Early Doors And Late Gropper

We spotted a break in the wet weather for this morning so Will and I met up at 0600 hours for another crack at Out Rawcliffe. Maybe it was too much to hope for another big push of finches and Meadow Pipits and another “mega” catch as no two days are ever alike, but we didn’t do too badly. Our interesting and absorbing five hour session reached a total of 39 birds, 38 new and 1 recaptured Dunnock.

The 38 new birds were 19 Chaffinch, 9 Meadow Pipits, 4 Reed Bunting and 1 each of Dunnock, Blue Tit, Robin, Great Tit, Lesser Redpoll and Grasshopper Warbler. By 20th September it’s quite late to find skulking Grasshopper Warblers up here in the north west of the UK, as in most years “groppers” are not seen beyond mid-August. For readers not familiar with Grasshopper Warbler the name refers to their reeling, insect-like song and not any part of the species’ appearance.

Grasshopper Warbler
Grasshopper Warbler
Meadow Pipit

Unlike the past week the visible migration of most species during the 5 hours was down on the past week’s high numbers but still evident from north to south: Meadow Pipit 120, Chaffinch up to 170, Lesser Redpoll 40+, Siskin 10+. Our catch of 4 Reed Buntings indicates the beginning of their movement south, always apparent here during September but more so in October. The sight of two early morning Song Thrushes departing the planation and then heading strongly south may also herald the beginning of the thrush season.

Reed Bunting
Lesser Redpoll

More in evidence today were Skylarks, with upwards of 60 birds flying from east to west, particularly noticeable as a bank of cloud spread to the south about mid-morning. The fields on the moss are pretty wet by now, a fact which led to us seeing about 45 Snipe this morning as they were disturbed off their puddles and then flew off and around in various directions, at one point pushed off a wet patch by a wandering Roe Deer.

Snipe
Roe Deer

Other birds and “locals” seen this morning included 2 Sparrowhawk, 1 Peregrine, 2 Kestrel, 5 Buzzard, 1 Tawny Owl, 2 Golden Plover, 60+ Goldfinch and 60+ Linnet.

At dawn we had seen a Wheatear perched on one of the hay bales after which it disappeared from view. It was only as we drove off site hours later that I saw it again some fifty yards away from our ringing station.

Wheatear

Reprise

Saturday was spent watching for breaks in the rain, living in hope the forecast might change for the better; it did, so Will and I found ourselves at Out Rawcliffe again this morning, and hoping for a repeat of Thursday’s catch of 122 birds.

But we didn’t quite hit the same heights with today’s catch of 94 birds of 12 species, 93 new and a single recapture of a Chaffinch from recent weeks. New birds today, 48 Chaffinch, 29 Meadow Pipit, 3 Chiffchaff, 3 Blue Tit, 2 Goldcrest, 2 Coal Tit and singles of Great Tit, Goldfinch, Robin, Lesser Redpoll, Dunnock and Blackcap.

Chiffchaff
Goldcrest
Chaffinch – adult male
Lesser Redpoll

The throughput of Chaffinches from north to south was very marked today, with larger groups than of late and sometimes up to 10 or 12 individuals, which led to an overall count for the 6+ hour session of approximately 600 birds. The Meadow Pipit passage was slightly less than last Thursday with today’s count being 300+ birds, but again a mid-morning peak. There is a marked sexual difference in Meadow Pipits but one of today’s males was quite enormous, with a wing measurement of 90mm, significantly above the quoted range in Birds of the Western Palearctic (BWP). This bird just has to be of Icelandic origin.

We are now seamlessly into the swing of ageing Meadow Pipits, a process which is easier than determining their age in spring. However to accurately age any species it is essential to have a thorough knowledge of the moult and wear of those species’ feather tracts and a grasp of the general principles of ageing. If it is a species we don’t see in the hand very often a copy of “Svensson” or “Moult in Birds” are always to hand, books which give invaluable guidance. Both of the above mentioned books are actually invaluable to bird watchers who might want to spend time ageing species in the field through a telescope, but to bear in mind that some of the feather tracts or other features described may be invisible on a closed wing or tail.

”Svensson”
Moult in Birds

In the case of Meadow Pipits we have many years of experience with them to recognise the features of an adult’s complete post-breeding moult, or the partial moult of a juvenile bird where it replaces some only of its feathers. We also take into account the fact that in the north of their wide range an adult Meadow Pipit moult may take several days less than a typical UK Meadow Pipit, and in addition allow for the fact that Meadow Pipits may have two or more broods of young; the young birds could have been born anytime between the months of April/May and August, and depending upon their places of origin and date of birth, apparently identical juveniles may actually show quite differing amounts of feather wear and/or replacement.

