Mainly Smarties

Andy and I checked the local Sand Martin colony yesterday where we found approximately 200 Sand Martins together with enough holes in the quarry face to accommodate the possibility of 100 pairs. And all of this from a colony which has increased from a handful of pairs 4 or 5 years ago to its present size due to a period of gravel extraction. The colony is on private farmland where Chris the farmer is rightly proud and protective of his Sand Martins. 

Everything looked right for a go at catching Sand Martins on Friday morning with a slight breeze from a friendly direction and a morning sun that would not shine directly on our single mist net. Andy and I were joined by Craig who next week flies off to bird observatories in Sweden and Denmark to further his University studies of birds. 

Although we all had breakfast before we set off there was a posse of Grey Herons hoping to snaffle an early meal from Chris’ lake. This last week has seen an increased number of Grey Herons about as the yearlings begin to fledge nests and explore their surroundings.

Grey Herons

With such an active colony of Sand Martins a catch was assured. When we totalled up we found the catch to be 85 birds made up of 42 adult females, 34 adult males, just 3 fresh juveniles and 6 individuals left unsexed. One Sand Martin, an adult female, had been ringed elsewhere on a previous occasion as recognised by an unfamiliar ring beginning D996. The totals point to very few flying juveniles being around but obviously many more to come in the weeks ahead. So as not to disrupt the colony our next catch is scheduled for a week or two ahead when sun, wind and fine weather allow. 

Field sheet - Sand Martins

Adult Sand Martin

Juvenile Sand Martin

Sand Martin

Eighty-five Sand Martins kept us pretty busy and so limiting birding time to 8 Oystercatcher, 8 Tree Sparrow, 1 Buzzard, 2 Mute Swan, 8 Canada Goose. 

Log in soon to Another Bird Blog for more news, views and lots of birds.

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

Wading Through It.

It was early doors, 0530 or thereabouts, an unearthly hour when normal folk slumber away as crazy birders prowl the countryside. It was a morning without a plan but one which developed into something of a wader morning and then finished with an unlikely Yellow Wagtail. 

I stopped along Head Dyke Lane at Pilling, waiting for a Roe Deer to cross the road so as to reach a fellow deer which had found a route into a field to the left. It’s best for a car not to pick a fight with a panicking deer, and I hoped no cars would suddenly accelerate past at 60mph as they often do along here. One deer ran off in the direction of Pilling village while the other turned tail, slipped through the hawthorns and ran in the opposite direction. A good enough start but I was after birds not Bambi. 

Things improved near Fluke Hall when an Oystercatcher gave the game away; “kleep-kleep, kleep, kleep”, came the frantic warning. Down below were 2 good sized youngsters already legging it across the field for all they were worth. Too late - 2/2 ringed and the first ones for the year. 

Oystercatcher

Oystercatcher

After complaining a day or two ago of the lack of Lapwings locally I walked the sea wall and found two pairs with youngsters this morning, a brood of three plus a single and quite small chick tended by both parents. Lapwings generally start with 4 eggs so while the brood of three might be considered OK, to have one chick does not provide enough new blood for Lapwings to go forth and multiply. I thought back to the Red Fox of fifteen minutes before which I’d disturbed from the remains of a freshly killed Red-legged Partridge. The fox melted into the undergrowth but was soon replaced by an opportunist crow. 

Both the Fox and the Carrion Crow take their share of our few remaining Lapwings and their eggs and chicks. Local crows begin to have the air of the unchallenged while farmers find better things to do than chase the legions of corvids which throng the countryside. 

Spot the Lapwing

Lapwing

Lapwing

Carrion Crow

There was no success with finding Redshank chicks. When it comes to spotting predators from afar adult Redshanks are simply the best. From a good 75 yards away it was clear the Redshanks had young when the male took up guard on the gate and warned the female. The female took to the air and joined in the distractions with warning cries while circling overhead as the young slipped further away and out of sight. Not to worry, my old legs can’t chase sprinting Redshank chicks which run like the clappers and never stop for breath, unlike me. 

