The Postman's Late

I know it's Saturday and the post is overdue but I got delayed and I'm doing this at 5am before I head off to do some ringing.

There were some bird errands Friday which didn’t necessarily involve much bird watching but I had time for a flying visit to CG Conder Green. And guess what I saw flying away?

Little Egret

On the pool were 5 Little Grebe, the species that’s made a home for itself here, but only it seems out of the breeding season. The 3 Wigeon are still in situ, as is the Kingfisher which did a flying circuit again before it disappeared towards the main road and the reeds of the upper Conder. I found 3 Spotted Redshank, 4 Greenshank, 1 Ruff, 7 Snipe and 18 Teal plus 30 or so Redshank. In the lay-by a Whitethroat still searched through the tangled vegetation and a single Tree Sparrow divided its time between preening itself or darting onto the road and collecting food probably dropped by the wagons that park there.

Tree Sparrow
Whitethroat

I went to see a farmer chap who is keen to create Sand Martin habitat on his farm but lacks the capital that some of our conservation organisations seem to have. Anyway I gave him an article from a recent Daily Telegraph that described how Anglian Water built 350 Sand Martin burrows with sand-filled clay pipes in breeze blocks, and this year there are 180 nests. It reinforced the idea in his head and I think he will get around to doing something in the future. I hope so because he already has a few breeding Sand Martins. I also checked out the little set aside at Cockersands where the finch flock builds up daily feeding on the standard kale, quinoa and goodness knows what else mix, but the birds soon take to it. I counted about 100 mixed finches, maybe 40% Linnet, 30% Goldfinch and 20% Greenfinch with the odd Meadow Pipit and Tree Sparrow thrown in. I have permission to ring birds here so any catches should firm up the proportions of birds involved plus give some vital information on what is happening to our Linnets and Greenfinches.

Linnet
Greenfinch

Up at the farm were 2 Swallow nests with large young. One will fledge any day, the other one in about a week’s time. Let’s hope the weather holds. Plenty of other Swallows in the area of the farm got spooked by a little Sparrowhawk that then headed out towards the Lune. Jobs done I motored on up to Lane Ends in time to see a male Marsh Harrier circling out on the marsh, but it didn’t come close. After a while it headed off towards Bank End and Cockersands, where I had just come from, leaving me to listen to a Chiffchaff sing from the plantation bathed in in the warm morning sun.

I had time to do Pilling Water, just. Because a minute or two before I had watched the harrier fly east, a large raptor out on the marsh threw me momentarily. But it turned out to be a Common Buzzard doing a thermal and I couldn’t turn it into a honey. I found 5 Wheatear, 45 Linnet, 11 Alba Wagtails, 24 Meadow Pipit and 5 Little Egret. The Green Sandpiper called from the wildfowler’s pools and 3 Snipe flew into there from the outer marsh, but out near the sewage filters and the cut field I saw hundreds of Swallows. I drove back that way and estimated over 800 Swallows and took a shot of a single bird.

Buzzard
Swallow

A Walk In The Park

I had an email. Lowell asked if I could post information on the blog about a series of forthcoming guided autumn bird watching walks in his local park. No problem, heck I’m all for encouraging people to get out and learn about birds and the environment. So I read on and the penny, or in this case the cent dropped, Lowell meant Central Park, New York, The Big Apple, with bird walks led by expert birders from the American Museum of Natural History.

Black and White Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Central Park

Now either Lowell hadn’t read my blog in sufficient detail to realise that I and most of my readers are in the UK or he understands the power of the Internet more than I do. But then I thought about it a bit more and looked through my statistics and saw that in actual fact I have over 1000 visitors from the US since October last year from places as far apart as San Francisco, Kentucky, Idaho and yes, even New York. Geography was never my strongest subject but I do know that it’s more than a short bus ride or subway journey from Kentucky, San Francisco or Boise to Central Park so I hope Lowell doesn’t think I can get him a few dozen extra punters at the drop of a Stetson, but I guess he’d be happy with one or two. So right now I’m giving everyone plenty of notice because the walks don’t start until Tuesday 7th September, SEE HERE

That’s time enough even for some of the more wealthy UK birders to hop on a plane and take part in support of a good cause. But Lowell you must realise UK birders are real tightwads, as many rarity collection buckets devoid of dollar bills but containing a myriad of ancient buttons and foreign coins long since obsolete can testify.

