Return To Ringing

The car headed east towards the hills of Oakenclough where I was meeting Andy for my first ringing session since returning from holiday in Lanzarote. There was a slight frost with both clear skies and the radio forecast promising a sunny day ahead. 

Andy had managed a successful catch of 40 birds in between bouts of wind, rain and mild temperatures before the frost and snow of late January; today would be our first opportunity to gauge the effect of a week or more of colder weather. 

Our four hours proved to be rather slow in both activity and numbers caught whereby we speculated that birds had moved from this high ground location to more urban locations a mile or three away where the temperatures would be more to their liking. We caught just 25 birds, 21 new ones and 4 recaptures, figures which support the idea of birds moving away from the site if only temporarily. 

New birds: 8 Blue Tit, 6 Great Tit, 3 Chaffinch and singles each of Goldfinch, Lesser Redpoll, Coal Tit and Robin. Recaptures: 2 Chaffinch and 1 each of Robin and Coal Tit. 

Lesser Redpoll - first winter female

Chaffinch - first winter female

The slow ringing left time to find a number of birds in and around the site. Brief but proper sightings of both female and male Sparrowhawk leaving the same stretch of woodland suggests a pair close by in coming weeks. A pair of Ravens flew overhead croaking as they went. A pair of Pied Wagtails stuck close together on a nearby roof, and on the neighbouring reservoir, 400 Greylags, 60+ Mallard, 7 Tufted Duck and 5 Cormorant. 

In the woodland 10+ Chaffinch, 3+ Siskin and 2 Great-spotted Woodpecker. 

Greylag

Cormorant

There’s more birding, ringing or photography or Lanzarote soon on Another Bird Blog.

Birding Lanzarote

The blog has been quiet of late. That’s because Sue and I took ourselves off to the Canary Islands for a two week break from the wintry weather of the UK. 

There are quite a number of photos from the past two weeks, enough to compile a couple of posts while finding time to return to local birds after catching up with family, friends, post and email. 

Lanzarote is an inexpensive destination and just a four hour flight from Manchester. Sharing the same time zones with the UK means that following an early flight we can be relaxing in the January sunshine soon after lunch while planning our explorations for the following days. While Lanzarote may not be the most exciting birding destination in the world its closeness to Africa, the desert-like climate and minimal rainfall means that a number of its bird species are quite specialised. 

We walked and took a bus during the early and last days of the holiday and hired a car to explore further afield in the middle period. On only the second day we found a pair of Trumpeter Finches along a coastal walk, the birds feeding amongst patches of sparse ground cover dotted amongst the mainly rocky cost between Costa Calero, Peurto del Carmen and Playa Quemada. The name Trumpeter Finch might suggest a rather gregarious species with a loud and strident call, but my own experience in the Canary Islands is that the species is rather shy. It also has a quiet, slightly tinny call which can be easily overlooked, somewhat like the calls of our own UK Bullfinch. 

Trumpeter Finch

Heading away from the hotel and the suburbia of Costa Calero we left behind a number of Desert Grey Shrikes, the birds using abandoned building plots and even well-established gardens from which to proclaim their territories. The male shrikes have a very loud, far-carrying but monotonous “song” which they recite from very obvious vantage points, including TV aerials, all of which makes it easy to work out the limits and size of each territory. 

Desert Grey Shrike

I watched a pair of shrikes feed young out of the nest until they were disturbed from parental duties by a rather large, feral marauding cat. It was quite amazing to watch the two birds mercilessly chase off the cat with a combination of flying directly at the animal plus their constant and very loud shrieking protests. One of the shrikes used the corner post of a tennis court fence from which to voice a protest at the cat. Maybe it helped when I lobbed a large piece of volcanic rock at the cat too? 

Desert Grey Shrike

Desert Grey Shrike

It seemed to be Spring in Lanzarote as evidenced by the amount of flowers blooming through the volcanic landscape and then later in the week by finding more evidence of breeding in both Desert Grey Shrike and Stone Curlew. Wherever we saw Berthelot’s Pipits they appeared in pairs but not in family groups and the few Spectacled Warblers noted were in song. 

Spring flowers, Lanzarote

Berthelot's Pipit

 Spectacled Warbler

The headland towards Playa Quemada has a couple of stone circles which aren’t quite Stonehenge but where folk are at least allowed to add their own contribution. It’s in spots like this where someone might glimpse the local lizards of the genus Gallotia, the wall lizards of the Canary Islands, a group that has been evolving there ever since the first Canary islands emerged from the sea over 20 million years ago. Their colouration certainly helps them to merge into the volcanic landscape. 

