Saturday, Saturday

The forecast is bad for tomorrow but if the BBC are true to form it won’t be nearly as bad as they suggest, my cue for setting the alarm.

After a 10 day interlude I needed to check my Swallow site out today: Maybe that is not as random as it suggests as I knew there would almost certainly be young Swallows ready for a ring. In fact after losing two broods to unknown but suspected predators, two other broods were of the right size for a ring today with primary feathers “IP” – just in pin, but emerging. So I ringed 3 in one nest where Molly the Border Collie kept intruders out and five in a nest in the black shed with the tiny, unobvious but secure entrance hole as around me adults and birds of the year tried to join in with bouts of feeding hungry young.

Swallow
Swallow

In the nest that fledged only 14 days ago, in fact the most secure and favoured nest site, an adult sat on 4 new eggs, these Swallows certainly don’t waste any time. In other nests I counted 14 eggs, some quite soft and ready for hatching, then in another nest, chicks too young to ring now but ready in four or five days.

Swallow

Back at home with the lure of peanuts I tried to interest the Great–spotted Woodpecker into spending time in the apple tree, but even as a youngster it is so wild and wary that it is a difficult task. Momentarily I got the bird to pose half way around the tree, not ideal but in the evening light it made for a pleasing picture, as did the Chaffinch and Collared Dove.

Great-spotted Woodpecker
Chaffinch
Collared Dove
I looked at http://www.xcweather.co.uk/ which suggests that Tuesday may be better for a ringing expedition. Here’s hoping.

It's Just A Hobby

I did a few jobs yesterday and combined it with the babysitting, so after the warm southerlies of the last few days and the arrival of July this morning I treated myself to a little birding. It started as an ordinary morning walk without too many expectations, then as often happens, the unexpected materialises, my familiar walk got more and more interesting until it finished with a special bird.

As I arrived at Lane Ends about 80 Curlew came off the inland fields, flew over the plantation and landed out on the marsh where they joined the autumn gang of 120 or so Lapwings. The walk up to Pilling Water proved uneventful with just the usual Skylarks for company as I cursed the early morning brightly clothed walkers for beating me to the pool again, but it was 9am I suppose.

Sat on the stile I noticed a scruffy looking Barn Owl hunting the fields and ditches alongside Fluke Hall Lane and the margins of Pilling Water. At that hour on a bright sunny it could only be hunting for food for youngsters, and I watched it for about 15 minutes alternately quartering the ground or sitting on the lookout fence posts. It was very scruffy, but I suppose I might be if I had been sat on eggs in the confines of a dark smelly box for some weeks. In actual fact there is nothing quite like the smell of an end of season owl box full of growing young with their left overs of discarded and rotting food items and sometimes the left overs of the smallest owl eaten a week or two before by its larger siblings.

Barn Owl
Barn Owl

That brightened my first hour or so before the owl flew off towards Fluke Hall, but it was so quiet I could hear a Whitethroat singing from the distant sewage works at Damside. Back at the sea wall end I noted 2 Common Sandpipers along the outfall and a lone Golden Plover, with 9 Pied Wagtails scattered across the marsh with small groups of Linnets that totalled up to a miserly 14 birds. A Meadow Pipit has started singing again at the junction of the sea wall there, and I am sure there is a nest close by as it let me approach it fairly close while calling to its mate. I noticed it had a ring on the right leg but it is more than a few years since I ringed any “mipits” just there, so I need either to carry a scope or catch the bird with meal worms to find out its place of ringing.

Meadow Pipit

A Grey Heron sat along the inland dyke where Swallows and House Martins fed. From the stile I was fairly certain that besides the local hirundines, other Swallows and House Martins were on the move south, with a single Sand Martin joining in the feeding out over the marsh, with Swifts noted here as going west and numbering 40, Swallows 70 and House Martins 30. The resident breeding Redshanks and Lapwings still protested at my presence even though they had obviously moved their young further out on the marsh, so I tried my hand at Redshanks photos again, but the results weren’t as good as a few days ago.