Yellow-breasted Chat
Hooded Warbler
Red-eyed Vireo
Wilson’s Warbler
Maybe I should go myself, especially since I have just given Lowell a free ad and he owes me. I will need a Virgin Atlantic return ticket please Lowell, preferably business or first class, plus a Yellow Cab to and from JFK.

September Start

Will and I kicked off the month with another ringing session at Out Rawcliffe. It was a slightly misty morning as the dull sun promised to burn off the thin layer of murk and leave us with clear conditions again.

Dawn Mist

Both the morning itself and our catch proved similar to other recent sessions, with not much on-going visible migration as the sun did its job. We had a mixed bag of birds, mainly warblers and finches, and for the second session in a row, no recaptures. We caught 23 new birds of 10 species: 1 Tree Pipit, our 7th of the year and 6th of the autumn, 10 Chaffinch, 2 Whitethroat, 2 Chiffchaff, 3 Great Tit, and singles of Blackcap, Robin, Wren, Long-tailed Tit and Blue Tit.

Tree Pipit - juvenile
Blackcap
Chiffchaff
Great Tit
Blue Tit

We kept eyes and ears open but logged little genuine migration with 4 Tree Pipits, 8 or more Meadow Pipits high overhead and 1 Alba wagtail, this paucity enlivened only by a party of 5 Sand Martins plus several Swallows heading rapidly south. Otherwise we thought even the local Swallow and House Martin numbers were down this morning with many birds having moved on following the several days of fine weather. Up high we also noted a dozen or two Chaffinch heading south, some we saw, and with others we just heard the characteristic autumn flight calls.

Other birds logged this morning were 2 or possibly 3 Jays, 1 Kestrel, 2 Buzzard, 15 Tree Sparrow, and the inevitable Goldfinches, with the distant but local Marsh Harrier putting in another fleeting appearance as it headed off over miles of open country.

Kestrel

Arrivals And Departures

All my birding spots are a bit like a UK airport or train station at the moment, bodies everywhere, arriving from all directions and leaving generally in a southerly direction towards the Mediterranean, or alternatively just hanging around and feeding up until it’s the time is right to go. Or, more likely in the in the current clear days and night conditions, many are on the move but fly unseen and unheard at 30 thousand feet with no reason to break their journeys.

The Swallows were clearly building up for departure this morning when I counted many parties of them on my way through Stalmine and Pilling, gathered on overhead wires as they chattered away to each other before some set off in flurries of excitement in mock departures to nowhere in particular, circling around for a while and then joining back with the rest of the assembly. It must be the continued fine weather that gets them going, both the urge to migrate and the enthusiasm they display, but there is no doubt something was in the hirundine air this morning.

Swallow
Swallow
Swallow

I had an hour or two before babysitting duties so made my way to Lane Ends to walk the wall. There were Swallows and House Martins on the move here, with birds flying low over the salt marsh, heading west but pausing occasionally to rest up on the remains of a tree left on the marsh by recent high tides. I counted at least 140 Swallows and 25 House Martins, and whilst I half expected a Hobby to appear in the warm and calm conditions, the best I could muster was the usual Peregrine sat (or is that stood) a distance out on the marsh where it remained for the next hour or so. I guess the Peregrine had already eaten because it seemed in no hurry to eat again. The pools gave me 4 Tufted Duck, 2 Little Grebe, 2 Little Egret late departing the sometimes roost and the now resident but elusive Kingfisher. I had a couple of Grey Wagtails over plus 3 “albas” and 2 rasping Snipe as they flew high towards Cockerham.

Along the sea wall it was a Meadow Pipit and wagtail morning with 30+ Meadow Pipits seemingly off-passage for a while, feeding in the area of Pilling Water and the UU dump. Likewise I found three Pied Wagtails here with a single Grey Wagtail and 2 more calling overhead, plus a single Wheatear on the rocks. Finches today were 25 Goldfinch and 15 Linnet, and I almost forgot, one calling but hopefully more than a single Greenfinch at Lane Ends.

Meadow Pipit
Pied Wagtail
Grey Wagtail

A biggish count again of 11 Little Egrets here, plus the two earlier Lane Ends birds reflects the counts in North Lancashire and elsewhere this autumn as the species goes from strength to strength. Even the cold winter has not dented this bird’s growing population. I didn’t trespass to see the Greenshanks today, I didn’t fancy panicking 100 Red-legged Partridge, the numerous fattened-up Mallard and the wild and wary Teal, but even from the wall I clocked the Green Sandpiper, 2 Greenshank and 2 Reed Buntings.

