A Day Too Late?

Time just flies for us retired folk. Believe it or not, there just aren’t enough days in the week to do the domestic essentials, fit in a spot of bird watching, bird ringing or photography, never mind to then blog the blog. So that’s the excuse for Sunday’s news appearing today, plus the fact that today is rain and yesterday was fine. Confused? Wait until you’re my age. 

Sunday was a mossy day, Stalmine, Pilling, Winmarleigh and then Rawcliffe mosses where many times the four do meet, especially when multitudes of Woodpigeons blacken the combined skies of all. After a couple of hours surveying the moss roads and taking in the spectacular, roaming flocks I revised Thursday’s count upwards to one of 18,000/20,000 Woodpigeons. I realise that is one hell of a tally so welcome comparison counts from the many bird watchers currently travelling along or standing about the same moss roads. 

At Union/Lancaster Lane junction was a Barn Owl, sitting, watching but also hunting while keeping a distance from prying eyes, as overhead small gangs of Whooper Swans fresh from their night time roost flew back and forth in search of spots to feed. 

Barn Owl

Whooper Swan

Along Lancaster Road were 3 Kestrels, one pair together in a single hawthorn tree, so obviously the closely bonded pair of recent days. Also, 30+ Fieldfare, 3 Redwing, 20+ Blackbird, 20 Chaffinch, 2 Yellowhammer, 14 Tree Sparrow, and 185 Lapwing. A Brown Rat crossed the road ahead of the car - maybe there’s a plague of rats, voles and mice this year in the unkempt fields of the wet summer which might explain the number of raptors making late hay out here? 

I spent so much time watching the owl and the hordes of Woodpigeons that it was almost 1030 when I arrived on Rawcliffe Moss. So followed a quick scoot around with 1 Kestrel, 2 Redwing, 1 Tawny Owl, 6 Goldfinch, 1 Siskin, 15 Corn Bunting, 40+ Chaffinch, 4 Reed Bunting and 15 Tree Sparrows, one of the latter rapidly departing a nest box as the car approached. To the east 3 Roe Deer waded shoulder deep through the abandoned wheat crop, the animal's heads just visible. 

Roe Deer

The Corn Buntings were the first seen for a while. It begs the question: where do the Corn Buntings that winter very locally actually originate from, when following the breeding season the few pairs which raise families then disappear into thin air until the winter? No one seems qualified to provide an answer about such a difficult species to monitor through the normal methods of survey or ringing. It’s a gap in knowledge which leaves yet another unsolved mystery about a threatened species. The iconic but shy Corn Bunting may have passed the point of no return, with the result that we are too late to save it from local if not national extinction. Let’s hope not. 

Corn Bunting

Corn Bunting

P.S. There’s an interesting comment from Chris in Tuscon, Arizona on Saturday's post about  Waxwings “You are not the only one: They're here as well and I can't seem to find the darn Waxwings. BUT that will all change once our palm trees start producing fruit. Then they get drunk and fly all over the place. It's funny and dangerous at the same time.” To a Waxwing all that fermenting red fruit must combine the taste and effect of a glass or two of red wine. I’ll drink to that. 

More from Another Bird Blog soon. In the meantime keep blogging and birding. This week I'm linking to I'd Rather be Birding and to Paying Ready Attention Gallery. 

What Waxwings?

Everyone is seeing Waxwings at the moment. All except me that is, even though I’ve been looking and listening most days this week and last. The answer could be to go chasing the ones being seen in regular spots miles away but that rather takes the fun, excitement and skill out of finding birds for oneself doesn’t it? No worries, I’ll see a Waxwing or two before the winter’s out, just like last year when I got a few photos near home. 

Bohemian Waxwing

It’s doubtful any Waxwing will be eating out of my hand like they do on Fair Isle. Nice jumper - just the job for winter birding at Knott End. 

