Local Rarity

A Barn Owl floated across Stalmine Moss but that wasn't the reason to stop. I’d heard a local rarity singing from the same spot where I saw a couple of the creatures in deepest winter. It was a Corn Bunting, that once abundant bird of local farmland but now a very occasional sight. 

Corn Bunting 

Counts of Corn Buntings are now desperately low. There are hardly any local breeding records and pitifully low numbers in wintertime when we might expect a few to feed on farmland stubble. Therein lies the problem. 

Not too many moons ago the Fylde was a summer arable landscape of growing vegetables followed by views of autumn and winter stubble, fields of waste and weed seeds left from the harvest that kept myriads of buntings and finches alive through the winter.  Those same fields are now grass and silage for sheep and cows, meat the only food that most people eat since abandoning live vegetables. Big Mac and the like have a lot to answer for. 

I read an article recently that suggested cooking skills may die out completely in the next two generations because we Brits are losing interest. Although we declare ourselves too busy to cook from scratch, opting instead for takeaways and factory food, we have plenty of time to watch TV.  The national obsession with cookery shows and watching other people prepare food on TV does not prompt us to actually cook anything other than microwaved ready meals or beans on toast. A home-made steak and kidney pie is now as rare as hens-teeth in Kentucky Fried Britain.

I digress. Back to the birds. There was a scratchy singing Whitethroat too, one of 8/10 seen this morning; so at last they have arrived. Likewise a few more Swallows scattered around farms, 30+ in total but still very few House Martins, the latter still in single figures. 

I stopped briefly at Braides, the scene of much frenzy last weekend with birders desperate to add a few Yellow Wagtails to their yearly list. How many Yellow Wagtails went unseen in other similar locations is anyone’s guess. Today a couple of Linnets, a pair of Kestrel, one Grey Heron, several Swallows, and unusually for here 4 Rooks. The Rook is a more handsome and beneficial bird than the ubiquitous and villainous Common Crow. 

Rook

I called at Conder Green where the water level is still too high for many species but the four to five pairs of Oystercatcher are not so choosy so remain on territory. There was a single Common Tern on the nesting island, the first tern back in 2018 as far as I know. I noted the bird wore a very shiny ring on the right leg but far too distant to read the inscription. Also, a single lingering usually winter only Goldeneye, 6 Tufted Duck, 6 Teal, 2 Pied Wagtail and a Kestrel. Along the hedgerow - a singing Whitethroat. Nearer to Glasson singles of Lesser Whitethroat and Willow Warbler.  

Common Tern

The circuit of Jeremy, Moss and Slack Lanes threw up a good selection of migrant birds in the shape and sound of 4 Wheatear, 4 Whitethroat (all males), 2 Sedge Warbler, 2 Willow Warbler, 2 Reed Bunting, 2 Meadow Pipit, 2 Pied Wagtail and 1 Whinchat. 

Whinchat

It was good to count 12/15 Skylark although a flock of 110 Linnets is suggestive of the still below average temperatures. Heartening also to see upwards of 15 Lapwings sat on eggs but impossible to predict how many will survive the plough of the coming weeks. 

Not everything is late this spring as proven by the Blackbird with a beak full of giant worms for the family meal. Good to see that the Blackbirds at least survive on a diet of fresh food. 

Blackbird 

Please login soon to Another Bird Blog. Can’t promise rarities but there’s always a picture or two!

Linking this post to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

This And That - Sunday October 1st

A run around the block on Saturday before the rains came didn’t produce too much in the way of birds. Sunday and it's still raining. 

I checked out the Linnet flock at Gulf Lane in the hope of a ringing session soon but a glance at the weather for the coming week doesn’t hold out much hope. While I was away in Greece Andy added another 25 Linnets and a handful of Goldfinch to the totals. Looking today most of the Goldfinch seemed to have moved on with the flock of 100+ birds almost exclusively Linnet. October is the peak migration time for Linnets so we expect the flock to increase again soon and also that those birds will include Linnets from further afield. 

Of course in Greece I’d missed the mid-September first arrivals of Pink-footed Geese to Lancashire but rather made up for it with many skeins flying off the marsh and over my head towards an inland destination. I’d counted more than 1700 in dozens of flocks before the movement died off and I too moved on. 

Pink-footed Geese

There was a Wheatear on the gateposts at Braides Farm with approximately 90 Lapwing and 100 Curlew scattered across the long grassy fields. 

Wheatear

A good find on a flooded field at Pilling/Rawcliffe Moss was a single Ruff feeding amongst a flock of 95 Lapwing but little else with a Saturday shoot with its accompanying noise and disturbance about to begin. 

Ruff

So in the absence of local news, and not much prospect for the coming week against the tail ends of two hurricanes, here’s more from Greece, 14-28 September 2017. 

A friendly horse - Platanias, Skiathos

 

Alonisos, Skiathos

The Yellow-legged Gulls of Skiathos are quite unlike our large UK gulls in exploiting the process of rubbish disposal and the British love of feeding birds. The Yellow-legged Gulls of Skiathos rarely come ashore but spend their time feeding offshore and sitting on the mostly flat sea, apart from on windy days. It was along the shore here at Alonisos that we had super views of an Eleonora's Falcon as one dashed left to right and quickly out of sight after being chased off by a Kestrel. 

