Food For Thought

It’s that time of year again. I set off for the pet-shop and bought a bag of wild bird seed and a sack of Niger and then merrily filled the bird feeders. By coincidence a day or so ago a regular blog reader had asked, “What is your feeling about feeders?

There are definite pros and cons about feeding wild birds, so I decided to put my thoughts to the pen and paper of the keyboard and share the result in this post. 

Siskin

Feeding birds in the garden gives great pleasure but also a few things I worry about. The positives come later, but for now the not insurmountable worries in the order of 1) the potential for spreading disease via bird feeders, 2) the Sparrowhawk, and 3) marauding cats. 

The suspicion that feeding wild birds heightens the spread of disease among them is one of the strongest anti-feeding arguments. 

Although it’s true that making birds to feed together at common places can lead to increased disease transfer, it is also well known that birds often feed in groups, including mixed-species flocks like finches, thrushes and doves/pigeons. Good feeder hygiene by way of cleaning feeders regularly, offering fresh seed, minimizing faeces build-up, and generally striving for quality versus quantity of desired visitors can lessen this problem. 

I don’t feed peanuts, mostly because in my experience they go soggy and then mouldy very quickly - not a good thing to feed to birds. Not offering peanuts means that I don’t see too many Great-spotted Woodpeckers or Greenfinches, but in my defence there are claims that peanut feeding is responsible for the increase in the populations of the Grey Squirrel. This introduced pest species is known to be a predator of birds’ eggs and nestlings as well as out-competing our native Red Squirrel, not to mention its habit of destroying bird feeders. 

Grey Squirrel

The number of bird feeders is surely in the millions across the UK. In some urban and suburban roads it seems as if most people have a feeder or two. However, a closer look often reveals feeders in a state of disrepair and not recently replenished. Bird feeding has its devotees, but not all of them are passionate or knowledgeable about the rules. It is important to remember that if birds become accustomed to feeding at a particular site, the feed should be maintained and if there is a desire or need to stop feeding, it should be done gradually over days or weeks to allow birds to find an alternative. 

Lesser Redpoll

In the UK the Sparrowhawk is a frequent visitor to gardens with bird feeders. It is said that raptors usually capture the weaker or less fit birds, but whether they kill birds at a feeder or at some other location out of our sight we should remind ourselves that it is all part of nature, “red in tooth and claw”, as the saying goes. 

At times I see a Sparrowhawk hiding among shrubs and trees or sitting motionless on a partly hidden fence so as to suddenly dash into a group of birds around a feeder: it’s one of their most and successful natural hunting techniques. Many is the time I glimpse a Sparrowhawk dashing though the garden as it scatters the feeding birds but fails to catch anything. The moment of drama is one to enjoy, nothing is harmed, and while all goes quiet and the feeding birds disappear for a while, it is amazing how quickly they return. After all, birds live with the threat of being eaten by a predator every day of their lives and are finely tuned to spot them. And even a Sparrowhawk lives in fear of its larger cousin the Goshawk.

Sparrowhawk

It’s estimated that roaming pet cats kill billions birds and animals annually in the world. A recent book, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer Cat Wars:The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer examines the severe ecological damage caused by feral cats and outdoor pet cats. 

Fortunately I don’t have a problem with too many neighbourhood cats but in any case my feeders are out of reach and away from vegetation where cats can hide to ambush birds. Below a couple of my feeders are seed trays to prevent seed from falling to the ground and to minimise the numbers of vulnerable ground-feeding birds. If I see a cat in the garden I always shoo it away, just in case it is an experienced bird killer.

Domestic Cat

Do birds actually need the food on offer in my feeders or am I diverting them away from feeding in a more natural way? I do know that the numbers in my garden go up and down with the seasons and even the time of day. There are definitely more birds in the winter and early spring when they appear to use the garden as a snack bar in times of food shortages, especially during cold spells and the worst times of natural food shortages. A garden is just one of many feeding sites that birds use in the course of a single day, week or even months. For example, the garden has been bereft of Goldfinches for weeks but now as natural autumnal seed heads begin to disappear I am seeing Goldfinches returning to the Niger feeders. A number of them are returnees as I discover if I catch a sample for ringing. 

