A Day Of Reckoning

It’s all very well clearing off on two weeks holiday in May, but that fortnight also appears to be the time of maximum growth in the garden at home, when the grass grows an inch an hour, the trees sprout in wild abandon and the hedges reach heights previously undreamt of. So when the BBC’s forecast of an “unseasonal gale” materialised this morning I realised a day of reckoning had arrived and instead of going birding, I should trim our now monstrous hedgerow in the relative shelter of the back garden.

However, so as not to deprive blog readers of a fix of photos I’m posting more pictures from Menorca while I settle down to watch the Barcelona GP and dream of Spain.

Spotted Flycatchers were much scarcer this year, the reason probably as simple as them moving north a little earlier than we arrived. The one below I snapped in the hotel garden. I’d very much like to see a few nearer to home this year but this is another species as scarce as hen’s teeth around here nowadays.

Spotted Flycatcher

The ever present Hoopoe had a nest just up the road and whilst feeding itself in the hotel grounds would occasionally fly off with the largest items of prey, presumably to present to the female sat tight on eggs. Otherwise Hoopoes aren’t particularly easy to get close to in Menorca and are generally very shy with just the calls giving away their presence, followed by sight of a colourful, floppy winged bird flying off into the distance.

Hoopoe

The other shy bird is the Woodchat Shrike, the picture below representing as close as they will allow a person to get.

Woodchat Shrike

Not so the smart looking Tawny Pipits, so pale and immaculate, much more approachable in the variety of farm and coastal habitats they exploit where their sandy shades merge into the often dry tones of the Menorcan landscape.

Tawny Pipit

Here’s a few raptors; Red Kite, not at all numerous in Menorca but fairly common, Booted Eagle which vies with Kestrel for the title of commonest raptor, and then Red-footed Falcon, a regular visitor to the island.

Red Kite
Booted Eagle
Kestrel
Red-footed Falcon
Red-footed Falcon

Yes, the hedge got a haircut but just in case anyone thinks I was just stretching the truth a little, or looking for sympathy, here’s the proof. Me, I’d rather be birding.

I’d Rather Be Birding

No Time Wasters Please

They don’t lose any time these birds. It is just a few weeks since counting them in as newly arrived from Africa and already I’m counting up the nest records. Another couple today at Out Rawcliffe with a nest of Willow Warblers being fed by parents, the young too small to ring and too small to safely take a closer look at, but I’ll leave it a few days for them to fatten up from their protein rich insect diet, then ring them. The Willow Warblers are behind the Chiffchaffs at Thurnham yesterday, with 2 pairs of adults feeding young, the young themselves from one nest almost too big to ring from the danger of the youngsters exploding from the nest.

Chiffchaff

A walk around the ringing site today revealed 7 or 8 pairs of Whitethroat, 4 pairs of Sedge Warbler and 7 or 8 pairs of Willow Warblers, the latter birds already much quieter now they all have parental duties in the form of eggs to mind or any day now, mouths to feed. The Swallows too are busy with a pair having 2 eggs in their annual unused shed location. I checked out the Sparrowhawk nest I found early in the week to find more sticks added but well short of a complete nest and no activity when I was there; rather strange, but it is getting a little late in May for the hawks to start out and maybe they were just playing at mums and dads for a while?

There seems to be just the single pair of Corn Buntings, as there has been since March the male still singing from the ditch side tree, but no sign of the female today. They must be at it, but Corn Bunting nests can be very difficult to find and I really didn’t have a few hours to spare.

Corn Bunting

Near the Swallow shed were 2 Yellowhammers singing out their “little bit of bread and cheese”. I stopped to check so scarce are they nowadays and there were actually two birds singing against each other. There are people who live in the countryside oblivious to the various birds all around them, and wouldn’t recognise the distinctive tune of a Yellowhammer at all. They are fortunate to have the Yellowhammer as a neighbour, and perhaps wouldn’t miss its melodies; let’s just hope yellowhammers and their song stay around. Click on xeno-canto to hear the Yellowhammer's song.

