Ups And Downs

I followed up yesterday’s Yellowhammer sighting by going back for pictures on a quiet and sunny Sunday morning. Yellowhammers tend to be late breeders and it’s not unusual to see and hear them in full song in the latter half of the summer. I saw nothing of the female today, just the male sending out his song acrosss the landscape. His mate is obviously sat on a second brood of eggs not too far away from the various song posts.

Yellowhammer

Yellowhammer

Yellowhammer

The Yellowhammer is in poor shape in this part of Lancashire, part of a national and European decline caused by decreased survival rates and agricultural intensification. 

I can’t do better than quote from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) website and include their graph that really says it all. 

“Yellowhammer abundance began to decline on farmland in the mid-1980s. The downward trend has continued to at least 2009, although with substantial increase in Scotland since 2003. The Breeding Bird Survey map of change in relative density between 1994-96 and 2007-09 indicates that in Britain there is a sharp divide between decrease in the east and south and limited increase in the northwest; the population in Northern Ireland has also declined. 

Atlas surveys in 2008-11 indicate that range loss in Northern Ireland and western Britain, first noted in 1988-91, has continued strongly. The species, listed as green in 1996, has been red listed since 2002. There has been widespread moderate decline across Europe since 1980.” 

Yellowhammer - British Trust for Ornithology (BTO)

Yellowhammer

Yellowhammer

Less than a mile away I found another male in song, this time from the top of a hawthorn bush. Like many species, Yellowhammers like to sing from a prominent post so as to project their voice far and wide. 

Yellowhammer

Not far away I found a few Jackdaws on typical territory - chimney pots. Yes, Jackdaws increasingly nest in disused chimney pots now that people have central heating rather than fires at the bottom of the chimney.  However not everyone likes Jackdaws around their property and a simple mesh can do the trick, but maybe with the addition of a “Keep Out” sign? 

Jackdaws

Jackdaw

“Jackdaws have increased in abundance since the 1960s and more recent Breeding Bird (BBS) Survey data suggest that the increase is continuing in all UK countries. The BBS map of change in relative density between 1994-96 and 2007-09 indicates an increase fairly uniform across the UK range, but with some minor decrease in eastern Scotland. Numbers across Europe have been broadly stable since 1980.

The graph for the Jackdaw is a mirror image of that for the Yellowhammer.

Jackdaw - BTO - British Trust for Ornithology (BTO)

The morning was getting busy with hordes of wannabee Bradley Wiggins' crowding noisily across the carriageways so I made a beeline for the relative quiet of Gulf Lane. 

The farmer here is undertaking a Higher Level Stewardship Scheme until 2020/21. He receives Government money via Natural England to set-aside part of his land to enhance wildlife, in this case planting a large field with a wild bird seed mix.

We ringed 208 Linnets here in the winter of 2016/2017 and plan to start ringing very soon and then through to March/April 2018. Let’s hope that next winter there’s no more avian flu in the area to throw a spanner in our essential work to discover what id happening to this Red Listed species.

Wild Bird Mix

 Goldfinch

Whitethroat

There’s a good mix of birds here now - a small flock of Linnets, a couple of Whitethroat, ten or twelve Tree Sparrow, plus a few Reed Bunting and Goldfinch. Next week Andy and I will go and cut a ride through the crop mix in readiness for our first ringing session of the new season.

And finally, in particular for my friend Anni in Texas, here's a Yellowhammer telling us all about his "little bit of bread and no cheese".

Back soon. Don't miss out.

Linking to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

A Little Bit Of Blackpool

Tuesday meant a ringing trip to Marton Mere, Blackpool. This Lancashire seaside resort is famous for many things, including a 1937 George Formby song "With My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock", a ditty banned by BBC radio of the day for having suggestive lyrics. Nowadays, anything goes in trendy but traditional Blackpool. 