Goldfinch

Goldfinches

The “Hunger Gap” for UK and Northern Hemisphere birds is reckoned to be between January and March/April when winter is at its most severe and when both insect and seed items are in short supply. I have windfall apples stored in the freezer in readiness for the snow and ice which might appear in late December and into the New Year and more often than not the apples attract in members of the thrush family, mostly extra Blackbirds, but also Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush and even small numbers of Redwing and Fieldfare. 

Song Thrush

Blackbird

Scientific studies have shown nutritional and reproductive benefits to species like Blackbirds, Robins and the tit family that breed in localities with plenty of garden feeders. Whether to feed birds all the year round is a subject open to some debate but I think the consensus is that it is OK so long as the correct food is on offer whereby the birds are clever enough to supplement their natural diet with other “goodies” without relying on too much unnatural food. 

One of the major positives from bird feeding is that it is useful to the conservation of birds. In the past twenty years or so, and through organisation like the BTO and the RSPB, and participation in surveys like Big Garden Birdwatch, Garden Birdwatch and the Nest Record Scheme, UK Citizen Science has become a major tool used by conservationists to help bird populations.

Robin

The results from such work allow scientists to acquire snapshots of how bird populations fare from year to year, as well as detecting long-term trends. This information becomes particularly critical in the face of climatic and habitat changes. 

There it is then - lots of positives about feeding birds in the garden and very few reasons to think that doing so might cause harm.

West Is Best

I was back home at 10am after rained off after just a couple of hours of birding. Despite the curtailed session I managed to clock up a couple of “goodies” but nothing to compete with the Siberian Accentor that turned up on the east coast and where several hundred, possibly thousands of birders and others are expected to flock this weekend ("2000 viewers filed past on 13thOctober"). 

A week or so ago when we when catching Linnets a shooter mentioned that he’d seen a Great White Egret out on the marsh. A day or so later I’d seen almost 30 Little Egrets on the marsh just out from the plantation where many egrets spend the night hours. I guess it was those two bits of information in my head this morning that made me turn off the road in the half-light of dawn to check out just how many egrets are currently using the site. 

The egrets were beginning to wake up. Their barking calls rang out from the trees and I’d counted 70+ scattered across the treetops when a whole gang of them erupted into flight. There was a big one amongst the Little Egrets, a Great White Egret which circled a little before heading along the sea wall towards Cockerham. A great-white is half as big again as a Little Egret with a bill shape that resembles a dagger rather than the stiletto of a Little Egret. For such a large and apparently conspicuous bird a great-white has the ability to “disappear” from prying eyes: I suspect that this particular one spends its days in the deep, tide-washed creeks of Pilling and Cockerham marsh. 

Great White Egret by cuatrok77 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I stopped off at the set-aside plot where I added a little ground feed of millet and Niger to the natural seeds on offer in the expectation that a few Twite and more Tree Sparrows will join Linnets in the daily feast. A flock of 50+ Linnets were around the area together with a number of Tree Sparrows in the bushes near the farm. 

Linnet

Twite

The grey morning and 100% cloud cover didn’t bode well for visible migration so I wasn’t surprised to see little in the way of recent arrivals at Conder Green. A rather noisy Chiffchaff, several “pinking” Chaffinches and a dozen or so Blackbirds proved the best from both here and following a look in Glasson churchyard. 

On the pool and in the creeks – 110 Lapwings, 55 Teal, 15 Redshank, 11 Little Grebe, 6 Snipe, 4 Wigeon, 2 Shelduck, 2 Little Egret and 1 Green Sandpiper. The Green Sandpiper spent all of its time searching for food through the rocks, pebbles and vegetation an island some 70/90 yards away. Best I could do below. It's there - honest!

Green Sandpiper

Apologies for the somewhat short post today but I’ll try harder next time on Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to Anni's blog.

Looking For Linnets

Linnets require seeds throughout the year, and they frequent areas where they can find lots of such food. Typical areas for Linnets include rotational set-aside, winter stubbles, root crops and break crops. Break crops are secondary crops grown to interrupt the repeated sowing of cereals as part of crop rotation. Oil-seed rape and associated broad-leaved weeds provide ideal food for Linnet chicks in the spring with Linnets one of the few species to feed their nestlings entirely on seed. Linnets need thick hedgerows and scrub for nesting but will also use bramble areas on grassland, marginal land and waste ground. 

