Down to Earth

Today I knuckled down to some proper birding in the way of checking nest boxes and finding out where the Swallows are up to. But I really look forward to spending time watching Swallows.

I started at Out Rawcliffe and checked several Tree Sparrow boxes before I found some that hadn’t recently fledged; that’s the problem with taking holidays in May that coincide with early breeders in the UK like Tree Sparrows where in most years early broods of young are big enough for ringing by the first week of May. So I resigned myself to having lost at least four broods as I inspected boxes to find well trodden nest material and no young. However I did ring two broods, a trio and then a foursome with two nests to follow up in a week’s time where the young were too small to ring. Near the village hall I found 2 separate Yellowhammer singing, the usual roadside Whitethroats, and on a couple of farm ponds three broods of well grown Coot. In the outhouse with Tess the Border Collie, a Swallow sat brooding four eggs. At this rate it will soon be autumn!

Tree Sparrow Nestling
Tree Sparrow Box
I also came across another Oystercatcher nest, this time on the ground as it should be, but with two eggs.

Oystercatcher Nest
Sitting Oystercatcher
On the moss proper I found a late Wheatear hanging around a pile of rocks and stones, a place I once caught one, but this bird cleared off smartish, and although the small pile of rocks might hide some tasty morsels, I doubt the bird will now stay around for much longer. I checked out the plantation in anticipation of a ringing session soon where I found at least 6 Willow Warblers, 3 Sedge Warblers, several singing Whitethroat, a Garden Warbler, 3 Reed Buntings, a couple of Corn Buntings, but parties still of Goldfinch numbering 18 to 20 in total. Strangely I didn’t hear any Skylark on the topmost part of the moss and only three further back towards the road; let’s hope they are not a serious casualty of our hard winter but the immediate signs are not encouraging.

Corn Bunting
More animals at the next farm where for the Swallow nests horses provide long, strong horse hair, dogs the insulating hair and chickens the warm feathers to complete the nest; and all three the insects to feed adults and young alike.

Horse Hair, Feathers and Fresh Mud
Swallow
Swallow
Swallow
Nest Lining
More Nest Lining
A Never Ending Task
The adult below had only one tail streamer and looks ready to lose the other one when it breaks.

Adult Swallow Taking A Break
I found four active nests; one with four eggs, adult sitting, two lined nests with no eggs, and a fourth newly topped up with earth but not yet lined.

That all looks like an hour or so on IPMR Nest Records, but just to keep myself in holiday mood I’ll finish with a bird from recent weeks, a Red Kite near Tirant, Menorca.

Red Kite
Wow, I've just noticed the blog clocked up the 100th "follower", someone actually reads this stuff!

More From Menorca

The weather in Menorca was fairly mixed, about 50% pure sunny weather and 50% cloudy, cool or even rain, not ideal for photography a lot of the time but ok for walking and bit of birding, especially during the first week when migration was best but perhaps not dramatic due to the constant northerly winds.

One of our favourite walks was east from Sant Tomas, up over the coastal headland and then inland towards Son Bou where the Cami de Cavalls took us alongside woodland, across the mouth of the gorge that drops down from Es Mijorn, then alongside the marsh stretched out inland of the beach leading west from Son Bou; a mixture of habitats reflected in the birds seen. The frustrating birds are the Cettis Warblers and Nightingales, constantly singing from seemingly every suitable patch of habitat, hardly seen and almost impossible to photograph on a casual basis.

Alongside the coastal paths Wheatears, Stonechats, Tawny Pipits, Linnets and Goldfinches were plentiful, with pairs of Blue Rock Thrushes spaced at suitable distances apart, with an accompanying and constant rise and fall of Zitting Cisticolas. Shore and seabirds seen on this walk were the by now common Audouin’s Gull, Shag, Yellow-legged Gull and Common Sandpiper, and further out over the sea, feeding shearwaters, both Cory’s, Yelkouan and probably Balearic but all fairly distant on a walk without the encumbrance of heavy telescopes. It was the 3rd of May that saw an influx of Woodchat Shrikes that shared the tall hedgerows and coastal scrub with the finches, chats, pipits, and later in the week Spotted Flycatchers. It is not until I tried to get pictures of Woodchat Shrikes that I realised how difficult they are to approach closely, as they always kept a respectable distance, ever alert to my movements. Corn Buntings are just everywhere on Menorca, perhaps vying with Sardinian Warbler for the title of “commonest passerine”, and there are just so many singing from every available song post that it made me think how common the species must have been in the UK many, many moons ago before intensification.

Tawny Pipit
Blue Rock Thrush
Stonechat
Spotted Flycatcher
Corn Bunting
Woodchat Shrike
Audouin’s Gull
Raptors on this walk reflected the most common ones of the island, Egyptian Vulture, Kestrel, Peregrine and Booted Eagle, but there was usually a chance of a Hobby where migrant Swallows, Swift and House Martins congregated high along the cliffs or low over the marsh.