Two miles from the world famous Blackpool Tower, the Pleasure Beach, the honky-tonk Promenade and alleged debauchery of Blackpool nightlife is Marton Mere. The mere is a water body believed to occupy a kettle-hole formed during the last glaciation over 14,000 years ago, and is thus one of only two remaining water bodies in Lancashire of natural origin, the other being Hawes Water at Silverdale, also a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). 

Marton Mere is now local nature reserve, a tranquil refuge on Blackpool’s urban fringe, important for nature conservation, quiet recreation and environmental education with a number of bird populations and other nationally important species of dragonflies, butterflies, bats and orchids. 

Marton Mere, Blackpool

I met up with Andy at 0630, a time when many Blackpool revellers choose to retire to bed after a long night of song and dance. We set up shop near the rangers’ hut and waited for our little bit of Blackpool to begin. 

Unlike 10 days ago, today we managed just 8 species in the catch of 21 birds dominated by Reed Warbler and a healthy number of Blackcaps – 8 Reed Warbler, 7 Blackcap 2 Blackbird, 1 Sedge Warbler, 1 Wren, 1 Great Tit and 1 Dunnock. 

Six of the Blackcap proved to be first year birds, probably bred on site or close by. The area of the mere is now almost surrounded by extensive parkland and woodland of Stanley Park and Blackpool Zoo, all of which hold many pairs of Blackcap in ideal habitat. 

Blackcap

 Our eight Reed Warblers included a male first ringed here in 2015, the rest all juveniles/first years. 

Reed Warbler

 Just one Sedge Warbler from what is now not prime habitat for this species. 

Sedge Warbler

 

Other species seen but not caught included Cetti’s Warbler, Lesser Whitethroat, Common Whitethroat, Chiffchaff, Greenfinch, Reed Bunting and Song Thrush. 

Common Whitethroat

And in case you were wondering – here’s a little stick of Blackpool Rock. 

Blackpool Rock

Log in soon for more sweet stuff and birds from Another Bird Blog.

Meanwhile, take a look at Eileen's Blog and Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

Mere Ringing and LBJs

This morning I went along to Andy’s local patch and joined him for a ringing session. 

Marton Mere is a mere (lake) and Local Nature Reserve in Blackpool, Lancashire. It is recognised as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (1979) and supports various habitats such as open water, reed beds and grassland as well as pockets of woodland and scrub. The area provides home to a good variety of birds both resident and migratory. Over the years the mere and its surrounds has turned up a good number of rare birds including American Bittern, Whiskered Tern, Short-billed Dowitcher, Hoopoe, Barred Warbler, Little Bittern, Wryneck and Savi’s Warbler.  In doing so the mere attracts good numbers of bird watchers and twitchers hoping to see the current or next rarity.

Marton Mere - geograph.org.uk

Our focus this morning was on catching resident birds and where possible proving breeding. The mere went for many, many years with no breeding bird surveys or bird ringing on which to formulate an environmental management programme for the area - a sad state of affairs. 

In very recent years, and thanks to the cooperation of Blackpool Borough Council, Andy has been allowed and encouraged to undertake a bird ringing project in a small and secure area. We spent 5 hours there this morning during which we caught 44 birds of 14 species including a good number of warblers. As we might expect in early July, all of the species we caught were either in breeding condition as adults or recently fledged local juveniles. 

Totals - 17 Reed Warbler, 6 Blue Tit, 5 Whitethroat, 3 Sedge Warbler, 2 Cetti’s Warbler, 2 Blackcap, 2 Dunnock, 2 Robin, 1 Blackbird, 1 Song Thrush, 1 Chiffchaff , 1 Treecreeper, 1 Reed Bunting. The phragmites reed is now very extensive and now good enough to hold many pairs of Reed Warbler and even regular wintering Bitterns and sometimes, Bearded Tits. 

We work just a small area of the reed perimeter so our catch of 11 new Reed Warblers and 6 recaptures from 3 weeks ago was very worthwhile.