Reed Bunting

A very pleasant and productive hour or two, and even the babysitting wasn’t entirely without birds when “sans bins” I saw 3 Little Egrets on Knott End shore while waiting to treat Olivia to a ferry ride to Fleetwood. We certainly know how to live it up in these parts.

An August End

It was more ringing this morning when after another clear and windless night, Will, Ian and I met up at for Out Rawcliffe for the last session of August.

It was repetition again in the form of the first birds of the morning when Grey Partridge came off the set aside to fly into the potato field, and although we doubled our previous total by seeing 4 birds, I don’t think that miserable quantity strictly counts as a covey? As we walked up the centre track of the plantation a Tawny Owl flew ahead and back into roosting cover and we didn’t see it again.

Once again we had by our standards a quite productive morning and a mixed bag with 21 new birds of 9 species and unusually, zero recaptures: 2 Whitethroat, 11 Chaffinch, 1 Willow Warbler, 2 Dunnock, 1 Great Tit, 1 Blackbird, 1 Robin, 1 Meadow Pipit and 1 Swallow.

Swallow
Meadow Pipit
Chaffinch

Birds we didn’t catch this morning included a Tree Pipit sat unseen under a mist net until we approached, then later another bird that landed on the farm track and fed for a short time before it continued south. Near the top of the plantation a party of Long-tailed Tits numbering at least 15 individuals thankfully avoided our nets.

It was calm and clear all morning with nil cloud once the sun rose which didn’t help spotting any visible migration taking place, and apart from a soon-after-dawn burst of albas and Grey Wagtails heading south and the afore mentioned Tree Pipits, there was little happening. We think that our second double figure catch of Chaffinch in recent days is related to local movement, but also to the fact that a small number may be roosting in the plantation itself.

Other birds seen this morning; Jay, Kestrel, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Sparrowhawk, 3 Buzzard, Grey Heron and the Little Owl at the “horsey barn” that is so reluctant to be photographed and flies into the roof space when my car slows down. One of these days I'll catch it unawares or when it's just having a doze.

Great-spotted Woodpecker
Little Owl

Bird watchers always like to see birds in immaculate spring plumage, but at this time of year the reality is that not only do lots of adults go through a full moult, but juvenile birds also undergo moult of their body feathers. Here’s a couple of shots of juvenile birds this week, the Blackbird we caught this morning, and a Robin in my garden this week. Give them a few days more and by early September they will look a little smarter.

Robin
Blackbird

Lucky Jim

A fellow blogger and worker of his own patch MP, remarked to me last week that some of the birds I see in my own local area and mention on my blog, almost in passing sometimes, are actually scarcer elsewhere. He’s dead right of course, but perhaps occasionally after a quiet day birding or ringing I either forget or choose to ignore the fact then complain mildly about seeing only a couple of Spotted Redshanks, a handful of Greenshanks or the odd Pintail. So I’m grateful for the regular reminder that I, or anyone else for that matter, shouldn’t get blasé about certain species seen regularly in a particular locality. Birders in this part of the world are very privileged, lucky to live in such a bird rich part of the North West coast. Daily we can see a fantastic selection of waders, pop out of the house to watch Peregrine and Merlin, tour the inland mosses to see thousands of wintering geese, witness the coastal migration of passerines in both spring and autumn, have seabirds galore when the weather is right, or if we get bored with those, head just inland to the Pennine fells to see Hen Harriers, Black Grouse and breeding waders or drive 40 minutes up the main road to Leighton to see Bitterns and Marsh Harriers.

I thought about this a couple of times this morning, firstly when I arrived at Conder Green. It was a beautiful sunny morning, zero wind and there were birds everywhere that led to the welcome problem of choosing between filling my notebook very quickly with a long list and so potentially miss something that might not hang around or dodge out of sight, or alternatively doing the looking first then worrying about my notes later. It wasn’t a real choice because I have a decent memory apart from the compulsory man thing of birthdays. So I set to and looked, not in any particular order but waders and wildfowl first; 5 Snipe, 5 Curlew, 40 Redshank, 5 Greenshank. 2 Spotted Redshank, 2 Common Sandpiper, 90 Lapwing, 4 Oystercatcher, 4 Little Grebe, 22 Teal, 10 Mallard and 6 Mute Swan.

Lapwing
Oystercatcher

The light was rather strange this morning with a very bright and strong sun, but good for seeing the eyes of the herons, 2 Grey Heron in the creek and 7 Little Egret shared between the pool and the creek.

