willow Warblers in song, a Wheatear along the shore and also a handful of Greenfinches and Linnets searching the tideline. 

Wheatear

At Hillam Lane approximately 200 Sand Martin in the colony in repair and reconstruct mode and yet to settle into their nest holes. A drive to the marsh found 1 Buzzard, 70+ White Wagtail, 30+ Meadow Pipit, 5 Wheatear, 1 Grey Heron and a good number of Swallows heading over or flying around both farms. 

Sand Martins

There was time for a brief visit to Fluke Hall, if only to count the mutt walkers and move some of their bags of dog poo. Why be so tidy as to pick up their doggy-do and then throw the said plastic bag on the ground to be run over and squashed by the next vehicle to pass that way? Mindless, selfish idiots. 

I also “picked up” 6 Wheatear here as they fed across the ploughed field. There was a Buzzard nearby and at least two each of Blackcap and Chiffchaff. “Best” bird came by way of a single loudly calling Siskin passing overhead and into the tree tops. 

Looks like Wednesday may be OK for ringing and if Andy made it back from over the border. If so read about it here soon.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday and World Bird Wednesday.

Swallows At Last

More cold north-westerlies didn’t bode well for this morning’s circuit but I did get Swallows into double figures, picked up a few other summer migrants and ended up with a decent tally of birds. 

First stop was Gulf Lane where the winter set-aside crop now lies flat as a pancake awaiting this year’s plough. There must still be some food in there, probably the legacy of our feeding regime to catch Linnets. I found 9 Stock Dove searching the ground, 10 Linnet flying around and a single Wheatear. 

I rather like the Stock Dove, a bird which to most folk is just a bog-standard town pigeon that pecks around their feet while pooing a lot. Look closely. The Stock Dove is an attractive and rather subtly coloured bird by way of the overall bluey cast, the green ear patch, neat black wing bars and those ruby red legs. It’s a birder’s bird. Unfortunately, in the shooting season this smart little dove suffers from both looking a little like and often hanging around with its bigger cousin, the Woodpigeon. 

Stock Dove

There was another Stock Dove at Conder Green, a single bird that arrived to feed on the bare ground around the islands as I scanned across the water. After a wet winter there’s a lot of water here and this makes the pool rather deep for both waders and dabbling ducks. There was no sign of recent Avocets with waders and wildfowl limited to 16 Redshank, 14 Oystercatcher, 12 Shelduck, 4 Teal, 1 Great Crested Grebe, 1 Curlew, 1 Little Egret and a pair of Tufted Duck. 

The “tufties” bred here last year with their ten or so youngsters reduced within a few days to one or two still fluffy balls.  Who would be  parent nowadays?

Tufted Duck

As I drove towards Glasson Dock a single Swallow flew across the road, and then a little further along I spied a hovering Kestrel. Singing Blackcap, Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff at Glasson Dock where a pair of Swallows fed around and about the roadside and lock gates. 

I took a drive down Hillam Lane towards the marsh. The local Sand Martin colony swarmed with martins with my best guesstimate around 200+ birds plus four or more Swallows. Andy and I are hoping to ring the martins this year, but once again it looks like the little beggars are nesting too high up the quarry face for us to reach them. We may need a Plan B. 

Down at Cockerham Marsh it seemed to be mostly White Wagtails and Meadow Pipits with counts of circa forty of each and just 2 Pied Wagtail. A couple more Swallows rushed through and two more around the farm. 

White Wagtail

 

Meadow Pipit

I pulled off the single track road and onto the soggy marsh to let an ambulance pass by and on its way back to Lancaster Hospital - best not to bounce the passenger from their stretcher.  I’d heard the wail of the siren earlier as the ambulance rushed along the main road and down Hillam Lane to collect yet another casualty from the nearby Black Knights Parachute Centre. I do worry about that place. I’m sure there should be an apostrophe in that name. 

Time flies when you’re having fun but I had enough minutes left for a quick look at Fluke Hall. Here at least two each of both Blackcap and Chiffchaff, a Canada Goose lurking on the pool and a roadside Kestrel. Oh, and more Swallows. 

Maybe spring isn’t too far away? Next Tuesday - if those weather folk are right.

Linking today to Anni's Birding Blog in Texas.

  

Dodgy Days

I was desperate to go birding and experiment with my new 80D, preferably at a sensible ISO. All I needed was a decent spell of sunshine but that wasn’t to be. On Wednesday the sun appeared in spasms as 30mph westerlies and 50mph gusts pushed grey clouds across the sky. I ventured forth more in hope than expectation, but with yellow weather warnings I was due for a day or two of dodging the showers. 

Across the windswept moss I’d clocked up a pair of Kestrels, one of four territories noted in recent days. 

