More Pilling

A change of tactics today meant I washed a few weeks’ worth of muck from the car in the morning and left a walk until the afternoon; and I know I work Pilling close to death but it’s still the local patch that holds the ever present optimism for new discoveries. Today I split most of my precious few hours between watching a newly arrived Wheatear and observing the Skylarks and their territories.

The first find was not a disappointment, a very juvenile, scaly Wheatear, fresh in from goodness knows where as it sat on a post below the sea wall. It took thirty minutes of gentle persuasion before it finally saw the meal worm in the spring trap, then bingo, I took a closer look. With a wing length of 99mm and more growth to come in the next few weeks the bird was almost certainly a male, but could be of either the nominate race Oenanthe oenanthe, or the Greenland race O.o. leucorhoa.

Wheatear
Wheatear - juvenile

The area around Pilling Water was much the same as recent days, 40 Linnet, 18 Greenfinch, 8 Goldfinch and 4 Meadow Pipit, with 4 Common Sandpiper and 3 Grey Heron along the outflow. It was good to see the young Kestrels have finally emerged from the Damside nest box, with 3 birds together, alternating between hunting the silage fields, fence hopping below the sea wall and exploring the outer marsh.

Kestrel - juvenile

The next discovery was another Skylark nest to add to the one yesterday. This latest nest was just a couple of yards from the still visible remains of a previous nest where I ringed the chicks on 7th June, so this new one is almost certainly a second brood from the same parents. Today’s nest was at a handy stage whereby the three youngsters were an ideal size to ring, feathers just emerging from their sheaths and legs fully formed. Because of a Skylark’s almost completely open nesting situation, only a few leaves of vegetation overhanging the nest, the straw coloured downy growth of motionless chicks makes perfect camouflage against overhead predators.

I also checked out yesterday’s Skylark nest but from a distance, and found the parents still visiting with food, so all should be OK for more Skylark ringing tomorrow and yet another Pilling visit.

Skylark nest
Skylark chick

It’s A Lark

With a couple of hours to spare this morning I snuck out to Pilling to see what’s new. It was a good start when as I approached Lane Ends 2 Sparrowhawks were circling over the trees, then as I drove into the car park I heard a Chiffchaff singing from the plantation.

On the path to Pilling Water I saw that the next door farmer was cutting his silage fields, making hay in the morning sun, but a Lapwing wasn’t happy about him or me, and I realised there was a late brood of youngsters close by. I spotted three well grown chicks running along behind the sea wall and managed to locate two of them crouching in the grass. I always carry a selection of ring sizes and pliers in my camera bag, so quickly ringed them and let them join the escapee.

Lapwing

Along and out of Pilling Water I counted 7 Pied Wagtail, 5 Redshank, 5 Oystercatcher, 4 Common Sandpiper, 55 more Lapwings, 1 Greenshank and a Little-ringed Plover, with herons represented by 2 Little Egret and 3 Grey Heron. The finch flock was more scattered today but I still found 45 Linnet, 14 Greenfinch and 8 Goldfinch, with a token count of 3 Meadow Pipit. My count of hirundines came to 40 Swallow, 10 House Martin and 3 Swift. Strictly speaking swifts are not swallow-like at all, but are almost always included in birders' counts of mixed swallows and martins.

Swallow

To add to the find of a Skylark nest a few weeks ago, I located another this morning up near Fluke Hall, in a spot where Skylarks have sung all spring and summer. The nest may be a second attempt, or most likely a second brood, but the three young were too small for a ring and will have to wait until Wednesday when their legs are a little better formed.

Skylark nest
Skylark

So for a bit of fun ID-ing, here’s a couple of different larks looking somewhat similar, Thekla Lark and Crested Lark, both confusable with each other, and each with Skylark possibly, especially as they inhabit similar landscapes. Fortunately the three species don’t occur together much in the UK, and certainly not at Pilling on a Monday morning.

Thekla Lark
Crested Lark

Morning Edition

Our Rawcliffe Moss morning started just perfect for a ringing session, no wind, 100% cloud and no rain. All that Will and I needed to complete the picture was a decent number of birds of a good variety; by the time we packed in at 11am after a six hour stint we had met or even exceeded our target, with one or two favourite species like Reed Bunting, Sedge Warbler and Garden Warbler included in the overall catch.