Where can Linnets find all of these things on modern farmland? The answer is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for Linnets to find those things in order to maintain their population. The graph shows the decline in the population of Linnets between 1996 and 2014. Combined figures from the BTO Common Bird Census and BTO Breeding Bird Survey. This is a pretty disastrous fall in numbers for yet another farmland bird. 

England - Linnets 1996-2014 - BTO

With the above in mind I met up with Andy for another ringing session at a set-aside plot at Cockerham where we hoped we might catch and ring more Linnets and so collect more data for the BTO. The morning was fine, perhaps too fine with sun on the nets but at least very little wind. 

We caught steadily but slowly with a four hour session producing 18 Linnets and 1 Reed Bunting. This increased out Linnet catch to over fifty in just two visits with no recaptures. Once again juveniles/first autumn birds dominated with just 3 adults and 15 juvenile/first years. 

 Linnets - 12th October 2016

Male Linnets are marginally bigger than females as can be seen from the figures above. The wing length of the UK race of Linnet Linaria cannabina varies between 76-85mm (Birds of The Western Palearctic) which serves as a check on our sexing technique of studying the 7-9th primary feathers to separate male and female. We are finding that anything greater than 81mm confirms a male, whereas a measurement below 80mm confirms a female. 

Linnet

Studying the tail is a very reliable way to age Linnets at the moment. The tail feathers of a juvenile/first autumn have a mostly pointed shape, particularly the outermost unmoulted ones. By October an adult Linnet has completely moulted and replaced its tail feathers whereby the resultant shape is both more rounded and less worn than those of a juvenile/first year Linnet. This holds true for many finches and other species at this time of year where adults and juveniles have differing moult sequences. This is not entirely fool proof as a bird might lose all or some of its tail feathers at any time, and ringers must be mindful of that possibility. 

Adult Linnet

Juvenile/first autumn Linnet

Today’s Reed Bunting proved to be a first autumn female. 

Reed Bunting

Our ringing was carried out to a three hour overhead procession of Pink-footed Geese leaving Pilling Marsh for their daytime feeding areas. Several thousand flew south between 0700 and 1000, with many flocks of several hundred birds among the hordes that passed over. 

Pink-footed Geese

Otherwise – a few tree Sparrows and Skylarks plus the now regular Sparrowhawk. On the way back I stopped at Pilling Marsh to see 28 Little Egret and 2 Buzzard.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday Blog.

Goldcrests Galore

What a morning! Busy, busy, busy. 

I met Andy up at Oakenclough at 0700 hours where we set up shop and waited to catch the first Redwings of the autumn. All seemed quiet in the half light of dawn but by nine o’clock we’d ringed 50 birds without stopping for coffee or breakfast but one Redwing only to show for our hard work. 

Ringing Station

We caught steadily and finally called a halt at midday with 123 birds caught and both ringers cream-crackered after fully processing 30+ birds every hour. Whoever said that ringing birds was easy work?

It wasn’t Redwings that topped our leader board but that other autumn migrant the Goldcrest which made up 50% of our catch, plus a selection of other species bringing up the rear. 

Totals today: 61 Goldcrest, 15 Goldfinch, 14 Chaffinch, 14 Lesser Redpoll, 3 Chiffchaff, 3 Redwing, 2 Siskin, 2 Song Thrush, 2 Great Tit, 2 Blue Tit, 1 Coal Tit, 1 Long-tailed Tit, 1 Brambling and 1 Dunnock. Just two of these birds were recaptures from previous occasions, a Goldfinch and a Blue Tit. 

Late September/early October are peak times for Goldcrest migration so while we expect to see more than normal it is highly unusual to catch so many. This might suggest a very good breeding season in the conifers of the northern UK from where the Goldcrests originate. Of the 61 caught today just four were adult birds, the remainder juveniles of this year. 

The overall breeding population of Goldcrests in Europe is estimated at 20,000,000-37,000,000 pairs, which equates to 40,100,000-74,100,000 mature individuals. (Birdlife Internationl 2015). Those figures do not include post-breeding juvenile birds that swell the population many times over during the summer months. Despite their tiny size Goldcrests are highly migratory, with a large influx of birds from Scandinavia and the near-Continent arriving on the east coast of Britain every autumn. Immigrants arrive in Britain from late August through to early November, departing the following March and April. 

