Saturday 22nd July

What a rotten week it’s been. Rain most days, often windy and nothing like summer. Saturday promised slightly better so I set off on the usual trail over the moss and in the general direction of Conder Green. 

I hit upon a young Kestrel and then a singing Yellowhammer, the latter not quite as rare as hen’s teeth but certainly getting that way. It took me a while to locate from where the male proclaimed his “little bit of bread and no cheese” until I spotted him 30ft up a roadside post. 

Yellowhammer

Seems there was a Cattle Egret at Conder Green during the week, a one-day wonder on Thursday that a good number of people saw but perhaps not enough to ensure the species figures on everyone’s British List. 

Just as well I saw one there on April 2nd, part of  a small invasion of the species to the UK. But the Cattle Egret is still an elusive species to many a birder. Not so in many countries I’ve visited including Egypt where Cattle Egrets are as tame as church mice. 

There was no Cattle Egret today so I made do with 4 Little Egret and 2 Grey Heron as part of the 40 species I saw. A Kingfisher put in two brief appearances in between flying across the water to try its luck on the other side of the pool – afraid the light was poor again at ISO1000.

Kingfisher

I guess the Kingfisher is after the same tiddler prey as the five Little Grebes. It was most unusual that one of the grebes came in fairly close today, a juvenile bird but one that arrived from elsewhere in the last two or three weeks. On the raft today were two Common Terns, birds seemingly uninterested in the tiddlers in Conder Pool, but heading off to the estuary where they might find something more substantial. 

Little Grebe

Waders are back in some numbers now, mostly Lapwings with a count of 180+ and many more on the fields beyond the canal. In the week and during a rain aborted look, I counted 900 Lapwings and 400 Curlews in two fields not far away. 

Back to today and in addition to the Lapwings, 48 Redshank, 10 Oystercatcher, 7 Common Sandpiper, 2 Dunlin, 2 Curlew, 1 Greenshank and 1 Whimbrel "over". The Oystercatchers on the island still have one chick, now growing nicely thanks to two attentive parents. 

Oystercatcher

"Odds and ends" amounted to 2 Stock Dove, 8 Greylag and 2 Cormorant, but not forgetting the Tufted Ducks, mother proudly in charge of four tiny ducklings and father nowhere to be seen. 

Along, around, and over the roadside hedgerow proved pretty good with 10+ Swift, 40 Sand Martin and several Swallows. There was a Sparrowhawk carrying small prey but I lost it as it flew over and behind the trees at the rear of the Stork Hotel. 

Passerines along the hedgerow: 6 Goldfinch, 3 Linnet, 2 Chiffchaff, 2 Reed Bunting and 1 Meadow Pipit. 

Linnet

 

Reed Bunting

The weather is looking better for next week. Let’s hope the experts are right for once?

Linking today to Anni's Birding.

Two Cautionary Tales

The Yellowhammer Eberiza citrinella is one of my favourite birds; I have many. Very often my favourite birds boil down to those I have grown to admire and respect after witnessing their decline over many years of birdwatching. Readers of this blog will be familiar with other species I mention frequently here - Lapwing and Corn Bunting to name but two. These three, plus a number of others are British species which dangle by a population thread thanks to the horrors of modern farming,  increased disturbance from an expanding human population and uncontrolled predators. Our once green and pleasant land is being trashed like never before in the name of the of  “economic progress”.

I recently watched a Yellowhammer on top of a fence post singing its melancholic “little bit of bread and no cheese”. It carried on singing until fatherly duties drew it back to the rough field where the female would be sat tight on her second lot of eggs. Yellowhammers nest low down in a bush, but sometimes on the ground. Yellowhammers are known to sing quite late in the year, sometimes into September. Also the male sings more frequently when the female is actually incubating. 