Yellowhammer

I watched one of the pairs of Buzzards, careering round the sky, calling for all they were worth but checking me out when I came near the wood. Oh for a nice sunny morning and a bit more know-how with the camera to get decent pictures instead of wasting my time on such crappy shots.

Buzzard
Buzzard
Buzzard

A Stint Of Birding

Four days on from Menorca and I finally managed to get to Pilling for a look at the regular patch and a stint of local birding which began at Lane Ends.

Each year I complain about the lack of Lapwing success so it was great today to see two broods of chicks in the field closest to Lane Ends, one of 3 healthy sized young and a second family of 2 marginally smaller chicks. If only all the attempted nests could produce 3 flyers, the Lapwings might be able to maintain a foothold in the area.

Further up the sea wall I found another pair of Lapwings but with only a single chick, which while delightful to see, is simply not productive enough to sustain a population. The adult birds were as protective as can be but I caught up with the youngster crouching in the grass to ring my first chick of the year. Luckily I had taken my “goodies” bag containing spring traps and “A” rings in the event of tardy Wheatears and “D” rings for any Lapwings I encountered; and of course a camera, pliers, an apple, spare lens, notebook and sundry essentials. That old bag of mine just gets heavier and heavier.

Lapwing
Lapwing chick

My morning had started well and improved with that rarity a Cuckoo calling from the trees at Lane Ends, a single bird that equalled my count of Cuckoos in two weeks of Menorca watching where in May many migrant Cuckoos should pass through the island. The Cuckoo’s decline is not just UK centered, but seems universal and related to problems in its wintering areas in Africa.

Also singing well were Blackcap, Reed Warbler and Willow Warbler. On the pools were hidden but trilling Little Grebes and a single silent Tufted Duck, no doubt waiting for the emergence of its mate with ducklings. Weeks ago a couple of Greylags sat tight on island nests but today revealed the extent of their subterfuge when I counted a crèche of 26 young of various sizes that on closer inspection obviously came from 3 separate broods such were the differences in their proportions.

Greylag
Greylag

Out on the marsh a single Whimbrel looked out of place with Shelduck and Lapwings for company but no Curlew for comparison. I plodded on up to Pilling Water with marsh dwelling Oystercatchers, Lapwings and Redshanks for company, the oyks and shanks yet to produce young as normally they are a week or two later than the Lapwings.

I flushed a couple of Pied Wagtails from near Pilling Water, and a Grey Heron that exploded from the margins of the ditch, hidden from my view but obviously more alert than I could be.

There were more Lapwings and Oystercatchers on Hi-fly fields, some clearly sat on nests but with green shoots emerging and no further ploughing on the cards I think and hope there may be a little more wader success soon.

Oystercatcher

I found a couple of Black-tailed Godwit on the pool, and a Redshank, and then running around their gigantic feet a tiny excuse for a proper wader, a Little Stint. Trying not to disturb the birds but get at least a record shot I manoeuvred into a spot where I might get a picture. Against the light and into the pool reflections the pics aren’t perhaps too bad considering the amount of cropping. The adult bird was naturally much more wary than any juveniles encountered in August and September.

Little Stint

A very enjoyable couple of hours and spring is wonderful, but I wish the wind would drop and let us get ringing soon.

Nesting And A Tortoise Tale

More rain and wind this morning delayed my start but the wind at least pushed the clouds east and left a couple of hours to check out for the first time in almost three weeks our ringing spot at Out Rawcliffe. After the car scattered several Tree Sparrows from the roadside the next bird I saw was a rather late in the spring Wheatear, surely in now the latter half of May heading to Iceland or Greenland and perhaps one of the many we saw in Menorca in the first week of our recent holiday? Today’s female Wheatear posed nicely for a few shots as the strong wind blew its feathers awry.

Wheatear

The strong wind didn’t make the best conditions for trying to follow birds through swaying branches and fluttering leaves but I found my first Whitethroat nest of the year containing a full clutch of five eggs. Other birds scolded me from the top of vegetation as I tried to suss out their territories.

