Overdue

Will and I were due some ringing after the recent weeks of frustrated intent and weather related cancellations. So with a good forecast we met at 0730 at our woodland site south of Lancaster town centre whilst other team members went off to Stanley Park in pursuit of wildfowl.

The wood and parkland on the site of an old hospital is very much a thrush site as confirmed by the first couple of net rounds when we quickly caught 19 Blackbird in the four mist nets erected. Of the 19 caught only three had no visible fat, the rest with scores between 1 and 5 but the heaviest a first winter male that tipped the scale at 130 grams and three birds in the high 120’s.

Blackbird

The woodland was noticeably quiet in respect of Chaffinch and we caught only two, very unusual. But inevitably we added those woodland favourites, Wren, Robin and single Blue and Great Tit.

Despite being quite close to the city centre the habitat is obviously attractive to roosting Woodcock and this being a Woodcock “year” we had a walk through the woodland to weigh up the numbers here. We flushed at least eight that headed off in various directions but one ended up in a net. This is the first one the ringing group has ringed since 1998, the last of a run in the 1990’s when we caught several at woodland roosts; so this one today was well overdue. With reference to “Ageing of Holarctic Waders” we think this bird a first winter male but stand to be corrected by anyone with more recent experience than the 1990’s!

Woodcock

Woodcock

We don’t catch many Treecreepers either. In fact they are now pretty scarce in the Fylde. So finding two in a net together was also past the due date.

Treecreeper

Other birds seen but not caught included 4 Nuthatch, 2 Jay, 1 Mistle Thrush plus 1 Goldcrest, a couple of Goldfinch plus sundry titmice.

The session was over fairly quickly as the birds dried up but allowing a little time to call in at Conder Green before heading home. The pool itself has almost thawed but held little, with most of the interest being on the creek and surrounds with 3 Little Grebe, 1 Grey Plover, 1 Spotted Redshank and the wintering Common Sandpiper, a good January tick, 90 Teal and a couple of Wigeon. There were several hundred Pink-footed Geese overflying from the Pilling direction and heading towards the Lune marshes.

A Light Lunch

I hadn’t been out to Rawcliffe Moss for a week or more but this lunch time presented an hour or two to fit in a quick visit. From the car I could see Seumus had been earlier because although fairly distant, the fresh line of bright seed mix stood out on the brown, muddy track as did the gaggle of 16 Wood Pigeons helping themselves.

Along the hawthorn and the wet ditch the count of customary diners revealed 120 Tree Sparrows, 14 Yellowhammers, 10 Chaffinch, a single Fieldfare, 4 Blackbirds and 2 Reed Bunting. Thrush numbers down then but resilient Tree Sparrows and Yellowhammers still abound.

Fieldfare

Tree Sparrow

Reed Bunting

Up on the big field 4 Roe Deer did their usual disappearing trick but twice, initially running from sight with stuck on tails, but then taking more determined evasive action by deerleaping the barbed fence.



Roe Deer

I checked out the stubble fields where I watched a circling Kestrel, but with tramping through the short stalks I put to flight 18 Skylark, then a tight flock of 80 Linnets that surprised me simply by being there after the recent weather events. More Woodpigeons up here in the woods and our plantation gave me an extra 110 to put in my notebook.

A few lines of distant Pink-footed Geese gave me the usual photographic dilemma of grey goose versus grey sky. But it’s nice to just see and hear them constantly without trying to get too scientific with counts or take the ultimate picture. If only they were that obliging anyway, but it’s strange how for instance some birders think they can just jump out of a car in front of a flock of feeding pinkies without the geese immediately taking to the air in panic.

Pink-footed Goose

Up near the plantation I saw a Buzzard over towards Nateby heading as usual even further away from me so I took the track through the trees. The wildfowlers pond was just about thawed; enough to hold a single Snipe on a little muddy bank but there were no duck. Of course the Snipe made off pretty sharpish, unlike the one at Pilling a few days a go.

