When Will It End?

Before I could set off this morning I had to clear the windscreen of a little frost, the first real bite of the winter. Then as Will and I met up at 0630 on Rawcliffe Moss we saw the ground was white and crunchy underfoot.

It’s been a busy and successful year in the plantation, with over 1550 new birds ringed since 8th March, together with 230 recaptures, but in the last week or so migration has slowed to a virtual halt, with no second wave of thrushes to occupy our mornings. We thought today’s session might be the last of the year before we move to winter ringing sites, but we added another 49 birds, 40 new and 9 recaptures, including favoured target species. So we may just have another crack in a day or two before moving on to pastures old.

Today’s new birds: 15 Goldfinch, 10 Chaffinch, 8 Reed Bunting, 3 Blackbird, 1 Fieldfare, 1 Dunnock, 1 Blue Tit and 1 Wren. Recaptures: 6 Goldfinch and 1 each of Great Tit, Dunnock and Reed Bunting.

The main features of the morning were the number of Goldfinch coming to Nyger feeders, plus the continued passage through the site of Reed Buntings. The sudden cold snap may have induced the local Goldfinches to visit our feeders and/or there are other Goldfinches moving through the area as they head south. Our Reed Bunting count for the morning was 20 individuals, a figure which includes the nine captures.

Once again thrushes were noticeable by their absence with just a dozen or so each of the two main culprits Redwing and Fieldfare in the hour after dawn. The three Blackbirds caught were quite large, long-winged individuals so we mentally assigned them to migratory status rather than back garden dwellers.

The juvenile Goldfinch shown immediately below was an early 0730 catch, momentarily reluctant to leave the relative comfort of our ringing station to head back into the cold morning air, the other a fine adult male.

Goldfinch
Goldfinch
Reed Bunting – first calendar year male
Reed Bunting – adult male
Fieldfare

Other sightings 0630 to 1130: 1 Barn Owl, 2 Tawny Owl, 2 Kestrel, 8 Whooper Swan, 7000+ Pink- footed Goose, 80+ Skylark, 8 Snipe, 2 Siskin and 4 Lesser Redpoll. The sight of 5 Roe Deer running across the pastures added to a fine morning's work and pleasure.

Roe Deer

Hot Spots

I decided to hold fire on the ringing until tomorrow when Will is available and the two of us can get more nets up. A spell of dry weather today and overnight means less chance of both our cars and our wellies getting bogged down on the sticky peat too.

So rather than working with nets in the dark I took a leisurely breakfast, waited until daylight then set off on a tour of the hot spots of Knott End, Ridge Farm and Lane Ends.

A count from the jetty at Knott End came in at 140 Redshank, 60 Knot, 40 Turnstone, 1 Eider, 2 Grey Heron, 18 Curlew, 1900 Oystercatcher and 5 Pied Wagtail, with a fly past of 10 Whooper Swans heading east towards the concentration of Whoopers at Pilling.

Turnstone

I followed the Whoopers east towards Pilling where I found the swans out on the marsh off Fluke today, and while I didn’t get to count the flock there were lots of birds. Fluke Hall and Ridge Farm were pretty good this morning, with a nice mixed flock of finches and buntings to look through, 50 Linnet, 10 Greenfinch, 14 Chaffinch and 10+ Reed Bunting. Also along the hedgerows I saw 8 Blackbird, 2 Song Thrush and several Tree Sparrow. I walked back along the sea wall to see 4 Snipe and a Short-eared Owl flushed from the marsh grass by a dog off-lead. A Carrion Crow quickly latched upon the owl, but I was surprised when the owl headed high out towards the shore, next stop Heysham, rather than gliding over the sea wall to relative safety.

Lane Ends to Pilling Water produced in no particular order, 40+ Skylark, 18 Whooper Swan, 12 Meadow Pipit, 1 Kestrel, 1 Merlin, 1 Green Sandpiper, 350+ Teal, 12 Wigeon and 1 Reed Bunting.

Kestrel
Teal

As I watched a large flock of several hundred Lapwings 500 yards out on the marsh they were spooked into flight by the Merlin. I then watched the Merlin in hot pursuit of a flying Meadow Pipit, the pipit evading all the Merlin’s many dives and passes, eventually making it to the safety of the trees at Pilling Water. I don’t mind admitting that I wanted to see a successful outcome to that pursuit – in the Merlin’s favour. Other points of view to Another Bird Blog please.

Meadow Pipit

Short And Sweet

There’s just a short post today with a few bits and bobs to report together with a couple of photographs.

At Knott End: 5 Little Egret, 3 Pied Wagtail, 4 Meadow Pipit, 1 Rock Pipit and 4 Eider. I put some Nyger out for the Twite which appear to have gone missing for now unless the black stuff can tempt them back.

Meadow Pipit

At Lane Ends there appeared to be an influx of 8 to 10 new Blackbirds, plus an accompanying Song Thrush, but I saw the now silent Jay.