There’d been reports of several White-fronted Geese and even a Red-breasted Goose with the pinkies at Cockerham. Chances were the geese had already departed; seen off by the farmer or deterred by the day long procession of people keen to see the colourful goose, star of pager buzz but of dubious origin. 

Red-breasted Goose

I stopped off at Gulf Lane to feed the Linnets and where a shooter advised that the farmer had indeed moved the geese from his fields. A drive down his track in a Land Rover would send the geese into the air and seek out new grazing on a neighbouring farm. Farmers around here stick together - even to the extent of letting each other see the wild geese. Birders see a wild goose chase as fun sport, but for a farmer his livelihood goes down the drain when several thousand geese poop on his pasture. 

The shooter also advised that a birdwatcher had told him the flock of birds flying around the set-aside were Twite; that’s a major problem with these twitches - they bring out dodgy, part-time birders as well as suspect birds. I checked – yes, definitely Linnets, all 200+ of them; and a Little Egret sheltering from the wind in the dyke. 

Along Lancaster Lane is a major flood. Lapwings fed in their thousands with dozens of Redshanks, 30 Black-tailed Godwits, and then good numbers of Curlew and Golden Plover in the far distance. Skylarks appeared from the black stuff when flighty Lapwings caused temporary panic and mass flight of the assembled crowd. About 80 Fieldfares fed close to the hedgerow, partly sheltered from the wind but close enough to dash back should danger threaten, as they did more than once. Along the lane, and for the second time lately, I found another Kestrel hanging about a likely looking barn 

Mostly Lapwings

 

Fieldfares

Fieldfare

The wind raged across Braides Farm where many Lapwings hunkered down against the gusts that made their feeding hard work. 

I drove on up to Conder and Glasson where the high tide coupled with strength and direction of the wind would surely make Goldeneye and Tufted Ducks appear as if by magic? It did, with tightly packed counts of 45+ Goldeneye and 60+ Tufted Duck bouncing across the usually calm marina that now resembled a wave packed sea and made photography difficult. 

Tufted Duck and Goldeneye

 

Goldeneye

 

Goldeneye

At Conder Green the high tide had almost reached the road. From there and on the pool I managed to count about 200 Teal, 30+ Redshank, 4 Little Grebe, 15 Wigeon and 1 Sparrowhawk fighting against the wind to find something to eat.

Teal

Little Grebe

The weather isn’t much better today although there’s no sign yet of the predicted snow, but I ain’t going nowhere just yet.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday.

Overground And Underground

I set off this morning just in time to see a spectacular sunrise appear over Cockerham. Our west coast of Lancashire has remarkable sunsets also but there’s something very special about the light of a new day dawning over misty fields. 

A Cockerham Dawn

As usual I was on my way to Conder Green where with luck and more than a little perseverance it is possible to see a good selection of birds. I wouldn’t be disappointed, especially as the regular Barn Owl was doing the rounds of the road and the marsh at a steady 20 or so mph in trying to evade my camera and the odd vehicle that came by, even at 0600. 

Barn Owl

The usual birds graced the pool and the nearby creeks with waders at 90+ Lapwings, 30+ Redshank, 14 Oystercatcher, 5 Common Sandpiper, 2 Avocet, 2 Greenshank and 1 Dunlin. In the egret and heron department were the customary 3 Little Egret and a single Grey Heron, the numbers of both yet to show any real increase this autumn. 

Common Sandpiper

Tufted Duck have been present all spring and summer in fours, fives and sixes with the appearance today of a single brood of tiny young. With just three in tow the female has considerably less than the 10 or so ducklings more typical of the species immediately after nesting. The female flew in alone from over the canal calling to the youngsters as she landed that the coast was clear. The chicks quickly left  their hiding place in bankside vegetation and joined mum on the water. 

Tufted Duck

Other wildfowl seen - 6 Little Grebe, 2 Wigeon, 1 Teal and 1 Goosander. Four Swift flew around briefly and I suspect they were migrants as overall Swift numbers are down in the past week or two. How soon does summer change to autumn.

A quick look at Glasson Dock revealed several Coot, 6 Tufted Duck, a single Great Crested Grebe, and 2 Common Terns fishing both the dock and the yacht basin. 

I drove back over Stalmine Moss where I followed the song of a Yellowhammer, an increasingly scarce farmland bird which has reached almost celebrity status with local birders. A yellow male was singing from a fence post with a browner bird flying off as I approached the spot. 

Stalmine Moss

Yellowhammer

I stopped to watch a pair of Buzzard circling overhead but then noticed what looked like a small animal immobile in the centre of the carriageway. It was a very fresh but also very dead Mole. 

Mole - Talpa europaea

The Mole Talpa europaea is one of the most common and widespread of mammals in the UK, but because it spends most of its life in the tunnels which it digs, it is rarely seen. For most people, it is the familiar sight of molehills of soil in woods and fields and even on lawns which is their only experience of these secretive animals. 