I went looking at for Waxwings at Knott End this morning, a little coastal village with a distinct lack of trees bearing red berries, or fruit of any sort really. So I didn’t find any Waxwings, just the similarly shaped Starlings and un-waxwing like Pied Wagtail, Linnet and Goldfinch. The shore does have lots of grey undistinguished, boring waders though: 950 Oystercatcher, 140 Knot, 125 Redshank, 15 Turnstone and 8 Curlew. 

Knot

Turnstone

Couldn’t find any Waxwings out on the moss either, just an early morning movement of 20+ Redwings, 30+ Fieldfares and 4 Lesser Redpoll chattering overhead. Even the nets didn’t turn up a Waxwing, just darned Lottis and Blutis, but a bonus couple of male Reed Buntings. Now there's a real bird in the hand. 

Reed Bunting

Long-tailed Tit

 Another Reed Bunting

There no option really, everyone’s gone Waxwing crazy, so that’s where Another Bird Blog will be on Sunday - looking for Waxwings. Log in later to see more Waxwings or not.

This next week I'm linking to The View From Right Here, and I'd Rather Be Birding so I hope there's some Waxwings.

Woodys All Over

Woodpigeons don’t often steal the show but they did this morning. There’s been an influx in the last week or two, with noticeably large flocks building up on the mosses in particular where the poor summer has left a number of spoilt and unharvested crops for both birds and mammals. 

This morning as I drove across Stalmine Moss and then Pilling Moss towards Out Rawcliffe I noticed there seemed to be even more than the usual hundreds of Woodpigeons about. As I stopped to watch many thousands of them were flying over, pausing to look for food in the hedgerows and fields, all the time their numbers swelling into huge, massed and urgent flocks which continued south and east until many were out of sight. After a while I had estimated several thousand woodys, upwards of 10,000 in all. 

While the Woodpigeon is an essentially sedentary species in the UK, it has a very large range in most of Europe, especially in the north and east where it is largely migratory, responding to both cold weather and food shortages by travelling huge distances. Some individuals reach Spain where they target the woodland acorn crop So it appears that this year, and just like the more exotic and sought after Waxwing or Brambling, the unloved, mostly ignored Woodpigeon is the latest species to become a victim of the poor acorn, berry and beech crop in Europe. 

To put my meagre count into the larger perspective - in Europe, the breeding population of the Woodpigeon is estimated to number 9-17 million breeding pairs, equating to 27-51 million individuals (BirdLife International 2004). Europe forms 75-94% of the global range, so a very preliminary estimate of the global population size is 30-70 million individuals. 

Woodpigeon

I stopped on Union Lane where like recent weeks, yet another Kestrel posed up for a portrait. What a shame a stray branch intervened to spoil the shot. It was almost 10am but a Barn Owl was hunting too and unlike the Kestrel, the owl didn’t want to pose up so I made do with a distant record shot. 

Kestrel

Barn Owl

Rawcliffe Moss could have made for a disappointment after such drama; however a few bits and pieces made for an entertaining hour or two. Wandering through the plantation revealed my first Woodcock of the winter as it crashed from a clump of bramble to give the usual few seconds of in-flight views. “Small stuff” count: 2 Fieldfare, 1 Goldcrest, 7 Reed Bunting, 15 Goldfinch, 20+ Chaffinch, 22 Tree Sparrow, 4 Blackbird, 1 Mistle Thrush, 2 Skylark, 2 Great-spotted Woodpecker. Non-passerines: 1 Kestrel, 3 Jay, 1 Buzzard. 

Reed Bunting

Another unwanted branch spoiled the ‘pecker shot too. 

Great-spotted Woodpecker

Better luck next time on Another Bird Blog.  Log in soon to check. 

A Silhouette Day

Another one of those grey, uninviting mornings which promised no camera time, but at least today it wasn’t raining so instead of staying home thinking about birding I set out to do a little. Pilling was the venue again where a high tide was due at 11am. 