In all we caught 52 birds of 9 species with a good selection of warblers and finches, 44 new birds and 8 recaptures. New birds: 12 Whitethroat, 12 Goldfinch, 8 Willow Warbler, 3 Reed Bunting, 2 Blackcap, 2 Blackbird, 2 Sedge Warbler, 2 Great Tit and 1 Garden Warbler. Recaptures: 3 Sedge Warbler, 2 Willow Warbler, 2 Whitethroat and 1 Great Tit.

After a few weeks of waiting for fresh juveniles to appear we made up ground today with 34 of the 52 captures being birds of the year. However, as in recent weeks juvenile Willow Warblers remain scarce, with upon closer examination just three of our ten today proving to be juveniles, and the remaining seven adults each in a stage of their full feather renewal.

Blackcap - juvenile
Reed Bunting - juvenile
Reed Bunting - juvenile
Garden Warbler - juvenile
Sedge Warbler - juvenile

It’s still early July so migration for small passerines is somewhat invisible, more post breeding dispersal than true “vis mig”, but we added to recent sightings of moving Siskins with a party of 17 birds flying high and south about mid-morning.

Otherwise our sightings were: 100+ Swallow feeding over nearby fields, 10+ House Martin, 2 Swift, 30+ Lapwing, 3 Oystercatcher, 2 Corn Bunting, 2 Skylark, 4 Stock Dove and 2+ Buzzard.

Stock Dove

Double Report

There’s not an awful lot to mention from this morning’s birding except returning waders stealing the limelight, as they often do in July, when they are usually more obvious and easier to seek out than skulking, moulting warblers hiding in thick, summery vegetation.

The morning started with a Barn Owl again at 0730, one of the Burned House Lane birds patrolling the fields next to the Z bends with the double white lines; so I daren’t stop, but instead glanced left then motored on to Pilling for my morning walk.

At Pilling Water I approached the wildfowler’s pools with care as birds are often tucked below the bank, unseen until a body is too close, and then as if to prove it, 11 bright-plumaged, fresh in from Iceland Black-tailed Godwits flew noisily off before I could drop any lower onto the open ground that surrounds the pools. The godwits caused 5 Oystercatchers and 3 Redshanks to fly off, but a single Little-ringed Plover stayed on the pool, together with a Common Sandpiper and a couple of Lapwings. We associate Little-ringed Plovers with the stony margins of water courses but on migration they aren’t that fussy.

Black-tailed Godwit
Little-ringed Plover

On the outer part of Broadfleet and the surrounding marsh I counted another 4 Common Sandpiper, 70+ Lapwing, 22 Redshank, 40+ Curlew and 2 Grey Heron. My passerine count was almost identical to recent days with 8 Goldfinch, 6 Greenfinch, 8 Pied Wagtail and 2 Meadow Pipit, with still the Linnet flock but their numbers now increased to a healthy looking 60+ birds.

Linnet
Meadow Pipit

I’ve been looking for a Wheatear for a week now without any success but finally found one today on the stones below the sea wall but it didn’t hang around the spot to take my meal worm, and instead carried on in the direction of Fluke Hall.

I just sat quietly on the stile minding my own business when three Carrion Crows pointed me in the direction of a Stoat, running towards me on the landward side of the sea wall. The crows harried the Stoat from above, calling and drawing attention to the little predator, but when it spotted me it turned tail then ran back to where it had come from, before eventually disappearing into the long grass. Stoats are fairly frequent along here, making a living from bunnies and other small animals, carrion and probably ground nesting birds. I’ve missed a few photo opportunities lately when the creatures have spotted me on their route ahead, and I hope one day soon to meet face to face again with the engaging little creature.

Stoat

In contrast to my lack of numbers birding, the latest totals from our Fylde Ringing Group is that we ringed another 265 birds in June, more in fact than in both January and February, but a lesser total than the migration months of March, April or May. More than half of June’s 265 birds were accounted for by 110 Tree Sparrow youngsters from nest boxes and 36 Swallow chicks. Pied Flycatchers came in third place with a total of 27 birds, a small number of adults but mainly nestlings. Now we are all looking forward to the birds of autumn time!

A Tale Of Two Halves

Another shower-dodging, breezy morning saw me try my luck at Conder Green where I bumped into PW on the windswept viaduct. We chatted briefly whilst both looking west at the incoming clouds and bemoaning the summer, watched the local House Martins battling over the salt marsh, then went our separate ways with better luck we hoped.