 

Redshank

 

Redshank

Bits and Pieces today - 1 Buzzard, 4 Whitethroat in song, 2 Reed Bunting in song, 1 displaying/singing Sedge Warbler, 1 singing Blackcap. 3 Grey Heron, 2 Little Egret. 

There was an unexpected sighting of a bright male Yellow Wagtail which flew in from the marsh and landed but briefly on top of the fresh midden pile. After a few moments the wagtail flew off south east towards Pilling; most strange as Yellow Wagtails are now simply birds of spring and autumn in these parts, the sighting perhaps best explained as a failed or completed early breeder bird from not too far away. 

Yellow Wagtail- Photo by Nicholls of the Yard / Foter / CC BY-NC

Unplanned mornings often turn out OK don’t they? Join in soon for more accidental birding from Another Bird Blog.

In the meantime linking to Theresa's Ranch.

Sunday Surprises

I don’t ring many Lapwings nowadays. The species is so scarce in this part of coastal Lancashire that finding a brood of young Lapwings is something of a surprise and an occasion to boot. 

On the outskirts of Cockerham this morning I found 2 pairs of Lapwings and both had two youngsters each. So once the female had sent the chicks off to feed I located them quickly because the field was so close-cropped. 

Lapwing

Lapwing chicks

Lapwing chicks are nidifugous i.e.animals which leave the nest shortly after hatching or birth, a term derived from Latin nidus for "nest" and fugere meaning "to flee". The terminology is most often used to describe birds and was introduced by Lorenz Oken in 1816. The term "nidifugous" is sometimes used synonymously with "precocial", as all nidifugous species are precocial - that is, born with open eyes and capable of independent locomotion, and in the case of waders, able to feed themselves soon after birth. (Wiki).

In wader chicks the legs and feet are well developed at a very early stage, a natural adaptation which helps their early locomotion and thus the ability to find their own food. 

There were 4 Mistle Thrushes, a family party feeding in the same field as the Lapwings. It’s a pretty poor picture but then Mistle Thrushes are generally as shy as the rest of the thrush family. 

 Mistle Thrush

Alongside the nearby wood was a Willow Warbler nest with just 3 young, one of which had recently died, the small and poor brood almost certainly a result of the recent weather. 

Willow Warbler chick

It’s something of a wildfowlers’ wood and one that is not without the remnants of last autumn’s shoots by way of a good number of Pheasants. There was also a Reeve’s Pheasant today, a rather good looking and photogenic creature which made a nice change from our ubiquitous Pheasant. 

Reeve's Pheasant 

The Reeves's Pheasant (Syrmaticus reevesii) is a pheasant of the genus Syrmaticus. It is endemic to China. It is named for the British naturalist John Reeves, who first introduced live specimens to Europe in 1831. 

 

This pheasant is kept as an ornamental species, easily reared in captivity by placing eggs under domestic chickens or by buying adult birds. As always happens in such cases a certain number escape from captivity and breed in such numbers that a feral population becomes established. Reeve’s Pheasant is not on the main British List which birders use to count their ticks as the feral population is so small it is not yet recognised as being self-sustaining. 

Nevertheless they seem to be becoming increasingly easy to find in the Norfolk Brecks where they are targeted by rather sad twitchers. There are a number of other locations around the country where this species seems to be gaining a foothold, so perhaps it won't be long before they are recognised as a “British Bird”. 

In the meantime if you have a broody chicken or two and fancy having a Reeve’s Pheasant in the back garden, eggs guaranteed to hatch are available through Ebay. Alternatively by rearing a few, releasing them onto a private estate and then charging twitchers ten quid a time could generate a tidy sum towards that new camera. 

A male Pied Wagtail carrying food wasn’t unexpected but it gave the pheasant a slice of competition in the good looks department. 

Pied Wagtail

There were no more surprises this morning. But you never know, there could be more soon on Another Bird Blog so keep looking in.