Hobby
Egyptian Vulture
View To Son Benet
In the area of Son Bou marsh we saw Squacco, Grey and Purple Herons and the ubiquitous Little Egrets, Purple Swamphens, Coots and Moorhens with the occasional Marsh Harrier, but struggled to see the Great Reed Warblers or evn the Little Bittern from previous years.

Purple Heron
Maybe another walk, another day at Another Bird Blog but there is always a Menorcan sunset to admire.

Sundown at Sant Tomas

Between You Me And The Gatepost

Today I wanted to catch up with the jobs that holidays let you forget about, like 100+ emails and dozens of items of post, not to mention two weeks of growth on the lawn.

To hell with it then when my farmer friends at Cockerham gave me a ring to say they had an interesting Oystercatcher nest so I called in and took a look, and there it was in the hollow top of a gate post. Such a nest is not without precedent of course but it is a clever strategy of the birds to nest off the ground and avoid land based predators at the egg stage. The birds, mainly the female in Oystercatchers, have been sitting for about two weeks now so I’ll give it about fourteen more days before looking to ring the young.

Sitting Oystercatcher

Three Egg Stage
Oystercatcher
Pushed for time I took a quick look around the rest of the farm and noted 3 pairs of Lapwing, 2 still on eggs and the other with small young, another pair of Oystercatchers, and a Buzzard in a nearby wood together with a couple of pairs of Swallows in the farm buildings and a Willow Warbler singing from a small copse.

I bumped into PW at Conder green but apart from a quick chat about spring being virtually over, I had time only to check out the receding water levels that now look so good for the returning waders of July. So for PW and because I know how much he likes them, I'm posting a photo of a Little Ringed Plover from last week at Tirant, Menorca.

Lille Ringed Plover
I usually like to have a look in Thurnham Hall in May, mainly in search of Garden Warbler, Spotted Flycatcher and Chiffchaff. I wasn’t disappointed today when I saw a single Spotted Flycatcher but at least 3 Garden Warblers, singing and hard “tacking”, plus 2 singing Chiffchaffs with a likely nest locality memorised for a follow up when I have more time.

In Menorca Spotted Flycatchers moved through in very large numbers during 1st to 15 May and I did get more than one photograph. So here is just one of those plus a photograph of an Audouin’s Gull taking a gulp of pool water and yet another Hoopoe, all pictures from the confines of a sunbed – happy days!

Spotted Flycatcher
Audouin’s Gull
Hoopoe

Now please excuse me, I really must tackle those emails.

Back

We finally got back after Manchester closed and our flight was volcanoed to Luton Airport. That's a story all in itself best saved for another day.

So until I can get my 500 pictures downloaded and doctored here's a few Menorcan birds to be going on with.

Hoopoe
Cattle Egret
Squacco Heron

Back to normal in a day or two with some local birding.

Postcard From Menorca

Greetings all from Menorca.

A quick update from the Med on life and birding in the sun. Arrivals this week included lots of Whinchat, Spotted and Pied Flycatchers, Wheatears, Swifts and Alpine Swifts. Hotel birds entertained us daily Audouins Gull, Hoopoe, Scops Owls and a Kestrel that keeps the House Sparrows in check.

Raptors included Marsh Harrier, Peregrine, Booted Eagle, Hobby and Egyptian Vulture.Herons represented by Cattle Egret, Little Egret and Purple Heron.

There is good old fashioned farming here with plenty of Cettis Warbler, Nightingale with both Cirl Bunting and Corn Bunting plus Woodchat Shrikes everywhere.

In the last few days I caught up with with Roller, Red backed Shrike and Whiskered Tern.

I have lots of photos to post when I get home including amazing shots of Scops Owl, Tawny Pipit, Bee Eater and Cattle Egret to name but a few. See you soon.

Piedy Fly

I’m rapidly running out of time now with all the loose ends to tidy before the holiday, so finding a time slot to bird gets more difficult. With just a couple of hours spare I looked in at Fluke Hall followed by a jaunt from Lane Ends to Pilling Water.

Fluke Hall started well with a Tree Pipit at the end of Wheel Lane that called twice as it flew up to the overhead telephone wires but briefly only before it continued further east down Fluke Hall Lane. The trees and hedge in the sheltered garden here at the junction often turn up one or two birds, nothing spectacular of course, but I added 2 Whitethroats and a singing Willow Warbler to my first notebook page. Remiss of me perhaps but I don’t count the many Tree Sparrows “chip-chipping” away from the hedgerow and nest boxes along here in the little copse and the start of Fluke Hall wood as I know BD has the figures at his fingertips. I saw a Great-spotted Woodpecker going about its business on some of the rotten looking trees and watched a Kestrel skirt the woodland edge towards the sea wall before it perched up on the obligatory fence post.

Great-spotted Woodpecker
Kestrel
I hoped to walk the Ridge Farm track so parked up at my spot near the field entrance west of Fluke. Looking towards Ridge Farm I could see I had been beaten there several times over by non birders with rampaging four legged friends so cut my losses early by watching both another Willow Warbler and a Whitethroat close to the car and listening to a Blackcap somewhere in the nearby gardens.