On the pool and creek I counted 1 Grey Heron, 9 Common Sandpiper, 2 Spotted Redshank, 4 Greenshank, 2 Black-tailed Godwits, 55 Redshank, 12 Oystercatcher and 5 Curlew before I headed south to more familiar territory of Pilling. If only our locally occurring Greenshanks were as accommodating as the few I saw in Egypt.

Greenshank
Oystercatcher

At Lane Ends the sky to the west looked dark to say the least as I set off to Pilling Water thinking the rain had moved around and north out over the bay; no such luck as I got the tail end of a heavy shower and a good soaking in exchange for 1 Reed Warbler, 40 Linnets, 1 Greenfinch, 2 Kestrel, 5 Pied Wagtail, 3 Common Sandpipers, 1 Grey Heron, 28 Curlew, 18 Redshank and 80 Lapwings.

A Pilling Sky

I called it a morning, drying out at home then did a little garden ringing pm when the wind dropped and the showers died out. Goldfinches are back in numbers for the irresistible Niger feed and I also caught 3 Blackbirds – adult female and 2 juveniles, one of them in the stages of growing its blacker male tail feathers. Also 2 Wrens and a juvenile Robin – the fault bar mid-way through the tail tells a tale of changeable food availability of late.

Goldfinch - adult
Goldfinch- juvenile
Blackbird - juvenile
Blackbird - juvenile male
Wren
Robin - juvenile
Robin- juvenile

A Lunchtime Lament

Lunchtime and it’s raining and windy now, bang on midday, just as the BBC’s forecast promised, unlike their hint they might use my Little Owl picture for the end shots of the North West weather last weekend. As I sat waiting for the programme and a miserable claim to fame they dropped the weather, in fact cut the whole local news on two evenings in favour of the grunts, groans and over-hype that is Wimbledon fortnight. So Eno, I may not send any more pictures, even my Linnets.

That’s mainly what I ended up doing this morning in the few hours of bright skies, taking more pictures of Linnets. They are wary, a difficult species to approach; perhaps an inbuilt aversion to man from the nineteenth century when wild Linnets were kept in caged captivity as a domestic songbird and the population as a whole plummeted? They seem to be making a bit of a comeback this year - let's hope so.

Linnets have short broad bills which can’t cope with very big seeds or those difficult to extract so they feed mainly on plants whose seeds are attached to the stem, such as dock, chickweed or the plant shown below which is I think redshank/lady’s thumb. Linnets also pick up seeds from the ground, at Pilling this includes the tide wrack and seeds deposited at the base of the marshy grasses.

Linnet
Linnet
Linnet
Linnet
Linnet

There were about 40 Linnets knocking about the tideline this morning, together with 14 Goldfinch and 5 Greenfinch, plus a gang of 10 to 12 Pied Wagtails and 2 Meadow Pipits again, just as a few days ago.

Goldfinch
Pied Wagtail

I arrived fairly early this morning, just as the sun rose high enough to send the Barn Owl hurrying off from Pilling Water and then home towards Damside with the safety of its dark barn. Also at Damside the Kestrels seem near to fledging, with much wing stretching and noisy calls. The wildfowler’s pools held 3 Teal and a Common Sandpiper, with a small quota of Redshank, Lapwing and Oystercatcher.

At Lane Ends I counted 2 Willow Warbler, 7 Tufted Duck, 4 Little Grebe and that ultra-rarity, a Song Thrush but I don’t suppose it's a sighting that will set the pagers buzzing?

Song Thrush

The Evening Job

I stayed home yesterday and did a little garden ringing, saving energy for the evening job. At 5pm Ian and I met up with members of North Lancashire Ringing Group for a session at their biggest Sand Martin colony on the River Lune, a location with approximately 600 nest holes in the river bank and where the group has captured over 1000 birds already this year.

The colony is on the other side of the river from the access point so entailed a walk across the river to the opposite bank where, after emptying flooded wellies, we set up shop. If I say that we caught 380 Sand Martins it might explain that the evening was too busy to take many photographs. From an initial breakdown from Richard Du Feu (thanks Richard) the 380 Sand Martins were made up of 293 new birds, 82 recaptures and 5 controls (birds ringed elsewhere). Two of the controls came from Icklesham, Sussex and Merseyside, the others are as yet unknown.

Already this year the group have captured a breeding Sand Martin with a Spanish, Madrid ring and the same bird was recaptured again last night.

Sand Martin
Madrid ring
Ian G and Ian H

Read more about Sand Martins and North Lancs Ringing Group here.