Yellowhammer

 

The sight and sound was a “blast from the past”, welcome for sure as I don’t see or hear the Yellowhammer much these days after a more than 30% decline in 25 years. Those aren’t my figures but highly optimistic and nationally calculated ones. The decline in our local farmland is more like 80%, and still plunging downwards, observations based on many years of field work, bird ringing and generally being an inquisitive but sceptical bugger about statistics offered up by experts. This is  especially so where localised factors come into play that are not picked up by overall trends.

Yellowhammer

The Yellowhammer population was pretty stable until the late 1980’s when the present decline began until it is now “red listed” as an endangered species within the UK. The reasons for the decline are many faceted with the major culprit being agricultural intensification: 

• the mismanagement/destruction of hedgerows and associated field margins 
• a decrease in late summer cereal crops/substitution with grass/silage crops and subsequent loss of winter stubble 
• more efficient grain collection with less “spillage” and less grain left on the ground for seed eating birds 
• increased use of pesticides to remove weeds and insects 
• woodland planting along fringe habitats and the resulting decrease in suitable breeding sites for an open-area species 
• increased predation from corvids  and others
• urbanisation/fragmentation of habitat

It's an all too familiar story I'm afraid. 

And here’s tale number two, also concering the Yellowhammer.

The Yellowhammer, a bird native to the British Isles was many years ago introduced to a set of islands on the other side of the world - New Zealand. As so often happens there follows a familiar tale of man interfering with the laws of nature established during millions of years of evolution of species. 

The population of New Zealand settlers in the middle 19th century grew fast. The same was true for insect crop pests, particularly caterpillars and black field crickets. Normally, pests like these would be kept under control by insectivorous birds. However, New Zealand had none available for the job. 

 Yellowhammer

The settlers cleared away New Zealand's forests and native birds disappeared with them. In the circumstances introducing insectivorous birds from England seemed to make sense. Yet, the bird species chosen by the Acclimatisation Societies (organisations founded specifically to introduce new animals and plants to New Zealand) for the task included some surprises, with the Yellowhammer one of the biggest. It is well known to us today that this heavy-billed bunting is primarily a consumer of seeds rather than insects, but it seems it was not so evident back then. 

Yellowhammer

During the 1860's and 1870's, 25 ships set out from London to various ports around New Zealand with these birds on board. Some were ordered by Acclimatisation Societies, some were sent for privately. A quarter of these shipments were organised by one family, Bills & sons from Brighton, and many of the Yellowhammers came from the area around this English coastal town. 

A scientific journal (NeoBiota) used newspapers and documents from the 19th century to reconstruct the history of how the Yellowhammer went from hero to villain in New Zealand in just 15 years. The detective work by the scientists not only identified where the Yellowhammers came from, but also where they ended up. They were able to pinpoint localities of release, and sometimes even how many birds were liberated there. 

Yellowhammers were initially warmly welcomed by the Kiwis but soon local farmers started to complain about the Yellowhammers’ taste for their cereal crops. The complaints fell on deaf ears as the Acclimatisation Societies with Government support continued to promote the introduction of Yellowhammers. In 1880 the last shipment of Yellowhammers arrived but these birds were never set free. Public pressure forced the Acclimatisation Society to get rid of them, and they were sent to Australia. 

From then on, Yellowhammers became the target of shooting, egg-collection, and poisoning. All means were allowed to rid the countryside of this now unwelcome guest. By then it was too late: Yellowhammers were well and truly Kiwis, and they remain common and widespread in New Zealand to this day. 

Yellowhammer

Who knows, pretty soon we may be asking our Kiwi cousins to return some of our Yellowhammers? If we as a nation continue down the route of destroying our wildlife heritage we sure as hell won’t have any of our own Yellowhammers left to sing of their "little bit of bread and no cheese".

Linking today to World Bird Wednesday.

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.

Over And Out

This blog stays well clear of party politics apart from occasionally noting that politicians know or care little about the environment or birds in general, but will answer a question or give an opinion with clichés or words they think a questioner wants to hear. There are no votes in birds. 