Snipe

Two more noisy Blackbirds and several Goldfinch in the alders almost completed the picture here until a party of about 22 Corn Buntings appeared from the trees to then head off south, but I did catch up with them near the farm. I can only think that in the trees the buntings were feeding on some of the wildfowlers spilt grain intended for the absent Mallards.

In the lee of the birch wood I could see a couple of Blackbirds feeding in the soft grass but also 3 Song Thrush virtually together. Song Thrush, so scarce we need to note them all.

Song Thrush

Other odds and ends today – both Dunnock and Great Tit singing at the hint of extra daylight and warmth plus a Great-spotted Woodpecker on the same hole infested tree I saw it a week or more ago. Spring can’t be far away!

On the way off the moss a Little Owl in the barn was reluctant to hang around for a photograph. So I stuck here a picture of the same bird on a nearby tree on a previous but sunny day.

Little Owl

Ringing tomorrow, watch this space.

Almost Normal

After an aborted ringing session because of an early breeze, I started off the dull morning at Knott End with a look from the jetty where the tide was slowly running in to a grey scene of 1400 Oystercatchers, 40 Knot, 90 Dunlin, 118 Shelduck and 80 Redshank on the shore with 9 Turnstone roosting near the top of the jetty. Down near the end of the jetty I could see 4 Eider on the path with a couple of Herring Gulls but the slope looked so slippery with ice I didn’t venture down to find out. Six Red-breasted Merganser flew off the incoming water and then upstream towards Fleetwood docks. An overflying Fieldfare chuckled off towards the Golf Course. It was so dull; I set the ISO to 800.

Knott End

Oystercatchers

Dunlin


Knot

I found the resident party of 40 Twite feeding on the shore but these birds are so jittery I didn’t get chance to look in any detail before a passing soul disturbed the flock enough for them to fly up and beyond the Bourne Arms to the marsh beyond. I walked towards the village to see the Twite fly back and forth at least twice, settling only briefly before twittering off again. But in amongst more Redshank feeding in the partly frozen puddles I found 2 Rock Pipit and 2 Meadow Pipit with a Pied Wagtail scuttling along the wall beneath me.

Pied Wagtail

Already the road thawed and the sky brightened so I thought to try my luck at Lane Ends, maybe even walk to Pilling Water for the first time for a month or more. I’d looked a couple of days before for thrushes feeding on the last resort Sea Buckthorn, and today a single Fieldfare fought off a Blackbird and reserved a spot on the overloaded bush. In the car park, the leaf litter and the scrubby woodland I counted more than 18 Blackbirds where I switched my ISO to 400 to get a picture or two of the Fieldfare in the buckthorn and 4 Redwing and 6 Meadow Pipit searching through the thawing grass opposite the entrance.

Fieldfare


Meadow Pipit


Meadow Pipit


Redwing

From the top car park I could see Whooper Swans out near the tide line but also flying just inland to Fluke Hall Lane so I walked up to Pilling Water taking odd pictures as I walked. At Pilling Water I was able to count he birds, the ones now on the inland fields, those still on the move and a few still out on the marsh. My total count was 96.








Whooper Swan

A passing Peregrine disturbed the massed Teal, Wigeon and Mallard in the tidal channel but apart from saying there were thousands, I’m afraid I didn’t have the time to count and in any case it was still cold enough to stop telescope fingers working normally. On the walk back to Lane Ends I found 2 Skylark still around the grass at the base of the partly thawing sea wall.

I drove out of the car park to see a Snipe flying gently towards a roadside ditch so followed to where it landed. I guess it’s not a species of which we expect to get prolonged or even close views; in my own case only when occasionally they might be caught in a mist net. But today I just got lucky, and although it took me a minute or two to spot the bird in the ditch below me, I bided my time and waited for the bird to relax a little.







Snipe

An eventful and fruitful morning, even almost normal after the last few weeks.

More Thrush Pictures

A definite thaw today and by 4pm most of the previous days snow had gone, just leaving slippery pedestrian paths. So in between babysitting here’s a few more pictures I dug out of garden birds at the weekend.

The first two are dedicated to my ringing colleague Fernando down in sunny Spain who is a great fan of Turdus philomelus.

