Bird Watching

Wednesday 19th March 2014. 

It’s hard to decide the highlight of Wednesday morning, catching the first Wheatear of 2014 with the help of trusty meal worms or seeing a full set of local raptors in action. 

Northern Wheatear

Meal Worms

First stop as usual was Wheel Lane where the Golden Plover count reached 360+, Redshanks numbered 20+, and the well scattered Lapwings totalled 30+. Two Little Egrets could be seen along the ditches that cross the maize field. As per a few days ago a Chiffchaff sang brief snatches of song from the hedgerow and as I waited for the chiffy to show, I picked up on 2 Long-tailed Tit, a single Goldcrest searching the hawthorns, and several Meadow Pipits in the near part of the field. 

The waders took to the air a couple of times, once for a passing Kestrel and then for brief views of a dashing Merlin, the latter heading out over the sea wall. 

I parked at Fluke and checked out the woodland. The Long-tailed Tit nest of 9th March appears to have come to a standstill a couple of days after, the nest now a complete cup but without the essential domed topping. No sight or sound of the adults either - an unexplained failure for the BTO Nest Record. I’m keeping an eye on a freshly manicured hole near where I’ve seen and heard the Great-spotted Woodpeckers, ”chicking” today and in the last two or three weeks. It’s not been a great year for hearing the peckers’ drumming noises, perhaps a pointer to fewer pairs in the area and less competition? 

 Great-spotted Woodpecker

There were 2 Buzzards calling in the tree tops, noisy Jays and then further along the lane a Sparrowhawk came gliding through the trees and made as if to perch up. When the hawk saw me it sped off out of sight. Generations of human persecution have made raptors reluctant to share their world with bird watchers who mean them no harm. 

Buzzard

In the wet field south of Fluke Hall were 14+ Pied Wagtails, 15+ Meadow Pipits and in the hedgerow, 2 Reed Buntings and 2 Greenfinch, the wags and mipits difficult to locate in the badly rutted, furrowed and still partially flooded ground. 

I walked east along the sea wall with the still strong wind at my back where in the shelter of the rocks I found a bright male Wheatear. The spot was too public for even a tiny trap - a host of footprints on the muddy shore and piles of doggy poo testified to my preference for a quieter spot. 

From the sea wall I watched a female Peregrine arrive from the west and then settle low on the marsh but out of sight. Waiting for a Peregrine to fly is not always a short delay so I walked further east and then counted the Pink-footed Geese for the umpteenth time this winter - 420 this time and never a total the same. Good numbers of Shelduck but no count today and no sign of the Brent Goose or regular Green Sandpiper. 

Pilling Water provided the ideal Wheatear, settled on the rocks and looking for food. A meal worm later it was mine - a fine female to finish the morning and to open the Wheatear account for 2014. Now that’s what I call bird watching. 

Northern Wheatear

More bird watching very soon from Another Bird Blog.

Are You Having A Laugh?

There was no birding today in the very unfunny showers and windy conditions prevailing up here in the Grim North, but I have a little news to relay from Monday's truncated birding session at Pilling. 

Also, and if nothing else, the strange world of British Birding can usually be relied upon to generate a laugh or two. So in the absence of birding news from today and as a light relief, there follows later in the post an amusing tale of birding. 

Two Green Sandpipers surprised me on Monday, taking off together from the wildfowler’s pools as I approached, calling as they flew North West. I suspect that both were Spring migrants, neither of them the “green sand” I’ve failed all winter to photograph, the one that has had a regular laugh at my expense. Other wildfowl and waders on marsh and pool - 210 Shelduck, 300 Pink-footed Goose, 18 Teal, 1 Shoveler and the Brent Goose of recent months, the dark-bellied bird feeding with Shelducks at the outer edge of the marsh. 

Shoveler

Pink-footed Goose

Along the sea wall were small numbers of Meadow Pipits plus a single Rock Pipit, and I’m missing the movement north of large numbers of Meadow Pipits which should by 18th March be more obvious. 

Meadow Pipit

On the flood, 32 Lapwings, the now regular but varying count of Golden Plover at 155 and a Kestrel from the Damside pair patrolling the roadside. 

