I'm Positive

It’s been a tough week. I got soaked to the skin twice; a third day I received a thorough wetting as well as being almost blown into next week by the strong westerly; and then damn it, the mist nets must remain packed away until the weather improves. On three occasions the Marsh Harrier wouldn’t cooperate at the end of the lens and nor could I get photos of any other winged creature. Then yesterday to cap it all, a birder with I might say a history of dodgy records and something of a reputation, cast doubt upon my ability to count 10 Little Egrets on my regular patch of 25 years. If there are three words guaranteed to wind up a birder, they are “Are you sure?” It got so bad that last night I thought about packing in bird watching, perhaps buy a pager subscription to Birdguides, swap in the 4x4 Suzuki for something fast with a dashboard satnav and then wait for someone else to find some interesting birds for me.

But then I slept on it, read some really nice supportive comments on the blog from friends near and far that reinvigorated my enthusiasm, then this morning I set off for Pilling after calling in at Damien’s brilliant Knott End fish shop for some brain food.

At Knott End jetty there wasn’t a lot along the river with the channel being as low as I have ever seen it following this week’s high tides. There were 7 Meadow Pipits and 4 Pied Wagtails, plus a small gaggle of Redshanks, and out in the narrow channel, near the Isle of Man ferry, a couple of Sandwich Terns feeding back and forth. A rainbow hung over Fleetwood in a sky as black as my boots but behind me the sun shone and lit the ferry in a halo of optimistic light.

Redshank
Fleetwood Morning

I think Kestrels bred close to Lane Ends, there have been two or three about for a week or two, just like this morning when one fence hopped and followed me virtually to Pilling Water.

Kestrel

Six more wagtails, and 8 Meadow Pipits around the dyke, Pied I think without being able to study them too close in the still strong wind, but Meadow Pipits that are perhaps from Iceland do often arrive with wagtails that might or might not be White Wagtails from Iceland. However it certainly looks like the Meadow Pipit autumn migration has begun in earnest. There was a single Wheatear again this morning which briefly sat up on the rocks where I should really have put a spring trap. I counted 2 Common Sandpiper and several hundred Curlew with a couple of Snipe rushing from the marsh, but didn’t wait for the tide today. Instead I walked to the wildfowler’s pool near Fluke in the hope of seeing the Teal. I did indeed see Teal, probably 200, the numbers rapidly increased since the first arrivals about two weeks ago. The Teal aren’t put down by the wildfowlers, they are wild as wild can be and simply take advantage of the sacks of food put out for the shoot’s bought in Mallards.

Meadow Pipit
Wheatear
Common Sandpiper
Common Sandpiper

There seemed to be a few more House Martins around this morning, with probably 20 or so hawking around the dyke and outflow, but in contrast Swallows were thin until the temperatures rise a little.

I first heard and then saw the Green Sandpiper today, spooked with Mallards from the wildfowler’s pools before diving quickly back in. A Sparrowhawk here as well.

Little Egret? Fourteen today, I’m positive.

Little Egret

Ticking And Trying

It doesn’t get any easier filling this blog, except that is with words, the pictures are a bit harder to come by. I had lots of birds when out birding today but despite the camera to hand I couldn’t get any decent photographs. If only birds had no wings and couldn’t fly? So if one or two of these pictures look familiar they are from the archive and appear so as to illustrate the birding time. But at least the news herein is current and complete.

There was a high tide due at just midday and for once the sun shone for the time being, so I made my way towards Pilling where the rising tide concentrates the birds. At Lane Ends car park a party of titmice included at least one Willow Warbler and whilst I didn’t linger in counting the other birds, I noticed a couple of Robins give out their “tic”calls, a sure sign of autumn. Like many other birds Robins go almost completely silent during their autumn moult, only re-finding their voice as autumn arrives with their territorial or warning “tic” call and their distinctive autumn song which is softer and more melancholy than the spring one. Also a male Robin’s song is of greater duration and contains more diverse phrases then the female song.

Robin

Pilling Water and beyond towards Fluke Hall is probably the best place for watching the incoming tide, so I made my way down there on the seaward side to avoid the blustery south westerly wind. I got half way then scanned back over Cockerham Marsh and Lane Ends itself where Sod’s Law really swung into action with a Marsh Harrier that came off the marsh and flew slowly over the pools and plantation where I had stood ten minutes earlier. I think it probably went out of my sight line and east back towards Cockerham because I didn’t see it again.

First I looked for the birds always around, and counted 12 Linnet, 7 Goldfinch, 2 Common Sandpiper, 2 Kestrel and 1 Pied Wagtail. There was a single Wheatear and my first real numbers of autumn Meadow Pipits with 10 or 12 along the shore and near the outflow. I sat and counted the Swallows about, some of which were obvious migrants as they hurried through south west; I came to a count of 40+, with one Swift and 6 local House Martin.