Reed Warbler - first year/juvenile

Cetti’s Warblers first appeared at Marton Mere in the early 1970’s following their colonisation of the southern England in the 1960’s. Because Cetti’s Warbler is very elusive, more regularly heard than seen, breeding is difficult to prove. Today we caught a female with a good sized brood patch and so in in breeding condition. The juvenile was not noticeably young but clearly a local bird, and by now the female could be on with a second set of eggs. 

Cetti's Warbler - first year/juvenile

Just three Sedge Warblers caught - all adults. The area we worked is not absolutely suited to Sedge Warbler, added to which, habitat changes in recent years across the whole site have caused the species to decline since the 1990’s. 

Sedge Warbler - adult

A Chiffchaff sung all around us most of the morning so it was not a surprise to find that we caught it. 

Chiffchaff - adult male

The Whitethroat is another species to have suffered an on-site decline due to habitat changes with species being somewhat replaced by the Blackcap, a more strictly woodland bird. The Robin is a species of mainly woodland, the Treecreeper almost exclusively so, and a species unheard of at Marton Mere in the past. 

Blackcap - female

 

Whitethroat - first year/juvenile

 

Whitethroat - first year/juvenile

Robin - first year/juvenile

Treecreeper - first year/juvenile

Forty five little brown jobs kept us pretty much occupied with little or no opportunity for birding, but other species noted included Sparrowhawk, Grasshopper Warbler, Common Tern and Goldfinch. 

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday.

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. 

Hot-Spot Cold-Spot

The still northerly breeze meant no ringing but the early morning sun dictated a birding trip to the customary hot-spots, starting at Conder Green. 

On Saturday four Avocets fed together but today it was back to perhaps an earlier pair, probably the two that arrived a couple of weeks ago. Following a good few days of sunnier if not necessarily warm weather the female is now sat on a nest. 

Meanwhile the two second year Avocets that spent a few hours here on Saturday morning seemed to have gone and were merely passing through on their way north and/or east. Avocets don’t normally breed until their third year whereby second year birds make up the numbers in the colonies that Avocets sometimes, but not always choose to breed. Conder Green is large enough for several pairs of Avocets but that is not necessarily a good thing as the species can be very aggressive in seeing off all opposition, large or small. 

There was no such aggression today, mainly because there was little for the Avocets to complain about. The usual water birds comprised 2 Greenshank, 1 Common Sandpiper, 6 Tufted Duck, 8 Teal, 16 Shelduck and 2 Little Egret. A Kingfisher put in another brief appearance by flying through the creek, up and over the road, and then across the pool and out of sight. 

Passerines were hard to come by except for singles of Blackcap, Whitethroat, Willow Warbler, Reed Bunting and Meadow Pipit in the scrubby habitat next to the main road. I’m seeing only male Whitethroats just yet but not in great numbers. The continual north winds, blocking high pressure and below average temperatures must be holding many migrant birds back on the south coast or beyond. 

Whitethroat

 

26th April

Meadow Pipit

As I drove off from Conder Green a Kestrel hovered over the marsh and for a few seconds pulled in a couple of complaining Swallows. I didn’t see too many Swallows during the morning, just one or two House Martins, and I didn’t stop to survey the Sand Martins at Bank Lane. 

The marsh at the end of Bank Lane was very quiet, the best I could muster being singles of Whimbrel and Grey Heron, and then 6 Pied Wagtail. 

Whimbrel

I spent quite a while along Jeremy Lane, Moss Lane and up to Cockersands. I had Wheatear, Chiffchaff, Reed Bunting, Linnet, Goldfinch, 3 Sedge Warblers and 3 Whitethroat. Just as feared, a number of fields that held Lapwings and Skylarks have been ploughed just as ground nesting birds have eggs and/or tiny young. I found a pair of Skylark in one regular spot but at another unvarying spot of the last few weeks - nothing. A good few fields had been ploughed right up to the fence line and the 80/100 Lapwings of recent weeks seem well down, replaced today by 8 Stock Doves attracted by the turned soil. 