Lanzarote lizard

Stone circle, Playa Quemada, Lanzarote

Playa Quemada has a couple of restaurants, a dozen or two houses and not much else apart from a Common Sandpiper and the inevitable Yellow-legged Gulls which hang about waiting for a meal. After a plate of tapas it’s time to head back for another invigorating walk in the bright sunshine. 

Common Sandpiper

Yellow-legged Gull

Playa Quemada, Lanzarote

Playa Quemada, Lanzarote

There's more soon from Another Bird Blog. Andy tells me there are loads of birds at the feeding station and while I've been away he's caught both Siskins and Lesser Redpolls - stay tuned.

Linking today to Run-a-Roundranch and Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

What's The Weather Back Home?

Here are a few more pictures from Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain where the temperature hovers around the 21°C mark, just the job to shift those winter blues. 

Birding here isn’t the easiest in the world with a limited number of species, some of which are difficult to find and none provided on a plate but it all makes for interesting and often exploratory days. This all works quite well as it leaves time for Sue and I to enjoy the touristy parts of the island or simply relax on a sunbed around the hotel pools. 

The tourists don’t hit the beaches too early after sampling the nightlife of Purto del Carmen the previous night so a morning walk surveying the deserted beach while looking for a coffee stop provides an agreeable morning. 

Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote

Not too far from the promenade, the shops and the lines of sunbeds there’s an area of rocks and sand which hold Yellow-legged Gulls, Turnstones, Sanderlings and maybe one or two Whimbrel. 

Whimbrel

Sanderling

In the old and very picturesque part of the harbour Little Egrets and Turnstones search through the fishing boats hoping to grab a bite to eat. There are lots of gulls and at the harbour mouth a number of Sandwich Terns loafing away their time until a passing boat sends them back out to sea looking for a meal. 

Puerto del Carmen

Turnstone

Little Egret

Sandwich Tern

The waters off the Canary Islands are rich in Atlantic breeding seabirds, including large numbers of Cory's Shearwaters, Manx Shearwaters, the rare Barolo's Shearwater, White-faced Storm-petrel, Madeiran Storm-petrel and European Storm-petrel, while the list of other regularly-occurring pelagic seabirds includes Wilson's Storm-petrel. 

Watching the sea along the southerly coastline here can result in sightings of whales and dolphins including the Short-Finned Pilot Whale and Common and Bottlenose Dolphins, and it is said that Hammerhead Sharks and Loggerhead Turtles are present. The Canary Islands were also formerly home to a population of the rarest pinniped in the world, the Mediterranean Monk Seal. 

From the hotel I have seen distant whales in past years so keep a look out although I’m more likely to see one of the many ocean going yachts moored locally. 

Yacht at Puerto Calero, Lanzarote

Back at our hotel there are a couple of walks across the often parched landscape might provide Houbara Bustard or Cream-coloured Courser. Oases of greenery including gardens can turn up the goods like Trumpeter Finch, Desert Grey Shrike, Collared Dove, Lesser Short-toed Lark, Berthelot’s Pipit and Spanish Sparrow.

Calero, Lanzarote

Spanish Sparrow

Trumpeter Finch

Desert Grey Shrike

Hotel Costa Calero

This week I found nesting Desert Grey Shrike, breeding Stone Curlew, Houbara Bustards and a pair of Trumpeter Finches yards from the hotel.

It’s back to normal in the UK very soon on Another Bird Blog. Stay tuned.

Sunny Days

This is a short post from Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain where Another Bird Blog is exchanging the UK winter for a few days in the sun.

There are scenes and birds from Lanzarote holidays past and I am back in the UK soon to relieve the house sitter of domestic niceties. In the meantime and subject to the island's attractions I’ll try to keep in contact with Blogger friends through my netbook and the hotel WiFi. 

Hotel Costa Calero, Lanzarote

The common pipit in the Canary Islands is the undistinguished Berthelot's Pipit, so named after the French naturalist Sabin Berthelot, a one time resident of the Canary Islands. The pipit can be unobtrusive, feeding away quietly in the often grey, volcanic landscape of Lanzarote. When it calls it is somewhat reminiscent of a Yellow Wagtail but of course looks nothing like one.  

