A Little Is A Lot

It was an early start, but nothing new there. I met Will on the moss at 6am where we put up our standard mist net quota for the site of 320ft of net. Pretty hard work for a reward which isn’t necessarily of huge quantity in a normal Fylde spring when birds head straight for previous breeding haunts without stops in the middle of nowhere. This is how an unkind, unknowing soul might well describe Rawcliffe Moss, but any coastal situation is usually more productive in terms of both variety and numbers of migrants in both spring and autumn than the moss, some 7 or 8 miles inland.

But we enjoy the peace and quiet of the moss land, and the often lack of numbers allows us in between net visits to indulge in plenty of sky and land watching for local birds and at the right times of year, visible migrants. The ability to enjoy both is the joy of being both a ringer and a birder, and it is so sad that a few people think that a person must be exclusively one or the other to qualify as legitimate. Those are our reasons for actually enjoying this morning, despite the fact that for our herculean efforts we caught, some might say, a paltry 8 birds of 2 new and 6 retraps.

The two new birds were a Tree Pipit and a Blackbird, as diverse a pair as anyone might expect out on the moss. I took the pipit from the net and pondered, “When was the last Tree Pipit I handled?” suggesting to Will it was probably 15 years ago. I got back home and checked on IPMR - May 1996 at Lane Ends, Pilling. That is how scarce Tree Pipits are locally, and apart from overflying, calling birds in Spring and Autumn, it is not a species seen on the deck very often.

Tree Pipit
Tree Pipit
Our retrapped Whitethroat we first ringed here in 2007 as an adult and it has
returned in 2008, 2009 and now in 2010.

Adult Male Whitethroat
Similarly, a retrapped Willow Warbler was first ringed as a fresh juvenile and probably born on site in 2009.

Willow Warbler
The other retraps were 2 Willow Warbler, 1 Reed Bunting and a Goldfinch from 2008.

Local birds evident today were still small groups of Goldfinch and Linnet with singing Skylark and Corn Bunting plus resident Tree Sparrows ensconced in boxes.

Tree Sparrow
Corn Bunting
Visible migration was extremely interesting this morning in the form of a steady but slight passage of about 20 Swallows and a similarly thin movement of approximately 30 Meadow Pipits. The mid week migration of Wheatears noticed at many locations continued on the moss this morning with at least 16 bright “Greenland” types noticeable on the black, peaty fields. Two distant but obvious White Wagtails also stood out against the intense dark soil. There was a little movement of Redpoll again with a minimum count of 12 birds passing north throughput the morning. Waders on the move were mainly Whimbrel with at least 7 heading west and other unseen ones calling more distantly.

Raptor sightings were of the Kestrel and Buzzard variety, especially the Buzzard that has a favoured perch with a panoramic view of the moss and which overlooks the legions of tiny bunnies now evident in the fields. Raptor surprise this morning was a Merlin that put in a brief appearance over the plantation before heading out west, but the almost unseen bird of the morning was a Ring Ouzel in the plantation, loudly “tac-taccing” at our approach to the nets before flying off north and giving brief views to Will.

Kestrel
I can't hope to ever get a photograph of a Ring Ouzel so here is an absolute corker of a portrait by Andreas Trepte http://www.photo-natur.de/ .

Ring Ouzel
What a cracking morning, more please.

We’ll Wheat Again

OK I know the pun is excruciating but it’s not easy to keep dreaming up blog titles, not to mention coming up with a page full of nonsense and half decent photographs.

After a couple of blank weeks plus other days when the few Wheatears I saw gave me the run around, Wheatears finally appeared in the UK in some numbers this week. At last I managed to get to grips with anothere one today when I found a party of 7 “Greenland” type Wheatears in my (and their) favoured spot near Pilling Water.

Just like two days ago the birds were extremely mobile and active and within 30 minutes of finding them they had disappeared across the bay towards Heysham but not before I caught the single female shown here. The wing length of 103mm confirmed it as Oenanthe oenanthe leucorrhoa the subspecies of Wheatear which breeds in Greenland and which appears as a passage migrant in the British Isles and especially the west coast. It wasn’t especially heavy at 26.6 grams.