Skylark

Lapwing

Near Lighthouse Cottage a male Whitethroat was in full song and showy mood for the females yet to arrive. His singing and display circuit proved easy to suss: the overhead wire and then the tallest bushes of the roadside plot, followed by a scurry along the roadside fence where sprigs of bramble provided cover. A singing Sedge Warbler stuck to the vegetation and wasn’t as obliging as the Whitethroat. 

An adult male Whitethroat has a lovely pink wash across the breast upon first arrival in late April but the healthy glow soon vanishes during the rough and tumble of a British summer. 

Whitethroat

Whitethroat

Sedge Warbler

Whitethroat

I may be out on Friday if the weather holds good. Log in then for more news, views and photos.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday.

Good Morning

The morning started in fine style. Not a cloud in the sky and a promise of sun all day. There was no ringing today so I set off birding camera at the ready as mist began to clear from the ditches and dykes. 

Pilling morning, Lancashire

All was quiet at Conder Green save for the usual display flights of the Oystercatchers and the resident Shelducks still sorting out their pairs. I looked across at the far bank hoping to see the elusive Avocets but instead of the expected two I saw four. There seemed little aggression between the four as they all fed together until at one point two flew across to a nearer island. After a few minutes the pair flew back to join the others on the far side of the pool and I turned my attention to what else might be lurking unseen.  It was cold and just 3°C at 0730. Visible migration seemed nil apart from a few Swallows and Sand Martins heading north at a fair rate of knots. 

Shelduck

Avocets

Avocet

I looked around for other birds and on the water found 18 Shelduck, 16 Oystercatcher, 6 Tufted Duck, 1 Great Crested Grebe, 1 Goosander and 2 Teal. A Kingfisher flew by but didn’t stay. Kingfishers breed not far away along the canal or upstream of the River Conder which just here is little more than a trickle of water at the end of its journey from the inland fells. 

In the creeks and on the marsh: 2 Greenshank, 1 Spotted Redshank, 1 Common Sandpiper, 1 Curlew, 4 Little Egret, 1 Grey Heron and 2 Pied Wagtail. 

I drove up to Cockersands where the drake Shoveler still frequents the flash flood that will soon dry up. I’d watched him fly in from close by and where I think his mate is hidden on a nest. The handsome Shoveler is now something of a scarce breeding bird in this part of Lancashire whereby a possible breeding pair is quite noteworthy. 

Shoveler

Near Lighthouse Cottage a female wagtail was busy collecting nest material while the male looked on. That looks to be a rather fine finishing material she’s collecting for the nest lining. 

 Pied Wagtail

 Pied Wagtail

I heard my first Whitethroat of the year. It was jumping around between the hedge and the bramble fence-line, singing for all it was worth after that long journey from Africa. There was a Sedge Warbler along the ditch too but it sang from low down with just a sub-song at that. Maybe it tuned up later after I‘d hi-tailed it towards the caravan park. 

Whitethroat

I noted several Linnets about and also six or eight very mobile Twite. The Twite spent a minute or two on the overhead wires before they twittered off into the distance towards the shore. The Twite is very closely related to the Linnet and carries the colloquial name of “mountain linnet” after its habitat preference for the uplands. A male Twite has a very short yellow beak and no pink chest, unlike the Linnet which has a heavier greyish bill and at this time of year a bright red chest. The call of the two species in flight is similar, but to the trained ear noticeably different. 

Twite

Twite

There wasn’t much doing near the caravan park although I did notice much more Brown Hare activity than of late, including a little chasing and sparring. The sunny morning helped me see upwards of 20 hares this morning although not all of them were as obliging as the ones that sit motionless, ears sleeked back and disguised as a clump of earth. Mostly they run from the sound of an approaching vehicle or footsteps. Look closer, it’s a Brown Hare, not a bundle of brown soil. 

 Brown Hare

Brown Hare

Towards the caravan park: 6 singing Skylark, 6 Tree Sparrow, 4 Goldfinch, 1 Grey Heron, 1 Little Egret and 80+ Lapwing. 

Skylark

Fingers crossed for those Lapwings and Skylarks.

Linking this post to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday and Anni's Birding Blog.