Early ornithologists didn’t believe a bird as tiny as a Goldcrest could fly across the North Sea unaided, and it was thought that they rode on the backs of migratory Woodcock or Short-eared Owls.

Goldcrest

It was good to catch a Brambling today, one of the eight or more seen and heard overhead with at one point four feeding together on autumn berries above our heads. 

Brambling

Brambling

It was after 11 o’clock when Chiffchaffs appeared and then three on the same net round. 

Chiffchaff

We were so busy ringing today that accounting for visible migration became difficult, especially since most birds seemed to arrive out of sight from the south and west, behind the ringing station that faces north and east. Lesser Redpoll, Chaffinch and Siskin all found their way into the nets without us seeing many of them. 

Lesser Redpoll

Siskin

Redwings proved more visible with at least two flocks of 40+ seen and landing briefly in the plantation before heading off in a north-westerly direction. 

Redwing

Otherwise sightings – 30+ Swallows flying south. As we packed the ringing gear a calling Raven made us look high to the east and see a “kettle” of 12 circling Buzzards that caused the Raven's protest. They all drifted higher and west before disappearing into the cloud base hundreds of feet above. 

On the way home I counted 5 more Buzzards – 2 at Nateby, 2 on Pilling Moss and then 2 on Stalmine Moss. 

This is a productive time of year for birding, that’s for sure.

More news soon. In the meantime I'm linking to Wild Bird Wednesday and Anni's birding.

It's All About Linnets

At this time of year the start times for a ringing session aren’t too early so I arranged to meet Andy at 0700 at Cockerham. That would give us plenty of time to erect a couple of single panel nets in the plot of set-aside crops and wait for Linnets to arrive from their overnight roosts. The weather forecast gave us a couple of hours at 10mph or less easterlies in which to catch before we might get blown off course. 

Arrive the Linnets did by flying in from all directions north, south, east and west, in ones, twos and threes at first until the small groups built into larger clusters and small flocks of up to seventy birds. We estimated that in all we saw 150-200 Linnets throughout the morning, but the number of birds caught might suggest more than two hundred in the area.  

About 1030 the wind began to increase as promised and we called it a day, more than satisfied with the catch. We caught 36 birds - 33 Linnet, 2 Tree Sparrow and 1 Reed Bunting. 

Tree Sparrow

Linnet

Reed Bunting

Linnet

Although it is early days in working this site we both remarked on the number of juvenile/first year males around. The Linnet catch comprised of 19 first year males, 12 juvenile/first year females and just 2 adults, both of them males. Hopefully a bigger sample over the coming weeks will allow us to look more closely at the age/sex ratios of birds using this feeding site. 

Early ornithologists thought there to be two species of Linnet, one of which they called Linota, probably from its habit of feeding on flax-seed (Linum) from which linen is made. The other Linnet they named Cannabina from the bird having been seen to feed on hemp-seed - cannabis. There is now one species of Linnet recognised by science, the Common Linnet which has the Latin/scientific name of Linaria cannabina where Linaria refers to various plants belonging to the genus Linaria the figwort family and of which Linum is one.

We park at a roadside that is also a parking spot for wildfowlers heading out onto Pilling Marsh. The wildfowlers walk out to their spots in the dark long before we set up shop, but on the shooters return about 10am return we learnt about some of their sightings. They had recorded huge numbers of Pink-footed Goose, very good numbers of Wigeon and Pintail but had also seen a Marsh Harrier and a Great White Egret. 

The Great White Egret is something of a rarity in this area but just yesterday there was a confirmed sighting of seven Great White Egrets roosting with the long-established Little Egret roost at Leighton Moss, some 25 or so miles directly across Morecambe Bay. Two days ago nine were seen near Southport to the south and across the River Ribble. There seems little doubt that these mulitple sighting refer to some and all of the birds .

Great White Egret

In addition to our catch our own sightings while ringing included 7 Snipe, 1 Sparrowhawk, 2 Little Egret, and as per the wildfowlers, many thousands of Pink-footed Geese. 

Little Egret

There’s more bird news and more pictures in the next day or two. Don’t miss out and log in to Another Bird Blog very soon.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday.

Birder Worship Syndrome (BWS)

Sorry folks, there are no pictures of birds today, just pictures of birders as I bring you serious information and advice about a condition which can afflict birders of all ages and backgrounds. I have met birders who suffer from this illness and I can assure you that it is no laughing matter. 