The referendum of 23rd June is slightly different by giving ordinary people a chance to decide whether the UK should either leave or stay in the European Union. There is a clear choice based not along traditional party lines of left, right or centre, but on how people feel about being part of the EU. No one should feel obliged to vote how their usual party allegiance tells them. 

Supposedly there are 500 bird species protected by the EU Wild Birds Directive, but it has achieved little or nothing for once common birds like the Cuckoo, the Curlew, the Lapwing, the Turtle Dove, the Skylark, the Yellowhammer, the Corn Bunting or the Yellow Wagtail. They are all in serious decline as seen in my own local area during the past 30+ years. A vast amount of public money has been wasted, misspent or worse, in thousands of funded agri-environment schemes that are not adequately checked or controlled with the result that most of the schemes produce no meaningful increases in our UK wildlife. 

Turtle Dove - declined 88% since 1995 

Common Cuckoo- declined +49%

 Lapwing - declined +55%

Yellow Wagtail - declined +43%

Corn Bunting - declined +50%

In the European Union there are theoretical constraints on the killing of migratory birds but hunting continues unabated as the EU shows itself unwilling or unable to stop the slaughter. The situation in the Mediterranean is appalling. Every year, from one end of it to the other, hundreds of millions of songbirds and larger migrants are killed for food, profit, sport, or general amusement. The killing is indiscriminate with heavy impact on species already battered by destruction or fragmentation of their breeding habitat. Mediterranean hunters shoot cranes, storks, and large raptors for which governments to the north have multimillion Euro conservation projects. 

All across Europe bird populations are in steep decline, and the slaughter in the Mediterranean is one of the causes. The French continue to eat Ortolan Buntings illegally, and France’s long list of “quarry” birds includes many struggling species of shorebirds. Songbird trapping is still widespread in parts of Spain where migratory thrushes are a particular target. Maltese hunters blast migrating raptors out of the sky. Cypriots harvest warblers on an industrial scale and consume them in platefuls of “ambelopoulia” (trapped birds) at €50/€60 a time in law-breaking restaurants. 

One of the most damaging implications of Britain joining the EU has been the effect on our fishing industry by the UK giving up its territorial waters and protected fishing areas to the EU. The results of this disastrous policy have been witnessed just a few miles down the road from here at Fleetwood, a once thriving fishing port. As with most policies emanating from the centralised elite in Brussels, the Common Fisheries Policy was a major disaster. After its introduction in 1970, the CFP has been synonymous with decline of our fish stocks, deterioration of the environment, wasteful discarding of fish and the destruction of Britain’s fishing industry and communities. 

I worry about the unfettered freedom of movement across Europe, mainly the movement of both legal and illegal migrants, an ongoing disaster played out on our television screens on an almost daily basis. The population of the UK has risen relentlessly until it is close to 60 million due to immigration and the inevitable baby boom. The British countryside can never ever recover from the trashing now taking place to cater for the ever growing population of this tiny island. Each day I pass more and more green fields consumed by yet more houses and roads as hedgerows and trees are destroyed to heap yet more pressure onto our beleaguered birds. 

Staying in or leaving Europe should depend on other issues. Perhaps even the notion of democracy? Britain has little or no say in decisions reached by the other 27 member states or the unelected EU Commissioners who have too much clout in deciding how the EU is run. I don’t fancy living in a huge socialist experiment called The United States of Europe. That is the next stage of the EU plan - to swallow the UK and others into an amorphous mass that can be controlled more easily by an unelected elite without due democratic process. 

Meanwhile youth unemployment in Southern Europe continues near 50%, Greek debt soars to $350 billion and other countries line up to demand a vote on leaving the failing EU.

I know the argument – better to stay and use our influence to change the EU for the better. Unfortunately, and just like the Titanic, the dying EU is heading for the rocks where it and all aboard will sink without trace. It’s time for Britain, the fifth richest nation in the world, to jump into a lifeboat and sail to calmer waters. 

The historic and important decision for each and every UK resident is one I took weeks ago by putting an “X” in the box marked “LEAVE” of my postal ballot. Yes, I have already voted in the EU Referendum. I want OUT.