Moles are only about 15cm long, but have stout forearms and broad front paws with strong claws which give the animal its ability to tunnel so effectively underground. Their bodies are roughly cylindrical with no neck and a pointed nose, and they are covered in thick, dark fur. 

A Mole’s diet mainly consists of earthworms, but they also feed on beetles and other insects, even baby mice and occasionally shrews if they come upon them while on the surface. A mole needs to eat the equivalent of its own bodyweight each day. In autumn they make a store of hundreds of earthworms to last them through the winter. The worms are usually chewed off at the front end so they cannot crawl away, but remain alive and so provide fresh food for several months. 

Moles are not blind, as most people believe. They do have eyes and internal ears, but these are very small to prevent them being clogged up and damaged during tunnelling. Although they can see, the mole’s eyesight is poor, with no ability to detect colours, just light from dark and movement. However, the mole has a special weapon to help it find other animals underground - an area of bare pink skin on the snout covered in tiny pimples that detect movement and the scents of prey and other moles. 

Large molehills mark the position of a nest, sometimes known as a “castle”. A line of small molehills marks the direction of a deep tunnel while a continuous line of earth marks a very shallow tunnel. Moles are considered as pests where they damage lawns and fields that farmers like to see flat. Many methods are used to try to eradicate them, often with only limited success. 

Mole harvest at Pilling

Stay tuned to Another Bird Blog. This weekend I am studying “Britain’s Birds”, an entirely new and must-have photographic field guide due for publication in mid-August. Read my review on here very soon. 

Britain's Birds

That's all for now. In the meantime I am linking this post to Run A Round Ranch and Anni's Birding Blog.

Present And Correct

This is getting to be a habit from my travels, reporting an absence of species. Last week it was a scarcity of Swallows, a blog story that struck a chord with more than one reader. Today was the absence of our UK Common Kestrel a lack of which caused me to think back to the number seen in recent months. The answer was “very few”. 

Driving over Stalmine Moss I passed a farm that is a traditional Kestrel location. Sure enough there was a single Kestrel on duty and sure enough, as this one always does, it flew off over the farm buildings as soon as the car slowed to a stop. I know of at least four or five locations in Pilling/Stalmine and Cockerham where there might be Kestrels, and at this time of the year, evidence of breeding in the form of flying youngsters. This year there are none, giving one more reason to worry about the state of our local bird populations. After all, maybe it’s important that birders should note the birds and the numbers they see but also vital to report what they don’t see when they are normally present and correct?

Kestrel

Many local farms are taking a long overdue cut of their crop of silage. Silage is made either by placing cut green vegetation in a silo or pit, by piling it in a large heap and compressing it down so as to leave as little oxygen as possible and then covering it with a plastic sheet, or by wrapping large round bales tightly in plastic film. The fermented silage is later used to feed the many sheep and cattle which crowd the fields in this area. I found a few potato fields in recent days but the rearing of sheep and cattle for supermarkets or export is widespread. This is both easier and more financially rewarding for farmers than growing labour intensive, time consuming and weather dependent spuds or carrots. In this part of Lancashire it now unusual, even rare, to see a field of crops other than grass. This all-encompassing grass monoculture has a damaging effect upon wildlife as a whole, and not just birds. 

 Silage

As I passed Crimbles I slowed to note 450+ Curlews feeding in a field cut just yesterday, the waders taking advantage of the still soft ground and short sward. Had I stopped the car rather than slowed the always shy Curlew would have flown over the sea wall and back to the marsh just 50 yards away. 

Curlew

At Conder Green the Avocet pair has a single well-grown young but the Common Terns appear to have left. The single Common Tern I later noted at Glasson Dock flew across to the River Lune rather than follow the canal back to Conder Green. 

Also on Conder Pool/creeks - a single Green Sandpiper again, 5 Common Sandpiper, 2 Stock Dove, 4 Tufted Duck, 2 Teal, 2 Little Grebe, 1 Little Egret, 15+ House Martin, 4 Swift. 

Lapwing

Little Grebe

At Glasson was evidence of a post-breeding gathering of Swallows with 70+ congregated around the assembled boats where they rested on the masts and rigging in between bouts of hawking insects over the water. 

Glasson Dock

Otherwise was a single Common Tern, 1 Grey Heron, 4 Tufted Duck, 2 Pied Wagtail and a further 8+ Swift hawking over the dock buildings and the village itself. 

Grey Heron

Tufted Duck

 Lesser Black-backed Gull

I’d enjoyed a useful couple of hours birding but now the other “b” my life beckoned in the form of babysitting. 

More birding soon with Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to World Bird Wednesday.