Birder

Until now this disorder has been little discussed or researched but I found the following information via Wiki and reproduce it here for our mutual interest. 

“Birder Worship Syndrome (BWS) is an obsessive addictive disorder in which a person becomes overly involved with the details of an elite birder’s life, the same person’s tick list and their ability to react quickly to pager and Internet messages and to then chase, and re-identify rare and uncommon birds. Psychologists have indicated that though many people obsess over film, television, sport and pop stars, the only common factor between them is that they are all figures in the public eye. In the cases of birder worshippers and the elite bird watchers they esteem, none are in any public eye other than that of the tiny percentage of an overall population who are simply birders. Following recent cases in the birding and national press (Bird Watching magazine, Daily Mail etc, 2005, 2008, 2013, 2015 ) it is thought that a simple case of birder worship can quickly develop into more severe cases of stalking. 

The term "birder worship syndrome" first appeared in an article 'Do you worship other birders?' by Robin A Ticker and Sylvia B Schuer (Bird Watch magazine, 2003). Ticker based his article on the journal paper by Finch et al. (Nature & Birds, 2002) which discussed the term Birder Worship Scale, first used in an academic article by Wren (British Birds 1999). 

Nonetheless Ticker and Schuer may be generally correct. A syndrome refers to a set of abnormal or unusual set of symptoms indicating the existence of an undesirable condition or quality. Indeed, many attitudes and behaviours of birders covered in this research indicate such states. 

Bird Watchers

Psychologists in the United Kingdom created a birder worship scale to rate the problems. In 2004, psychologists Marila Crowe, Arthur Nightingale and Frederik Swallow introduced the Birding Attitude Scale, a 34 item scale administered to 262 persons living in Lancashire, Norfolk and Yorkshire, perceived hot spots of the condition. 

Early research by Crowe et al. suggested that birder worship comprised one dimension in which lower scores on the scale involved individualistic behaviour such as following, watching, listening to, reading and learning about superstar birders. They further suggested that higher levels of infatuation are characterized by empathy, over-identification, and obsession with the star birder.  However, later research in recent years with larger samples suggested there are 3 different aspects to celeb birder worship. 

John Ruppell (University of Liverpool), and the aforementioned psychologists examined the Celebrity Birder Attitude Scale (Psychology Today, 2005) among 1723 UK respondents, (942 males, 781 females) aged between 16 and 70 years and found 3 dimensions to celebrity birder worship: entertainment-social, intense-personal, and borderline-pathological. 

More Birders

Pavel Cretzschmar PhD, author of Confusing Birding with Birder Obsession and creator of the Obsessive Birder Love Wheel suggests in a 2014 online article the existence of three other primary types of luminary birder obsessives: Simple Obsessional, Love Obsessional and Erotomanic, as follows. 

Simple obsessional:

Simple obsessional stalking and aggravation constitutes a majority of all cases, anywhere from 70%-80%, and is dominated by males. This form of stalking is generally associated with individuals who have shared previous birding trips or experienced casual birding encounters with their victims. A particular characteristic of the illness is “name-dropping” in conversations with lesser birders or mentioning their victims frequently in online forums, social media or blogs etc. 

Individuals who meet the criteria of being labelled as a “simple obsessional” tend to share a set of characteristics including an inability to have successful relationships in their own personal and birding lives, social awkwardness in birding situations, feelings of powerlessness in finding rare birds, or a sense of insecurity and very low self-esteem when faced with IDing a bird. Of these characteristics, low self-esteem plays a large role in the obsession that these individuals develop with their victim, the principal birder. If the individual is unable to have any sort of connection to the foremost birder with whom they are obsessed, their own sense of self-worth may decline. 

Love obsessional: 

As the name suggests, individuals who demonstrate this type of behaviour develop an intense love obsession with the birder with whom they rarely have any personal relationship. Love obsessional accounts for roughly 20%-25% of all birder stalking cases. Bird watchers who demonstrate this form of obsessional behaviour are likely to suffer from a mental disorder, commonly paranoia. 

Individuals that are love obsessional often convince themselves that they are in fact in a relationship with the subject of their obsession. For example, a woman who stalked a well-known UK birder Lee Evans for a total of five years claimed to be his partner in life when she had no personal connection to him and lived hundreds of miles away. 