Song Thrush

Song Thrush

While it took three weeks of cold and ice for a Song Thrush to appear, the Mistle Thrush appeared on a few occasions, especially the coldest morning when it appeared to be well insulated against the frost whilst impersonating a Lars Jonsonn sketch.

Mistle Thrush

Mistle Thrush

A Redwing put in a brief appearance before being chased off by the increasingly confident Fieldfare. I’m afraid this is the best picture I could get from the quick visit.

Redwing

I did notice a lot of standing around on one leg or switching of legs on the cold ground as an added insulation or keeping warm technique. That Song Thrush looks strangely like a fluffed out lollipop!

Blackbird

Song Thrush

Fieldfare

But later, the Fieldfare didn’t take kindly to a Blackbird looking for a bite of the apple.





Fieldfare versus Blackbird

Trying It On

They were waiting for me this morning as I opened the back door, but I was ahead of them as I went in the garage and dug out today’s supplies to heap on my seed, peanut and apple strewn “lawn” before heading out to try the roads and see if I could find a few birds that weren’t in the garden.

Fieldfare

Robin

Blackbird

I hoped to find a few thrushes at Lane Ends where in previous hard winters Fieldfares utilized the Sea Buckthorn berries as a last resort food; but not today, just 10 ground feeding Blackbirds in the car park, a Song Thrush and the resident Chaffinches.

Chaffinch

In the field opposite the car park I found several opportunist Meadow Pipits feeding around the soft earth created by some large horses trampling over the frosted ground and two Lapwings trying their luck.

Meadow Pipit

Lapwing

From the top car park I followed the still trickling not entirely frozen ditch east where I hoped to find Snipe or something similar. And I did, 2 Snipe tucked into a few reeds and a dozen Mallards that flew off as I crunched through the icy footprints of last night sheep round up. Of course I didn’t see the farmer who had come to do the morning check of the sheep but instead found me crouching and kneeling in the ice encrusted, snowy ditch to take a photograph of his field drain. Oh well, it probably confirmed his view that bird watchers are nuts anyway without the need for me to demonstrate it.

A Touch Frozen?

Both pools are now frozen solid so no chance of much out there, but I did find another Snipe in the trickle of water that emanates from the west pool. Then just behind the sea wall I found a single sickly, undernourished, light as a feather Redwing, struggling to feed; just one of many thousands of birds to suffer an undignified end during the present period. Very distressing.

Redwing

Out on the marsh everything was distant, way out near the tide and well away from the immediate but now whitened wetland, save for a few dozen Lapwing sitting it out closer in and two ghostly white Little Egrets flitting between ditch lines. From Braides gateway the birdless expanse of frost stretched in directions east and west, which left a blank entry in my shiny new notebook of 2010.

I had a brief look at Conder Green where groups of bright, shiny Teal flew around in the strong sunlight before they settled in the creek where I counted them at 90 plus without venturing to the Stork where I would have easily increased my count were I not so lazy. Two easily visible Snipe stuck to the open water’s edge with the usual tally of Redshank and Curlew whilst 2 Grey Herons quarrelled and flew off, one pursuing the other. There were still Lapwings around here, out on the marsh obviously, but also in the rough grass areas around the pool and roosting on the still snowy islands.

Sunday morning, not the best time to park outside Thurnham church where someone might see my car and think I had seen the light, but the spaces stood empty. It was a long time since I last I walked birding through a snow-white wood, almost a new experience. The Jays saw me immediately, them scolding me and I cursing them for giving me away to everything else before I had barely closed the car door.

Jay

It didn’t matter; I enjoyed it, tramping through the paths listening to the other birds that had also easily picked me out invading their now white woodland, Blue and Great Tit and a couple of Nuthatch together with Treecreepers. I watched a Woodcock rise ahead of me then glide down near the stream and between two distinct trees, where I mentally marked the spot, then approached camera at the ready. Not to be of course, that would be far too easy.

Back home my Fieldfare still guarded the apple, but I was saddened by the Redwing and the thought of all those others.

Fieldfare