The photographs below are from today, a recently fully moulted adult Meadow Pipit with the same age of feathers throughout the wing structure, and below that an image of a juvenile wing with a mix of recently grown adult type feathers and its retained juvenile “summer” feathers.

Meadow Pipit - adult
Meadow Pipit - juvenile

Once again our busy ringing session meant missing some of the visible migration, but we noted 37 Snipe, 20+ Skylark, 35+ Siskin in 3 separate groups, 20+ Lesser Redpoll, 3 Sparrowhawk, 180 + Swallows and 6 House Martin.

“Locals” included 2 more Sparrowhawks, 9 Buzzard, 2 Tawny Owl, 40+ Goldfinch, 20+ Linnet, 2 Kestrel, 3 Jay and 2 Great-spotted Woodpecker

Harried Again!

After the moss marathon yesterday it was almost a relief to return to normal today with breezy, cloudy south-easterly weather that dictated a Pilling walk rather than more ringing. It wasn’t much of a morning for the camera either so apologies in advance for mainly archive pictures today, but there are a few interesting sightings I hope.

Lane Ends car park was full of sportsmen looking longingly at approximately 350 Pink-footed Geese, newly arrived from Iceland. Already the pinkies are wary; as well they might be, but with experienced birds and Pilling regulars amongst the flocks they will hopefully have some success in staying away from the guns.

Pink-footed Goose

Two noisy Jays reminded me that it is September, the time of year when the coloured crows take up residence here in search of acorns from the small number of oak trees. On the pools I found the 2 Little Grebe again as a number of Swallows hawked around the water and grassy spots, but later in the morning I was to witness a sizeable movement of Swallows heading south-east.

Setting off to Pilling Water along the embankment I clocked 4 Little Egret, 55 Curlew, 2 grounded Meadow Pipits, 40 Goldfinch, 14 Linnet and 2 Skylark. It’s best to tread warily around the stile, not to peer over the fence too obviously because there may be a few bits and pieces on the pool if first there. I knew I was the first when 2 Green Sandpipers exploded noisily from the water’s edge, despite my careful approach. They flew off to the quiet of the wildfowler’s pools, with c 20 Teal only today after the recent increase in water levels. Below the sea wall were 2 White/Pied Wagtail with behind me somewhere the contact call of Reed Bunting, and then another, but I couldn’t see the birds and they may have been overflying.

Linnet

Near the Wheatear rocks I sat for a while on the damp grass but sadly there were no Wheatears to look at today, nor the Stoat.

Stoat
Stoat

The Peregrine stood out there on the marsh, in a direct line to Heysham Power Station, and easy to pick up again should I let my bins venture left or right. A Marsh Harrier came into view from the left, so far on the edge of the marsh that it was barely discernible with the naked eye when I lowered my bins. As the bird traveled east the views in slightly better light made me think it was the same bird from a week ago Friday 9th September, but I can’t be sure. When the harrier disappeared into the distance the Peregrine was still rooted to its same spot with nothing much to chase save for distant Curlew and Shelduck.

As the rain approached from the south I decided there was time for a quick look at Ridge Farm. It was here where Swallows were very visibly on the move, coming from the west and off the sands, then over the embankment and heading markedly into the south-easterly breeze. In an hour’s walk I counted more at least 130 Swallows doing exactly the same thing. There was nothing much else here except for a few Meadow Pipits, 18 Linnet, a single Siskin overhead, a handful of migrant Chaffinches “pink-pinking” from the hedgerow, and a Buzzard, a little inland and over towards Duck Lane, the way home.

Chaffinch

A Hundred Plus

Before this morning the last time Will and I managed a ringing session on Rawcliffe Moss was 4th September, the in-between time spent waiting for Irene and Katia to clear our shores. Today dawned cold but fine and bright and without the nagging, sometimes vicious wind of the previous ten days, so we hoped for lots of migrant birds previously held up by the bad weather.