Whitethroat Nest
Whitethroat

There were lots of territorial Willow Warblers including a regular capture we call “Mottle Head” in its usual spot near the feeders but it wasn’t giving much away today, and neither were any of the other Willow or Sedge Warblers. A sunny, calm day is definitely the best for finding nests but despite the wind I heard the soft calls of Sparrowhawks and found the beginnings of their nest.

Willow Warbler

Another Bird Blog sometimes features mammals but here’s one with a difference, a tortoise that breeds freely in the wild on the island of Menorca. We came across this fine specimen of Hermann’s Tortoise on the coastal path from Sant Tomas to Son Bou where it shared its habitat with amongst others, migrant Wheatears, House Sparrows, Tawny Pipits, Stonechats, Linnets and Goldfinches.

Hermann’s Tortoise

Hermann’s Tortoise Testudo hermanni can be found throughout southern Europe. The western population hermanni is found in eastern Spain, southern France, the Balearics, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, south and central Italy (Tuscany).

Early in the morning, the animals leave their nightly shelters, which are usually hollows protected by thick bushes or hedges, to bask in the sun and warm their bodies. They then roam about the Mediterranean meadows of their habitat in search of food. They determine which plants to eat by the sense of smell. In addition to leaves and flowers, the animals eat fruits as supplementary nutrition. Around midday, the sun becomes too hot for the tortoises, so they return to their hiding places. They have a good sense of direction to enable them to return. Experiments have shown that they also possess a good sense of time, the position of the sun, the magnetic lines of the earth, and for landmarks. In the late afternoon, they leave their shelters again and return to feeding.

As well know Tortoises are particularly long-lived animals, as long as 70–100 years.

A Bit Of News and A Bit Of Cr..

Slowly catching up after the few weeks away I checked out a few nest sites today without too much luck. Two hoped for Little Owl nests produced blanks when a nest box contained old nest material but no Little Owls, and a second natural site in a tree cavity saw an adult fly off ahead of my approach with no eggs or hatched young in sight. I suspect the owls are nesting deep down in the cavity, out of arm or indeed harms reach.

Little Owl

Weeks ago Will had seen Stock Doves at the entrance of an apparently ideal tree hole, a location where several doves were in evidence from early in the new year, but when I checked the tree out today there was no evidence of any nest, Stock Doves or otherwise.

Afterwards I visited my regular Swallow site at Hambleton where I found quite a bit of Swallow activity with 4 on-going nests, two with eggs, a full clutch of 5 and a second one containing one newly laid egg, then 2 further nests at the lining stage.

Swallow
Swallow

Tomorrow I have some Tree Sparrow boxes to check and I hope I am not too late after their seemingly good start to the year.

Missing a few early nests is the price paid for heading off to Menorca in Spring. Of course the best thing about Menorca is that there are seemingly no other birders there, so the task each day becomes to go out and find birds to enjoy at leisure without the crutch of local bird pagers or grapevines.

So to fill today’s blog gaps here are a few common birds found and enjoyed two weeks ago in Menorca; a Red-footed Falcon that I discovered hunting insects amongst a pack of 15/20 Kestrels, followed by a rather distant shot of a shy but stunning Roller I came across at Tirant.

Red-footed Falcon
Kestrel
European Roller

Then there is an Egyptian Vulture near Son Bou, a species which is common and seen daily in Menorca but declining in large parts of its range, often severely. In Europe and most of the Middle East, it is half as plentiful as it was about twenty years ago, and the populations in India and south-western Africa have greatly declined. Now here’s something not commonly known about Egyptian Vultures; they feed on a range of food including mammal faeces especially human where it is commonly left on the ground e.g Africa and India, also insects in dung, carrion as well as vegetable matter and sometimes small live prey. Studies suggest that feeding on mammalian faeces helps in obtaining carotenoid pigments responsible for the bright yellow and orange facial skin.