Erotomanic: 

Erotomanic, originating from the word Erotomania, refers to stalkers who genuinely believe that their victims are in love with them. The victims in this case are almost always well known within the close local birding community. Erotomanic stalkers are the least common with by far the majority being men. Similar to love-obsessional stalkers, the behavioural Birder Worship Syndrome (BWS) of Erotomanics may be a result of an underlying psychological disorder. 

Individuals who suffer from Erotomania tend to believe that the birding figure with whom they are obsessed is utilising media as a way to communicate with them by sending special messages or signals via a pager or similar device and will spend many hours listening for bleeps from their machines. 

Although these obsessives have unrealistic beliefs, they are less likely to seek any form of face-to-face meetings with their victims and so mainly use their victim’s name in the hope of impressing others. In extreme situations where the obsessive is rejected by their target, an unforeseen and sometimes tragic outcome might ensue. In a recent case (Birdwatch magazine, September 2015), a birder expected that their target might sit next to them during a sea watch on the Yorkshire coast. When the object of their attention refused to do so and sat alongside another birder instead, the obsessive threw himself from the cliffs at Flamborough Head and was taken by the currents out into the North Sea, never to be seen again.“ 

So, dear readers, and in conclusion, you may recognise this affliction in a particular birder you know or meet occasionally in the course of your bird watching. Always treat them with care, consideration and respect as they are unwell. If possible, take the person aside and explain gently that they may be suffering from BWS and that they should seek professional advice as soon as possible. 

Bird Photographer

 

It’s back to the mundane stuff tomorrow when if the wind holds off across the farm fields I’m due to meet Andy for another crack at those Linnets. 

Log in later to see how we do. 

YBW and Linnets

Yellow-browed Warblers seem to be everywhere again this autumn. Not to be left out of such excitement there was one calling loudly around the garden on Sunday afternoon. Several times I heard the loud, coal tit-like slurred call and then managed to locate the tiny warbler in the tall sycamore of a neighbour’s garden. The sycamore branches almost overhang my own garden in a couple of places so I’m not certain I can claim the YBW as a first for my garden list. Within a minute or two the bird had moved on, not to be heard or seen again that day or the next. 

 Yellow-browed Warbler- Photo credit: Hans Olofsson via / CC BY-NC-ND

Considering that the first Yellow-browed Warbler was only recorded in Britain in 1838, and that over the next 130 years only 300 of these Siberian sprites were seen on our shores, their now regular September appearances give birders food for thought as well as a reason to go searching for one of their own.

Yet the incredible migration strategy of these tiny warblers may indicate a more serious long-term climatic trend. By rights, each autumn Yellow-browed Warblers should head south east from their Siberian breeding grounds to winter in the warm tropical forests of Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. But over the past few decades, increasing numbers have been sighted across Britain and Western Europe, down to Spain and The Canary Islands during September and October.

This may be an indicator they are improving their survival rates by seeking out new wintering territories in Africa and close to their relatives the Chiffchaff and the Willow Warbler.

On Monday I met up with Andy and we headed to Cockerham to follow-up the permission to catch Linnets. As a ringing group in recent times we have caught less than twenty Linnets annually, such is the species’ decline and the reason that we wish to use this opportunity. We cut a single ride in the set-aside field much quicker than we imagined which left us time to have go at catching a few birds. Despite our upsetting their dining table the Linnets came back very quickly and although the sun shone on our single net set low in the field and the breeze was less than ideal, we managed to open our account with two Linnets, a first autumn male and a first autumn female. We both feel confident we can catch more Linnets in the coming weeks and therby collect important data on this declining farmland bird.

We had to remind ourselves how to sex Linnets in October when there are lots of similar looking juveniles/females and also when most males have lost their striking red and orange breast feathers. On a male the white on the inner parts of the 7th-9th primary feathers reaches the feather shaft itself or is less than 0.5mm in width to the shaft. On a female the same inner parts of the 7th-9th primary feathers never reaches the shaft itself and shows a darker zone, 0.5mm wide or more. In other words, the male has more white in the wing than a female, a feature that can often be picked up on Linnets in flight during the autumn. The difference can be seen below.