More Owls

I was tempted to do a spot of ringing at Oakenclough but it was just a little too breezy from the north and the forecast was less than perfect with “showers” which might be snowy. In any case it would be a solo effort and a bit of a chore while Andy is still sunning himself in Morocco. 

So I did a food drop only while noting a single Lesser Redpoll and still good numbers of Chaffinch and Goldfinch about the feeders and a couple of Siskin “over”. 

Goldfinch

Lesser Redpoll

I drove back to the coast via Garstang and landed up at Cockerham and then Conder Green. The pool and creeks hold few bird surprises now as we wait for spring to arrive with the early migrants. Around the pool and in the tidal creeks – a Reed Bunting in song, 2 Little Grebe, 45 Wigeon, 18 Shelduck, 8 Oystercatcher, 2 Tufted Duck, 40 Curlew, 1 Common Sandpiper, 1 Little Egret, 1 Grey Heron, 2 Pied Wagtail and a handful of both Chaffinch and Goldfinch. Both Redshank and Teal numbers may be down with respective scores of 28 and 30. 

Turned 0900 and in broad daylight arrived yet another Barn Owl, probably the regular one which is seen almost daily now and has a winter roost nearby. The owl was busily hunting both the inner and outer marshes and while I didn’t see it catch any prey it was out of sight for minutes at a time. After a while it flew back towards its daytime hideaway. 

Barn Owl

At Braides there was a Buzzard searching the rough grass, on the flood 30 or more Lapwings plus a couple of Skylarks on fence posts. Skylarks were in song today with a number of Lapwings showing territorial behaviour through snatches of aerial display. There was nothing doing through Cockerham/Pilling and just a couple of Linnets at Wrampool with no sign of any Stonechats. 

It was now turned 1030 and as I drove through Pilling village a Barn Owl flew directly over the car and out of sight into a building complex on the left. In reading local web sites and blogs in the past week or two it is remarkable but also worrying how many Barn Owls are being seen during daylight hours. Good that there seem to be numbers around but not good that they are all obviously having difficulty in surviving these lean times by spending inordinate amounts of time searching for food. The birds are also exposing themselves to the extra risks posed by dodging busier daytime traffic. 

Barn Owl

I was on my way across the mosses of Pilling and Out Rawcliffe. I stopped to watch a gang of Roe Deer saunter into a small copse and simply melt into the trees and out of sight. Roe Deer are smaller than many people might imagine – look at their size in comparison with the bales of fodder. 

Roe Deer

I found a good selection birds feeding in the stubble fields of the mossland – 80 Fieldfare, 80 Linnet, 40+ Corn Bunting, 21 Yellowhammer, 20 Chaffinch, 10 Reed Bunting, 3 Song Thrush and 1 Grey Heron. Accompanying raptors were noted as 2 Buzzard and 2 Kestrel. 

Yellowhammer

As on the coast an hour or two before both Skylarks and Lapwings were in display mode with pairs of Oystercatchers noted at three or more locations. There’s snow forecast for the weekend. But come rain or shine Another Bird Blog will hopefully bring, news, views and birds. Log in again soon.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday and to Run A Round Ranch.

Back On The Moss

After a day of hiding behind the clouds the sun finally emerged at midday today. For old time’s sake I decided to drive to Out Rawcliffe and take a walk across Rawcliffe Moss, an ancient peaty landscape which still characterises many parts of Lancashire. 

I’ve neglected the moss for a year or more. When the new plantation here became overgrown the use of our previously productive ringing area became impossible without both intensive and costly  habitat management. soon after the mixed animal/arable farm was sold and the new owners wasted no time in changing the land use to less crops and more animals. It was a combination that caused a drop in bird life. Birding became more difficult and my visits tailed off.

Rawcliffe Moss

 

 Rawcliffe Moss

The moss always was a good place for Little Owls with at least two pairs breeding there in each year where they used the traditional sites of both a building and a line of trees. The farm was quiet today, not many people or vehicles so it didn’t take long to find an owl by looking along familiar fences. 