Kestrel

If all this patch work seems more than a little tame, from the weekend there’s a wretched account of twitching played out in the rural landscape of English Sussex and subsequently discussed at inordinate length on an Internet birding forum. All of it concerned a Savannah Sparrow that never was. 

It happens fairly regularly that in their impatience to make a name for themselves on "the scene" a birder will sometimes make a mistake in their ID of a bird, and then in their subsequent haste for fame, prematurely post the sighting on a blog or a bird alert service. 

More rarely such urgency for fame turns into desperation whereby a person will invent or elaborate a sighting in order to generate credibility and kudos within the hallowed community to which they aspire. 

Unfortunately for them, if they get it wrong there will be repercussions. A genuine mistake can be forgotten with a friendly pat on the shoulder, perhaps after a time the error of judgement forgiven and normalities resumed. However a deliberate attempt to deceive the serious world of chasing rare birds invites a fate almost worse than death where sanctions will include at the least the cold shoulder, exclusion from forums or pager services and the probable loss of erstwhile birder mates. 

In extremis, on this occasion and in all seriousness a few forum contributors have suggested that a physical beating or legal proceedings may be in order. I kid you not. 

Read all about it here but do have a tissue at hand to wipe away the tears. 

Savannah Sparrow - Photo credit: USFWS Headquarters / Foter / CC BY 

Now to the Google searcher who typed in the query "Do pigeons have willys?" and who eventually found my blog.

There is a definitive and serious answer to this ornithological query, but I'm not sure you will find the answer on Bird Forum. The answer is here instead. 

Wood Pigeon - "I'm not telling"

More laughs, facts and photos from Another Bird Blog soon.

Doing It All Again

Saturday 15th March. Remember to “click the pics” for close-up views and/or click the “Crosspost” button to share a picture to Facebook and Twitter. 

It took a while to find the Northern Wheatear his morning. After a couple of hours plodding around Pilling in a stiff and cold north-westerly wind I’d more or less given up on seeing the safest bet of March. Boots off, hat and gloves back in the car I was ready for home but taking a last look along the sea wall when I spotted a lone Wheatear on a stretch of embankment I’d walked an hour or more before. It was too late to start unpacking a trap and warming up the meal worms; there will be more days soon.

Wheatear

At early doors the sea wall had been pretty devoid of bird life, and apart from 1000+ Pink-footed Geese most of the action took place on the maize field or in the Fluke Hall woodland. 

There was a goodish count of Golden Plover with 450+ birds early on until a Hi-Fly vehicle drove across the track to scatter many of the plovers out to the shore. At the moment Hi-Fly appear to be conducting a valuable amount of management of the Carrion Crow and Magpie situation, activities which inevitably means their people and vehicles are about the fields more than a mere birder would like. 

Carrion Crow

A number of the plovers are beginning to acquire their fabulous breeding attire, a plumage which allows them to blend into the summery tundra.

Golden Plover-  Photo credit: Jesusisland / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND 

Although large numbers of Golden Plovers are presently migrating through the area, Lapwings, Redshanks and Oystercatchers can now be counted as residents, either in pairs or display mode - in this case 15+pairs of Lapwing, 6 pairs of Oystercatcher and 6+ pairs of Redshank. 

Shelducks are scattered across the same areas in pairs or small groups with a total of 35/40 birds. Three Little Egrets about the fields with five more from the sea wall, 5 Dunlin in flight plus 18 Teal, a singing Reed Bunting and little else on the wildfowlers’ pools 

The comparatively sheltered woodland held a few species: 40+ Woodpigeon, 2 Stock Dove, 1 Mistle Thrush, 1 Song Thrush, 1 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 8 Goldfinch, 4 Long-tailed Tit. 

There seemed very little bird song this morning; the air was cold, the wind too strong so I counted myself lucky to see a Chiffchaff as it called once from a gap in the roadside willows then showed itself briefly. 

In all a quietish morning whereby it would be nice to get a warm, sunny and wind-free morning tomorrow when I may just have to do it all over again. Join Another Bird Blog then for more news, views and photographs.