Pied Wagtail
Common Sandpiper

I turned my attention to the tide, and after yesterday I made a determined attempt at Curlew counting; 750+ was my result, hardly unexpected or original but quite satisfying. Other waders: 15 Redshank, 45 Golden Plover, 3 Grey Plover, 40 Dunlin, 17 Ringed Plover and a Green Sandpiper over in the wildfowler’s ditches. On the incoming tide were 9 Cormorant and 4 Great-crested Grebe, with herons represented by one each of Grey Heron and Little Egret. It’s interesting that my count of 9 Little Egrets here last week was a one off for now, but they too have a post breeding dispersal which isn’t necessarily obvious to casual watchers.

Redshank

The Peregrines were about again today, a clearly juvenile bird, very fuzzy faced and brown underneath, in contrast to an adult male with clear cut facial marks. Unlike on many previous occasions when I have watched two or more Peregrines interact which I ascribed to family bonds, these two keep a distance apart, hunt separately, and head off in different directions. It was the juvenile bird that in the distance caught a rather large bird in mid-air then laboured towards the shore carrying the prey before dropping it amongst roosting gulls and Curlews. Rather strangely I though it didn’t attempt to retrieve the meal. Below there is a very bad, distant shot of the Peregrine, the best I could get in amongst the pretty good birding. I am trying, honest.

Peregrine

Déjà Vu

I snuck out for an hour or two this morning to Pilling when the girls went shopping to Poulton on the bus. Kids nowadays just travel in cars and Olivia was so excited at the prospect of going shopping with her Nana it was a joy to watch Olivia's face as she stood waiting in anticipation for the number 2C to appear.

As I jumped out of the car almost simultaneously looking out to the marsh I got the unmistakeable thought that I had been here before when I saw a Marsh Harrier fly from the Cockerham direction, then left and west towards Pilling Water, just as it or a different one did on Saturday. Not content with that identical entrance, this one also went a long way into the distance, off towards Cockersands. If it's the same bird as Saturday’s I guess it heads west and then circuits the marsh out near the tide line but stays around the general area; if it was a different bird then it sure was a coincidental encounter. But local patches can be like that with birding days much like another.

When I arrived at Pilling Water the fine but wetting heavy drizzle had already started. Nothing new there then, so I sat under the big elderberry tree that gives a little bit of shelter plus a view over the marsh and outlet but also in both directions along the sea wall.

As I looked left towards the gate a few alarm calling Swallows alerted me to a Stoat that ran along the rocks towards me, and as Stoats do it stopped and peered at me before it went on its way. I frequently see Stoats here, I’ve even seen one swim the width of Broadfleet as the tide came in, but it’s not always they let anyone get too close. They make a living from the local bunnies and ducks around the pool but I think the lack of successful Meadow Pipit and Skylark nests in the immediate area has more than a little to do with the cute but deadly Stoat. Near the gate I watched 2 Wheatears and a Meadow Pipit dispute the best lookout post as they switched between the gate itself, the barbed fence and the metal rails of the sluice gate.

Stoat
Wheatear
Meadow Pipit

I settled down as best I could on the uncomfortable, damp rocks looking for the harrier which I didn’t see. Instead I saw 2 Peregrine, a brownish juvenile and a more striking adult, both sat on the distant marsh before each went their separate ways after a few minutes sitting in the pouring rain. A Kestrel flew past close by and veered off quickly, it initially hadn’t seen me under the tree. Along the outflow I could see 2 Common Sandpipers, 2 Pied Wagtails, 1 Grey Heron and 1 Little Egret and then further out a Greenshank triple called, but by now the visibility was so bad I didn’t see it. With the rising tide there were lots of Curlew and Redshank flying back and forth, but in the conditions impossible to count precisely.

Grey Heron

I heard the Hi-fly quad bike in the pools, duck feeding time which had the effect of disturbing over 50 Teal from the pools as the flock flew off swift and sure to the distant tideline where they joined about 40 Shelduck. What a superb flier is the Teal, no wonder they are the sportsman’s prize.

Teal

The rain closed in and began to drip through the elderberry as across the bay Heysham melted into the mizzle. Yet again I felt distinctly wet and this was for real so I called it a day. But as ever it had been a rewarding hour or two.

It’s That Rain Again

Willies and Whites

Will and I both clocked dawn “on the way” birds this morning on our respective journeys to Rawcliffe but he beat me easily today with a Barn Owl sitting on a roadside fence at St Michael’s village, to which my pathetic riposte was a Kestrel sitting above the road at the start of the farm track. He does it every week, last week Grey Partridge, and now this.