Little Owl

Along the main track of the farm were a good number of Blackbirds but only a single Redwing. The rush of Redwings during past recent weeks is now over without seeing any substantial numbers of their cousin the Fieldfare. I hope to redress the balance by catching some Fieldfares at the weekend with a ringing session in the hills at Oakenclough, the ringing site which has replaced Out Rawcliffe. 

Redwing

For my North American readers, a Redwing Turdus iliacus is not closely related to the Red-winged Blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus, a North American species sometimes nicknamed 'redwing' which is an icterid, not a thrush. The binomial name Turdus iliacus derives from the Latin words Turdus, meaning 'Thrush' and 'ile' meaning flank as in my photograph above.

Today out on the moss I saw four, maybe five Buzzards, some in flight and another sat motionless on a roll of baled hay, a favourite spot for a Buzzard. The rolls are close to the ground should a small mammal wander by or high enough for lift-off should an unwelcome birder wander by. Next in my notebook came a Hen Harrier, a brown female or juvenile “ringtail” floating across the road ahead of me as it hurried across to Pilling Moss. Later as I drove home via Pilling I saw the harrier make the return journey, helped this time by a convoy of corvids that chased it mercilessly until it was off their feeding stubble. 

The moss was previously a Tree Sparrow hangout, helped by regular dollops of bird seed to feed sundry species. I struggled to see a Tree Sparrow today eventually coming across three or four in the trees where their nest boxes still dot the trees. A number of Chaffinch were among the sparrows, as well as a few Yellowhammers, but on a return viewing an hour or more later the Chaffinch count had swelled to a miserly 15, Yellowhammers to 2 and Reed Buntings to 5. Not the best farmland bird tally. 

Yellowhammer

Next came the big field and a walk over wet stubble where I came across a Merlin, a Kestrel, 2 Corn Bunting, another half-dozen or so Reed Buntings, 5 Linnet, 15 Skylark and 7 Roe Deer. Although the birds scatter along the hedgerow where they might be seen later, Roe Deer never ever stay around but just melt into to the security of a distant wood. 

There had been geese landing in fields not far away so as I drove home via the mossland of both Pilling and Stalmine I stopped for a look in the stubble fields. It is very hard to approach the geese for either a photo or close scrutiny.

Pink-footed Geese

 Pink-footed Geese

The Pink-footed Geese have been with us for a month or more since leaving Iceland and the closest it is possible to get to them, and by staying in a vehicle, is perhaps 500 yards. On most mornings a number of wildfowlers will lie in wait, hidden in the marshy creeks of Pilling and Cockerham where they hope to intercept the geese with a volley of shots as the birds leave their overnight roost to feed on these inland fields. Boy are these geese wild and who can blame them?

I made my way home after an entertaining and instructive afternoon. Yes it was good to get back on the moss if only for a while.

Linking today to Viewing Nature with Eileen.

Plan B Birding

Today’s plan was to meet Andy for another ringing session at Oakenclough but on looking out of the window at 0530 there was dense and freezing fog, so not the best conditions for a 40 minute drive into the distant hills. I sent a text to Andy saying I was chickening out and then slunk back to bed for a while vowing to go birding at Pilling when the sun cleared the fog. 

When I reached Fluke Hall the resident pair of Dunnocks was busy seeing off an intruder on their territory, a male Yellowhammer. Although Yellowhammers breed a mile or two inland they are somewhat unusual just here right on the coast so this was almost certainly a migrant bird looking for a home territory. 

Yellowhammer

The Stonechats weren’t far away, a male and a female along the sea wall having their own ding-dong with the resident Robin. Our UK Robins are members of the chat tribe as well as being very territorial so don’t take kindly to a pair of Stonechats feeding on their patch. They will however tolerate a Wren using their singing rostrum. 