Redshank

At Lane Ends car park I dumped my heavy camera bag in the car to watch the seeming inactivity out on the marsh. As Lapwings and Starlings mixed in the summery length grass I waited to count them, concentrating instead on the numbers of Swifts flying at all heights but mainly heading west with more Swallows and extra House Martins. Something spooked the Lapwings and Starlings into the air “en masse”, the regular autumn/winter Merlin or Peregrine, but early I supposed. Then an adult Hobby came fairly slowly from the right along the sea wall in front of the mound, pursued and almost surrounded by complaining Swifts and Swallows, then disappeared behind the plantation with an entourage of twittering birds. By now I revised my morning count of Swift to 90, Swallow to 80 and House Martin to 45. My Starling count was 240, Lapwing 170. Hobby isn’t a major rarity here, in fact they do breed in Lancashire but it’s always a special day when one surprises you unexpectedly.

Hobby

Although everything went quiet I waited for a while to see if the Hobby might reappear. After about twenty minutes the Lapwings, Starlings and hirundines spooked again as the Hobby came in from the direction of Fluke Hall at a much faster pace, did a Swift impression, then continued off towards Cockerham where I lost it in the sky.

That’s a good morning’s birding, and it was 1130 already. How time flies when we’re having fun.

Tools Of The Trade

Don’t let anyone say blogging is easy, especially when you haven’t been out birding because of summer chores like painting the gates, power washing the patio then repointing the weed filled joints of the said stones. All this only after a trip to B&Q for the necessary materials at the Wednesday 10% discount for OAPs, followed by lunch at the “Kingfisher” pub, which was the nearest I got to a bird this morning.

Later I sneaked off on the pretence of a sit down with a cup of tea and there were lots of birds in the garden, if but common stuff. So an hour or two later after my brief respite I opened the bag of sharp sand and set to with a stiff brush and a heavy heart, but not before I got a few pictures.

Young Starlings don’t look a lot like the adults do they? I think Will said to me last week that he hadn’t seen the large gangs of young around in the same numbers this year, such a feature of early June. I think he was correct but there were a few in the garden today.

Starling

The Chaffinch is obviously one of the regular garden visitors. Note the ring, right leg. Wow the picture is nearly good enough to read the number!

Chaffinch
Chaffinch
My garden is absolutely crammed with Goldfinch at the moment. This bird has to be one of the most successful British birds of recent years, most of it due to its sheer adaptability and the fact that it has become a very common garden bird.

Goldfinch
I swear the branch of the silver birch sagged when this fat young Woodpigeon landed on it. The thing isn’t long out of the nest but wasted no time in joining the others in searching out local gardens.

Woodpigeon
Woodpigeon
This Jackdaw is clearly up to some villainy, like nicking all the peanuts.

Jackdaw
Even the young Great-spotted Woodpeckers waste no time in searching out my nuts!

Great-spotted Woodpecker
Now I must get back to the chores, where did I put that paintbrush?

It's King Harrys Again

Readers of the blog may remember I caught a Goldfinch in my Lancashire garden in October 2009 that had been ringed in Chilworth, Surrey in January 2009, with the distance between the two points being 341 kms. Just as interesting was the reasonable assumption that the bird returned north during 2009 after wintering in the south of England. Details here:

http://anotherbirdblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/king-harrys_09.html

Goldfinch
Goldfinch

The BTO have just informed the ringing group of a very similar recovery. Will and I caught a ringed Goldfinch at Rawcliffe Moss on 17th April 2010, the bird bearing a ring number we hadn’t used X818575; we are informed this bird was originally ringed in Kintbury, Berkshire on 31st January 2010, distance in this case 292kms, so it looks like this bird also wintered in the south of England. Interestingly it was during February, March and April of 2010 when there was a notable influx of Goldfinch to this part of Lancashire when we caught 15 new Goldfinch in February, 32 in March and 44 in April.