Linking this post to  Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

Birding Rerun

The Common Terns at Conder Green had me well and truly fooled on Wednesday when all seemed silent and deserted on their nesting island and around about. There was no sign or sound of the pair for the thirty or so minutes I was there and neither was the male at Glasson Dock, one of his regular fishing spots last year. 

The female must have been hunkered down against the cold wind and out of sight of prying eyes because when I looked again on Thursday morning there she was as large as life, stood just a metre or so from where clutch of eggs lie. Two minutes later the male flew in and joined his mate. I guess things are OK after all, especially if the weather improves as promised. 

Common Tern

On the pool things were much the same with most of the noise and action coming from the several pairs of Oystercatchers and Redshanks. By contrast the few pairs of Tufted Ducks here are less obvious in their low-key courtship and breeding rituals. The males are in fine condition at the moment with splendid pony-tails of feathers falling from their crowns of glossy purple. I watched as one called quietly to a nearby female which had floated off from the shore; I swear he was trying to coax her back to a nest.

 

Tufted Duck

Tufted Duck

There was a Grey Heron along one bank, a displaying Meadow Pipit and a single Stock Dove, a dove which seems to be a summer visitor only here but a species which breeds in tree holes and woodland close-by. In contrast to the day before there was just a handful of Swifts and House Martins. 

A walk along the canal proved fruitful for warblers by way of 3 Reed Warbler, 2 Sedge Warbler, 2 Whitethroat, 2 Blackcap, 1 Chiffchaff and not quite a warbler but a “brown job” in the shape of male and female Reed Buntings.

Mute Swans breed here every year, this year at least two pairs along the canal. 

Mute Swan

Swallows are nesting under the road bridge again this year, a dark and dismal place with a steady flow of traffic trundling a few feet above the hidden nests. The Swallows are still at the construction stage, collecting nesting material from the nearby car park where there are muddy edged puddles-a-plenty. A few House Martins joined in harvesting the mud, the martins flying back to houses in Glasson village 50 yards away. 

House Martin

Barn Swallow

The Swallow in the picture below is an adult male singing and not a juvenile begging for food. There will be no fledglings for about 3 weeks if all goes to the Swallows’ normal timetable. 

Barn Swallow

Barn Swallow

On the way home through Pilling and Cockerham were a Buzzard and 2 Kestrels plus a male and a female Sparrowhawk flying close together and on the same heading. The male carried food but from the road it was impossible to see where they were bound.

I was headed home, my limited time up, but there’s more news and views soon from Another Bird Blog.

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

Better Late Birding

The morning started well with a 7 o’clock Kestrel and then a Barn Owl alongside the A588 road at Pilling, the main route between Pilling and Lancaster City. It’s a road infamous for traffic accidents. Sue’s hairdresser’s father was a recent victim, a fatality following a car and motorbike collision at the notorious junction of Head Dyke Lane and Lambs Lane. 

It’s best not to linger along this road as vehicles rush past full of folk desperate to reach their place of work, early or late. There’s a saying of “It's better to be late in this world than early in the next”, sound advice which few seem to heed. Luckily the owl stayed adjacent to the road and wisely decided not to tangle with the headlong traffic. 

Barn Owl

I was heading up to Conder Green for a look-see at a place I’d not visited for some weeks.

There’s been recent talk of a pair of Common Terns returning to breed again after their success in 2014 and following an absence from the Lune of several years. Best not to count the chickens or terns too early because there was no sign of Common Terns this morning and no surprise following the horrendous weather of last week, in particular the storm of Sunday evening and the official start of Summer. Maybe the terns will return with the warm weather promised soon? 

Species looking to breeding in the area of the pool and creeks this year seem to be mainly Oystercatcher with 8/10 individuals, 6+ Redshank, 3 pairs of Shelduck, 2 pairs of Tufted Duck and the obligatory Mute Swans. 

Oystercatcher

A male Shelduck has a female on a nest somewhere on the marsh. He took great exception to a Goosander feeding in the channel, the Goosander feeding quietly away until the Shelduck dived into the water to aggressively chase the interloper away. 

