Humdrum

Humdrum could mean one of a number of similar things. The dictionary gives meanings of dull, boring, routine, everyday, monotonous, and unexciting. But when it gets to this time of year I think I use it in the meaning of “routine” because in some circumstances, whilst birding might be predictable and everyday, it is never dull, boring or unexciting. There are bird watchers who go out only to see “quality” or ”good” birds, who don’t have a local patch and who rarely go out to bird in a humdrum manner. How strange, but each to his own.

After spending a morning at the gym to emerge into bright skies quickly followed by a dash and splash lunch I was elated by the thought of a few hours birding when the sky suggested the rain would appear as usual later than the BBC predicted. Perish any thoughts that I wouldn’t grab this little window of opportunity even if it the results might be the normal dross rather than the spectacular.

Soon I set off walking from the Nateby road to cross Rawcliffe Moss thinking that I could probably pencil some species in my notebook before I set out to save myself the effort later. But no matter I was out with the bins around my neck, camera in the bag, no one around, just me and the elements. Perfect.

Through Jim’s farm the routine Dunnocks called quietly as a Pied Wagtail walked the same old barn roof again. The unexciting Robins ticked me off for birding here again, whilst just ahead the trackside Reed Buntings wheezed as I got near, then off they went only to re-emerge a few yards up to have another look back at me.







Reed Bunting is one of those species with an unmistakable “jizz”, a little bounce of a flight, the glimpse of outer tail heading into cover, the perch up, then the look. Just show me the outline, who needs the bird?

The story goes that the word “jizz” originated from aircraft recognition practice amongst fighter pilots during World War II. The pilots were given brief glimpses of silhouetted models of enemy and friendly aircraft, and gradually developed the ability to tell friend from foe quickly and reliably. The impression of the aircraft formed became known as "General Impression of Shape and Size", abbreviated to GISS and pronounced "jizz." Unfortunately for the story, the pronunciation is actually different (why not "giss" or "jiss"?), and fighter pilots of the time deny knowledge of the acronym. Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary finds "jizz" in bird-watching use well before the war.

Lots of Woodpigeons about, 800 in grey and white clouds still behaving like it was a shooting day; maybe they just need to get some practice in, flying between the woods as they have to when the guns appear from the 4x4s. These aren’t the garden Woodpigeons, the ones that clown around on the peanut feeders or stroll unconcerned across the lawn whilst I watch through the conservatory glass. These are the wild ones, the sportsmen’s vermin fit for the butcher’s slab, but don’t the pigeons know it if you try to get too close whilst pointing something from the shoulder that looks suspiciously like a gun.



Three Buzzards played hide and seek with me again by keeping at least a wood away where we could all use our binocular vision to take a good look without coming into contact. Ok you are winning for now Mr Buzzard but one of these days a 400mm lens will have you good and proper.

It was a bit of a raptor session today because the fields held 3 Kestrels alternately hovering, circling or using the farm machinery as convenient look out posts. I was watching two Kestrels hovering fairly close when above and behind them a Peregrine appeared from the north but ignored them to continue heading south over a somewhat distant wood and the Kestrels carried on floating interminably as they do.



It was a bit of a grey day, so grey that I didn’t lift my camera in anger; therefore I’m afraid that although today’s pictures are entirely relevant to my walk, they were taken on other days but mostly in the same locality. You see that’s one advantage of monotonous, unexciting birding, you can still use old pictures to add some immediacy or to make a samey day look a bit more appetising.

I saw a good number of Grey Partridge again today – at least 14 still managing to stay safe. In places the fields don’t look particularly wet, at least from a distance. It’s only when half way across that the sinking, soggy truth reminds me that we just endured about six weeks of rain. On the positive side, I found 9 Snipe in parts I wouldn’t normally reach, then in the drier regions 13 Skylarks remained as unfathomable as ever rising and falling to no particular theme. The diminished Goldfinch flock now numbered only six, the hardy ones that stuck it out while others cleared off to somewhere drier and warmer like we all should.



I did have a stroke of luck in not seeing the repetitive Grey Wagtail today so at least everyone is spared more photos of that. And I had a lovely walk, came home carrying a Rosy Glow, a hearty appetite and a bit of a thirst, can’t be bad.

Talking of dry and warm it looks like we are about to get a High Pressure System but I hope it doesn’t last too long it could get a bit tedious.

Trying

A sunny start beckoned but it was probably best not to get too ambitious by straying far from the car in case the heavens opened and I got drenched again.