The cold air gave us a fairly slow start which gathered momentum so quickly and successfully that by the end of the 6 hour session we had exceeded the magic one hundred by amassing a total of 122 birds of 12 species, 113 new and 9 recaptures, with the highpoint of the morning being the large number of two species in particular on the move south, Meadow Pipit and Chaffinch. New birds: 52 Meadow Pipit, 45 Chaffinch, 7 Goldfinch, and singles of Garden Warbler, Chiffchaff, Jay, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Sparrowhawk, Robin, Blue Tit, Great Tit and Coal Tit.

Our recaptures were 8 recently ringed Goldfinch, all returnees to the Niger feeders, and a Chiffchaff which has hung around the site whilst completing its adult moult.

Meadow Pipit - juvenile
Meadow Pipit- adult
Garden Warbler
Goldfinch

Whilst we caught both Chaffinches and Meadow Pipits steadily, the peak of catching Chaffinches proved to be between 9am and 10am. There was a noticeable spike in Meadow Pipits numbers between 10am and 11am, in both visual migration and in the numbers we caught which might suggest that the Meadow Pipits had travelled a greater distance or from a wider area than the Chaffinches. Here on the moss we find migrating Meadow Pipits to be more detectable than Chaffinches, and taking this into account the estimate of both species on the move south here this morning is approximately 400 Meadow Pipit and 500 Chaffinch. We noted other finches on the move this morning, mainly 40+ Siskin and 4 + Lesser Redpoll, with small numbers of locally feeding Linnet c30 and Goldfinch c100.

In their different ways a Jay, a Great-spotted Woodpecker or a Sparrowhawk are all capable of drawing a ringer’s blood.

Great-spotted Woodpecker
Great-spotted Woodpecker
Sparrowhawk – juvenile male
Sparrowhawk – juvenile male
Jay

Processing 120 plus birds limited our pure birding somewhat, but we also noted 6+ Reed Bunting, 1 Tree Pipit, 3 Snipe, 1 Yellow Wagtail, 2 Grey Wagtail, 2 Jay, 2 Sparrowhawk, 4 Buzzard and the return of 15 Pink-footed Goose.

The Whole Shebang

There was a bit of everything today, as might be expected after the wind and rain of recent days. Even well into Morecambe Bay at Lane Ends there were a few wind-blown seabirds, together with a good selection of waders and wildfowl, an unexpected owl and good views of an elusive mammal.

The morning started quiet enough at Lane Ends where a look on the pools didn’t produce stranded phalaropes or gulls, just 2 Little Grebe and a gang of Swallows feeding low over the pools and in the lee of the windswept trees. Many of the Swallows were also headed west, into the still strong westerly: during the next couple of hours I counted 80/100 flying steadily west. Just here I also found 6 Wheatears on the marsh, another migrant blown in from the west by the constant winds of the past week.

The tide wasn’t due for an hour or more so I walked to Fluke and Worm Pool then back to Pilling Water where I sat for a while. The Green Sandpiper of recent weeks was tucked into the edge of the pool again, with another 4 Wheatears along the wall in their usual spot, and 40 Goldfinch, 12 Linnet and a patrolling Kestrel. I’d seen a Stoat amongst the rocks too, and as I watched to see where the Stoat might pop up, a Wheatear landed on the rock furthest away. So I took pictures of both, although the Stoat wasn’t for allowing a full frame, and the Wheatear didn’t hang around just to finish up a as Stoat’s breakfast.

Stoat
Stoat
Wheatear

By now the tide was just about beginning to run, allowing a count of 6 Little Egret and 2 Grey Heron, with many Shelduck and Curlew arriving from the west. The Shelduck count came to 280 birds, a much higher count than recent ones, with the 170 Curlews about par.

Redshanks have been scarce in recent weeks and it is somewhat strange to report today’s 5 as a high count, but there was a single overflying Spotted Redshank that I tried to capture. More waders arrived with the tide, 4 Black-tailed Godwit, 18 Grey Plover, 1400 Knot, 35 Golden Plover, but only 18 Lapwing.

Spotted Redshank
Golden Plover

Perhaps the strangest sighting of the morning came at midday when calling Starlings alerted me to a Barn Owl flying over the rough pasture adjacent to the wildfowler’s pools. Maybe the rough weather of the past week stopped the owl from feeding as much as it should and it was simply taking advantage of a spot of sunshine? I walked back to Lane Ends, stopping here and there to count the wildfowl, 70 Pintail, 190 Teal, 40 Wigeon, 18 Cormorant and 2 Great-crested Grebe.

Cormorant

The well up tide revealed a few sea birds, 4 Gannet, 1 Sandwich Tern and a distant "Bonxie", a Great Skua chasing down a few gulls towards distant Cockerham.

