Pilling Plod

Both overnight and early morning rain plus predictions of heavy showers put paid to any mist netting plans. So it was birding only for me this morning and a trudge along the familiar but now saturated fields of Pilling.

I started at Fluke Hall with Sylvia warblers, a loud Lesser Whitethroat, singing again from close to the wood and 8 Common Whitethroats, with at least one pair of the latter feeding young in a nest close to the road. It’s always worth a stop here, if only to clock the Swallows that perch overhead or a listen to all the Tree Sparrows and Linnets hiding in the hedge. Today a Greenfinch sang from the hawthorn and I counted 7 Linnets there too. The Swallows obviously have young in the nest now as they came in from the fields with food.

Swallow

Lesser Whitethroats are impossible to photograph in the field, at least for me, but here’s a picture of one in the hand and a reminder of that wonderful, flamboyant song. The Lesser Whitethroat song is very far carrying, and in this morning’s still air I could hear the bird from the sea wall 100 yards away. One could be forgiven for thinking that the brash, rattling flourish is the whole of the Lesser Whitethroat song, and it only when close that the initial scratchy Sylvia type part of the song is heard.

Lesser Whitethroat

I walked out to the sea wall giving my boots and socks a good soaking from the earlier downpours but found 30+ Lapwing plus a welcome surprise, an adult with 3 tiny, newly fledged chicks. I looked in vain for Redshank or Oystercatcher chicks, counting just 8 and 15 adults respectively. Although the Oystercatchers didn’t have young, several of them were still in display mode, flying in pairs above and around me. None of the Redshanks acted as if they had young but hopefully there may be at least a nest or two of Oyks soon. Like elsewhere in the Fylde the Brown Hares are in good numbers here at the moment, with lots of leverets.

Oystercatcher
Oystercatcher
Brown Hare

A look on the pools at Lane Ends produced 50+ Greylag, single Tufted Duck, 2 Little Grebe, 2 singing Reed Warbler and a singing Reed Bunting. In the plantation were 1 Sparrowhawk making a dash for Blackbirds, 1 Blackcap, 1 Jay and 10+ Blackbirds and a singing Chiffchaff. The Chiffchaff is newly in to the site so I assume it bred or failed elsewhere and is now trying its luck here.

Chiffchaff

From the top car park I watched a fly-past of 6 Grey Herons heading up towards Cockerham, the largest gathering of Grey Herons I’ve seen for a while - perhaps a prelude to the return of the Little Egrets.

Grey Heron
Later I had to dry my socks on the washing line but it was well worth it.

Skylark

Just like yesterday it rained most of the morning which fitted in quite well with our child minding duties, so I left it until lunch time before I went out in search of Skylarks at Pilling. I didn’t find a single nest today; I actually found two, one nest with four good sized young, just ready to ring, and a second nest in the course of construction.

Skylark nest
The Way In

Young Skylarks grow down that is superb camouflage when viewed from above, whereby the keen eyes of crows and Kestrels might just find them.

Skylark
Skylark chicks

As yet there were no eggs in the second nest I found so I’ll keep an eye on it and do BTO Nest Records for both nests.

Under Construction

The story of the Skylark is a pretty sorry one. In the UK Skylark numbers have declined over the last 30 years, as determined by the Common Bird Census started in the early 1960s by The British Trust for Ornithology, and there are now only 10% of the numbers present 30 years ago. This massive decline is thought to be mainly due to changes in farming practices and only partly due to pesticides. In the past cereals were planted in the spring, grown through the summer and harvested in the early autumn. Cereals are now planted in the autumn, grown through the winter and are harvested in the early summer. The winter grown fields are much too dense in summer for the Skylark to be able to walk and run between the wheat stems to find its food. We are fortunate in this area that we have coastal nesting Skylarks, the two nests today I found alongside the sea wall in the grass that lines the sea wall.

Skylark

Over the centuries the Skylark has inspired an abundance of writing and poetry, due mainly to its song. But considering that from earliest times Skylarks have given man so much pleasure, we have treated them appallingly. The French song Alouette, gentille Alouette, familiar to children the world over, goes on to describe in great detail how the lark is to be plucked; over the centuries millions of Skylarks have been killed and eaten. Fortunately we in the UK have moved on from these practices, but some Mediterranean people still eat larks and other small birds despite the “might” of the EU.

I spent a few hours seeking Skylarks today so didn’t see much else save for a passing Stoat that fortunately was some way off the Skylark nests, but an animal that is always a danger to ground nesters. At Lane Ends I could hear singing Reed Warbler and Blackcap, and then briefly, a large Peregrine overhead.