The wildfowler’s pools were quiet without the big gang of Redshank that favoured them lately, with four only today, a Grey Heron, a Little Egret and a single Common Sandpiper. Singing Reed Bunting and Willow Warbler represented the smaller birds within the confines of the willows but a single Mistle Thrush is not common there and is almost certainly one of the resident Broadfleet birds. Along the tide line I found a little party of 4 Wheatears and a larger gang of 18 Meadow Pipits, plus 3 of the now regular Skylark.

I spent some worthwhile time at Lane Ends. Warbler wise I counted 3 Sedge Warbler, 3 Willow Warbler, a Blackcap and not before time, a returned Reed Warbler singing from the reeds nearest the road. There’s nothing quite like a Reed Warbler song – unless it’s a Great Reed Warbler of course, which sounds and looks like a Reed Warbler on steroids.

Reed Warbler
I was on the sea wall near the gate when I heard the Pied Flycatcher singing; It took me a second or two to realise what the song was because it’s one of those birds that comes around every nine months; go around the nest boxes, listen to the Piedy Fly's song and calls, ring the young, then forget about the species until next May comes around with no guarantee of seeing one on the coast beforehand. Anyway it flit through a warming spot in the canopy a couple of times before disappearing over towards the pool again. There were no other birders to tell for their lists, so I left the bird alone.

Pied Flycatcher
For a few weeks I had suspicions of 2 pairs of Little Grebe, confirmed today, as was breeding Reed Bunting when I watched the male return to a nest. I watched a pair of Long-tailed Tit quietly to and fro along the tree line but apart from their relative silence they didn’t give much away.

Reed Bunting
Surprise of the morning was probably the pair of Grey Partridge I disturbed in the edge of the wood behind the mound, as they then flew to hide down near the roadway, croaking as they fled. Overhead I saw my first Swifts of the year, 2 of them higher than the few perhaps migrant Swallows that seemed to be flying south into the wind this morning.

Swift
The incoming tide produced a little interest in the shape of small numbers of Dunlin and Ringed Plover, 2 Red-breasted Merganser and 8 Whimbrel that lingered on the shore for a while to give excellent views.

Where’s My Better Half?

The usual early start today, but what a beautiful sunrise. It was a fine morning to be up and about.

Misty Sunrise
Will and I asked the leading question not of ourselves but of the 3 Whitethroats and 4 Willow Warblers we caught this morning when they all turned out to be males. This year we have yet to catch a female Willow Warbler or Whitethroat in our ringing plot on Rawcliffe Moss. Whitethroats do arrive later than Willow Warblers, so we are not too concerned there, but it looks as though female Willow Warblers haven’t arrived yet to claim a summer partner. A four hour ringing session should have shown up any females present.

There was an awful lot of song from the plantation, mainly Common Whitethroats who also indulged in some chasing around of potential territories. We counted at least 10 singing males near us with others further down the moss. It was a similar tale with the Willow Warblers, when the four we caught were retraps from not only previous years but had also previous ringing sessions this year. Other birds netted today were 2 Lesser Redpoll and a Blackbird, so the redpoll migration continued but our overall count of this species was of 8 or 10 only chattering high overhead and flying north.

Willow Warbler
Whitethroat
Lesser Redpoll
The earlier morning started on a bird high when I drove up the moss track to see a Barn Owl sitting in a glassless window frame of a half completed house extension. What a photo opportunity, just begging for a suitable caption, but as I slowed to look closer and pick up the ever ready camera, the owl turned its back on me and dropped down back into the half completed shell of the room. But the one below may be the same bird from weeks ago in the same vicinity.

Barn Owl
Just as we completed putting up mist nets, we had both picked up on a Common Cuckoo calling from up near the conifers. It called a couple of times before going quiet and we guessed it headed quickly north. Now there is a misnomer, “Common Cuckoo”, maybe we should now rename the species “Seriously Threatened Cuckoo”?

The Conifers
Cuckoo
Just to the left of the conifers a party of Greenland Wheatears again stood out as dots of colour on the black peat canvas of the recently drilled field, with a Kestrel just sat there for a while after we supposed a failed attempt at a ground morsel; as we walked around the edge of the field it took off back to higher elevations but the Wheatears continued patrolling the soil way out of our reach today.

Other birds seen today included the resident Buzzard in the same old tree, Corn Buntings, Linnets, Reed Buntings and Goldfinches, but we both remarked separately on the apparent lack of Skylark song. Is it the effect of the cold winter and another species to worry over in the coming weeks?

I caught a Dunnock in the garden today. Male and female Dunnocks are difficult to tell apart, except in the breeding season. So I looked carefully at this bird in the parts that matter and I could tell it had clearly found a better half (or maybe more than one, as Dunnocks do), unlike the lonesome warblers on the moss singing for sight of a mate.

Adult Male Dunnock