New Horizons, Old Friends

There was no Rawcliffe today for Will and me; instead we decided to try our luck at the winter feeding spot at Myerscough where in the last few weeks Will did the hard preparatory work by snipping overgrown hawthorn branches adjacent to net rides, regularly dropping a little bird seed, and on his visits making sure that birds had found the free grub. The targets of our efforts are set to be Chaffinches and thrushes, with perhaps a few wary Tree Sparrows, but the latter may not oblige after the first one or two visits literally catch them out.

The site was disgustingly muddy, the track churned up by the many tractor and farm vehicle visits of autumn, but we set just a couple of nets in the half-light then waited for birds to arrive.

The farm track is less than half a mile from a long established Chaffinch roost at nearby Myerscough College. The grounds of the college are so busy with people and vehicles on a daily basis that it is not feasible to ring there, so putting feed out nearby is more effective than attempting to catch Chaffinches in a large, widespread roost. There is scope here for a couple of keen young ornithologists to count how many Chaffinches arrive at the roost in the late afternoon, from which directions, and maybe even the birds' choice of tree or shrub in which to spend the night. If only young birders were as keen on finding out about birds as they are on seeing new or “exciting” ones.

Muddy Waters

Targeting the Chaffinch proved very successful in a four hour session, with a total of 49 birds, 46 new and 3 recaptures. New birds: 36 Chaffinch, 3 Tree Sparrow, 3 Robin, 2 Blackbird, 1 Blue Tit, and 1 Dunnock. Recaptures: 1 Chaffinch, 1 Blue Tit and 1 Tree Sparrow. The Chaffinch and Blue Tit were first ringed here on 12 December 2010, with the Tree Sparrow dating from January 2009.

Our observations suggest that 100+ Chaffinches came to the feed at the hedgerow, our count probably a severe underestimate given the number arriving but not necessarily caught. Also, it’s early days yet but compared to our autumn catches of predominantly juvenile Chaffinches at Out Rawcliffe, it was quickly evident today how many of the birds handled were adults, 18 of the 37, or virtually 50%.

Mainly Chaffinch
Chaffinch
Chaffinch – broad tail of an adult
Blue Tit

The rather enclosed nature of the site limits the bird watching somewhat, but in addition to the birds ringed we noted 2 Bullfinch, 1 Sparrowhawk, 1 Snipe, 1 Kestrel, 1 Tawny Owl, 7 Redwing, 6 Fieldfare.

Perseverance……

Persistence, Resolve, Doggedness or just plain Obstinate? Call it what you like in the face of not much happening in the bird world in recent days, but if there’s half a sunny morning and Sue goes off Christmas shopping, what’s a man to do but go birding?

Pilling Lane Ends to Fluke was even quieter today with an embarrassing lack of entries in my notebook and even less images in the camera.

From the car park both the Peregrine and Merlin were about but distant. The Peregrine remained on the edge of the marsh but as I walked to Fluke Hall the Merlin perched up a couple of times on the gates of the sea wall or sit atop fence posts which line the inland ditch. After a while the bird tired of me walking its beat and flew off to sit on the remains of the washed up tree on the marsh. There was a Buzzard along the sea wall too, one of the Fluke birds, harassed out to the marsh and up into the clouds by the persistence of Carrion Crows and Jackdaws.

Jackdaw

On the wildfowler’s pools today, 15 Shelduck, 150 Teal and countless hundreds of not very wild “mallards”.

It’s the lack of passerines which is rather strange at the moment with counts today of 6 Skylark, 1 Meadow Pipit, 2 Reed Bunting and 8 Linnet. The exception to this current November rule is the number of Starlings about, with large, even huge flocks in many parts of the Fylde. Along the sea wall today I met another resolute birder heading east who stopped to theorise that the incursion of Starlings could be associated with the current influx of White-fronted Geese, as many of the UK’s wintering Starlings also originate from Eastern Europe and Russia. A good notion there, so nice to see a University education not wasted.

I achieved a whopping count of 14 Little Egrets today, with 1 Grey Heron amongst them, so the heron family almost eclipsed my count of small birds.

It’s just as well there’s a regular Little Owl spot nearby to practice a spot of now rusty photography.

Little Owl

Solo Stint

A fine, bright morning beckoned, so with everyone else at work I tried a few hours solo ringing at Rawcliffe Moss from 0915 to 1115. I didn’t catch many birds but there was a nice mix of species with some immaculate looking individuals.

I caught 15 birds with a couple of nets but packed in when a gang of Long-tailed Tits gathered near the net, prepared for an assault when my back was turned. New birds: 4 Lesser Redpoll, 3 Goldfinch, 1 Chaffinch, 1 Reed Bunting and 2 Blackbird. The 4 recaptures were singles of Blackbird, Goldfinch, Dunnock amd Lesser Redpoll. It’s unusual to recapture a Lesser Redpoll here and today’s returnee had been first caught on 20th September, suggesting that it and other Lesser Redpolls belong to a regular little group that feed in the plentiful birch and alders.

