Black Red

Winter officially begins December 21, 2010 with the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. Well I’ve had enough of winter already, sick of the ice and snow, so roll on the longer days of January, February and March I say.

In Cyprus back in the warmth of November I took quite a lot of photographs of Black Redstarts. Because of the rubbish weather again today, and in the absence of any birding it seems a shame to waste those images by keeping them on the PC.

For anyone that isn’t aware, the Black Redstart is a surprisingly scarce UK species whereby the breeding population may be about 100 pairs only. Since about 1900 the UK population grew to include urban habitats that resembled their ancestral habitat of mountainous stony ground. Both during and after World War Two this included bombed areas, and then in subsequent years the species also colonised large industrial complexes that have the bare areas and cliff-like buildings it favours; in the UK, most of the small breeding population nowadays nests in industrialised areas.

Black Redstarts appeared very numerous in Cyprus, not entirely surprising as the species is a common winter visitor from October through to February. These birds are mainly of the European race Phoenicurus ochruros gibraltariensis which breeds in the bulk of Europe and east to Ukraine and Crimea, with the area of the Mediterranean Sea the main wintering area, and a small number of birds as far south and east as Egypt and the Middle East. So it looks like I will be reacquainted with more black reds when in Egypt next year.

During the latter part of November of all the dozens of Black Redstarts I saw, all were of similar appearance: Upperparts of grey-brown with brown, smoky/dusky washed underparts from the throat that merged gradually into a paler washed belly and a whitish vent area. It was often surprisingly difficult to see the orange-buff of the undertail, but easy to pick the actual birds out from way off due to their characteristic jizz, shimmering tail and sometimes surprisingly loud alarm calls. Of course by November juveniles of the year will greatly outnumber adults, and I thought that on most occasions I was watching a bird of the year. Additionally, from about August first year males have an almost identical appearance to the duller female, and the whitish wing panel of this western subspecies does not develop until the second year. In one or two of my photos there are the visible remains of a nestling’s yellow gape, and in the extended summers of parts of Europe this feature is perhaps to be expected in November.

Unfortunately, with one exception, a confiding hotel garden bird seen here, the redstarts weren’t too easy to approach, like most species on the well-hunted, rather infamous island.

I hope these photos today helped to gain a few more admirers for Black Reds. Meanwhile I'm keeping fingers crossed for birding or ringing soon.

Snowbirds

It was about minus 10 or 12 degrees this morning, ice on top of layers of frost and hard-packed snow. Not the best weather for driving down some of the out-of-the-way lanes that birders like to go, but the sun was up and after yesterday I needed fresh air. I negotiated slippy, Smithy Lane, where gritting wagons never venture, reached the main road without mishap then headed towards Lane Ends. At the junction of Wheel Lane by the stubble fields 15 Fieldfare and 6 Redwing vied with a couple of Blackbirds for the remaining hawthorn berries, skitting across the road as my approaching car crunched noisily over the ice and snow - not easy trying to use the car as a hide today.

Approximately 130 Whooper Swans were in the field, merged into the white backdrop, waiting for the strong sun and their paddling about to thaw the icy flash. They came and went quickly to head just inland, out of sight where they have another refuge. Once I got to Lane Ends I revised my count to a combined 265 Whoopers as there were more of them on the distant marsh, some halfway to Cockersands so far away were they.

Whooper Swan
Whooper Swan

Lane Ends was bitterly cold and unsurprisingly, no one there apart from a second insane family birder, another PS braving the elements. I left him scanning the marsh and headed off to Pilling Water for a warming walk even though I didn’t expect to see a lot.

At the outflow ditch that is the famous water I found 8 Skylark, 350 Teal, 120 Wigeon, 8 Shelduck, 400 Mallard and a Reed Bunting gamely hanging on. The cold weather has made tighter flocks of Jackdaws, and I counted a noisy 450 between the water and Fluke Hall where they make the most of leftovers from the shooter’s wildfowl food. The duck were pretty active, mainly because of a Peregrine that flew at them a couple of times without success before it went out to the edge of the marsh. On the way back to Lane Ends I watched a single Kestrel hunt the fence line ahead of me, but both frozen pools and the woodland were deserted apart from a few Blackbirds and now semi-tame Woodpigeon, so that was about it for my meagre efforts.

