How Do They Do That?

It’s only January 13th but this morning I saw a Collared Dove carrying nest material, a small twig, into a tall, dense roadside conifer. Just yesterday I swear a female Blackbird was weighing up the possibilities near the top of a garden conifer, a spot where Blackbirds built last year until a spring gale toppled the nest sideways. We know birds have in-built compasses that help them migrate, but they must also recognise the lengthening days as the North Pole tilts closer to the sun, then use their 365 day clock as a prompt to when they should begin the beguine with the opposite sex?

And I must admit, temperatures have climbed a bit in the last day or two, sufficient to activate the sap to rise perhaps, and definitely enough to finally thaw the pools at Lane Ends, even if that’s left us instead grey, gloomy and rain sodden. The pools held 3 Goldeneye today, the first I have seen there for some months, today a male and two females. I never ever see Goldeneye arrive or leave here, and if danger arrives they simply dive then surface further away, and they must come and go during darkness or near dark only.

Goldeneye

From the sea wall I counted 26 Whooper Swans heading off inland, and on the inland, now very wet field, 90+ Greylag and half a dozen Pink-footed Geese, several Curlew and 2 Black-tailed Godwits. A short walk along the wall revealed 2 Little Egret, 2 Reed Bunting and a single Meadow Pipit.

Greylag

I spent more time at Fluke Hall this morning, looking in the wet fields, the wood and the hedgerows and got pretty healthy counts, helped by the local Buzzard that flew a couple of sorties around its patch. As the Buzzard soared over, pursued by a posse of Jackdaws, even the ground hugging Red-legged Partridge panicked to such a degree that I managed to count 90+ heading for the safety of the Fluke Hall trees. Also here in the wet and partially flooded stubble, and flushed off during the Buzzard/Jackdaw fracas were 380 Lapwing, 70 Redshank, 450 Jackdaw, 135 Woodpigeon and 4 Stock Dove, with 2 Redwing and 3 Tree Sparrows pushed out from the roadside hedge. Rather strangely a single drake Wigeon sat on the Fluke Hall pool with the Mallards, but this may be the same injured bird I saw on the marsh a week or so ago that dived into the creeks to escape my rescue attempts.

Buzzard
Stock Dove

The fields behind Fluke Hall and up to and including Ridge Farm were awash with Pink-footed Geese, still finding old spuds down in the furrows where Lapwings hung about waiting for the geese to unearth animal goodies. I reckoned on something like 2000+ geese keeping out of range of guns and cameras, but with their comings and goings and general noise, it was the normal visual spectacle and aural treat.

Well I hope the weather picks up and allows a spot of ringing, but the BBC forecast for the next three days is dire, truly awful. But then last night’s prediction wasn’t too good, nor the one as late as 8am this morning, but in fact the morning was pretty bright with a hint of sun and not nearly as bad as the experts predicted. How do they do that?

What’s The Total?

It’s the question ringers ask at the end of each year of a ringing group secretary when all the year’s efforts come together. So here is a summary I put together of the Ringing Group results in 2010.

Our ringing group i.e Fylde RG totals equate to 3674 new birds ringed of of 69 species, with 520 of this overall number being pulli/nestlings and the remaining 3154 full grown.

The Top Ten species and individual totals for the year:

1. Chaffinch 674
2. Greenfinch 337
3. Blue Tit 238
4. Goldfinch 236
5. Blackbird 152
6. Tree Sparrow 146
7. Great Tit 142
8. Reed Bunting 139
9. Whitethroat 137
10. Swallow 128

During the year we particularly targeted finches, so the fact that finches figure in the first four shows we were successful to a large degree. Of the 674 Chaffinch captures, 506 were from the month of August through to December when migration is at its peak and when continental immigrants spread west as the winter progresses. Since its formation in 1985, the Fylde Ringing Group has ringed 13,900 Chaffinches, and in the process collected a phenomenal amount of data. Group members sponsored the Chaffinch pages in the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) Migration Atlas, a superlative book first published in 2002, a book that is still available for any bird watcher unfortunate enough not to own a copy.

Chaffinch

Out of the 337 Greenfinch captures in the year, 305 occurred from September to November, a time when many birds make fairly local post-juvenile movements up and down the west coast but when others move longer distances. We know this from previous year’s studies, as the group’s overall total of Greenfinches ringed is almost 7,000 birds, the data from which has provided much information on their movements and longevity.