Stoat

Tempus Fugit Yet Again

It rained on and off all morning so I left the birding and the walks through long grass for later. It felt a bit like work in the sunny but breezy afternoon as I lugged a ladder across the field and erected 6 more nest boxes designed for Tree Sparrows, then checked the other boxes already there. I missed the first broods because I was away in Menorca but there are already three boxes with new eggs and four other nests flattened by now fledged young where the females will probably lay again. Already a couple of my precious hours had disappeared.

Armed with a Schedule One licence I went to check the Barn Owl box put up a few years ago, and my hopes rose as 2 Barn Owls flew from the barn as soon as I entered. Climbing up to the box but with the owls long gone there was no need to tap the timber so as I stuck a torch in, searching around for eggs or small young. The box had neither eggs nor young, just piles of pellets on the floor of the barn below where the owls had spent many hours roosting in the undisturbed building. One of the owls flew across to a nearby fence and watched me for a second or two before it hurried off elsewhere.

Barn Owl
Barn Owl pellets

A pellet is the mass of undigested parts of a bird's food that some bird species occasionally regurgitate. The contents of a bird's pellet depend on its diet, but can include the skeletons of insects, indigestible plant matter, bones, fur, feathers, bills, claws, and teeth. The passing of pellets allows a bird to remove indigestible material from its glandular stomach. In birds of prey, the regurgitation of pellets serves the bird's health by "scouring" parts of the digestive tract, including the gullet. Pellets are formed within six to ten hours of a meal in a bird’s gizzard.

I drove on to the farm at Out Rawcliffe and checked out the Whitethroat nest found a few weeks ago at the egg stage. At last the four young were now just the right size for ringing, with an unhatched egg still deep in the nest.

Whitethroat nestling

Deeper into the plantation I watched a pair of Willow Warblers that eventually gave away the location of their nest with 5 young, again an ideal size for ringing.

Willow Warbler nestling

A quick tour around the remainder of the farm revealed 5 young Mistle Thrush from 2 broods, a still displaying Curlew, 35 Lapwing, I Great-spotted Woodpecker, 4 Buzzard and wow, that local speciality a singing Greenfinch.

Buzzard
Greenfinch

I glanced at my watch and it was 1650, and oh boy how time flies when having fun. But with birding there really is always tomorrow.

Taking Stock

It’s a short update today after Will and I went to Out Rawcliffe to check out a few Stock Dove nest boxes. In the first box where we expected to find young doves a week or more old, the box was now empty, predated of the small young by an unknown bird or animal. In a nearby natural tree cavity a second Stock Dove nest held broken, probably predated eggs. Of two other boxes, one had evidence of fledged Tree Sparrows and the other a Great Tit nest tucked neatly in the corner of the large box. Oh well we drew a blank, but as we like to say, “If you don’t try you don’t get!”

Will - “Boxing”

As we drove past a nearby wood we both heard alarm calling Tree Sparrows and Chaffinches, so went to investigate the possibility of young Tawny Owls. We didn’t find any owlets, just an adult Tawny that watched us from high in the dappled shade of the canopy.

Tawny Owl
Tree Sparrow
Chaffinch

In the wood Will pointed out a couple of deer sleeping “beds”, flattened vegetation in the woodland floor, then close by we found the carcass of a long dead Roe Deer where it probably lay down one night and inexplicably died.

Roe Deer
Roe Deer

In contrast to many of our local birds Brown Hares seem to be doing rather well at the moment, and whilst I haven’t made any counts, suffice to say they are plentiful and now is a good time to get a few pictures. And although the countryside is devoid of Grey Partridge, there’s plenty of the red-legged variety happy to pose for a picture.

Brown Hare
Red-legged Partridge

Other birds seen on our little foray: 2 Yellowhammer, 3 Buzzard, 2 Oystercatcher, 30 Lapwing, a Blackbird on 5 eggs high in the barn, and 1 Kestrel. Will remarked that he hadn’t seen many Kestrels about this spring. After a little recollection of birds I’d seen in recent months I had to agree, Kestrels are rather scarce this year so maybe it’s another species which suffered from last winter’s long frozen periods; just as well I archived a few pictures when more Kestrels were about.

Kestrel

First Swallow Chicks

I followed up the Swallow nests at Hambleton today and ringed the first chicks of the year. It wasn’t a particularly early date, just about average for the 360 young Swallows ringed here in the last 8 years. As I took a few pictures, (who can resist photographing Swallows?) I noticed a couple of ringed birds; as I have never ringed any adults here, it’s pretty safe they will be returning Swallows from amongst the 360 birds of previous years.

The bird below isn’t a young bird begging for food as the blog header picture is, but an adult male proclaiming his territory to other passing Swallows.