Linking this post to World Bird Wednesday, Camera Critters and Anni's I'd Rather Be Birding Blog.

Round Up

A trip around a few local spots is the sum of this morning’s blog post. 

Read on while not forgetting to “click the pics” for close-up views. A new feature on Another Bird Blog is “Crosspost” whereby clicking the “Crosspost” button in the right-hand corner of any picture will allow a reader to share it to Facebook and Twitter. Go ahead, give it a try. 

During recent months I’ve rather neglected Knott End after the bad weather and ultra-high tides made it difficult to do any birding there, so to put things right I paid a quick visit today. It was a sunny and still morning, the low to medium high tide concentrating a few birds, but a number of them still out at the water’s edge. Redshanks were in in good numbers with a minimum count of 160 scattered along the estuary, 24 Turnstones concentrated near the jetty and 1500+ Knot staying at the tide’s very edge. Wildfowl numbers came in at 12 Eider and 18 Shelduck. The male Shelducks are now in particularly fine breeding plumage. 

Redshank

Shelduck

As usual I headed up to Pilling Lane Ends and Fluke Hall for a look. Fluke fields held a good number of mixed Golden Plover, Redshank and Lapwings, the recently arrived migrant “goldies” at 210+ outnumbering the 135 regular Redshank and 40+ but dropping in numbers Lapwings. 5 Pied Wagtail, 8 Meadow Pipits and 15+Skylark accounted for passerines on the flood. The wild and wary plovers stayed a long way across the still flooded maize field 

Golden Plovers

On the wildfowler’s pools/sea wall were 23 Teal, 30 Shelduck, 3 Little Egret and 600+ Pink-footed Goose; in the woodland - 3 Stock Dove, 2 Jay and 1+ Siskin. 

A whistle stop at Lane Ends via Backsands Lane gave a Kestrel, singing Chiffchaff and Reed Bunting, and on the pools 2 Little Grebe. 

Kestrel

More Golden Plover at the Cockerham, Braides Farm where another flock of this time 260 birds stayed their distance. Two Little Egrets, 3 Pied Wagtails and 8+ Skylarks here. 

Heading north again took me to Conder Green where I rounded up the usual suspects of 1 Spotted Redshank, 4 Wigeon, 2 Little Grebe, 8 Goldeneye, 22 Teal, 2 Little Egret, 24 Shelduck and 5 Cormorant.  Possibly “new in today” were 1 singing Reed Bunting and 1 Grey Wagtail. 

Spotted Redshank

 

 Black-headed Gull

Join me soon for more bird news and photographs via Another Bird Blog.

Linking today with Eileen's Saturday Blog .

First Chiffy, First Nest

Yet another sluggish start led me to think the morning would lead to a lack of notebook entries and little substance to today’s blog. Slowly but surely birds appeared whereby I recorded a little visible migration, saw the first warbler of the Spring and then found my first nest of 2014. 

In the darkness I stopped at Lane Ends to count the Little Egrets in the roost - 47 birds scattered through the tall trees. For readers who don’t know Pilling, or the roosting habits of the Little Egret, the roost is situated within a public amenity area of pools and walkways, the birds spending the night in the safety of tall trees on an island of one of the small lakes. It’s quite a sight to see so many ghostly egrets in one location but difficult to take photographs with the birds fairly well distributed in the vegetation. They also vacate the roost in the half light of pre-dawn as they fly off to daytime feeding spots. 

It’s no good planning to see Barn Owls, they invariably don’t turn up in the anticipated spot or when they’re meant to; much better to let one happen. After the egrets I checked a “regular” owl spot with camera at the ready but no Barn Owls appeared, so I motored on up to Cockerham and Braides Farm. 

Here was quiet with just 60+ Golden Plover, 20+ Lapwing, 6 Curlew and 1 Grey Heron for my troubles. 

Grey Heron

Passing Damside I noted both Kestrels in attendance near the regular nest box. Things also picked up at Fluke Hall. On the flooded maize at least 4 Lapwings were in tumbling display mode and 40+ others moving about the wet areas. Also, 70+ Redshanks feeding and one or more birds in both calling display flight and ground chasing. 7 Dunlin and 5 Curlew completed the waders with 30+ Shelduck and 2 Little Egrets in attendance. 