Greenfinch

Our Goldfinch catches show three distinct peaks, between Feb to April when birds return north, June and July when many young birds are in evidence, and then October to December when Goldfinches undertake partial migration and local numbers are swelled by birds from the north of us.

Goldfinch

The ultra-clever and wary Tree Sparrows often defy us at the netting sites but we ringed 119 nestlings, a worthy effort to gather data for a still threatened species.

Tree Sparrow

It was especially pleasing to see healthy Whitethroat and Reed Bunting totals. Of the 139 Reed Buntings captured, 129 came from the migration period of September to November, Reed Buntings making rather late autumn movements. In contrast, our Whitethroat totals reflect netting efforts in mainly breeding localities with 120 birds out of 137 caught as mainly juvenile birds between June and August.

Whitethroat
Reed Bunting

These results represent a lot of hard work by our few members, and a special mention must be given to young Craig who made singular and heroic efforts to ring Coot in often severe winter weather but just missed the Top Ten with 89 Coot ringed. Well done Craig, we’ll have a whip around and get the jacket dry cleaned.

Coot

Thanks also to Seumus who spends much time and effort in liaising with the BTO and maintaining our IPMR database of 108,504 records!

Back To Earth

After the excitement and interest of Saturday’s several Brambling and tubby Blackbirds today was something of an anti-climax when the strong wind put paid to hopes of more ringing. However as always I signed in Blogger to report about my gentle jog around a couple of spots which ended when the fine Sunday morning hordes sent me scurrying back home for a bit of peace and quiet.

At Fluke Hall Lane the darkest of the stubbly fields was favoured this morning by Redshanks, with at least 120 taking advantage of the recent thaw, but lesser numbers of 30 or so Lapwing, a species which prefers the flatter fields towards Cockerham, where I didn’t venture today.

Alongside the lane and into the near wood my car disturbed at least 7 Redwing, 8 Blackbird and a little party of Chaffinch, less than 10 in fact.

Redwing

Beyond Fluke Hall in the Ridge Farm fields were thousands of Pink-footed Goose and the now regular crowd of several hundred Jackdaws, but I didn’t approach the geese for fear of flushing them from their feeding. I needn’t have worried because no sooner had I decided to stay put than someone else, walking too close to the hedge, sent the geese swarming up and over the sea wall to the relative safety of the shore. There were at least 1500, with a hundred or so left in the peaty field near to me, plus 15 Lapwing and another 30+ Redshank, all partly hidden by the furrows of soil.

Pink-footed Geese

At Damside I watched at least 170 Woodpigeon come out of the game cover as Hi-fly quad-man came piled-up with feed for the ducks, the pigeons and the crows. This shooting lark is an expensive and time consuming business when the quad bike does daily drops with several sacks of best wheat; no wonder then that Quad Man switched into Environment Agency Lambing Season Man mode and did his best to deter people from using the footpath that goes alongside the shoot but is supposedly closed until Easter – try telling that to those who have already vandalised a new sign at Lane Ends and have a god given right to walk their pooches wherever they fancy.

Both pools at Lane Ends remain bird less and mostly frozen but I spent a little time there watching 18 Blackbirds and about 15 Redwings turning over the leaf litter to search the earth below, initially picking out each new Redwing by the flurry of leaves, so well do their brown tones merge into the ground cover. A single Song Thrush looked on, with 15 Chaffinch, 2 Reed Bunting, male & female, plus the now regular Treecreeper, Robins and Dunnocks, a single Pied Wagtail and 40 or more Woodpigeons. The Woodpigeons now roost in the same wooded island spot that the Little Egrets used until the cold weather drove them out.

Reed Bunting
Woodpigeon

From the sea wall the tide due in three or four hours lay distant, and out there I counted up to 60 large, white, mostly I guess the regular Whooper Swans, with more hidden in the far off channel. A quick and rough count of the also distant Shelduck came to 750+, while our little Merlin friend sat on Big Log, also waiting for the tide and something to happen.

Prospects for the week ahead look reasonable with Will reporting Siskins, Goldfinches and the odd Redpoll coming back to his garden. All we need now is a kind spell of weather and my hopeful header may become prophetic.

How To Stay Positive……………

and go birding again. Yes, it has been a little problematical in the last week or so after constant grey days and the wintry sameness of the birding. Then after last night’s dire weather forecast there’s always the temptation to stay in with a cup of coffee and spend a few seconds reading The Sun from back to front. But you can’t keep a good birder down, using of course “good” in its meaning of virtue rather than skilled birding excellence, as anyone who knows me would agree. So I arranged with Will to meet at our site near Lancaster, have a look around, put food out for the birds, and if the promised snow, rain and 20mph winds didn’t materialise, put up a net or two.