At home I dug out more apples from the freezer, blitzed them in the microwave then chopped them up with a hoe in a quarter-bucket of bird seed and fat balls. The birds enjoyed the mixture and I hope it helps a few more survive the promise of continued cold weather. Here are a few more pictures of birds in the snow and ice. When we take the time and trouble to look, aren’t garden birds just ace?

Fieldfare
Fieldfare
Song Thrush
Blackbird

Chaffinch
Starling
Collared Dove
Brambling
Redwing

Yuk!

Here we were happy with zero snow, and then last night it came with a vengeance when the wind went westerly to blow the white stuff in from the Irish Sea instead of sending it down to Wales. So to answer one of my reader’s questions yesterday, we rarely get any up here on the north-west coast of Lancashire, but last night we got about 5cm. That’s nothing like the quantity they get up in Maine USA, where the last time I passed through the Airport on my way to some Caribbean sunshine, there were 2 metre high drifts alongside the runway.

So I stayed around this morning, caught up with paperwork and IPMR and took a few photographs of birds in the newly snowed back garden where I dumped more apples and bird seed.

A couple of Redwings spent the morning at the far end of the garden in the holly trees where they took the last of the berries.

Redwing
Redwing
Redwing

The Redwings neatly avoided the Starlings whereby the shy thrushes would have lost out against the voracious beasts.

Starling

There was only one Collared Dove this morning but it posed for me.

Collared Dove

The Goldfinch didn’t turn up this morning, just the Chaffinches.

Chaffinch
Chaffinch

The Blue Tit came frequently but didn’t hang around, unlike a couple of “Lottis” that hung on my fat balls briefly.

Long-tailed Tit
Blue Tit
And what is the season of cheer without a good old British Robin?

Robin

Grammie G, it may not be up to Maine’s excesses but this is what I woke up to today. With a bit of luck it will all disappear overnight and I can get out ringing tomorrow.

Yuk!

The Usual Suspects

No chance of catching and ringing more Bramblings today as the wind sprung up overnight to make netting impossible. Thankfully the north westerly didn’t bring any snow, but the Fylde does seem to be surrounded by it again with several inches in Scotland, Ireland, North Wales and even the Isle of Man. They can keep it.

So I went birding to Out Rawcliffe expecting, in fact hoping to see the usual fare of finches, thrushes and hopefully a raptor and an owl or two. Along the river past Town End several hundred thrushes were very mobile, taking flight at the constant passing of vehicles before soon returning to the hawthorn trees. The relentless back and forth made counting difficult but I settled on 450 Fieldfare and 300 Redwing. With all the thrushes about I was not surprised to see a Sparrowhawk create quite a melee as it almost caught a Redwing from a feeding group. In the ensuing pandemonium most of the thrushes cleared off as the Sparrowhawk stayed put in a nearby tree, before it too cleared off over the other side of the river to try its luck. As I watched the hawk fly off a Goosander flew down river and in the direction of distant Great Eccleston, a Buzzard soared.

Redwing
Fieldfare
Redwing and Fieldfare
Sparrowhawk

I made for the moss and first checked a couple of Little Owl spots, where at one of them a morning bird usually sits partly hidden by branches but lit by the warming sun, just as one did today.

Little Owl
Little Owl

At the farm on the feed I counted 110 Tree Sparrows, 15 Starlings, 1 Yellowhammer and 18 Woodpigeons but I didn’t linger in the cold and instead set off for a walk. Walking the hedgerows I counted more thrushes, 8 Blackbirds, 2 Song Thrush, 18 Redwings and 15 Fieldfares, with yet more Woodpigeon and this time 2 Stock Dove. Up at the “big field” many Skylarks alternated between feeding in the stubble or when spooked, flying around virtually en masse, which once again made counting difficult. I estimated somewhere between 300 and 400 birds, sometimes the flock joined by about 120 flighty Chaffinches, 12 Linnet, a handful of Goldfinches and 18 Corn Buntings. The probable cause of the occasional panic could have been the regular Merlin that on this occasion flew across towards Pilling Moss without troubling the flock. The resident Kestrel was also about, and although less likely to take a Skylark or finch they are enough of a threat to cause small birds an anxious time.