Lane Ends to Fluke Hall via Pilling Water: 1 Green Sandpiper, 1 Grey Wagtail, 12 Meadow Pipits, 8 Little Egrets, 2 Grey Heron, 1 Reed Bunting, 7 Skylarks and 1 Buzzard. Less Whooper Swans today with circa 140 plus the incongruous Black Swan. 20+ Chaffinch at Fluke Hall with the normal titmice and 1 Goldcrest, and it’s another non-show for the latter species again this autumn.

Great Tit
Robin
Grey Squirrel – “Tree Rat”
Black Swan and Whooper Swan

The forecast looks a little better for weekend with a possibility of a spot of ringing.

Gaffe Time

Every picture tells a story. In this case it’s how I made the wrong decision to head out to the moss and put up a couple of nets. I had just caught a couple of Chaffinches when the heavens opened, not the scattered showers that Heather promised on BBC North West, but instead a couple of downpours which saturated both the nets and me. So I took the nets down, dried off a lot with the car heater and then drove out to Pilling for a spot of birding.

Rain On the Moss

A drive down Lambs Lane is rewarded by noise and spectacle of over 200 Whooper Swans at the junction of Fluke Hall Lane, 210 today plus the Black Swan from last winter. I don’t think the black one went back to Iceland with the Whoopers, but I haven’t seen it around during the summer and autumn until now. If the swans are spectacular then the Pink-footed Geese are doubly so at the moment with many birds out on the marsh; my count of 12000+ distant birds can be an approximation only, and my photograph a telephoto portion of the massed flight when a microlight aircraft came by.

Whooper Swan
Pink-footed Goose

At Lane Ends car park, Blackbirds were mobbing a Tawny Owl, while on the marsh a Merlin moved along the line of posts and then took a fly around to flush all the Lapwings, over 2000 of them. One of the best ways to find raptors is to watch corvids or just listen out for to their complaints when they come across a bird of prey. On my walk up to Pilling Water crows put me onto three raptors today, a Buzzard, a Sparrowhawk and then a Short-eared Owl. Apologies for the well cropped shots, as all the action was distant, but it illustrates the point.

Short-eared Owl
Sparrowhawk
Buzzard

Not many passerines about today, 5 Meadow Pipit, 3 Linnet, 15 Skylark and 2 Goldfinch. Herons obliged with 1 Grey Heron and 5 Little Egret while 250+ Woodpigeons are fattening up on Hi- Fly’s wildfowl bait.

Back at the car park a man with a telescope kindly pointed out the Merlin hovering over the embankment, whilst out on the marsh I watched a dashing little raptor that could only be a Kestrel.

Kestrel

Sunday Times

The end of British Summer Time and reversing the clocks on Saturday night meant meeting Will at 6am Sunday on Rawcliffe Moss, and not “an extra hour in bed”. Birds don’t stick to human timetables and we still needed to get the nets up in the dark. Nets were set before 0630 by which time we had either seen or heard at least 4 Tawny Owls, but no Barn Owl today.

Our varied catch was similar to recent times, with several thrushes at first light followed by a selection of finches interspersed with Reed Buntings until we packed up at 11am. We totalled 38 birds, 32 new and 6 recaptures. New: 12 Chaffinch, 11 Goldfinch, 4 Reed Bunting, 2 Fieldfare, 2 Blackbird and 1 Song Thrush. Recaptures meant 3 Goldfinch from recent days, 1 Robin and 2 resident Dunnocks; both were in the net together today and were first ringed in 2009, recaptured in 2010 and also earlier in 2011.

The adult Robin L141888 was ringed here in the autumn of 2010, but interestingly and despite many visits through spring summer and autumn since then we have no record of it in between times.

Fieldfare
Robin
Reed Bunting
Chaffinch

Thrush migration was almost non-existent this morning with just 20 Fieldfares and 10 Redwings heading south before 9am and then none, although we did see 6 Song Thrush in ones and twos, then later a party of 4 Mistle Thrush.

Chaffinches appeared somewhat down in number, but taking into account the twelve caught, the 100+ which headed noticeably south east throughout our 5 hours may be an undercount. Our Lesser Redpoll and Siskin count came to 18 and 2 respectively, with 10+ Reed Buntings throughout the morning.

Other birds seen: 15 Whooper Swan, 2 Buzzard, 9 Snipe, 6 Corn Bunting, 2 Yellowhammer, 1 Peregrine.

There were huge numbers of Pink-footed Geese flighting inland today, Sunday being a traditional day for the Over Wyre sportsmen, out in force on the coastal marshes and fields. To the nearest thousand we estimated at least 5000 birds heading south and east looking for fields to drop on out of harm’s way.

Pink-footed Goose

Early Owl But No Lottis

Out Rawcliffe 0645 - as usual Will and I had set nets before first light to await the thrushes, but we soon found something other than early Redwings.