The site is sheltered from the wind blowing from certain directions, and after a quick look around we put up two nets, one in the “icebox” and one through the beech saplings where the Bramblings have hung about in recent weeks. The icebox is so called because it is down in the depths of the trees but wide open to the often easterly wind that gusts viciously across the railway line. But it wasn’t snowing, and there was even a little sunshine – wow!

To sum up we had a successful couple of hours catching a reasonable number of birds of valued species. We caught 18 new birds with 3 recaptures: 7 Brambling, 2 Great Tit, 1 Blue Tit, 1 Dunnock, 1 Chaffinch and 6 Blackbird. Recaptures were 1 Brambling, 1 Great Tit and 1 Blackbird. This brought the ringing group's total of Bramblings caught this winter to 59 individuals.

Brambling
Brambling - juvenile male with contrasting coverts
Brambling - juvenile male
Great Tit

A recent email message from a blog reader told of almost 30 Bramblings in a Lancashire garden, all of which were males, a very unusual and surprising majority of the unfair sex. However I responded to the writer to say that in the field the differences between males and females may not be always clear cut, especially with adult winter birds where the male shows black-blue crown feathers and the female blackish crown feathers. However the difference is not always as clear cut as the two individuals below.

Brambling

The 7 Blackbirds caught this morning brought the ringing group’s total of the species this year to 24 individuals. When entering ringing data on IPMR a day ago the system “bleeped” me for a Blackbird entry to say that 140grams is the maximum weight for that species; but it is interesting that so far in 2011 every single one of 24 Blackbirds has carried fat reserves, with weights varying between 111 and 141 grams, with several in the high 130s and an overall average of 123.17 grams.

Other birds seen this morning on our feeding, birding and in-between net round rounds: 2 Bullfinch, 2 Jay, 2 Nuthatch, Treecreeper and 2 Great-spotted Woodpecker, one of which drummed away on a hollow tree in a very positive and optimistic manner. Just like us really.

What A Choice

A problem for me at 9am: 1) go shopping with Sue to M&S and her Christmas Vouchers, joining the other poor souls at the man-chairs feigning interest at their better half’s latest pair of shoes, or 2) go birding.

As I drove through Stalmine and Pilling, along Burned House Lane, Head Dyke and then Lambs Lane it was obvious that more than a few waders had found their way back to the post-thaw fields so unusually quiet in recent weeks. At Lambs Lane I had counted 160 Curlew, 45 Lapwing and countless gulls on the now wet fields. Blackbirds scattered from the roadside at Wheel Lane and Fluke Hall Lane, continuing the theme of recent days, and by the time I reached the wood my Blackbird count reached a rough and ready 25. I tried counting the masses of Jackdaws near the wood and the nearby fields but gave up at 600+.

The somewhat elusive Whooper Swans on the Fluke Hall stubble were indeed hard to fathom this morning as one lone bird hung around the flood, and during the morning I managed to count only 11 birds in total. At Damside and Backsands Lane I found 2 Pied Wagtails, 6 Meadow Pipits and a very good selection of waders on the flooded field: 64 Black-tailed Godwit, 90 Dunlin, 160 Lapwing, 24 Redshank and even a few Oystercatchers, now able to probe the wet rather than frozen fields. The light was poor again this morning, as the “noise” in the Pied Wagtail picture at ISO400 confirms.

Oystercatcher
Black-tailed Godwit
Pied Wagtail

I stopped in the car park at Lane Ends where I counted 17 Redwings and 12 Blackbirds feeding on the ground close to the doggy walking path, until of course a doggy walker disturbed then scattered them into the trees. 2 more Pied Wagtails here plus 15/20 Chaffinch finding bits of food amongst the giant flower pots where it looks like someone may have strewn nyjer seed.

Chaffinch

From the sea wall I watched a Peregrine beating up the shore birds, back and forth a few times, until it landed preyless on the log. There were a number of Skylarks flying about, flushed by the incoming tide, and between here and Pilling Water I counted more than 30 of them. Just 1 Little Egret in the ditch today, but I am sure they will be back in numbers if the weather stays kind.

At Pilling Water I found a Rock Pipit and 10 Linnets along the shore, with a tight flock of 1000+ Dunlin, more Redshank, and as the tide ran in a Brown Hare loped from the filling marsh.