Linnet - female

Linnet- male

Linnet - male

Whilst ringing we noted many hundreds of Pink-footed Geese overhead, all heading south. In amongst the set-aside field we also saw a couple of Goldfinch and Tree Sparrows. A Kestrel circled around a couple of times and there was also a Sparrowhawk which made a single attempt to snatch a Linnet by flying into the set-aside crop, scattering the finches in all directions.

The Sparrowhawk failed but for sure it will be back. And will too for another look at those Linnets.

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

Comings And Goings

After two weeks in Greece I was keen to get back on the local scene but with an iffy forecast and a grey, overcast sky I thought there might be no birding. And then the clouds lifted a little to brighten both the sky and my mood so I set off over the moss roads. 

Even on Thursday/Friday a few things were immediately noticeable, the seeming lack of Swallows and the sudden arrival of large numbers of Pink-footed Geese. While in Greece I saw thousands of Red-rumped Swallows but our local Barn Swallows have mostly gone. Meanwhile Pink-footed Geese arrived in large numbers from Iceland or short stop-overs in southern Scotland. The pinkies’ route south takes some skeins directly over our house on their way to South West Lancashire, generally their first port of call in England. I saw and heard many hundreds of geese overhead while tidying the garden on Thursday/Friday and then more on Saturday morning. 

Pink-footed Geese

Pink-footed Goose - Iceland to Lancashire

I stopped at Wrampool to look at the field of wild crop set-aside and where I hoped to see finches feeding on the seeds of the now finished flowers. Within fifteen minutes of parking up I noted approximately 160 Linnets arriving in small flocks from several directions as the birds dived into the base of the crop. I imagine the ground would be littered with seeds by now.

Linnet

'Set-aside' was introduced by the European Economic Community in 1988 to help reduce the large and costly surpluses produced in Europe under the guaranteed pricing of the Common Agricultural Policy. It was also designed to deliver environmental benefits following damage to agricultural ecosystems and wildlife as a result of agricultural intensification. Under the scheme farmers claim support payments based on the size of the area used to grow cereals, linseeds, oilseeds and protein crops such as peas, beans and lupins. To qualify for these payments all but the smallest producers must 'set aside' part of their arable land and take it out of production. This helps in the protection of the countryside as it means farmers have no longer financial incentive to remove hedgerows and trees which support valuable wildlife. 

Where such schemes are run with enthusiasm and commitment they benefit declining farmland birds, as proved by the small but valuable plot at Wrampool where Linnets and other species will be able to feed throughout the winter and thus increase their survival chances. Every little helps. 

Later I spoke to the land owner who gave his permission to carry out a monitoring and ringing programme on the plot in the coming months. It will be most interesting to see the number and throughput of Linnets feeding here. The Linnets may be joined by “seven coloured linnets”, a local name for Goldfinch that I learned only today from the friendly farmer, a native of South West England. 

"Seven-coloured linnet"

Further along the coast road I stopped at Braides Farm to survey the puddled field and counted 240 Curlew, 145 Lapwing, 30+ Teal and 3 Snipe. There was a noticeable southerly movement of Skylarks overhead, many high up, others more visible, with 20 or more in the fifteen minutes I spent there. The Skylark movement was also evident at Conder Green, my next port of call. 

In the shallow creeks I noted 7 Goosander feeding in quite separate groups of a trio and a foursome; clearly they were different families and keeping apart from each other. Goosanders breed in the upper reaches of the River Lune north of Lancaster and beyond into the Lake District and Scotland but do not breed in this coastal part of Lancashire. They are also a shy species and subject to some persecution from the angling and fishing fraternity, and hence difficult to approach. 

Goosander

Also in the creeks - 45+ Teal, 4 Snipe, 10 Redshank, 4 Curlew, 1 Spotted Redshank, 1 Common Sandpiper, 1 Kingfisher, 3 Little Egret and 1 Grey Heron. On the now full of water pool - just 11 Little Grebe, a couple of Cormorants, 3 Pied Wagtail and several more Teal. 

At the railway bridge I heard a good number of “chirrups” overhead as Skylarks dribbled over in ones and twos, together with a fair number of Chaffinches and Greenfinches following the tree line of the riverside and dropping into the hawthorns at the car park. 

Chaffinch

I latched onto a Swallow heading quickly south and then saw four more heading the same way. They could be the last of the year!