Goosander

In the stiff breeze passerine activity was low with just Reed Bunting, Sedge Warbler and 2 Pied Wagtails noteworthy. Swifts and House Martins have been late this year so it was good to note better numbers of both this morning in upwards of 15 Swifts over the hedgerow and 20+ House Martins together with 2 Sand Martins over the marsh.

Some of the House Martins were collecting construction materials and prospecting their regular breeding spots under the eaves of the house and café adjacent to the railway bridge. 

House Martin

Time will tell whether the House Martins are welcome this year following pitiful attempts to frighten them off by some rather mean spirited folk. It’s a café I once visited where the coffee was tepid and undrinkable. I never returned there anyway so am in no position to impose a boycott should the residents decide to harass the martins. 

A few hours later I drove back to Pilling and Fluke Hall when the morning traffic had moderated. There’s an extra danger to incautious drivers along this road in recent years by way of wild deer spreading from inland to take up residence nearer the coast. As I walked alongside Fluke Hall wood two Roe Deer erupted from the field margin, sprinted across the field and vaulted over a fence some 50 yards away. There’s no point in trying to follow wild deer after such an encounter; they just melt away again. 

Roe Deer

In and close to the woodland - 4 singing Whitethroat, a Nuthatch, 2 Song Thrush, 3 Stock Dove and legions of Blackbirds and Goldfinches. Somewhat strangely there was no sign of the Kestrels and Buzzards so active before my recent time away in Menorca. Judging by the mess around the Mistle Thrush nest there had been some success. 

More birds were along the stretch of seawall and marsh.  A late female Wheatear, a single Icelandic brick-toned Black-tailed Godwit, a singing Reed Bunting and a feeding flock of about 20 House Martins. 

Black-tailed Godwit - by Koshy Koshy [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

These House Martins were intent on feeding and ignored the many muddy area nearby where they might collect nesting materials so I thought they could well be very late arrivals. But better late than never.

So far there are no House Martins in our avenue where in a normal and warm year five or six pairs of House Martins set up home. Such is the late and poor start to Summer we have endured in coastal Lancashire. 

There will be more news and views soon from Another Bird Blog. 

Birding In The Box

As promised, here is an update on a visit to Oakenclough on Saturday to check with Andy the progress of his nest boxes. 

The target bird for the nest box project is Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), a small passerine bird of the Old World flycatcher family and part of a group of insectivorous songbirds which feed by darting after insects. This flycatcher winters in tropical Africa, spending the summer in the northern hemisphere but as far south as the Iberian Peninsula where it is quite common. 

Pied Flycatcher

Pied Flycatchers breed in upland broadleaved woodland. This means that in Britain they are limited due to geography mainly to the North and West where they prefer mature oak woodland with natural tree holes, i.e. dead trees, or dead limbs on healthy trees. The species also takes readily to nest boxes with high horizontal visibility, in woodland where there is a low abundance of shrub and understorey, but a high proportion of moss and grass for their nests. 

Andy - checking a box

A good number of the boxes we checked were occupied by Great Tit or Blue Tit with the adults still brooding tiny youngsters or sitting on clutches as low as 4 eggs or as high as 14 eggs. Given that the weather in the month of May has been mostly poor, the progress so far has been better than expected.   

We found one box contained Nuthatches and ringed 6 youngsters. Four boxes were occupied by Pied Flycatchers where we found females sitting on either 6 or 7 eggs and where by a week or so the youngsters will be large enough to be ringed. 

Pied Flycatcher

Pied Flycatcher

The eggs of the Pied Flycatcher are about 18 mm by 13 mm in size, pale blue, smooth and glossy. The female builds the nest of leaves, grass, moss and lichens, and then lines the cup with hair and wool. The duties of incubating the eggs are performed by the female with the newly-hatched young fed by both adults. 

Pied Flycatcher nest

The Pied Flycatcher is a well-studied species, partly because of its willingness to use nest boxes provided by bird watchers and bird ringers. Detailed study has found that Pied Flycatchers practice polygyny, usually bigamy, with the male travelling large distances to acquire a second mate. The male will mate with the secondary female and then return to the primary female in order to help with aspects of child rearing, such as feeding. 