Lapwing

Redshank

The sea wall gave the best count for a while of Pink-footed Goose at 750+, with both pipits and wagtails flying north across Morecambe Bay - 15+ Meadow Pipit and separate gangs of 15, 8 and then 5 Pied Wagtails. Several Skylarks in territorial song, mental notes made to check each location in more detail very soon. On and about the wildfowler’s pools I found an eclectic mix of 2 Pintail, 1 Green Sandpiper, 1 Buzzard, 1 Linnet, 2 Greenfinch and the third Kestrel of the morning. 

Pintail

The walk along Fluke Hall Lane was for change a pleasant one, breeze and bluster-free, a rare opportunity of recent winter days to listen out for birds without the rustle and rush of swaying trees and falling branches. 

There was a Chiffchaff singing from a garden, a regular spot of recent years but away from the denser woodland; Goldfinches, Tree Sparrows and Long-tailed Tits along the hedgerow, and when I reached the woodland the single “chick” call of a Great-spotted Woodpecker. From tall conifers I heard the contact calls of Siskins and then straining my neck almost vertically I could see four or maybe five of the tiny, fork-tailed finches moving through the dark branches above. 

 Chiffchaff

In the wood a pair of Long-tailed Tits quickly gave the game away, nest building in the fork of a roadside hawthorn, the nest in the early construction stage but with the pair constantly toing and froing with beaks full of nest material. 

Long-tailed Tits construct their nest as a domed structure of moss woven with cobwebs and hair covered on the outside with camouflaged greyish/white lichen. I took a few pictures through the maze of branches where within in a few short weeks of vegetation growth the nest will become totally invisible. 

Long-tailed Tit

Nest of Long-tailed Tit (under construction)

Nest of Long-tailed Tit (partly constructed)

A rewarding end to a fine morning’s birding, as when I later checked my notebook there were over 40 species recorded, much of the everyday stuff like Dunnocks, Robins, Wrens and Blackbirds omitted from the above. 

Please now excuse me as I must go online and record my first Nest Record of 2014, but fear not there's more soon.

And remember, you read it on Another Bird Blog first. 

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday. 

March Madness

I hope this isn’t getting monotonous for blog readers but there isn’t much to thrill today after a quiet morning up Conder and Cockerham way. It’s just that time of year, early March when the winter birds thin out but before the arrival of the first true spring migrants in mid to late March. 

We enjoyed an awful lot of heavy overnight showers, a couple of sleepless spells as windswept rain lashed the bedroom window. When driving this morning there were lots of new roadside muddy puddles through which to splash. I made a mental note to leave time in the day for yet another bucketful of car shampoo, my unvarying chore of the past three months. 

When I arrived at Conder Green the River Conder was flowing towards the estuary both fast and high, filling the creeks to way above low water level, a sure sign of a night’s deluge. 

The regular birds were there, some in now smaller numbers as winter finally abates: 28 Redshank, 70 Teal, 4 Little Grebe, 3 Goldeneye, 1 Spotted Redshank, 1 Grey Plover, 4 Curlew, 1 Black-tailed Godwit, 1 Little Egret, 4 Shelduck, 6 Wigeon and 4 Oystercatcher. The Oystercatchers comprised two pairs, each taking up residence on the topmost points of the almost submerged islands where both Oystercatchers and Lapwings nest. After the winter rain and storms and using the sluice wall as a reference point it looks as though the water level of the pool is now higher by some 18 inches or more. 

Oystercatcher

Grey Plover

Teal

It remained pretty windy this morning whereby the often serene Glasson Dock had waves a plenty to hide the wildfowl. Receding numbers but still 30+ Tufted Duck, 7 Goldeneye and 8 Cormorants, the Cormorants lined motionless along a single landing stage, waiting for the signal to dive in if the photographer moved closer. 

Cormorant

Goldeneye

The fields at Jeremy Lane were stacked with mainly smaller gulls and Starlings. When I stopped to look closer I estimated 750 Black-headed Gull, 75 Common Gull, 1 Mediterranean Gull, 1 Little Egret and 1500 Starlings. 