 Berthelot's Pipit

There can't be a single tourist who's not been to the famous Teguise Market.

Teguise - Lanzarote 

A visit or two to the Salinas and the coastal Laguna of Janubio is usually worthwhile to see species like Black-winged Stilt and Kentish Plover plus commoner waders like Greenshank, Redshank, Common Sandpiper, Grey Plover and Little Stint.   

Janubio - Lanzarote

Black-winged Stilt

 Common Sandpiper

The taxonomy of the Eurasian Kestrel Falco tinnunculus is undergoing current research. Here on the Canary Islands there are two subspecies, one in the Western Canaries F. t. canariensis  and one in the Eastern Canaries F. t. dacotiae. Here on Lanzarote I guess I'm seeing the latter but as a rather unapproachable bird it is difficult to see much variation from our nominate UK Kestrel.

 

Kestrel

Below is a picture of the ubiquitous Spanish Sparrow, although of course the House Sparrow is also to be found in the Canary Islands, so where Sparrows are about best to look at the males to be 100% certain which species I'm looking at.

 

Spanish Sparrow

The Green Lagoon, Charco de los Chicos, Lanzarote

More news and views from Lanzarote soon.

Friday Fun

The weather finally relented a little and there was no need to travel far to see the first birds this morning. 

In Thursday’s howling gale I’d seen Pink-footed Geese flying over the house and dropping into fields about half-a-mile away at Staynall, an area the geese have used lately. The geese use the Staynall fields every winter in varying degrees but the meadows are very undulating in addition to having few access points or roadside stops from which to view the geese or obtain accurate counts. On Friday morning I settled for “several hundred” and promised myself another try in a day or two. 

Pink-footed Goose

All was not lost with sightings of both Kestrel and Barn Owl, the owl another distant one to go with the many of late. It’s the time of year when Barn Owls and Kestrels face difficulty in locating enough of their favoured small mammal food, and hence a time when both species are forced to spend more time hunting. 

Barn Owl

Kestrel

I came across a Brown Hare trying to blend in with the landscape. A passing glance might see a large clomp of earth in the middle of a rough grass field until closer inspection revealed a brown furry animal, the sleeked back ears and the large orange eye of a Brown Hare. 

Brown Hare

The European Hare (Lepus europaeus), known in the UK as Brown Hare, is a species of hare native to Europe and western Asia. It is related to and looks very similar to the European Rabbit, which is in the same family but in a different genus. Hares are considerably larger than the European Rabbit, have longer ears and hind legs and breed on the ground rather than in a burrow. 

The Brown Hare is predominantly nocturnal, spending most of the day in small depressions in the grass known as forms. At night the hare ventures out, grazing on the young shoots of grasses and herbs as well as agricultural crops. Quite early in Spring the animals become increasingly active and hence more visible, especially when they indulge in courtship behaviour which inspired the English idiom “mad as a March hare.” 

Heading north I stopped near Fluke Hall and again near Lane Ends where fields saturated by recent rains were awash with waders almost as far as the eye could see. Best estimates came in at 1100 Lapwing, 900 Golden Plover, 850 Curlew, 450 Redshank, 22 Black-tailed Godwit, 12 Dunlin and 200 Black-headed Gull, but not forgetting a single Ruff. 

Golden Plover and Lapwing

I stopped at Braides to note another Kestrel, a Little Egret and a flight of about 18 Teal, while behind the distant sea wall hundreds more Golden Plover and Curlews. 

By now there was snow with hail and rain showers, the bursts sudden and dramatic enough to cause an accident near Conder Green where a car had left the bendy road and ended up a bank and half way through a hedge. 

I spent the next hour dodging the weather, taking pictures at ISO1600 of the wildfowl at Glasson Dock, the 43 Goldeneye, 40 Tufted Duck and 1 Red-breasted Merganser. This week’s gales had blown the Goldeneye in from the estuary, but as soon as a canal boat started up for a circuit of the yacht basin the shy Goldeneyes whistled off overhead and back to the sanctuary of the wide River Lune. 

Tufted Duck

Goldeneye - juvenile male and adult male 

Goldeneye - adult male and juvenile male

 Goldeneye - adult female and juvenile female

Goldeneyes

Red-breasted Merganser

I was back home in time for lunch after a good morning’s birding - at last.

Linking today to Anni's Birding Blog and Eileen's Saturday.