There are a number of theories around how this apparently poor system benefits the species, but no one knows for sure except that in practice it does work. In 2005 the European population of Pied Flycatcher was estimated at up to 12 million pairs, helped in part by the provision of nest boxes in parts of the species’ range. 

We checked our ringing site for Willow Warbler nests and found at one nest a brood of tiny youngsters, at another nest a female sat on 6 eggs. Dotted around the site a good number of males are in steady song with little sign of their mates, suggesting that most are still at the stage of incubating eggs. Willow Warblers are now a little late this year, no doubt as a result of the poor Spring weather to date. 

Willow Warbler

We’re promised warmer weather for mid-week - let’s hope so. 

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

Where There's Muck

Two weeks today we returned from our Menorcan holiday. Since then I’ve barely got out birding due to a combination of domestics and dreary, windy and often wet weather. To put the record straight, Another Bird Blog is very much alive and well and will soon be back to normal. In the meantime, here are yet more pictures from Menorca. 

Hoopoes seemed rather scarce this year. Even the ones which feed in the hotel grounds without fail were not seen on their usual daily basis. Mostly we caught glimpses of roadside birds or heard their unmistakeable “hoop-hoop” calls from the countryside. Like lots of Menorcan birds, the Hoopoe isn't especially easy to see.

Hoopoe

Bee Eaters were scarce too. Perhaps with the fine weather the island had enjoyed for weeks beforehand we’d missed many migrant birds which pass through our regular viewing spot. Then a day or two later when we looked again there were workmen digging up the road, laying pipes alongside the breeding colony and very few Bee Eaters using the fence where they sit between feeding forays. Maybe Bee Eaters don’t have the same degree of protection as they do in the UK but even so to be undertaking major highway work adjacent to breeding Bee Eaters would seem to very irresponsible. 

Bee Eater

Happier times were had at Es Grau where a single Whiskered Tern fed over the water and Black-winged Stilts had good sized juveniles. One or two late adults were still sitting closely on eggs. 

Es Grau

Black-winged Stilt

Black-winged Stilt

Whiskered tern

Es Grau is a good place to find Pied and Spotted Flycatchers, Sardinian Warblers, Cetti's Warblers  and Turtle Doves. Our botanist and birding companions for the day, Jane and Alan were hugely excited by their find of three specimens of Sawfly orchid Ophrys tenthredinifera. “A terrible photograph - stick to birds Phil” 

Turtle Dove

 Sawfly orchid

We stopped at picturesque Fornells for the mandatory coffee where from the outdoor café we watched an Osprey circle over the shallow waters. The Osprey drifted off to look elsewhere and we set off for Addaia. 

Fornells - Menorca

Amongst the Shelduck, Oystercatcher, Avocet, Greenshanks, Ringed Plovers and Little Ringed Plovers at Addaia there was a single unexciting juvenile and un-pink Flamingo. 

Greater Flamingo

The (Greater) Flamingo Phoenicopterus roseus is the most widespread species of the flamingo family. It is found in parts of Africa, southern Asia, Israel, and southern Europe. Although the species doesn’t breed in Menorca the ones that appear on the island during the winter and into Spring are probably short-distance migrants from the breeding populations of Southern Spain and the French Camargue. 

As usual there were one or two very flighty Wood Sandpipers about Addaia. But the not too good pictures below were taken at the local sewage works at Es Migjorn where a Common Sandpiper gave good comparison views. Yes folks, even on a Menorca holiday a birder must visit the sewage works. 

It’s rather like the old Northern expression “Where there’s muck there's brass” but slightly adapted to read “Where there’s muck there’s birds”. 

Wood Sandpiper and Common Sandpiper

Wood Sandpiper

Tomorrow is news and views from Oakenclough when I meet up with Andy for a peek into the nest boxes. Let’s hope the news isn’t too bad although by all accounts so far from other regions, the early season has been poor.

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