”Greenland” Wheatear
In amongst the wildfowler’s pools the Redshank numbered 130 again with 2 Teal and 2 Little Egret. I spent a little time waiting for a Wheatear to find the bait but during that time I counted other passerines as 8 Meadow Pipits, 4 Skylark, 11 Linnets and 1 Willow Warbler.

Before Lane Ends I had walked the Ridge Farm area where I counted 21 Linnets, 1 Willow Warbler, 1 Wheatear, 1 Mistle Thrush, 1 Little Egret and visible migration of 2 House Martins and 7 Swallows that flew north over the sea wall. I looked hard for Ring Ouzel having had a message of 2 at Lytham and 1 a further one at Fleetwood in the morning, and even though Ridge Farm is ideal habitat, I've yet to see a "Mountain Blackbird" there.

Earlier still I took a look at Knott End and walked a small way up river alongside the golf course. A little way up I heard the unmistakeable rasp of Sandwich Terns and found 2 flying up and down river and perching intermittently on the mid stream boat moorings. A bit further upstream and under the old fishermen’s jetty were 3 Turnstone, several Redshank and single Common Sandpiper and Dunlin.

Sandwich Tern
Turnstone
The golfers emerging from the clubhouse flushed 3 “alba” wagtails that flew north from the fairway and out towards the jetty. There on the flat calm water I found 12 Eider, 11 drakes and 1 female with 2 Whimbrel on the mussel beds. The little genuine visible migration I witnessed came via a few Swallows that crossed the river from Fleetwood and headed east along the sea wall towards Pilling.

More tomorrow............

The Other Moss

Today I had to go up to Kendal for my car service so popped into Leighton Moss RSPB nature reserve near Silverdale. I’m not a great fan of nature reserves, I prefer to go out and find birds myself, but maybe once or twice a year I will go to Leighton Moss which has breeding Marsh Harriers, Bearded Tit and Bittern, to name a few of the specialities. Anyway it was a chance to do a bit of photography where the birds aren’t too shy of approaching the hides and I persuaded that emblematic Lancashire bird the Lapwing to provide me with a new blog header for a while.

During my short visit I noticed that lots of the summer migrants were in: singing Blackcaps and Willow Warblers seemed everywhere I walked, with one or two of both Sedge Warbler and Reed Warbler striking up their chatter in the reeds. At least three Marsh Harriers and two Buzzards put in brief appearances but kept a long way from the two hides I visited.

I grabbed a few pictures to post for today but I hope I can get back to the real mosses of Pilling and Rawcliffe soon.

Grey Heron
Grey Heron
Gadwall
Marsh Harrier
Teal
Lapwing

Back to normal tomorrow I hope.

Windy Wheatears

Today I’m struggling to post anything except a letter through a doorway. Even that could get blown from my hands.

After a morning swim I hoped the overnight and morning gusts would drop for me by afternoon but they didn’t. The wind was really potent here today, too strong really for passerine birding but I thought I would go out to look for a few Wheatears out Pilling Way on the basis of a good count of more than 70 Wheatears on Bardsey Island on Monday 19th April. Bardsey Blog.

For anyone unsure of the geography up here, Bardsey is just off the tip of the Llleyn peninsula, North Wales, approximately 170 miles by road to the southern part of Morecambe Bay. To a Wheatear, especially a fuelled up specimen, it’s but a short flight from Bardsey or North Wales to any part of Morecambe Bay and a quick top up of food before the next leg of their journey. That’s not to say that any Wheatears I might find would definitely be part of the Welsh contingent, but they may have been. Equally Wheatears have been rather held up lately by the constant northerly winds and there must be many more heading this way quite soon.

Wheatear
Bardsey Island and Morecambe Bay
My walk along the Pilling wall in the north westerly proved difficult and uneventful, so hard that the best birding option was to walk behind the grassy wall out of the wind but not so to speak, stick your head over the parapet for fear of being blown back below.