Barn Swallow
Barn Swallow

I found 5 nests this week, four with full clutches of 5 eggs, and in one of those nests eggs just hatching. The fifth nest in the well-used chicken shed which held 6 young just at the right age to ring, feathers ready to emerge from their pins.

Barn Swallow chick

The chicken shed draws in House Sparrows looking for a quick meal, but sometimes they are a bit too engrossed in feeding and slow to respond to a safe pair of ringer’s hands.

House Sparrow

Keep ‘Em Guessing

It was a good few weeks since the last full netting session at Out Rawcliffe so Will and I didn’t know quite what to expect. In the event our morning turned out to be both interesting and productive, with our first fledged juvenile (3J) caught. Most surprising were several more adult Whitethroats, newly arrived in the plantation since the previous 16 Whitethroats caught here during fairly intensive ringing during April and early May.

Our total came to 24 birds, 10 new and 14 recaptures which included a large proportion of warblers. New: 7 Whitethroat (6 adults and 1 newly fledged juvenile), 1 Sedge Warbler, 1 Blackbird and 1 Goldfinch, also a newly fledged bird.

Recaptures: 9 Whitethroat, 4 Sedge Warbler and 1 Willow Warbler. It was a little curious that we caught one Willow Warbler today, and whilst there may be females still sat on eggs or small young, we know of at least one completed nest with mobile young, plus we would usually expect to catch a few food gathering adults; we wondered if the cold, strong and persistent winds of the last three weeks have affected Willow Warbler productivity through the lack of suitable insect food? The next session or two should tell us.

The one Whitethroat nest we checked contained young too small to ring, but catching one newly emerged juvenile Whitethroat and watching other adults carrying food to hidden nests suggests that most Whitethroat nests have more days to go. There’s no sign of 3J Sedge Warblers yet.

Sedge Warbler
Whitethroat
"3J" Goldfinch
Whitethroat nest

So, all in all it was a stimulating session, and once again those mysterious birds simply keep us guessing most of the time.

Other birds seen today: 1 Little Owl, 2 Buzzard, a displaying Curlew, 2 Reed Bunting, 1 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 2 Stock Dove, 1 Garden Warbler, 1 Blackcap, 40 House Sparrow, 20 Swallow, 8 House Martin.

A Meagre Return?

They do say some birders hang up their bins then park their pagers on standby in the months of June and July, when all the birds are busy “at it” and there aren’t many rarities, a lack of targets to pursue. Me I just bash on with the hard slog of the local patch, tying up the loose ends of expected territories and hopeful nests.

Before today this year’s total of Lapwings ringed was a pathetic one. Today I tripled that score by finding two more, quite a feat in these Lapwing starved days. I looked through the ringing group’s totals of Lapwings ringed in previous years, curious to remind myself when the decline started. All right as a way of measuring Lapwing success it’s a fairly rough and ready guide because input varied in some years, but there’s no doubt that in the 1980s we made an effort to ring Lapwings, a task that became harder to justify in the 1990s when the Lapwing began to disappear from the Fylde. In 1988 we ringed 133 Lapwing chicks, in 1991 we managed 83 chicks, and in 1992 we got 59 youngsters; from then it was pretty much downhill until in the new millennium we rarely get into double figures. My two today came from two different broods, a single bird and then a chick with a sibling which I couldn’t find when crouched some distance away from the other.

Lapwing chick
Lapwing chick

At least both Lapwing chicks were almost flyers which lessens the likelihood of them becoming victims of the voracious Pilling crows: come winter time I wish Hi-fly would show as much enthusiasm for lowering the numbers of Carrion Crows on their land as they do to blasting the winter geese from the sky.

There was singing Blackcap and Reed Bunting at Lane Ends again, with a hidden brood of Little Grebes, but I spent my time along the sea wall counting Skylarks. I’m afraid they are still a bit of a mystery to me, at least 8 birds singing, some close together when there appears to be vacant territories, with both single birds and pairs moving about together. I reckon there are females sat on eggs somewhere, probably in inaccessible spots over the farmer’s fence, and more torn trousers. But there’s something very satisfying about finding a Skylark nest and I’ll leave it a day or two then try again when the adults may be carrying food.

Skylark
Skylark
Skylark

After problems in recent days it seems that most blog followers bar one are now able to post comments. So come on GG, no excuses now, especially after Google sorted out those Chinese hackers. It almost all makes sense now, it explains all those mystery hits, those guys weren’t really trying to hack US politicians, they were after Another Bird Blog’s secret recipe for bird nest soup.

Recipe – Bird Nest Soup

Well it looks like the weather may relent tonight and allow a little mist netting tomorrow. It will make a change for sure.