Kestrel
Barn Owl

Afterwards it was a quiet, slow ringing session on the moss and it was just as well that for contingency purposes we took a couple of garden chairs to sit on between net rounds. Naturally we made sure the chairs sat on the topmost part of the road so we could monitor any overhead or close by bird traffic.

We caught 15 birds of 3 species, which isn’t a terrific result given the nets we set and the time spent, but thankfully our ringing isn’t a competition or a quest for ticks in a book.

We perhaps expected Willow Warblers and weren’t disappointed with 7 caught, 5 new and 2 recaptures, both adults still in the throes of completing their full moult before they can head south. We caught 6 Whitethroats, 4 new and 2 recaptures. Again the recaptured Whitethroats were adults already partially through their moult. We really must not complain as those warblers represented our 88th new Whitethroat and our 67th new Willow Warbler for the site in 2010.

A characteristic of the warblers we have caught this year has been the lack of visible fault bars on the tails of young birds. In a normally wet spring and early summer this is such a noticeable feature that when we caught a young Whitethroat with obvious fault bars near the bottom of the tail, we both remarked on how few similar we had seen in the many dozens of post breeding young warblers handled this year. The better tail feather condition must be related to the fine weather in May and June, which allowed the adults to feed the young more consistently plus find the necessary nutritional food more frequently.

The two other birds caught were a lone Treecreeper plus a juvenile Dunnock.

Adult Whitethroat in wing moult
Whitethroat – juvenile with tail fault bars
Willow Warbler
Treecreeper

Birding wise we had a greater variety than found the nets, with 2 Chiffchaff, a party of 9 Tree Sparrow, a single Sedge Warbler now that they have mostly left, several Linnet, plus 15 Goldfinch. Overhead or close by birds came as groups of 5 Snipe and 3 Golden Plover, 50+ Swallows, 15 House Martin, 11 Stock Dove, 2 Jay, 5 Greylag and the preordained 3 or 4 Buzzards, the hungry young still calling from the nearest woods.

I am loathe to mention the distant calling Quail because this as a lone record may appear on another web site as the sole record of avifauna on Rawcliffe Moss today, plucked from Will’s and my considerable endeavours above and presented not for the first time as the only bird seen in this several square miles of bird rich habitat, listed as a trophy bird to target, to the exclusion of all other less important species. But such a singular record of a call only bird, out of context, out of time, devoid of reason or explanation is meaningless and pointless.

Quail

Distant Dreams

I jumped out of the car and glanced towards the distant tide line whereupon I noticed a Marsh Harrier closer in, dead ahead but already heading west. As quick as possible I grabbed the camera from a shoulder bag on the passenger seat, set it to “sport” mode, switched it on and pointed. But already the harrier was on its way towards Fluke Hall, Knott End and eventually I guess the River Wyre which it could follow south and west. On autofocus the camera picked up some clear pictures of the Isle of Man ferry far out in the bay but missed the dark dot of the receding Marsh Harrier. They may fly quite slowly but they can certainly cover some ground, and by the time I reached Pilling Water, the harrier was over the horizon. Over the last couple of years I have had many local sightings of Marsh Harrier without getting one decent photo; one of these days!

Marsh Harrier
Marsh Harrier

There was nothing for it then but to forget Marsh Harriers for another day, concentrate on birding the sea wall, the fields behind and Pilling Water itself. I substituted the harrier with 2 Kestrels that quartered over the marsh, hovering now and again as a few Swallows buzzed them briefly. I counted 40+ Swallows hawking over the outflow, others settling on the usual rail, then just 2 Swift, several House Martin and a lonely Common Sandpiper, the peak of autumn migration now passed for this species. At the wildfowler’s pools I heard a Willow Warbler call from the willows and watched a party of 9 Goldfinch move through a margin of thistles. Out on the marsh I could see 2 Grey Heron, but in contrast to a couple of days ago, only one Little Egret. A handful of Dunlin went west towards Preesall Sands, and a single Snipe flew calling from the marsh then overhead.

Swallow
Swift

I made my way back to Lane Ends car park where another Willow Warbler called from the nearest trees; there’s been more than a few about this week.

Next it had to be Conder Green - “Wader City”, where each birder dreams of falling over the next “biggy”, spotting it in the creek from the wound down car window or peering from the “hide” at the mud where the bird waits for fame and probable torment. It was not to be, as I settled for 5 Greenshank, 155 Redshank, 1 Spotted Redshank, 190 Lapwing, 4 Grey Heron, 1 Little Egret, 3 Common Sandpiper, 2 Snipe,7 Oystercatcher. So sorry folks that log on here for the chance of seeing the one good enough for the pager, it’s just common old stuff I’m afraid with yet another Little Egret picture, but I did take it myself today. Passerines today were represented by the Goldfinch flock and a couple of Tree Sparrows that I watched searching the roadside traffic signs for hidden insect food.