There were at least 8 Wheatears, mobile, fence hopping specimens hard to study through binoculars shaking in the blustery wind. Needless to say with being so active they weren’t tempted by meal worms but quickly continued their part journey in an easterly direction.

A quick count around the Lane Ends pools revealed 6 Tufted Duck and several Swallows plus 2 Sand Martins hawking over the windswept pools.

Back home I did notice both Swallows and House Martins in our cul-de-sac inspecting last year’s sites.

Swallow and House Martin
Swallow
Swallow

Sorry folks, that’s all my news for today.

A Distant Circus

My early circuit of the Lane Ends pools and plantation in the clearing mist revealed 3 pairs of Tufted Duck, with once again the seemingly lone drake Gadwall that doesn’t venture far from the south east corner of the pool. There was a light passage of redpoll, probably Lesser Redpoll as at least three chattered high overhead with a smattering of Meadow Pipits heading out into the Heysham obscured bay. I really excelled myself when I picked up an overhead calling Tree Pipit that also headed north. Fortunately for my now low frequency hearing it was directly above me because if it had been further away and I may not have heard that high pitched but distinctive short sharp buzz. Old age and the loss of faculties, it comes to us all but happily I do have other skills left that come in quite useful occasionally. And I can still easily hear Whimbrel, and who couldn’t hear and recognise the loud, rapid seven whistles as one glides overhead with bill bent but not curved - two went over this morning as I made my way towards Pilling along the sea wall.

Common Redpoll
On the video there’s a bonus of Slender-billed Curlew and Curlew as well as Whimbrel.




I started off at Pilling Water with 4 Teal and 145 Redshank on the wildfowler’s pools, with mixed amongst them 5 Dunlin, then along the water itself looking back towards Broadfleet bridge, a Common Sandpiper. The flock of Pink-footed Goose still numbers about 800 and maybe they are better off at Pilling at the moment rather than flying off north to Iceland. A Grey Heron joined the now constant 4 Little Egrets dotted white across the green marsh together with 30 or so Shelduck, similarly white from a distance until binoculars revealed their real colours.

I laughed out loud today when I remembered the occasion out here many moons ago when I found an Avocet at a time they were rare and a clown of a birder asked if I hadn’t seen a Shelduck! I smiled back into my passerine count which revealed a singing Willow Warbler, 2 Reed Bunting, 6 Meadow Pipits, 4 Linnets and a single “alba” overhead.

Redshank
Teal
Shelduck
I spent quite a lot of time at Pilling Water this morning because every time I readied for the walk back to Lane Ends something happened, either I spotted a distant bird that required further investigation or I heard a call or two that made me linger a while. Like when I found a single Wheatear, my first there for more than 10 days; a good enough reason to try and catch it I reasoned, but it would have non of my meal worms and eventually headed out over the bay after being flushed twice by separate tide line joggers.

I sat on the stile looking left to Preesall Sands debating whether that familiar distant post had changed shape and now bore a raptor perched on top, moving around occasionally or was it a mirage from the haze? No matter because the next one wasn’t a figment of my imagination but a Marsh Harrier Circus aeruginosus, distant but flying over the sands on the edge of the marsh and heading east. I willed it to fly in towards me and linger for a slow trawl of the marsh but it didn’t, just continued on its flight north and east towards Bank End and Cockerham. It was distant for sure and it also gave me and my camera a “V” sign as it flew away out of sight.

Marsh Harrier

New Poll Shock!!

Dear Readers, don’t worry, the poll in question is a Lesser Redpoll and I guarantee this blog is about birds only and does not contain references to any political parties, politicians or forthcoming elections to make you either very angry or to bore the socks off you.

It was a totally fascinating morning’s ringing and birding at Rawcliffe Moss this morning which began when I loaded the poles on the car at 0530 to find both the bamboos and the car roof covered in a thin layer of frost that initially numbed my fingers, again. Thank goodness for the dependable vacuum flask.