Little Egret

Every so often there was a “dread” as all the birds took to the air before settling again to resume feeding on the saturated fields. It wasn’t until the third time that I saw the cause of their panic, a female Merlin dashing low and fast close to the throng of birds but failing to take anything. 

Somewhere in the distant fields was a flock of Black-tailed Godwits too, at one point about 300 of them flying around together before settling far away. 

It was good to see Brown Hares about this morning, just 3, but two of them engaged in their March Madness, chasing through the fields in the near distance. 

Brown Hare

There’s more Insanity in March very soon from Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to Camera Critters, Eileen's Saturday Blog and Anni's birding blog.

Quiet Morning, Suffering Seabirds

After an hour or two at Pilling there are a few birds to report today. 

My casual birding pales into insignificance when I relate bad news about the effect upon seabirds of the endless Atlantic storms of recent months - vital reading for all bird lovers. Worse still an established and proven method for monitoring the same seabird populations in Britain is being thrown on the scrapheap by a new Welsh quango. Read on. 

First my Pilling news from the maize floods, Fluke Hall Lane and surrounding fields, a good two and a half hours stomp around on a bright but very cool morning. The wood held my first Goldcrest of the springtime, a pair of Long-tailed Tits, several Goldfinch and a pair of Mistle Thrush. 

Less good news was sight of a bird predator, a Stoat running across the road at the edge of the wood. I’ve seen Stoats in the same spot for many years, the animals having traditional places where they live and breed, just like many animals and birds. I had my small lens today, so took a picture of the long dead fox left in the same spot where it was most likely poisoned or shot. 

Common Stoat

Red Fox

Two Buzzards were about and over the trees again, the third time in a week of noting them here. A walk to the wet fields and sea wall revealed more than a hundred Redshank, 38 Dunlin, 15 Curlew, 12 Oystercatcher, 30+ Shelduck, 22 Pied Wagtails, 4 Little Egret, 15+ Skylark, 10 Twite, 8 Meadow Pipit, 1 Reed Bunting and 450+ Pink-footed Geese. 

Similar daily goose counts are the best I can muster at the moment as the geese fly north to Iceland in good numbers and leave Lancashire until September. A feature of the morning was the huge numbers, perhaps several thousands of Starlings heading north across the bay. We often forget that Starlings too return North and East about now. 

Pink-footed Goose

Starling

Now for the news I mentioned at the start of this post. 

Tens of thousands of birds particularly auks such as Puffins, Guillemots and Razorbills have died as a result of the raging and endless gales of the winter. The remains of these birds are now being washed up on the coasts of Wales, Cornwall and the Channel Islands, even more so on the Atlantic coast of France and the beaches of the Bay of Biscay where large numbers of British Puffins and their auk cousins spend the winter. 

Atlantic Puffins - Photo credit: US Fish and Wildlife Service

Latest estimates from Wildlife Trusts partnership suggest a confirmed death toll of around 25,000 birds, which is expected to rise steadily as more corpses are washed ashore. This natural disaster makes us realise how vulnerable our seabirds are to other threats, such as the oil spills and other dangers such as climate change and overfishing. 

Seabird colonies in Scotland are faring especially badly. In some only a fifth of breeding birds are raising chicks, mainly because their food, largely sand eels, has disappeared. Perhaps because of too much trawling or rising water temperatures the sand eels have moved north making them less available to British seabirds. 

Common Guillemot -  Photo credit: Foter / CC BY

As this potential disaster waits to unfold a new Welsh quango is abolishing the measly funding of £12,000 a year for the long-term monitoring of a large Guillemot colony of more than 20,000 birds on Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire. The quango Natural Resources Wales was set up last year to incorporate the old Countryside Council for Wales with the Welsh sections of the Environment Agency and the Forestry Commission. 

Please read this story in more detail at The Independent, and particularly if you live in Wales write to your Member of Parliament expressing your shock and displeasure at what you read.

I am grateful to Professor Tim Birkhead for bringing this to our attention.

More from Another Bird Blog soon. Stay tuned.

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.