Egyptian Vulture

Back To Normal

Following a couple of weeks of relaxation and a bit of Med birding today was “goodbye” sunny Menorca of 24⁰ at 11am then “hello” rainy Manchester, 12⁰ at 2pm; from the sublime to the ridiculous.

After sorting through the pile of doorstep mail an early task was switching on the computer, paying online a few urgent bills like my BT Internet, checking emails and then downloading the many photographs I took in Menorca, most not as good as I hoped, for but some passable after a little help from Dr Photoshop.

So until I can get back to normal and catch up with fellow bloggers and followers, here’s a small selection from the last two weeks.

The Bee Eaters are always there, in the same spot, but for such a gregarious species, it is so reluctant to be captured by camera. We saw or heard Bee Eaters every day we went out, small groups mostly, often feeding high overhead in the clear sunny days.

Bee Eater

Menorca had enjoyed an early and hot spring, the wild orchids of April completely finished by early May with seemingly many birds feeding young. We saw many Thekla Larks taking food to young, found Sardinian Warbler nests, watched the House Martins at Galdana collecting mud from the only pool of water, and then in the evenings watched the local pair of Scops Owls mating on several nights.

Sardinian Warbler
Sardinian Warbler
House Martin
Thekla Lark

The Thekla picture didn’t turn out too bad considering I accidentally left the ISO at 3200 after trying for Scops pictures the night before, but my limited skills with Dr Photoshop don’t extend to completely eliminating the obligatory red-eye of close-up owls. Having said that, the owls themselves were absolutely stunning this year, so obliging, regular and predictable that we planned our evenings about their regular 2100 hours timetable and sound show that lasted until 4am.

Scops Owl

So it’s an early night for me too with no photography of nocturnal owls, no wandering the isle of Menorca for bird exotica and instead very much back to the regular UK birds soon; but watch this space for Red-footed Falcon, Audouin’s Gull, Egyptian Vulture, Red Kite etc eventually.

Menorca 2

As promised here is another quick update from Menorca as I grab an hour on the hotel’s Internet connection.

We set off after breakfast and headed north through the town of Es Mercadal, on the way clocking more Booted Eagles and Kestrels, and with the car window wound down took in the ubiquitous songs of Nightingales and Cetti’s Warblers, both species more common here than in the UK our humble Blackbird.

First stop Tirant and the roadside Bee Eaters near Son Moscard where you’re lucky if someone hasn’t taken the single stopping place in the only gateway to watch the dozens of performing Bee Eaters.

Bee Eater

A short drive took us to the marsh at Tirant, a place to walk slowly and look thoroughly in early May. From the hill that overlooks distant pools we could see Little and Great White Egrets, a couple of Black Terns, Redshank and Black-winged Stlits. It was great today to see 3 Red-footed Falcons and 4 Hobby all arial feeding, and whilst the Hobby were too fast for a photograph, I think I got one or two redfoot shots. Everywhere along the roadside were Stonechats and Wheatears, and in the grass and marsh beyond, more Nightingales, fizzing Cisticolas and chattering Cettis.

Stonechat

In the wetter marsh we saw lots of herons, Purple Heron, Squacco Heron, Grey Heron, Little Egret and Cattle Egret.

Purple Heron
Squacco Heron

Two more highlights were Alpine Swifts and Stone Curlews today. We saw more Egyptian Vultures, Marsh Harriers, Red Kites and Booted Eagles, with a more distant Montague’s Harrier heading up to the north of the island and Cap De Cavalerria.

The spring seems early here with Thekla Larks, Sardinan Warblers and Willow Warblers all with newly fledged young.

It’s just a glimpse of Menorca but it’s not all birding. Next I have to drive Sue up to the beautiful old city of Ciutadella where there are lots of shops, and for me thousands of screaming Swifts, town dwelling Kestrels, and down in the quaint café-lined harbour, Yellow-legged and Audouin’s Gulls.

Yellow-legged Gull
Audouin’s Gull

Apologies to all my fellow bloggers that I am unable to catch up with you all until a few days time.