Trying

I finally got to grips with the shy Great-spotted Woodpecker that visits the garden when it thinks I'm not looking, but I couldn’t get a full pose away from the peanuts. I will just have to try again.

Great-spotted Woodpecker
As it rained this morning I spent a while reinstalling a slide show for the RH column of the blog after the previous one broke for no apparent reason. I hope readers new and old like the new version; all the pictures at higher resolution can be found somewhere on previous posts.

The rain fell most of the morning and then kept showering as I ate a sandwich while looking hopefully west through the conservatory windows for a hint of brighter stuff. Then after lunch I risked the continuing showers for a walk along Pilling shore where I received a little soaking but at least I got out for a while, but with not much to report I’m afraid.

At Lane Ends the Tufted Duck recently bred successfully and today the female looked after three young while the young Greylags are now as big as their parents.

Greylag
Tufted Duck
I heard the Blackcap singing again plus two Reed Warblers today, one alongside the road and the other below the car park, and whilst Reed Warblers are able to breed in just small patches of phragmites reed, I’m afraid the unmanaged woodland is about to engulf the few patches of reed left. Little Grebes were around because I heard their trill but there are so many hiding places I rarely see them.

I walked towards Fluke hall to the sound of two singing Skylarks and the displaying, singing Meadow Pit I saw a few days ago, the one that carries a BTO ring.

Skylark
I sat on the wet stile at Pilling Water and surveyed the shore and inland towards Pilling village. Three Common Sandpipers hugged the outlet ditch together with a couple of Redshank, a still brightly coloured single Black-tailed Godwit and a couple of Oystercatchers. There are still a number of Pied Wagtails on the marsh, today I counted just six, plus the comings and goings of several Linnet, and just below me two Greenfinch.

Linnet
I watched as an overflying micro light put to flight the waders further out on the marsh, 130 Curlew and 60 Lapwings. As this happened I think an opportunistic Kestrel took advantage of the disturbance and confusion to snatch a small Redshank chick from underneath the noses of the parents, and the falcon flew past me and over the wildfowler’s pools out of sight with its dangling prey. Hirundines and Swift numbers were more normal today with about 60 Swallows, 20+ House Martins and 25 Swift feeding over the marsh, sea wall, and about Pilling Water itself.

Kestrel
My mammal highlight today was a brief sighting of a Stoat closely pursued by a youngster, a “kit”. My views were very brief as the animal stood up momentarily to look at me then ran off, still followed by the youngster and I had no chance of a picture. Trying to watch wildlife can be very frustrating sometimes, trying to photograph it even more so.

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Quality Street

That’s what Will and I called one of our net rides at Rawcliffe this morning when two 60ft nets especially kept catching warblers and finches. In fact it was a very successful morning’s ringing after a slow start at dawn but better once the early morning dampness cleared and the temperature rose.

We caught 49 birds, 35 new and 14 recaptures of 8 species. New birds were:
Willow Warbler 10
Sedge Warbler 3
Whitethroat 10
Goldfinch 8
Blackbird 1
Treecreeper 1
Dunnock 1
Great Tit 1

Recaptures came as:
Willow Warbler 4
Whitethroat 4
Sedge Warbler 6

We caught our first juvenile Sedge Warblers of the year, fresh and yellowish, looking so different from the whitened adults with plumage now worn by their travels in the early year and the demands of a breeding season.

Sedge Warbler-juvenile
Sedge Warbler-juvenile
”Quality Street”
We also caught a few Goldfinch which appeared barely out of the nest, short winged, short tailed youngsters but obviously independent enough as they flew off strongly in small parties of adults and juveniles. Whilst this went on around us we found Goldfinches at a different stage with a nest containing five eggs.

Goldfinch-juvenile
Goldfinch
Goldfinch nest
Treecreeper
Two juvenile Whitethroats with consecutive ring numbers we recaptured this morning had actually been originally ringed in a nest in the plantation on 9th June.

Whitethroat-juvenile
The actual birding as distinct from the ringing was very quiet this morning with no visible migration and the new birds caught today can be ascribed to post breeding dispersal of juvenile birds and moult dispersal of adult birds.

On the lepidoptera side of things we did find a cache of eggs on nettles this morning. A quick trawl of the Internet identified these as Small Tortoiseshell - Aglais urticae I think.

Small Tortoiseshell?
Another Dawn-Out Rawcliffe

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