Two raptors greeted me, first a rather small, grey Peregrine flying west towards Fluke Hall, which I lost when it dived into the Broadfleet gully and panicked thousands of birds into flight. I’d walked up towards Pilling Water when a Merlin flew towards the sea wall, this time in the direction of Lane Ends itself, where it dipped over the sea wall and then over the adjacent fields. The Merlin was flying with that clipped, almost “bouncy” action they sometimes show, reminiscent of a Mistle Thrush. Such a flight pattern may imitate the flight of their prey, disguise their falcon outline and so allow a closer approach: it has been called “masked hunting”. Merlins also indulge in persistent chasing of their prey where they seek to exhaust the target, combining the chase with spectacular vertical stoops where they either grab or knock down the victim. Who’d be a tiny bird in Merlin territory? 

Merlin 

There were lots of Dunlin this morning, at least 1500, and a wader which is a favoured target and a handy sized meal for a Merlin. Other waders - 40+ Snipe, 270 Redshank, 450 Lapwing, 70+ Curlew. 

Dunlin

Two other raptors this morning, a Kestrel and a Buzzard. The Buzzard was hanging about at the wildfowler’s pools and stubble where there are still lots of Red-legged Partridge for nabbing, hence the regular sighting of a Peregrine over the site too. When sportsmen started to gather for the Wednesday afternoon shoot the Buzzard headed off inland towards the mosslands. On the pools themselves, 50+ Teal, some of the 700+ out on the marsh, together with 250 Wigeon and 300+ Shelduck. Two Grey Herons today, outnumber as ever by the 11 Little Egrets on show. 

The only chance for a photograph came when I settled down to watch about 15 Meadow Pipits feeding in the shore rockery, one or two coming within camera a range but at ISO800. As the tide came in the Meadow Pipits disappeared over the wall to be replaced by 2 Rock Pipits appearing on the high tide with 18 Linnets and 15 Skylark flying in too. 

Meadow Pipit

Rock Pipit

Ravens are a bit of a mystery bird out here, appearing and disappearing without any apparent pattern, just like today when four appeared over the marsh from the Cockerham direction and then proceeded to fly noisily south west. There’s a rubbish and distant photo, not taken in black and white, just “silhouette” mode on a grey day, but Ravens are very noisy birds which are impossible to miss. Click on the xeno-canto button to hear the Ravens.

Raven

Let's hope for a more colourful day tomorrow on Another Bird Blog. Stay tuned just in case.

Sunday's Best

Sunday proved a quiet morning with not a great deal of new stuff following a couple of hours trawl around local spots. 

When I arrived at Knott End the tide was in but hadn’t brought much in the way of variety: 700 Oystercatchers, 190 Redshank, 6 Turnstone and 4 Knot the sum of the waders, unless you count a Grey Heron wading through the water. When all the birds panicked, the Oystercatchers running back towards the safety of the water’s edge and the Redshanks flying off upriver, I knew a Peregrine was about. The Peregrine appeared from the Preesall direction then made a single pass and turn above the beach before thinking better of it and heading north. Best photo I could get into the sun and in the ten seconds the bird gave me.

Peregrine

Passerines were even harder to find, the Pied Wagtail with a gammy leg first noted here last winter, and 2 Goldfinches on the Niger seed I’d left recently in the hope of keeping the Twite happy, but no sign of them. 

I decided to give the Fluke Hall environs a try and it proved quite productive in terms of species if not numbers. Towards Ridge Farm the Greenfinch flock has expanded to 100+, the Skylarks and Meadow Pipits to 15+ and about 10 respectively, with 4 Reed Bunting, 2 Pied Wagtail, 10+ Tree Sparrow and a Little Egret. 

Greenfinch

In the wood I heard the call of a Brambling from the tree tops, couldn’t locate the bird in the autumn leaves, but did manage to see a single Mistle Thrush, 2 Fieldfare, 12 Long-tailed Tit, 1 Nuthatch, a Song Thrush, 200 Jackdaws and 50+ Wood Pigeon. For anyone unsure of a Brambling’s autumn contact call, click on the Xeno Canto button to hear one. For those who wonder why birders seek out Bramblings, there’s a photograph below from a year or two back. 