From Lane Ends I walked to Pilling Water, itself quite an adventurous distance in recent weeks. Out on the marsh I counted 26 Whooper Swans, similar to my last count there but this year little groups of Whoopers seem scattered everywhere. Maybe a coordinated Fylde count would be useful this winter?



It doesn’t seem that many years ago that a December Little Egret out here was sought after for the forthcoming New Year’s Day bird count, but no need for that now as they are just a daily certainty at any time of year, with 5 on this morning’s walk. The Pinkfeet were leaving the marsh in tens and hundreds, heading off in all sorts of directions, with some already making their way back in after being disturbed from the fields and their early breakfast.



The tide was way out, and although the many distant Lapwings performed their usual aerobatics, I was just hoping for a few passerine bits and pieces close by, so did manage 2 Skylark, 2 Meadow Pipits and 4 Linnet, all moving about in the lee of the sea wall.

Naturally the dark rain clouds rolled in with accompanying heavy showers just as I neared Lane Ends so I changed plans for more walking to follow some Pink-footed Geese that I saw dropping over Moss Edge way. At the first farm I saw 3 Pied Wagtails moving between the buildings and the adjacent field together with 7 Tree Sparrows and 3 Blackbirds around the trees and old hawthorns. Pretty dire stuff this as just around the moss I stopped in a lay by for 15 minutes to let a torrential shower pass over. I carried on the circuit, without finding many birds but I did see a couple of Mistle Thrush on a low hedge then 2 Brown Hare in an adjacent field.



Near Moss Edge Caravan Park where I looked through the wood as cover I counted approximately 1700 wary Pinkfeet in a single large field but then left them alone rather than disturb them more. Moss Edge really isn’t the place it used to be; the development of many farm buildings into dwellings or what appears to be light industrial use, coupled with the loss of traditional agriculture means that it is now hard to find many birds out there, summer or winter. Even the geese don’t use the moss like they used to, having moved on to find other places that are better suited to their needs.

At Gulf Lane I had to park up in amazement as more than 2000 gulls, mainly Black-headed Gull with some Common Gull almost filled the field immediately behind the sea wall as the birds rose and fell en masse to food items just exposed by the sudden rain squalls.



Stranger still in the middle of this vast crowd of gulls, 2 Buzzards were trying to muscle in on the action, their manoeuvres adding to the commotion caused by the many gulls.







I don’t recommend parking alongside this road on a Sunday morning in a downpour and I didn’t hang around long.

A short post again from this morning but I’m afraid the weather just keeps defeating me and there’s little point in padding this out any longer. I think I will sign off with a rainbow as the everlasting emblem of the last trying few months.

Better Than Nothing

I was due to go out but it kept raining, spitting and spotting until 1030 and although it wasn’t too windy, there wasn’t much sun either so I decided to save the best until tomorrow, read the Telegraph, do a few jobs, put a net up in the garden and take a few photos while Sue went shopping.

I thought it was a joke when I said my pliers were rusty through non use but when I opened my ringing box, there really were spots of orange rust gained from when I last put them away some weeks ago.



In the past few days there have been up to 12 Goldfinch in the garden at any one time so that some have to wait their turn at the feeders. All that changes when a net goes up, they are more reluctant to visit but the ones that do come take a different route out which involves a rapid climb from the feeders to avoid the 9ft high net at the back of them.





I caught 5 including this really dark red adult male.



Fortunately I didn’t catch more than a couple of Starlings but I did catch a control, an adult male with a moderately worn ring which suggested to me it wasn’t from this year. An hour later it came back for more so I caught it twice – CF58460 anyone?



Blow me if I didn’t also catch a Blue Tit with a ring not mine, anyone for T470174? This was one of eight caught.



Long-tailed Tits come by the garden infrequently so I don’t mind catching a few rather than a noisy troublesome net full, so bagging four today was ok.



The two Tree Sparrows in the garden this morning quickly disappeared when the net went up. And Chaffinch also know when nets are about so I didn’t expect to catch any but this fine adult female came along.





18 ringed, 2 Controls and cleaned up pliers. This could be the start of something big.

It's a Cracker

Time just flies by very fast in these short mid winter days. It was only just light enough for birding at 0830 by which time I was taking the longer moss route this morning – Stalmine Moss, then Pilling Moss to finish up on Rawcliffe Moss.