Lesser Redpoll
Dunnock
Goldfinch
Chaffinch
Blackbird

Things were quite good on the birding front with 1 Tawny Owl, 1 Woodcock, 1 Kestrel, 3 Buzzard, 45 Skylark, 5 Corn Bunting, 80 Woodpigeon, 5000 Starlings, 1 Great-spotted Woodpecker and 3 Yellowhammer.

Yellowhammer

While on the subject of Goldfinches it appears that one I ringed in my garden on 13th June 2010 took a trip to Manchester, Orrell Reservoir to be exact, where it was caught by another ringer on 4th September 2011. Interesting, I’ll bet that Goldfinch was headed further south for this winter, but I don’t have any recaptures during the 448 days from original ringing then recapture in Manchester.

Goldfinch-Stalmine to Manchester

Still Balmy

Driving up to Pilling this morning I listened to a radio programme where the presenters discussed how this November is set to be the warmest on record. So until the UK sits receives cooler air from the east or north, birding will stay a little quiet with some species in low numbers and yet others apparently absent altogether.

That synopsis is my justification for a quiet couple of hours with amazingly similar notebook entries to recent days, together with an absence of new sightings or additional species. However it was an agreeable morning, and for the record here are the sightings.

Ridge Farm and Fluke Hall Lane: 45 Linnet, 8 Greenfinch, 9 Reed Bunting, 14 Blackbird, 2 Little Egret, 2 Snipe, 8 Skylark, 6 Meadow Pipit, 12 Tree Sparrow, 1 Sparrowhawk, 1 Treecreeper, 400+ Jackdaw, 300+ Woodpigeon and a herd of 32 Whooper Swan. On the drive from Lambs Lane, I’d already counted 15/20 Blackbirds, so although there are plenty of those around, there are no Redwings or Fieldfares to be found. Even if the coloured thrushes turn up now there is also a distinct lack of hawthorn berries for them to feed on, and with the benefit of hindsight 2011 has not been a very berry year.

Whooper Swan
Reed Bunting
Tree Sparrow

Lane Ends/Pilling Water: A Stoat ran across the road stayed hidden under the hawthorns when I stopped the car, but as I parked up for a few minutes waiting for the animal to show I spotted the regular Merlin crossing Backsands Lane then perching up on the inner embankment. Looking from the car park the Peregrine was 500 yards out, immobile on the same bit of marsh it has occupied all week, likewise 6 Little Egrets walking in and out of the familiar tidal channels. A walk to Pilling Water revealed just 2 Skylarks and the regular Kestrel.

At Pilling Water the Hi-fly bloke bemoaned the lack of wildfowl, with just 150 Teal and a handful of Pintail on their pools, plus his one and only Woodcock sighting of the autumn. As we chatted he related how there may have been up to 30,000 Pink-footed Geese in recent times, an extraordinary number if correct, but counting or possibly duplicating restless geese can be a more inexact science than counting birds that pass by just once. My count today of the many overhead skeins of geese heading in various directions, in and out of the marsh, and beyond the tide line was in comparison a miserable 3,500.

He told me how last winter during the snow, frost and days of 600 Teal he saw a Bittern, stood bolt upright trying to merge into the background of maize as the loaded quad chugged past. “Not much chance of a Bittern or more wildfowl just yet” we agreed, as we had a good old moan about the British weather.

The wind should drop overnight; let’s hope there are a few birds at the ringing sites.

Those Chaffinch

We ringed lots of Chaffinches at Out Rawcliffe this autumn, but most of the time Will and I were too busy on a daily basis to look in detail at the age/sex ratio of the birds we caught, other than mentally note how many were both females and first calendar year/juveniles.

The ringing site on Rawcliffe Moss is approximately 6 miles from Garstang, a town on the very western edge of the Pennines. In North West Lancashire during autumn mornings there is a marked but mainly inland movement south of Chaffinches, a phenomenon which is often very pronounced in the first few or occasionally several hours after dawn. The visible passage begins in August, peaks during September, declines somewhat during October to then virtually fizzle out in November. This dispersal of Chaffinches has been described by several observers recording the visible migration of many bird species in the Pennines area of Lancashire.

I looked at our captures made between the months of August to October in the two years 2010 and 2011. During 2010 we caught 332 individuals, and then 375 in 2011, a total of 707 captures in the two autumn periods.

Chaffinch

The BTO Migration Atlas states that Chaffinches involved in autumnal movements are thought to be 90% first year birds, predominantly females. Our data from Out Rawcliffe supports the idea that the Chaffinches passing through there are largely juvenile/1st Calendar Year (1CY) females. The wing lengths of the birds involved also show that the same Chaffinches are probably entirely from the UK population.

Chaffinch wing lengths occur in the range of 81mm to 98mm for males and 73mm to 89mm for females, so although there are overlaps in biometrics, plumage differences make separating the sexes easy. Birds from northern and eastern populations can be slightly larger, often with a longer wing length, whereby males with a wing more than 93mm or females with a wing length greater than 86mm may originate from more migratory Scandinavian or Eastern European populations.