Yellow-legged Gulls, Alonisos, Skiathos

I didn’t get any new birds this year but had a butterfly “tick” by way of a White Admiral Limenitis arthemis, a woodland species that we found along the margins of an olive grove near Alonisos. It took me a while to find this on Google because perhaps naturally enough, I searched for “black butterfly”. Doh! Seemingly, this species occurs in the UK and is increasing. 

White Admiral

We saw many, many Swallowtails this year, probably hundreds - a very beautiful butterfly that we also see during May in Menorca. “Papilio demoleus is an aggressive and very common butterfly. It is perhaps the most widely distributed swallowtail in the world.” – Wiki. 

Swallowtail

Below is yet another Red-backed Shrike and then a Whinchat. We saw very few Whinchats this year due to the lack of migrant birds as a whole. Also, not a single Wheatear and very few Yellow Wagtails. 

Red-backed Shrike

Red-backed Shrike

Whinchat

I knew that Spotted Flycatchers occasionally eat fruit but never witnessed it until this year in Skiathos. In the dry summer of Greece blackberries aren’t nearly as plump as those from a UK hedgerow but clearly good enough for a Spotted Flycatcher. 

Spotted Flycatcher

Spotted Flycatcher

Spotted Flycatcher

Skiathos

The Boat Yard, Skiathos

Stay tuned for more news, views and photos soon.

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesdasy.

Home from Home

Sorry there’s no recent news. Sue and I are in Skiathos, Greece for a few days. Back soon but in the meantime there are pictures from recent years in Skiathos. Enjoy, and don’t forget to “click the pics” of Skiathos and its birds. 

 Skiathos - centre right

Red-backed Shrike

Hooded Crow

Hoopoe

Yellow Wagtail

Skiathos Town

Skiathos Town

Skiathos Town

Kechria

Isabelline Wheatear

Whinchat

Little Egret

Yellow Wagtail

To The Beach

 Alonisos -Skiathos

 

Skiathos - Kastro

Skiathos

 

Woodchat Shrike

Eleonora's Falcon

Red-backed Shrike

European Shag

Koziakis - Skiathos Town

View towards Skiathos Town

Let's finish with a video of Skiathos. It features the headland of Kastro where the Eleonora's Falcons spend the summer months . Enjoy.   

Back soon.

Birding Around The Block

I had just a couple of hours spare to whizz around the block this morning. It proved quite productive thanks to the usual spots of Conder Green and Cockersands with both Sedge Warblers and Whitethroats much in evidence. I also saw my first Whinchat of the spring. 

There was a lot to see and hear at Conder Green, both in the creeks and on the pool. April and May is the peak time for the brick-red "Icelandic" Black-tailed Godwits that pass through this region,  when many hundreds of them may appear at favoured locations. For example up to 1,000 this week at the RSPB reserve of Leighton Moss some 20 miles north of here.

I made do with just three godwits today. They fed in the creek below the road and sharing the spoils with 3 Little Egret, 3 Greenshank, 2 Common Sandpiper, 4 Teal and 12 Redshank. 

Black-tailed Godwit

 

One Kestrel hunted the marsh and the roadside while several Swallows flew around and then over. At the nearby bridge and creek-side houses there’s no sign of House Martins yet but I did see one in the week at a neighbour’s house that hosts several nests each year. The martins are now definitely “late” as are our Swifts, held up somewhere to the south of here. I’m expecting to see thousands of Swifts next week, but not around here. Somewhere a little warmer and sunnier. 

Meanwhile on the pool the female Avocet sat tight on the nest with the male close at hand as around them Shelducks and Oystercatchers played out their spring displays. Still 4 Tufted Ducks sailing around the pool, and once again a Kingfisher put in an all too brief appearance. 

A circuit of Jeremy Lane/Moss Lane/Slack Lane found me stopping at several points to look for Sedge Warblers or Whitethroats after I’d heard their respective chattering songs. In fact I reckoned I saw and heard 12+ Sedge Warbler, 10 Whitethroat, 8 Skylark, 4 Willow Warbler, 4 Reed Bunting and a single Whinchat, the latter a fine looking male posing briefly alongside the road. 

Whinchat - Photo credit: Radovan Václav via Foter.com / CC BY-NC

Skylark

Sedge Warbler

 

The local hares are getting more active although they are not always easy to see in some of the grassy silage fields that are almost ready for a first cut after the wet and mild winter. The European or Brown Hare Lepus eurpeaus is a sturdy and handsome beast,  nothing like the cuddly “bunny” of pet shops and children’s tales that people mistake them for.

Brown Hare

Stay tuned for more news and photos soon from Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to Anni's Birding.

And, dear reader, when you have a minute to spare. For once, here’s a worthwhile petition to sign.