Two Goldfinch Recoveries
Goldfinch
Interesting results like these two which both add to and confirm existing facts make all the early morning effort seem worthwhile.

Autumn Clues

I decided to give ringing a miss on the principle that a little lie in wouldn’t come amiss, plus as autumn draws near I fancied a bit of just birding because “you just never know”. I did one of my usual mixes which consisted of Conder Green followed by a walk along the shore at Pilling. Not much new then with my choice of locations, but the combination gives me a nice selection of birds, and on a bright morning I might even get a few photographs.

At Conder Green a Spotted Redshank in the creek, still almost totally blackish in summer plumage, immediately stood out from the 120 or so Redshank and a couple of Curlew, whereby there was no need to search for the dusky one amongst the crowd of commoners. I just wish I could get a picture of the bird in this plumage but it seems just as unapproachable as its cousins are. Less obvious to the eye were 4 Dunlin, a species that is one of the early autumn returns, black-bellied adults that almost disappeared in the middle of the crowd of taller redshanks that picked through the stones and low water of the channel. A single Common Sandpiper kept as they usually do to the edge of the channel unmolested by the crowd of other birds.

On the islands an Oystercatcher still sat on eggs whilst another adult flew back and forth from another island where a chick of the year is not yet ready to fly. The Little Ringed Plovers have been far from obvious this year but a single bird did show on the far margins of the pool today. But I must say I haven’t seen any evidence of breeding yet, and the birds need to get on with it soon or it will be too late.

The regular 2 Grey Herons put in an appearance, as did a hunting Kestrel plus still singing Meadow Pipit and Reed Bunting. There were several Swifts and House Martins whizzing about but as yet I hadn’t lifted my camera in anger, the pictures below from a previous sortie.

Little Ringed Plover
Redshank
Meadow Pipit

I took a slow drive to Lane Ends via Moss Lane then Thurham where I noted three roadside Sedge Warblers, then in the fields approaching Lane Ends 80 Lapwings in a loose flock and several Curlew interspersed with them. At Lane Ends three warblers sang loudly, Blackcap, Reed Warbler and Chiffchaff with several Swallows and House Martins hawking insects over the mound. It was a good morning for insects, sunny with a warm breeze, which probably accounted for the 20 or more Swifts I saw here and another 8 up at Pilling Water.

It may seem strange to talk of autumn birds in June but the earliest spring migrants are always the first to reappear in summer, so it was no surprise to see a Wheatear on the marsh near Pilling Water as late June is a classic date for the start of their return passage. Also on the marsh here alongside the Damside ditch were 11 Pied Wagtails, mostly juveniles birds, and 3 Common Sandpipers, with on the pool a pair of Teal plus loafing Lapwings and Oystercatchers.

Wheatear
Pied Wagtail

I took a little time out to photograph a group of Swallows, adults and young birds that settled on the metal fencing here in between hunting for insects over the reedy dyke. Exactly the spot I got some similar shots almost twelve months ago.

Swallow
Swallow
Swallow

Humble Pie

They do say that a change is as good as a rest so Will and I experimented in catching House Sparrows this morning. Will was asked by an agricultural supply company at Brock, near Garstang, if anything could be done about the numbers of House Sparrows that invade the warehouse and target spilt animal feed, despite all sorts of safeguards to keep them out of the building. The problem is twofold, one of droppings contaminating the sacks that are later handled by staff and/or customers, but also that birds within the building often set off overnight burglar alarms necessitating a call out by the police to a member of staff or the manager.

So knowing how House Sparrows are quick to learn, notoriously difficult to fool and clever at avoiding efforts to catch them, we thought that mist netting a number of them in the act of leaving or entering the building might be:
a). A good PR exercise for ringing
b). An opportunity to ring some Red Listed birds and obtain a ring rebate from the BTO for doing so
c). A chance to pit our wits against those of a gang of House Sparrows.

So we set a single 20ft net against the sparrows’ favourite roller-shuttered entrance, went in through a separate entrance, lifted the door just enough to mist net height and waited for the sparrows to emerge into daylight.