Chaffinch

Of the 707 Chaffinches captured during the autumns of 2010 or 2011 none could be positively identified as of Scandinavian or continental origin. In the Autumn of 2010, there were 2 Chaffinches caught on 1st November each with a wing length of 93mm which might be considered none-UK birds, but not definitely so as both were large adult males. In the autumn of 2011 there were 2 Chaffinches both on 28th October 2011, with wing lengths of 92 and 93mm respectively which might be considered non-UK birds. The timing of these 4 captures fits well with the suggestion of continental birds reaching the north west of the UK in the later part of autumn via south east England when more migratory continental Chaffinches spread north and west.

Table: Age/Sex ratios of Chaffinches

Month	Total Captures	Adults (% of Total Captures)	1CYs (% of Total Captures)	1CY male (% of 1CYs)	1CY female (% of 1CYs)
Aug 2010	27	9 (33%)	18 (67%)	5 (28%)	13 (72%)
Aug 2011	44	5 (11%)	39 (89%)	17 (43%)	22 (57%)
Sep 2010	263	48 (18%)	215 (82%)	71 (33%)	144 (67%)
Sep 2011	228	35 (15%)	193 (85%)	88 (45%)	105 (55%)
Oct 2010	42	16 (38%)	26 (62%)	8 (31%)	18 (69%)
Oct 2011	103	17 (17%)	86 (83%)	37 (43%)	49 (57%)

From the 700+ Chaffinches the number of recaptures was very low, supporting the idea of onward dispersal. If anything the low number of meaningful records of birds first ringed in 2010 and then recaptured in 2011 without recapture in-between, suggest that some experienced Chaffinches use exactly the same dispersal route and stop overs each year.

Chaffinch

Double Pegging

A fine, warm but somewhat breezy Sunday morning meant a few hours birding and breathing space around local spots before the hordes hit the streets.

Conder Green lost its attraction to me in recent months, but I called in for a quick look this morning to see what I’d been missing. Not a lot it seems, the pool as deserted as ever it was with just a single Little Grebe on the whole expanse of water. There were 5 more Little Grebes in the creek, along with 95 of my favourite duck the diminutive Teal. Whatever a Teal may lack in size it certainly makes up it in character, flying ability, wildness and simple beauty. A quick look on the Lune revealed 22 Goldeneye.

Teal
Teal

I tried my luck down Hillam Lane, where an improvement on CG saw 375 Curlew, 1 Pied Wagtail, 2 Little Egret, 15 Chaffinch, 8 Tree Sparrow, 5 Blackbird, 1 Sparrowhawk and 1 Kestrel.

At the old faithful sites of Lane Ends, Pilling Water and Fluke Hall where there was a bit more activity. On the outer marsh at Lane Ends were 4 Barnacle Geese of dubious origin, well apart from several thousand Pink-footed Geese and 22 Whooper Swans of impeccable pedigree, with at least 9 Little Egrets and 2 Grey Heron. Also out on the marsh was a big, bright male Peregrine which sat unmoved for at least an hour, even as I walked to Pilling Water then back to Lane Ends. At one point an even larger Peregrine, this one a female flew close to and above the male before then flying over the sea wall and south west towards Preesall, but it’s not unusual to see two or even three Peregrines here given the abundance of food.

Peregrine courtesy of USFWS
Small stuff in the planation - 1 Jay, several Blackbirds and 1 Reed Bunting.

Pilling Water produced 1 Buzzard heading off towards Fluke Hall plus the now inevitable Green Sandpiper. Also, 1 Kestrel, 1 Meadow Pipit, 2 Skylark, 2 Snipe and 2 Linnet.

At Fluke Hall, a single Goldcrest and a silent Chiffchaff.

Chiffchaff

The Final Curtain?

After the last couple of sessions Rawcliffe Moss is definitely running short of autumn birds, but after the overnight rain cleared and with a half decent forecast, Will and I decided to have another go this morning, mainly in the hope of connecting with the elusive thrushes of 2011.

There was a suggestion of a few or more at dawn, perhaps even locally roosting ones, but no true visible migration which could increase a pathetic count of 12 Fieldfare, 8 Redwing, 2 Song Thrush and 8 Blackbirds. Chaffinch numbers were similarly low with less than 50, coupled with 3 Lesser Redpoll and 40+ Goldfinch, the latter all local feeding birds.

We finished a short session with just 11 new birds, 3 Redwing, 3 Blackbird, 4 Chaffinch and a Wren. No recaptures today.

Redwing
Wren

Other birds and animals today: 1 Tawny Owl, 2 Buzzard, 1 Kestrel, 6 Snipe, 50+ Skylark, 5 Meadow Pipit, 10 Reed Bunting, 4 Corn Bunting, 9 Roe Deer.

Looking west towards Pilling Moss this morning we saw the most enormous, dense flock of Starlings which when they took to the air, we estimated at up to 20,000 birds wheeling around, but there may have been many more.

Starling

Will has been putting feed out at a site near Myerscough in readiness for a switch to winter ringing. He reports over 50 Chaffinch and several Tree Sparrows already coming to the seed, so we may switch allegiance soon and return to the moss next spring.

Chaffinch