Fluke Hall

Brambling

On the extremely wet fields between Fluke and Lane Ends I counted 40+ Redshank, 3 Black-tailed Godwit, 800 Lapwing and 18 Whooper Swans. There’d been a lot of Whooper Swans flying either inland towards the mosses or back out to the marsh. As I arrived at Lane Ends, JR told me of 300+ whoopers from a dawn start, together with a count of 10,000+ Pink-footed Geese. Good work Jean. 

That was the end of my morning apart from heading back via Pilling Moss where I noted 3 Kestrelwhich included a pair together, 900 Woodpigeon, 2 Yellowhammer and some of the Whooper Swans out on a distant flood. 

Whooper Swan

Kestrel

Back home and picking up apples from the garden for freezer storage and hopefully garden thrushes, I noticed a hedgehog Erinaceus europaeus snuffling through the fallen leaves. I’m not sure when hedgehogs are meant to hibernate but soon I guess. Me I’ll just hibernate to somewhere warm for a few weeks in January, better than spending two or three months under a pile of old logs. 

European Hedgehog - Erinaceus europeus

Back soon on Another Bird Blog with more spikey tales.

This week Another Bird Blog is linking with Anni and Stewart again, plus Weekly Top Shot

More Kestrels

Kestrels can be like buses around here. You don’t see one for days and then several come along one after the other. That’s how it was today, so I came home with more pictures of Kestrels but not much else. 

The morning started at Fluke Hall, breezy cool and cloudy and not many birds to be found, just a single Redwing feeding with a couple of Blackbirds in the hedgerow and a dozen or so Tree Sparrows, a few of which were visiting nest boxes. Male Tree Sparrows are known to display at colonies in the autumn as a means of reinforcing ownership of previous nest sites. First year males do it also as a way of finding new sites of their own for the coming season even though it is months away. It's known as "recrudescence" and other species do it too, including the humble Robin  but please don't ask me to name them all.

Tree Sparrow

There was a good sized party of titmice moving through the wood, mainly Long-tailed Tits again, and it’s rather strange that this, the most fragile of the tit family seems to be the most numerous of the lot this year. As I watched them move through the wood a Sparrowhawk shot away from the trees where it had must have been lying in wait for a passing meal. 

Further along the road at Damside I logged the first Kestrel of the day close to their regular nest box. On the wet fields here I counted 1400 Lapwing, 42 Redshank, 35 Curlew and 30 Golden Plover. 

Kestrel

I drove across Piling Moss and clocked 2 more Kestrels, a Little Owl, 15 Tree Sparrows, 20 Whooper Swan, 2 Yellowhammer, 40 Fieldfare and 1 Redwing. After the late October rush there are still a number of Fieldfares searching the rather scant hawthorn crop, with Redwings much harder to find at the moment. 

The Fieldfare's name is reckoned to come from the old English "feldefare" which probably meant "traveller through the fields".

Fieldfare

Fieldfare

The two Kestrels were hunting the stubble fields, using the roadside telegraph poles from which to spot prey below, the wind across the open moss ruffling their insulation feathers. 

Kestrel

 

Kestrel

For a short while the sun came out and the wind seemed to drop as I tried to photograph the second Kestrel as it warmed up for a dive to the stubble below. Click the pictures for a full frame slide show - that Kestrel really means business.

Kestrel

Kestrel

Kestrel

I journeyed on to Rawcliffe Moss for yet another Kestrel, 2 Buzzard, 2 Jay, 35 Chaffinch, 30 Tree Sparrow, 8 Goldfinch, 1 Goldcrest, 1 Tawny Owl and a mighty flock of 400+ Woodpigeon. 