The Way In, The Way Out
House Sparrow
House Sparrow
House Sparrow
The end result was we caught 25 House Sparrows, 12 males, 9 females and 4 young of the year, plus 1 Blackbird.

A regular visitor into the warehouse is a male Sparrowhawk that chases the sparrows through the roof beams, often consuming its’ prey in warehouse or outside in the works compound where we set up base station. We didn’t see or catch the Sparrowhawk, but mid-morning an overhead Merlin heading west pursued by Swallows was compensation; and despite the urban nature of our ringing today we didn’t entirely lose out on birding with 2 Grey Wagtails, 1 Pied Wagtail, 4 Collared Dove and several Jackdaws, probably all waiting to drop into a favoured feeding spot.

We probably all take the humble House Sparrow for granted, and although declining in the UK it is common through most of its world range. It is tolerant of climatic changes and high mortality, provided that adequate food supply is always available. The populations have fluctuated greatly over the centuries, with a gradual decline over the last 100 years. Change from horse-drawn vehicles to motorised ones caused the House Sparrow population in many cities to drop by two thirds, with the removal of an important food supply - the cereal fed to horses. Recent declines have been caused by a combination of reduced plant food in winter, reduced insect availability for chicks, and reduction in available nest sites. On farmland, these are attributed to changes in agricultural practices. Housing of livestock in inaccessible buildings, mechanisation of grain harvest and more effective storage of grain and animal feeds all reduced the sparrows’ access to food. Recent cereal hygiene regulations mean that farm buildings are sealed, and therefore offer fewer nesting sites. In towns lack of food and nest sites are contributing to the decline, but there is not a full understanding of the House Sparrow's decline.

In the 1950s, the UK House Sparrow population was estimated at 9.5 million. They increased to 12 million by the early 1970s, then declined. The population crashed during the 1990s and over 25 years the population has declined by 62%. Because of this decline in numbers, the House Sparrow is now red listed as a species of high conservation concern.

An enjoyable morning to which we will return at some later autumn and winter dates, but tomorrow I need some warblers.

Short Arms, Long Lens

Will sent me a picture of a Little Owl he ringed last night, one of two in the entrance of a nest hole he found while watching the adults come back with a mouse. He couldn’t get the second youngster because it scurried to the back of the tree out of reach of an outstretched arm. It’s getting to be a habit for both of us, but Will assures me he’s not a Yorkshireman by birth, and I just paid out for a new PC. Thanks Will.

Little Owl
Meanwhile today I took a walk over Pilling way towards Pilling Water where I didn’t expect to see a lot so took my camera along in the hope of getting a few pictures.

Both the Redshanks and the Lapwings had young close by, and called to them incessantly to hide and crouch from the intruder. An Oystercatcher on a post also watched me, calling to the young I knew not where. Sod’s Law came into effect when a small unringed Lapwing chick appeared about 30 yards away on open ground, but I had no rings with me other than “B” size for Skylark. Unless Redshank chicks are initially visible I find that just searching for them willy-nilly hardly ever works, particularly on the marsh at Pilling where they disappear into the muddy ditches long before I arrive, then hide away as all the while the adults call them down. So I didn’t look for the chicks, but watched and listened to the adults complaining at me while trying to follow their erratic flight with my camera.

Redshank
Redshank
Redshank
Lapwing
Oystercatcher
Signs of Autumn out on the marsh were 170 Curlews and 125 Shelduck, whilst a single Common Sandpiper flew low along the ditch, then closer by a family party of 5 Meadow Pipits and two juvenile Pied Wagtails stuck to the high tide line mark. As I walked slowly along the sea wall I had my highest count of Swift this year when more than twenty took advantage of the insects thrown up from the grass to surround me, skimming close overhead. I couldn’t find any Skylarks feeding young but there were at least 3 singing, for perhaps their second broods or another attempt following the ploughing in of first nests.

Swift
Pied Wagtail
Skylark