Great Skua
So ended an eventful and bird filled morning.

Follow A Hobby?

I nearly didn’t get out birding this morning. On the strength of the BBC forecast for solid rain throughout the morning I lay in bed until 8am, but when I eventually did reach Pilling I had a great old morning.

Maybe it was the warm but stiff South-Easterly that kept the rain at bay, pushing the clouds out into the Irish Sea. Right from the off there was a pronounced movement of Swallows again, all flying east and south-east into the prevailing wind, difficult to count in the buffeting wind but probably 4-500 in a couple of hours.

Swallow

I sat in my usual spot watching 4 Wheatears, all probably different birds from yesterday since there has been a marked movement of the species in the Fylde all week. I found a single Meadow Pipit there this morning, but It’s slightly odd that we have yet to see any numbers of Meadow Pipits, a species that migrates from much the same locations and in similar calendar time as Wheatears. It is stranger still when at Spurn Point on the East coast on Thursday, 4000 mipits were counted on the move south, the difference probably explained by those being birds of a more easterly origin.

There was no doubting the Wheatear I caught this morning, a big, bright, juvenile male of the Greenland race, Oenanthe oenanthe leucorrhoa, wing length 110mm.

Wheatear
Wheatear
Wheatear

From the stile I could see other Wheatears taking an interest in the mealworms, but the slightly tired, end-of-season wrigglies obviously didn’t gyrate enough for a second catch. After a while the Wheatears flew together along the wall, heading for Fluke or the delights of Knott End, and I didn’t see them again, so I concentrated on the marsh and the sea wall.

It always happens the same way, out of the blue, unexpected, but in view of the Swallows, the muggy air and warming wind, perhaps not totally unpredictable was the appearance of a Hobby - Hobbies are said to follow migrating Swallows. I think it came across the marsh from the North but within a second or two of my spotting it the bird hugged the sea wall for a brief few seconds and then rose up for a fleeting spat with a hovering Kestrel, then dropped low again before continuing its path east. I lost the dark bird against the distant trees of Lane Ends.

It’s difficult to follow a Hobby (pun intended) and so flushed by the shooter’s tractor, even the sight of a Green Sandpiper couldn’t match a peerless Hobby. Other counts today: 3 Little Egret, 2 Grey Heron, 30 Shelduck, 220 Curlew, 75 Lapwing, 140 Teal, 4 Wigeon, 1 Peregrine, 70 Goldfinch, 8 Linnet and 2 Mute Swan.

Kestrel
Mute Swan
My pal in Maine USA said she would send us Katia, thanks a bunch Grace.

A Good Old Chat

I seem to see a lot of Marsh Harriers, a species which is also my photographer’s nemesis. Maybe it’ s just that I like to do my birding and ringing where Marsh Harriers occur, marshes naturally enough but here in the North West they like our extensive farmland, where tall crops and scattered trees make the landscape look remarkably like a marsh.

Today’s male was at Fluke Hall, where I’d sat down on the stile to shelter in the lee of a gatepost from yet another heavy shower when the harrier appeared from over the sea wall and briefly circled the field north of Fluke. There are a couple of atrocious record shots of the distant bogey bird but at the end of this post there are some images from later in the day of a dependable bird that always performs for the camera – Wheatear.

Marsh Harrier
Marsh Harrier

The light was so poor I couldn’t get a proper shot of the local Peregrine either. It appeared from behind me, took a passing dive at a Starling and then shot out over the marsh into the distance.

Those two birds had been the highlight of the mile or two long walk from Lane Ends, with fairly unimpressive counts of much else save for a steady passage south of 100+ Swallows heading into the drizzle and murk: Otherwise my figures were: 2 Little Egret, 1 Grey Heron, 30 Teal. 42 Lapwing, 1 Raven, 1 Stock Dove, 1 White Wagtail, 8 Linnet, 70 Goldfinch and a solitary Skylark.

Skylark

It was the Wheatears that brightened up the afternoon and saved the camera from having a blank day. There were five of them jumping about in the warm shelter of the boulders where the flies hang out. When the shutter clicked audibly, one or two stopped searching, and then perched up to alarm call, “chacking” loudly and then taking a better look at the intruder.

Wheatear
Wheatear
Wheatear
Wheatear
I hate to mention the dreaded "w" word but a spot or of decent stuff might lead to a little ringing soon.