320 feet of net later Will and I waited for the catch, part of which we hoped would be a few of the breeding Willow Warblers, because the singing males at least are back on their territories. We caught 6 new birds, a Lesser Redpoll, one of the few caught at the site, 2 Chaffinch, 2 Goldfinch and a Reed Bunting. Retraps came in at 1Reed Bunting and 4 Willow Warblers.

Lesser Redpoll
Willow Warbler
Goldfinch
Chaffinch
The four Willow Warblers were all males, each of them originally ringed in the same plantation in the breeding season of 2008. Three of them were subsequently retrapped in 2009, the fourth not. The latter omission may be explained simply by the smaller numbers of ringing sessions on site during the awful summer of 2009. We also caught a ringed Goldfinch but not a ring we recognised – another control to follow the one from earlier in the year. Goldfinch X818575 anyone?

The visible migration was interesting, varied but thin with a couple of Swallows only, 8 Redpoll, 1 Siskin, 6 alba and 4 Whimbrel with the star bird a single Fieldfare that chuckled north about 9am.

Fieldfare
Other birds seen: 2 Buzzards, Sparrowhawk, 10 Goldfinch, 15 Curlew, 6 Linnets and 4 Corn Bunting with several of each resident Lapwing and Skylark.

Decisions, Decisions

Today was another one of those indecisive occasions and the feeling that its spring therefore I should be out birding or ringing, but after the quiet birding most of this week where might it be best to look? Last night we decided to leave the ringing until Saturday when the forecast looks marginally better with the chance that one or two extra migrants might find the British Isles, especially if they head into a cloud of volcanic fallout just north of here. I decided that I should give Conder Green another chance, particularly as there are always good looking birds to see with plenty of activity from the variety of waders, wildfowl and passerines there; then after CG, who knows?

I parked up quietly and scanned the creek before I approached the screen cautiously as often any birds just below will stay put if I am quiet and unobtrusive. There were 2 or 3 Redshank fairly close that sensed I was around and although they didn’t fly off, they did move a little further away. Also, a couple of them on the nearest island, displaying around and over it, competing with the Oystercatchers and Lapwings as to which could make the most noise. A lone Grey Heron stood on the far bank of the pool, conspicuously silent today unlike their usual habit of taking off with one or two harsh calls before disappearing towards the canal. We think of the pool edges as a place for waders but today I watched a pair of Linnets come in for a drink and to search around the grassy margins for food. Earlier I heard Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Reed Bunting and Meadow Pipits close by but didn’t search them out so I was happy that small birds were around even if they were not of the warbler variety fresh in from Africa.

Linnet
Oystercatcher
Redshank
I had watched a Spotted Redshank fly from the creek out to one of the furthest islands where it stood in the shallows away from the Redshanks, then moments later I thought I saw a second spotted red just behind the island. It was about then that PW, JB and BT joined me on the podium for a chinwag but also to multiply the searching eyes, which paid dividends when a Little Ringed Plover showed on the far side of the pool. Those Lancaster birders certainly put some time in to seek out the birds; sometimes its difficult to stay one step ahead of them especially now my cover of a different car has been blown, but me thinks they don't know what Sue's car looks like!

There’s one really positive thing about the wildfowl at the moment - they are easy to count there are so few of them, but it is interesting to see the lingerers from winter to guess which ones may be breeding or the ones simply playing at it. I counted 3 Goldeneye, 5 Tufted Duck, 2 Shelduck, 5 Teal, 4 Mute Swan and 1 Little Grebe.

Goldeneye
There was nothing for it but a return to Lane Ends where once again the Kestrel flew hopefully around as workmen cut the grass. Raptors are clever and opportunistic that way, knowing that cut grass leaves small mammals potentially exposed to binocular eyes from above. The migrant highlight here was a Common Sandpiper on the pool edges.

Kestrel
Kestrel
No “phylosscs” at Lane Ends and no Wheatears again today when I walked to Pilling Water, just Meadow Pipits on territory and a single overflying Redpoll.

Meadow Pipit
Time for a decision, carry on or hold off for another day by heading home for a good old cup of British and a Rich Tea biscuit? I think its known as quitting while ahead.