Brown Hare
Dunlin

It was Number 2 but now I have to pay for my sins by making a Spaghetti Bolognese and opening a bottle of red, therefore excuse me, I must sign off.

Plan B

It was yet another cold, dark-grey, full cloud morning and I didn’t fancy yet more photography at ISO800 or above so vowed to stay home, catch up with IPMR records and sort through other paperwork clogging up the desk. Then when we finally opened the bedroom curtains there seemed to be a number of Blackbirds in the back garden, just as there had been everywhere else in the last day or two. In fact there were 12 or more Blackbirds, 4 Fieldfares and a single Redwing.

I tried a couple of shots at ISO400 and 1/50 but quickly gave up in favour of Plan B, paperwork plus a bit of ringing. The Fieldfares seemed to have dropped their aggressive behaviour to each other and the Blackbirds as today they fed a decent distance apart without expending energy chasing off other birds.

I caught 7 Blackbirds, 1 Fieldfare, 3 Robin and 2 Coal Tit, the Fieldfare the first one caught in my garden. Within fifteen minutes of catching the Fieldfare it was back feeding on the windfall apples and learning from its experience, neatly avoided the net for the next hour or two.

Fieldfare
Fieldfare
Fieldfare
Blackbird
Blackbird

Robin
Coal Tit

It was very interesting that all of the Blackbirds carried visible fat reserves with their weights varying between 111 and 139 grams, each one of them heavier than the bigger, normally heavier, but today noticeably lighter Fieldfare of 105 grams.

So whilst I didn’t get far birding, Plan B generated valuable data, and fingers crossed I may have picked up a few Brownie points by staying home for once.

In The Beginning

After the excesses of the season I was ready to put 2010 behind me with a fresh air walk and my first birding of 2011, so set off from Nateby to cross Rawcliffe Moss. As I pulled out last year’s notebook I remembered that my pristine 2011 diary and notebook was back home in the “office” drawer, so I made a mental note that my car was to the north of the track, and not the usual spot a mile away to the south, just in case I forgot that too.

Away from the road and into the dark land-dip masses of Pink-footed Geese were coming into the fields to feed and although those on the ground were packed tight, the newcomers turned into the breeze, whiffled down, then found unclaimed spots in which to settle. I was 100 yards away; any closer and the wilder than wild geese would raise their heads as one, and then walk away before breaking into a short take–off and mass panicked flight. Even at that distance I could hear their chatter and murmurings, the volume so loud it was a sure sign of high numbers and several thousand birds. I carefully went on my way so as not to disturb them, a precise or even approximate count impossible unless the whole lot were to be disturbed for my benefit alone.

Pink-footed Geese
Pink-footed Geese

Perhaps attracted by the noise of the feeding geese, 4 Whooper Swans flew quickly over but veered off towards Pilling Moss where they would surely find wetter areas on which to feed. I jotted 3 overhead Lapwings in my notebook, a bird so scarce in recent weeks that even a handful of birds are noticeable. Towards the small copse of pines I found a single Mistle Thrush, and in the wood itself several Redwings mixed with 15 or so Fieldfares. Blackbirds were noticeable today, with not only paired up birds around the farm buildings that have early and secure nest sites, but better numbers than I have seen for a week or two. From my 2 hour walk I counted at least 35 individual Blackbirds and in various hedges and trees totted up 24 Redwings and 32 Fieldfare plus a circling Kestrel, and a rather distant Buzzard. Along the track a couple of Roe Deer heard me coming, one of them running off into the expanse of the moss as the other, a doe I think, watched me from a safe distance.

Roe Deer

I reached the fields and hedgerows where the small stuff hangs out and counted 8 Corn Bunting, 14 Reed Bunting, 7 Skylark, 8 Yellowhammer, 200+ Tree Sparrow, another Kestrel and 2 Grey Partridge, wild ones. It seems that in recent months a nearby farmer released a number of captive bred Grey Partridge, which explains my sighting of 18 birds around a Pheasant feeder weeks ago. At the time I didn’t enter those birds in my notebook, it just seemed a highly unlikely sighting until I could quiz the gamekeepers on the likely origin of the partridge. Not quite as unlikely was sight of 2 Little Owls and 2 Great-spotted Woodpeckers, all in clearly separated locations, but even at the beginning of the year worth noting territories.

Little Owl
Great-spotted Woodpecker

It was a highly enjoyable couple hours blowing away the Christmas cobwebs. Another year of birding was only just beginning.