The Tawny Owls have been calling to each other for a week or two, usually further away from our nets, but one got a surprise this morning when in the almost total darkness the bird’s flight path was interrupted by a 60ft net. There is an overlap of Tawny Owl measurements, and although from its plumage characteristics we could tell it was an adult, the weight and wing length meant it could be a male or a female. Whichever sex the bird was it proved pretty feisty with the talons, so we took a leg out of the bird bag for ringing before looking more closely at the bird itself.

Tawny Owl
Tawny Owl

We had a quite productive morning of ringing with 29 birds caught, 28 new and one recapture, a recent Goldfinch. New birds: 10 Chaffinch, 5 Reed Bunting, 4 Redwing, 4 Lesser Redpoll, 2 Goldfinch and one each of Tawny Owl, Dunnock and Great Tit.

Redwing

The early thrush movement was probably the quietest of the autumn so far, with seemingly no more than 50 Redwing, 12 Fieldfare, 5 Song Thrush and a couple only of Blackbirds on the move soon after dawn, then virtually none during the remainder of the morning. The Chaffinch passage was similarly down with our estimate of c80 only during four hours. The trapped Chaffinches included a couple of larger males, perhaps a sign that more northerly individuals are beginning to spread from the south and east of the UK.

We noted an increase in both Siskins and Lesser Redpolls this morning, with small parties and numerous calls of both species, at times intermixed or accompanying Goldfinches. Our estimate came to 40 Siskin and 35 Lesser Redpoll, but the Lesser Redpolls are more easily caught than the Siskins. We added 5 more Reed Buntings to our autumn total and estimated the species throughput this morning at 10 or 12 in addition to the 5 caught.

Lesser Redpoll

Apart from the endless flights inland of approximately 2000 Pink-footed Geese, this morning’s birding was quiet: 1 Kestrel, 1 Buzzard, 11 Snipe, 1 Corn Bunting, 12 Whooper Swans and an uncounted number of Grey Partridge calling invisibly before dawn. Thankfully a roving flock of 26 Long-tailed Tits did not find one of our mist nets.

Long-tailed Tit

KE, Recaptures And Fingers Crossed

An hour or two at Knott End (KE) this morning proved very rewarding for seeing a good selection of birds, but not for photography on the grey, overcast morning.

A walk up river and then near the jetty produced 9 Red-breasted Merganser, 15 Eider, 30+ Wigeon, 4 Grey Heron, 2 Little Egret, 6 Pied Wagtail, 1 Rock Pipit, 4 Cormorant and 1 Kestrel.

The incoming tide pushed waders and wildfowl to the shore, with 1900 Oystercatcher, 1400 Knot, 145 Redshank, 28 Turnstone, 140 Dunlin, 40+ Curlew and 35 Shelduck. A Peregrine dived once or twice at the assembled Knot before the tide ran in so quickly that I didn’t get to accurately count the many birds which flew either up river to the Wyre roost or along the sands to the Preesall/Pilling roost.

Turnstone
Rock Pipit
Shelduck

It rained later so I turned my attention to trying to answer a question from a blog reader from the US who asked about ringing recaptures.

I keyed WILWA into our Fylde Ringing Group IPMR database and came up with the example below to illustrate how full life histories are gleaned from multiple recaptures of the same individual, in this case a small migratory warbler, the Willow Warbler. British Willow Warblers spend the summer here before migrating to central Africa for the winter.

IN1795 was first captured as a juvenile (age code 3) in July 1990, almost certainly a bird whose parents bred within the ringing site. It spent its first and subsequent winter somewhere in Africa, returning to exactly the same UK location in years 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, and 1997, when we recaptured and identified it as a breeding male (code 4M) in most years. The bird was almost certainly present during the summers of 1993 and 1996, the reason for the non-recapture being that it simply escaped us ringers that year. In 1997 it went off the radar and may have died from old age, an unknown cause, or possibly on migration south during the autumn of 1997, in its Africa winter, or even on the way back to the UK in the spring of 1998. Willow Warblers, indeed most small birds are not especially long lived, but in its 6+ years the recapture history of IN1795 provided lots of valuable data.

Age 3, First ringed - 14/07/1990 Inskip, Lancashire
Age 4, Recaptured - 20/04/1991 Inskip, Lancashire - 280 days
Age 4M, Recaptured - 18/05/1991 Inskip, Lancashire - 308 days
Age 4M, Recaptured - 14/05/1992 Inskip, Lancashire - 1 year 305 days
Age 4, Recaptured - 01/05/1994 Inskip, Lancashire - 3 years 291 days
Age 4, Recaptured - 14/04/1995 Inskip, Lancashire - 4 years 274 days
Age 4M, Recaptured - 06/05/1995 Inskip, Lancashire - 4 years 269 days
Age 4M, Recaptured - 03/05/1997 Inskip, Lancashire - 6 years 293 days

Willow Warbler
The forecast isn’t looking too bad for a ringing some new birds tomorrow, and maybe even a few more recaptures. Fingers crossed.