Little Egret
Little Egret
Grey Heron

The Kingfisher put in a brief appearance on the parapet before it spotted me hiding behind the so called hide, at which point it sped off towards the far side of the pool. Passerines noted today were 2 Meadow Pipits playing at Tree Pipits atop the hawthorn, 2 Whitethroat, 3 Tree Sparrow, 2 Pied Wagtail, 8 Goldfinch and 3 Linnet. Also, 10 House Martin and 25+ Swallows headed due south over the pool.

Meadow Pipit
Tree Sparrow
Whitethroat

At Lane Ends I bumped into a birder who lives in an inland city but was visiting his Nateby family for the weekend. To me, a biased old fart, that city is a hell on earth, a birdless conurbation of filth, crime and mostly sad people that don’t bird, but the lad gamely mentioned a few places where he escapes to when possible whilst admitting his desire to return to civilisation asap. As I watched a Peregrine dive through a flock of 70 or so Teal and return to sit on the deserted marsh I reflected on my good fortune, the simple pleasure of birding and the variety of birds I’d seen on this an average morning. Even more so when I finished off with a couple more Greenshank, a single Wheatear, 3 more egrets and a little Sparrowhawk soaring around the car park but surrounded by Swallows and House Martins. What a great morning!

Wheatear

Struggling

Not so much with a bit of local patch news but rather a dilemma to find new photographs after a torrid few hours fighting in the face of a strong westerly with a heavy shower or two thrown into the mix. So the camera stayed in the bag, my baseball hat blew off more once then headed towards Cockerham without me, whilst my notebook had wet, blotchy, blue entries instead of neat pencilled items because I am an adult and don’t use pencils.

A 2pm tide beckoned even though at just over 28ft it was almost certainly a bit of a short arse and wouldn’t reach the necessary height to concentrate any decent numbers of waders. Out from Lane Ends there wasn’t much point in ear birding, listening for birds in competition with the blustery head wind that drowned out all but the nearest sound, but I did note a couple of brave Meadow Pipits. I found a semi sheltered spot and waited, and waited, taking a break by wandering over to the pools when I heard the Green Sandpiper. It was a bit strange when I watched the Green Sandpiper chased off a pool margin by the much smaller Pied Wagtail that continued to dive bomb the wader as it sought refuge in the middle of the pool. As the wagtail continued, the sandpiper flew off further down the pool where it was left in peace. Maybe the almost black and white colouration of the sandpiper combined with its bobbing feeding action led the wagtail to think it had to chase off a very large wagtail?

Teal came in with the tide; I counted 400 flying in, rather than out from the wildfowler’s pools from where they probably spend the darker hours on the easy food menu. Also on the tide, flying about briefly were my first Pintail of the autumn, but only 10. Returning Shelduck plus birds of the year now number more than 60, still way off the eventual winter numbers of course.

I made a special effort to count the Little Egrets today but I don’t think the mediocre tide helped my mediocre count of 6 birds, with a single Grey Heron only. The incoming tide pushed in 2 Greenshank to add to the one I had already seen on the wildfowler’s water, where I won’t be welcome come 1st September unless I carry a gun rather than a telescope.

I’d sat for some time watching Swallows, every single one arriving from the east, north east or south east before they fed either over the outflow of Pilling Water or on the inland side before leaving to the west and Fluke Hall. I also counted House Martins arriving and leaving in a similar fashion with eventual migration totals of 350+ Swallows and 40 House Martins, which confirmed my on-going thought ratio of 10:1 in favour of Swallows.

Linnets abounded today with 22+ but smaller numbers of Goldfinch at 9 and a single windswept Wheatear scratching a living near the United Utilities bits and pieces, the training ground for budding earthmovers and timewasters. The Kingfisher put in an appearance when it flew from behind me, out along the channel, over the marsh and back again towards the pools, Teal City and Mallard Heaven. I think it wants to sit on the parapet at the channel but if it spots a human form, does a circuit then disappears out of sight and waits for another occasion.

So, as now becomes obvious there are too many words and not enough pictures, repetitive shite perhaps as a fellow blogger accused me of? The problem is that when someone works a local patch it can be monotonous, maybe even boring but at least I’m out there looking, not a slave to a pager or a phone call and when I do find the big one or even a teeny weeny little one on my local patch, it will give me the greatest satisfaction in the world. Maybe I’ll delete the link to his blog, deplete any readers he ever had and consign him to clicking his counter to inflate his visitor numbers, right hand man.

Pintail

Swallow and House Martin
Teal
Wheatear

The weather forecast doesn’t look much better for tomorrow so perhaps I’ll watch the GP instead of birding, but then you never know.