There’s rain forecast for tomorrow which might entail a morning out shopping with my better half, but with luck Another Bird Blog will be out again soon looking for more Kestrels. If so be the first to read about it here by logging in soon.

This week Another Bird Blog is linking with Anni and Stewart again, plus Weekly Top Shot

More On Chaffinches

Our Fylde Ringing Group totals for October make decent reading. The prolonged wind and rain of September left numbers struggling upwards, but an improvement in October’s weather led to a much healthier looking total of birds ringed during the month, 664 birds of 23 species.

Greenfinches ringed at Fleetwood were the most numerous, with my own efforts out on Rawcliffe Moss directed at both Chaffinches and Goldfinch, and then later in the month Lesser Redpoll and northern thrushes, Redwing and Fieldfare. While Redwing subsequently features in the top ten, the harder to catch Fieldfare does not, with just 4 caught.

Top-Ten totals for October in order of magnitude: Greenfinch (284), Chaffinch (72), Goldfinch (38), Redwing (36), Long-tailed Tit (34), Blackbird (34), Lesser Redpoll 29), Meadow Pipit (29), Coal Tit (16), Song Thrush (16).

From August onwards, I continued with my age/sex analysis of autumn Chaffinches dispersing south and over Rawcliffe Moss. Despite losing many sessions in September, the numbers caught in October redressed the situation somewhat, but the overall total of 181 Chaffinch for the whole of the autumn of 2012 proved way down on figures for the equivalent period in 2010 (332 Chaffinch) and in 2011 (375 Chaffinch).  

Chaffinch

Although the actual numbers are lower for 2012 the percentages of each age/sex class are remarkably consistent with the previous two autumns - see chart below. The only inconsistency would seem to be the low percentage of adults (5%) in the September 2012 catches, as compared to 15-18% for the same month in the years 2010/2011.  In view of the summer weather during 2012 it might be tempting to explain the low number as adults extending their breeding and moult cycle by a number of weeks and hence a delay in leaving home ranges. More likely it will remain as an unsolved variance or a blip cause by the lower sample.

Table: Age/Sex ratios of Chaffinches

Out Rawcliffe, Aug to Oct 2010-2012

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%)
Aug 2012	37	5 (13%)	32 (87%)	14 (59%)	13 (41%)
Sep 2010	263	48 (18%)	215 (82%)	71 (33%)	144 (67%)
Sep 2011	228	35 (15%)	193 (85%)	88 (45%)	105 (55%)
Sep 2012	84	4 (5%)	80 (95%)	35 (44%)	45 (56%)
Oct 2010	42	16 (38%)	26 (62%)	8 (31%)	18 (69%)
Oct 2011	103	17 (17%)	86 (83%)	37 (43%)	49 (57%)
Oct 2012	42	16 (38%)	26 (62%)	8 (31%)	18 (69%)

In all a total of 888 Chaffinches were captured throughout the three month period of each year 2010 to 2012 inclusive. Adults made up between 5% and 38% of a catch during any month, with an average of 20%

Of 888 Chaffinch in the three years, first year birds made up between 62% and 95% of the catches in any month, the actual average being 80%.

First year males comprised between 28% and 49% of first year birds, the average being 42%.

First year females made up between 41% and 72% of first year birds, the average being 58%.

The figures above correspond to the information in The British Trust for Ornothology Migration Atlas which states "Chaffinches involved in autumnal movements are thought to be 90% first year birds, predominantly females".

There is one outstanding “controlled” Chaffinch yet to be notified, an adult female Y867191 caught on 21^st October. Many years of ringing Chaffinches shows that most if not all of this region’s autumnal Chaffinch originate from the Northern Pennines, SW Scotalnd and The English Lake District, so it will be interesting to see if this record follows the same pattern. 

Chaffinch 

Another Bird Blog is indoors today, waiting for BT to bring a replacement router because my Internet connection has been off and on like a politician's grin. Hopefully the fix will be permanent, so keep looking in for the latest update soon.