"Re-engagement with Britain's natural history has never been more urgent. Young people need the skills to name, observe, monitor and record wildlife. It is vital to understand the contribution nature makes to our lives physically, culturally, emotionally and scientifically both in the past and today".

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/176749

Greece Again

Why bother to go on holiday? I asked the question on Wednesday evening after viewing the overgrown garden, the pile of letters and junk mail waiting to be sorted, never mind the dozens of emails. 

And then I downloaded the pictures from two weeks in Skiathos to reveal the answer to my question. The island of Skiathos may be just 46 sq km, but many people choose to return for their holidays year after year for the simple fact that it has amongst the best beaches of the Greek islands, a large variety of tavernas, places to stay and the fact that it has a spectacular coastline that begs to be explored. The day before we left for home we too felt the pull of the island and left a deposit to secure our room for 2017. 

There aren’t many bird pictures in this posting as the weather was mostly too clear and sunny for large scale migration, but there are lots of photos of the island and the places we visited. Several locals told us how there had been a lack of rain for the previous three months, a fact that became all too obvious once we began to explore in our go-anywhere Jimny and viewed the tinder dry landscape.

Don't forget to 'click the pics' for a close-up of Skiathos.

The plane’s approach took us close to the sister island of Skopelos with Skiathos Town on the right, just before the pilot turned right towards the rapid and heavily braked landing on the short, but recently extended runway. 

Skiathos Town

 

The Bourtzi, Skiathos Town

Around The Bourtzi, Skiathos

The Old Port, Skiathos Town 

Next stop Skopelos

Skiathos Town from the Airport

Arrival - Skiathos

Our host Makis Mathinou met us at the airport and just twenty minutes later we settled down in our favourite room at the idyllic, stunning and totally soothing Hotel Ostria. I am reluctant to mention this hotel on the Internet for fear of the place becoming too well known. Some secrets are best kept that way. But word does seem to have got around via the dreaded Trip Advisor, and quite deservedly, anyone wishing to stay at The Ostria must be quick off the mark to reserve a room.

The hotel has resident Hooded Crows and plays host to Scop’s Owl, Little Owl, Spotted Flycatcher, Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Red-backed Shrike. It also offers free drinks from the swimming pool to Barn Swallows and Red-rumped Swallows and on occasion, Bee Eaters which join the swifts and swallows overhead in the hunt for flying insects. We had one sighting of Bee Eaters this year when a party of eight or ten flew around before heading off towards the nearby shore. 

The Ostria, Agia Paraskevi

Hooded Crow

We had a super two weeks and even though the weather turned a little dodgy in week two with a couple of mornings of heavy rain to disrupt migration, the birds never arrived in any numbers. Even after downpours the landscape remained dry and parched with a lack of standing water where migrants might normally be found.

On a number of days we called in at Aselinos and the tomato farm near Xanemos beach and found Yellow Wagtail, Whinchat, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, House Sparrow and Red-backed Shrikes, together with Barn Swallows, Swifts and Red-rumped Swallows, plus the ubiquitous Hooded Crows. The cliffs at the tomato/pepper farm are a good spot to watch for gulls and Eleonora’s Falcon as it’s not far from the falcon’s stronghold of Kastro just along the coast. Yellow-legged Gull is the neighbourhood gull of Skiathos but unlike our closely related UK Herring Gull, the Yellow-legged Gull of Skiathos remains wary of human contact and wouldn’t dream of snatching a sandwich. 

Aselinos, Skiathos

Red-backed Shrike

 Yellow Wagtail

A dodgy morning near Xanemos

Eleonora's Falcon

 Yellow-legged Gull

On other days we explored the unmade roads and tracks of the wild north coast to the beaches of Kanapitsa, Kechria, Ligaries and Agistros where we came across more shrikes, flycatchers and Whinchats but this time with Common Whitethroat, Blackcap and Lesser Whitethroat amongst the Chiffchaffs. There are one or two pairs of Ravens on the island, birds which alerted us to the presence of on high Honey Buzzards, a Kestrel and more Eleonora’s.

On our journeys we we found similarly minded people, not birding, but simply exploring and enjoying the landscape, mostly in the obligatory Jimny.  Anyone thinking of driving in Skiathos, dont worry. The only things to be be wary of are taxi drivers on flight days, tourists strolling along the narrow streets of town, or helmetless locals riding motorcycles. Sticking to rules is not something the Greeks enjoy. 

Which Way? - Skiathos

 

Skiathos goat

Agistros - Skiathos

Whinchat

Jimnys- Skiathos

Kechria - Skiathos

Spotted Flycatcher

Looking for warblers- Skiathos

Kanapitsa - Skiathos

Skopelos and Tsougria viewed from Kanapitsa - Skiathos

Skiathos is a captivating island that has great charm, a fascinating history, wonderful beaches, a friendly and civilised population and one that boasts an amazing array of tavernas in which to spend an evening. I heartily recommend it to readers. In fact, I’ll drink to that. Cheers everyone! 

Dish Of the Mum - Skiathos

Tourists - Skiathos

Back soon with more to enjoy.

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