Stalmine Moss always looks so promising, but unless there is a full day to wander the moss tracks it is not always possible to see a lot, and especially by tempting fate to park on single track Union Lane where last week a coach slipped off the road to finish on its side in a field. Before I hit Union Lane two Jays flew alongside the road to disappear into Clegg’s Garden Centre where I could see 8 or 10 Blackbirds flitting about the nursery trees. The fields either side of Union Lane were fairly well flooded where little parties of Black-headed and Common Gulls sat around expectantly. Along here I also saw a single Kestrel but little else apart from Collared Doves and Woodpigeons.



I turned onto Pilling Moss where out on the edge of another flooded field I saw a party of 15 Whooper Swans, where 9 hung together and the other 6 stood some yards distant out of my camera range. Another Kestrel moved alongside the roadside telephone posts but didn’t want to be photographed.



I stopped to look for the Little Owl that I hadn’t seen for months. It wanted to play hide-and-seek with me but at least it was there in the shade of the ivy covered tree. Some cold weather should see it become more obliging and maybe sitting out in the sun for a while.



I motored on down to the farm to check out the feeding station. Not as many Tree Sparrows today, in fact I counted only 180 but the usual dozen Chaffinches and 5 or 6 Reed Bunting were about. Those Tree Sparrows at the feeding station are real hard to photograph, so here’s one I did earlier from my garden. After that is a picture of a Reed Bunting from today; it was near the feeding station but trying to merge into the background vegetation.





I looked across the field opposite to see another Roe Deer, this time a single that like the Reed Bunting was trying to merge. These creatures are so wild, within seconds of seeing me a hundred yards away, it legged it out of sight.





Along the next hedgerow I counted 8 Fieldfare together with 100 or so Starlings and they mixed for a while on the wet field than on the overhead wires. When I look at the hedgerows around the Fylde now they seem pretty devoid of Hawthorn and perhaps we have already seen the biggest numbers for this winter. Along this hedge I also scattered 5 Grey Partridge as well as hearing more further up and either side of the track. In fact I think I have heard and seen more this winter than post breeding time – released birds? I saw one Stonechat today in the same place as a few days ago, as were another 4 Reed Buntings, a couple of Blackbirds, a Song Thrush and a Great-spotted Woodpecker.

Up near the plantation a Stoat saw me coming and scampered many yards along the track before diving into cover – he’d better not let the gamekeepers see him. In the closest alders 7 Goldfinch fed hanging upside down, tweezering open the fruits to find what they were after.





Time was running out, but what a cracker of a morning, just time to call in at the farm buildings for ten minutes before heading off home to catch up with the bits and bobs of life. Oh how the plans of mice and men are thwarted. If there’s a Grey Wagtail about, I want to try and take a few pictures, so another 30 minutes go by. Maybe it was worth it.





Later in the day at Knott End I saw 40 Twite on the shore being scattered by a male Sparrowhawk, 2 Pied Wagtails, 4 Linnet and then 2 Whooper Swans flying north plus 1 Little Egret in the usual spot on the shore opposite the Thai takeaway. One Twite refugee from the Sparrowhawk attack finished up sitting on the edge of the jetty.

Banding Blues

I’ve got withdrawal symptoms but not because I haven’t sampled the amber nectar for a while, it’s as good a remedy for the common cold as Dr Beecham’s if only because it sends a person to sleep. No, I’ve got the banding blues because the pliers haven’t been in real action for a while and a glimpse at the forecasts for the next few days suggest I should put them on EBay for a couple of quid. “Ringing pliers, need oiling and cleaning to restore to former glory. No longer required due to global warming. Best offer accepted”.

On the other side of the Atlantic we let them call ringing “banding”, but at least it means they don’t have to suffer from the dreadful predictable jokes about church bell ringing that UK ringers endure. Perhaps our buddies get a different set of quips about instruments, rock chicks or band groupies when the bird connection stirs a dismal “joke” from Pub Bore?

However we must admit they do get some colourful warblers over there that are fairly easy to identify, in spring at least, unlike our little brown jobs that occasionally require a photographic memory of both Svensonn and BWP before venturing an ID.

So as I didn’t get out birding or ringing today, tonight I’ll post a few pictures of the blue birds of Ontario to see if they cheer me up.

Incredible, how can a bunting be bright blue? Surely all buntings are shades of brown and orange with a bit of black if we’re lucky? Not Indigo Bunting, a truly spectacular bunting of which a picture can’t do credit and a bird which really knocked me out when I saw one for the first time despite mugging up in field guides.



I was similarly blown away by the silky, electric blue, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, a species I probably didn’t expect to encounter as they are usually found high in the canopy not 8ft up in a mist net.