Stonechat

Robin

Wren

Below the sea wall was a fine male Wheatear, the only one seen in my half mile walk to Pilling Water and back. If the warm weather continues there should be many more Wheatears very soon. 

That walk along the sea wall produced an eclectic mix of birds with 4 Little Egret, 7 Pintail, 2 Teal, 8 Meadow Pipit, 6 Linnet, 5 Pied Wagtail, 1 Buzzard, 1 Kestrel and at least 6 Skylark in song. The fields along here are still wet but not flooded and so retain a sprinkling of common waders plus a fair number of Shelduck. A number of the birds are on territory and in display mode with a total count of 26 Shelduck, 14 Redshank, 40 Lapwing and 6 Oystercatcher. 

Oysterctacher

I returned via Fluke Hall Lane where in the meadow, trees and hedgerows were 6 Pied Wagtail, 2 Greenfinch, 3 Song Thrush, 2 Goldcrest, 1 Jay and 1 Chiffchaff. 

The Chiffchaff was busily feeding, finding good sized insects in the willows. Somehow it remained strangely silent for a new-in migrant and I doubt I would have seen it but for its fly catching acrobatics and constant searching through the trees. Although the monotonous and almost robotic call of  "chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff"  might seem rather unexciting it's a sure sign that March is well under way.

Chiffchaff

Tree Sparrows are very active now and I counted at least 10 individuals, including one in the throes of nest building. 

Tree Sparrow

Andy had a decent catch without me, including more Lesser Redpolls and Chaffinches. I missed a ringing session but Plan B didn’t turn out too badly after all and the weather looks decent enough for even more ringing quite soon.

Blowing In The Wind - Tuesday/Wednesday

The weather folk were spot on with their forecast for Tuesday. The tail end of Hurricane Gonzalo raged on with the result that there was no birding in the gale force north westerly’s. 

Instead I met with Andy near Garstang where we looked over an old ringing site of the 1980s and 1990s. The area became unsuitable for ringing when invasive rhododendrons won the day, but following recent extensive clearance by the site owners we may be able to utilise the place again. So clutching our newly printed shiny permits we explored the now almost rhododendron-free ground looking to identify net rides. 

Before the rhododendrons overran the landscape the open structure of the woodland was especially good for breeding Willow Warblers, where over a number of years around 400 nestling Willow Warblers were ringed and many nest records completed. 

Willow Warbler

Willow Warbler nest

It is a site with breeding Willow Warblers, Lesser Redpoll, Siskin, Blackcap, Garden Warbler and Bullfinch, and where Yellowhammers, Tree Pipit and Wood Warbler once nested. I found what may have been the last nests of Yellowhammers here in 1996 and 1998 but none since. Nesting Tree Pipits disappeared from here about 1997 but still occur as migrants, while Yellowhammers are now as scarce as hen’s teeth. After the recent extensive ground works both species might just make a comeback but I’m not betting on it. 

Yellowhammer

Andy and I identified a number of net rides, put up a few feeders to attract Siskins and Redpolls, scattered seed for ground feeding finches such as Chaffinch. We will return when the weather improves. 

Siskin

Chaffinch

On Wednesday a 9 metre high tide at Knott End rather appealed even though the wind was still too north-westerly to produce much in the way of seabirds; well at least if the showers returned I could bird from the car. 

A couple of hours were all I managed as by 11am the rain had started again. In between times I counted the nearest waders as 230 Oystercatcher, 180 Redshank, 45 Lapwing, 35 Sanderling, 40 Bar-tailed Godwit, 300 Knot and 22 Turnstone. 

On the shore, the incoming tide and the river - 11 Eider, 5 Red-breasted Merganser and 1 Grey Heron. 

 Sanderling

After three days of abysmal weather passerines were hard to come by with just 30+ Goldfinches, 5 Linnet and 3 Pied Wagtails along the marsh the best. 

Let’s hope Gonzalo relents soon to leave us with sunshine instead of so much wind and rain. 

Linking the Chaffinch on the barbed wire fence to Run A Round Ranch.