Redshank
Lapwing
Curlew
Little Egret

A word of caution. If you are at Conder on a Saturday morning look out for the guy that has taken to sleeping in a car in the layby after a heavy Friday night. When he opens the car windows, the air sure does hum. On the other hand I guess he could have received a duff pager message about a wader at CG and had no petrol to get back home. He’d be better doing his local patch.

The weather looks better for some ringing tomorrow with maybe Willow Warblers on the cards after the numbers around this week.

Waylaid

Two birds slowed me down this morning whereby I spent a little time taking photographs instead of just birding. But at least I got some new pictures for the blog, the lack of fresh material, ideas, text and photographs being a constant challenge.

Firstly on my way through Pilling it was a Barn Owl again, which I spotted some way off as it hunted over the roadside fields ahead. I pulled up and rattled off a few shots, in poor light as usual. This blog actually exists on two themes, one of which is birds and the second one being the legendary British weather that interferes so often with my bird related activities, whether birding, ringing or photography. This morning was no different as I spent ten minutes with the Barn Owl before a blustery shower from the west caused the owl to head back to its barn and me to wind up the car window in disgust again. I didn’t see the owl catch breakfast this morning but it spent time looking in the same locality as last week, mostly sitting, waiting and fence hopping.

Barn Owl

At Conder Green there were hundreds and hundreds of Lapwing around using not just the pool and creeks but the recently sileaged field behind the canal, from where they spooked frequently as I watched from the lay by. I easily counted over 400 today. Otherwise I logged the regulars that change both species and numbers frequently enough to keep us birders checking out CG just in case. 5 Common Sandpipers,1 Spotted Redshank, 1 Greenshank, 1 Dunlin, 40+ Redshank, 3 Curlew, 4 Oystercatchers, 4 Wigeon and the inevitable solitary Grey Heron. Alongside the road about 15 Goldfinch fed on the thistle heads, just like they are supposed to do.

Goldfinch

There were 2 Little Egrets this morning, one of which came reasonably close enough for me to pocket a few photographs towards the archive back up. I spent a while taking pictures of the egret until two birdwatchers arrived who promptly stuck heads and arms through the “hide” windows and scared the egret into the distance.

Little Egret and Lapwing
Little Egret
Little Egret

At Lane Ends the wind and rain loomed large and dark over Fluke Hall to the west but I found 5 Little Egrets roosting on the most sheltered part of the island, and on the water a Tufted Duck with 2 young chicks, the second “tufty” brood this year. Down near the car park I found both Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff in the sheltered trees, but singles of each.

Rain - Heading Your Way Soon
Tufted Duck
Little Egret

I walked to Pilling Water more for the walk than in anticipation of any numbers of birds and I was not surprised to find little of great interest save for continuance of the heron theme with 4 more Little Egrets and 2 Grey Herons. I turned my back on the incoming shower and headed back to Lane Ends logging two Kestrels and a single Swift before I dived for shelter into the car.

Here's Hoping

Another birdless day with heavy rain this morning followed by strong winds. Apart from the Blackbirds, Collared Doves and a few Chaffinch, even the garden birds have dried up because there’s enough natural food around to keep them occupied without venturing into our garden.

Chaffinch
Collared Dove

A week or two ago I posted a pretty poor photograph of a distant colour ringed Common Sandpiper I found at Conder Green on July 17th during the period when good numbers were showing in the area and elsewhere. Below is the photograph I posted at the time.

Common Sandpiper

It took a little sorting out, mainly because either an additional ring was not visible or I had failed to notice that as well as both red and yellow colour rings and a metal BTO ring, there was the additional white ring above the knee. It seems the bird was ringed on August 3rd 2003 at the same place, Conder Green. Even my basic mathematical skills tell me that 7 years later the bird returned to the same place, as it probably had done in every intervening year.

The link here http://blx1.bto.org/euring/main/ is where to report details of ringed birds in Europe of all types of ring, including colour rings, numbered or lettered rings and even pigeon rings! The latter phone call is the one that I often receive from members of the public, but someday soon I hope for a Starling thrashing about behind a fireplace that when rescued will wear an Eastern European ring. This happened to a friend of mine some years back who just happened to be a ringer.

Colour Rings

My thanks for sorting out the Common Sandpiper details go to Phil Holland and Andre Thiel.

Postscript: The same Common Sandpiper was subsequently recorded at Conder Green by PW on 22nd July

And here is a slightly better photograph of a Common Sandpiper but I’m still hoping and trying.

Common Sandpiper