Kestrel

Reed Buntings were very noticeable today with a minimum 15 birds across the farm, but after catching 125 there in the summer and autumn, today I still didn’t see one bearing a ring.

Reed Bunting
I called at the river on the way back where at 1430 all was quiet and most of the thrushes had probably gone to roost. In less than a week it's the shortest day, then more birding time - Hooray.

Beech Birds

The autumn migration of Brambling was very noticeable this year. Winter now, and although it is clear many of these beautiful finches continued to France and Spain, it also seems that a large number stayed in the UK to make 2010/2011 a “Brambling Winter”. Bramblings are almost entirely migratory. In Europe, they form large flocks in the winter, sometimes with thousands or even millions of birds in a single flock. Such large gatherings occur especially if the seed of the beech tree, beech mast is abundant, when flocks will move in search of it. It’s thought that this could be an adaptation to avoid competition with the closely related Chaffinch.

We knew there were quite a few Bramblings in the extensive beech woods near to Will’s Garstang garden. Will had done his usual job of garden feeding hoping to attract extra Brambling in addition to the Chaffinch we always catch there.

When Will, Craig and I started erecting a couple of nets this morning we thought there were about 70 Brambling and 20+ Chaffinch in the tops of the trees and hedge that form the garden’s boundary, as calling continuously, the birds waited to drop onto the food. After 4 hours of ringing we revised our estimate to 200+ Bramblings and 90 Chaffinch. No apologies then for a few pictures of Bramblings, it’s not often we catch so many.

Brambling
Brambling
Brambling

We enjoyed a very busy and productive ringing session with 81 birds caught, 70 new, 10 recaptures and 1 Chaffinch control, i.e. a bird ringed elsewhere by other ringers - T205319 anyone? New birds, 28 Brambling, 20 Chaffinch, 7 Blue Tit, 5 Greenfinch, 4 Coal Tit, 3 Goldfinch and 1 each of Dunnock, Great Tit and Treecreeper. Recaptures, 5 Chaffinch, 2 Robin, 2 Dunnock and 1 Coal Tit.

Brambling – adult male
Brambling – Tail, adult male
Brambling – adult male
Brambling – juvenile male
Brambling – adult female
Brambling – adult female

The picture below shows juvenile male tail on the left, and adult male on the right. The adult tail is noticeably blacker, broader and less pointed than the juvenile tail. Note also the central tail feathers of the adult are much blacker, with strongly marked, demarcated pale edging. Adult and juvenile female tails show similar shape characteristics but less obvious colour differences.

Brambling tails - juvenile male left, adult male right

Other birds seen this morning: Buzzard, Grey Wagtail, 20+ Redwing, 2 Great-spotted Woodpecker, Raven, 4+ Siskin, 2 Nuthatch.

Today the Brambling also used the porthole feeders. I wonder where and when they learnt that trick?

Brambling

Chimney Owl

Will had a phone call to help out with a Tawny Owl that had fallen down a chimney. Luckily for the birds there was an open fireplace at the bottom of the shaft, so the only apparent damage was sooty plumage, a covering of cobwebs, a dishevelled look and maybe a loss of pride. Will scooped the bird up then took it along to John’s Raptor rescue at Knott End for a check over. John kept it for a day or three for rest and recuperation, then said it was fine and eating well. In these cases the bird must be returned to where it came from. Will collected it and took it back to garden of the house near Garstang where it had the mishap. When I took the photo the bird was a bit lethargic; that’s what comes of living at sleepy old Knott End, even for a few days.

Tawny Owl

On release it seems the Tawny was 10 times sprightlier than it looked. When Will opened the box in its home territory it jumped straight out and flew to a yew tree at the back of the garden. Immediately Blackbirds mobbed it, until it was joined by another Tawny, probably the mate it had been continually calling to, prior to the chimney incident. Two Tawny Owls in the half-light then proved too much for the Blackbirds and they very quickly quietened down and cleared off.

I do so like a happy ending.

Late news. Last evening Will had another knock at the door and a different neighbour, this time with yet another Tawny Owl. This one was a road casualty, so we’ll see how it does but it might mean another call to John at Knott End.