If you were over in the States without a field guide handy and had to come up with a name for a bird just glimpsed through the foliage, this one would be easy and obvious, Black-throated Blue Warbler. It couldn’t be called anything else but maybe if it was over here the BOU could devise something to outwit birders or at least change the name regularly.



The last slightly over exposed picture is of a Cerulean Warbler, but I can explain that.

Perhaps the best way to describe this bird is to say that the encyclopaedia tells me that the word Cerulean applies to a range of colors from deep blue, sky-blue, bright blue or azure through greenish blue colors. And that is just how the bird appears, depending on the ambient light it appears to change chameleon like to suit the ever changing light of the spring woodland. That’s my excuse for the photo or maybe I was just dazzled? A truly stunning bird.



That’s really cheered me up. Now I definitely won’t sell the pliers, excuse me while I delete my ad from EBay.

Keeping warm.......

was this morning’s number one task when the outside temperature gauge read -1C but it felt a lot colder than that with the wind chill, more like -10C as I headed out north.

At Lane Ends I just missed most of the Pink-footed Geese coming from the marsh, a mass of many thousands that I couldn’t start to count, flying off south west past the sun rising through the grey dawn.



Up on the sea wall where the car heater churned out at full blast I could see the Whooper Swans in the distance where they seem to have returned to the safety of the outer marsh off Fluke Hall. I counted 46 for definite but I know there were more because I could see distant heads and bodies appearing then disappearing to and from the ditches and pools they frequent.

There were still pinkies on the marsh where this time I could do a rough count of 1100 so in all, with the numbers that flew off earlier, probably in excess of 4500 had roosted out there last night. There was a lot of Little Egret activity both directly out from the car park and to the east or west as I counted nine of them in all.

There was a fair amount of ground frost with noticeable Blackbird numbers searching through the whitened leaf litter so I had a walk about the bottom car park and through the bits of woody scrub. Most of the 24 Blackbirds I counted were males with 5 females only. There were a few Chaffinch about, but apart from the thrushes, passerines were a bit scarce here this morning.





It takes only the first decent frost to produce Woodcock with today being no exception when I flushed one from the old ringing area that flew off over the pool to elsewhere; as ever, it’s almost impossible to get a view of a grounded Woodcock.

Braides was productive on each side of the track that goes out to the sea wall, where from the gateway of the track I counted 1600 Lapwing with similar numbers of Golden Plover, but far from an exact science because of the ground sloping away into the distance, the tightly packed mixed flocks coupled with activity that was so incessant, it may have been influenced by a raptor. There were four more Little Egrets here that flew around in the ditches immediately behind the sea wall, a bit easier to see and separate than the other birds.



About 55 Redshank stuck to the wetter bits that just happened to be closer to the car making them easier to count. Anyway I don’t mind saying that it was too cold to stand there for half an hour counting distant waders, but luckily a distraction occurred when Patrick the farmer turned up to chat about the survey work I will do on site next spring to help find out how the Lapwings take to his new regime.





Conder Green was almost devoid of birds, maybe hiding out of the biting wind with only the hardy Goldeneye immediately obvious with 2 on the pool and 1 on the creek but females only today. A single Wigeon fed on the island closest to the road just pausing to whistle once or twice which first drew my attention to it hiding amongst the usual Mallard.





Luckily two Little Grebe appeared to give some semblance of bird life, whilst as the tide was on the way in, even the creek was devoid of many birds apart from a couple of Redshank and 7 Snipe that flew off the marsh without any apparent reason. In the lay by I could see SP’s car parked up, very wise to go for a walk this morning, probably the best way to keep warm next to motoring on to the next spot as I did.

The water in Glasson Marina was a bit choppy, the cold south easterly just whipping it up enough spoil an ideal flat vista that makes birding here very enjoyable. I had a walk around to get the better light and found a couple of Pochard, didn’t count the Tufted or Coot but took a picture of a wary Cormorant and a Pied Wagtail along the towpath.





I actually found a few Fieldfare today, 9 in fact down Jeremy Lane where they shared a hedge for a while with 12 Goldfinch and a couple of Magpie until a Sparrowhawk came by and scattered them all. I saw a couple of Kestrels today, one of them below, hovering for food but keeping an eye on me just in case.



Last stop was Bank End where a walk along the road revealed an unexpected 45 Chaffinch in the hedgerow that flew off towards Patty’s with 4 or 5 more secretive Tree Sparrow that simply stayed in cover chichipping away, then another Pied Wagtail that scurried along the road.

A good morning’s birding but I wish it hadn’t been so cold. But then don’t we always complain whatever the weather?