Goldcrests Galore

What a morning! Busy, busy, busy. 

I met Andy up at Oakenclough at 0700 hours where we set up shop and waited to catch the first Redwings of the autumn. All seemed quiet in the half light of dawn but by nine o’clock we’d ringed 50 birds without stopping for coffee or breakfast but one Redwing only to show for our hard work. 

Ringing Station

We caught steadily and finally called a halt at midday with 123 birds caught and both ringers cream-crackered after fully processing 30+ birds every hour. Whoever said that ringing birds was easy work?

It wasn’t Redwings that topped our leader board but that other autumn migrant the Goldcrest which made up 50% of our catch, plus a selection of other species bringing up the rear. 

Totals today: 61 Goldcrest, 15 Goldfinch, 14 Chaffinch, 14 Lesser Redpoll, 3 Chiffchaff, 3 Redwing, 2 Siskin, 2 Song Thrush, 2 Great Tit, 2 Blue Tit, 1 Coal Tit, 1 Long-tailed Tit, 1 Brambling and 1 Dunnock. Just two of these birds were recaptures from previous occasions, a Goldfinch and a Blue Tit. 

Late September/early October are peak times for Goldcrest migration so while we expect to see more than normal it is highly unusual to catch so many. This might suggest a very good breeding season in the conifers of the northern UK from where the Goldcrests originate. Of the 61 caught today just four were adult birds, the remainder juveniles of this year. 

The overall breeding population of Goldcrests in Europe is estimated at 20,000,000-37,000,000 pairs, which equates to 40,100,000-74,100,000 mature individuals. (Birdlife Internationl 2015). Those figures do not include post-breeding juvenile birds that swell the population many times over during the summer months. Despite their tiny size Goldcrests are highly migratory, with a large influx of birds from Scandinavia and the near-Continent arriving on the east coast of Britain every autumn. Immigrants arrive in Britain from late August through to early November, departing the following March and April. 

Early ornithologists didn’t believe a bird as tiny as a Goldcrest could fly across the North Sea unaided, and it was thought that they rode on the backs of migratory Woodcock or Short-eared Owls.

Goldcrest

It was good to catch a Brambling today, one of the eight or more seen and heard overhead with at one point four feeding together on autumn berries above our heads. 

Brambling

Brambling

It was after 11 o’clock when Chiffchaffs appeared and then three on the same net round. 

Chiffchaff

We were so busy ringing today that accounting for visible migration became difficult, especially since most birds seemed to arrive out of sight from the south and west, behind the ringing station that faces north and east. Lesser Redpoll, Chaffinch and Siskin all found their way into the nets without us seeing many of them. 

Lesser Redpoll

Siskin

Redwings proved more visible with at least two flocks of 40+ seen and landing briefly in the plantation before heading off in a north-westerly direction. 

Redwing

Otherwise sightings – 30+ Swallows flying south. As we packed the ringing gear a calling Raven made us look high to the east and see a “kettle” of 12 circling Buzzards that caused the Raven's protest. They all drifted higher and west before disappearing into the cloud base hundreds of feet above. 

On the way home I counted 5 more Buzzards – 2 at Nateby, 2 on Pilling Moss and then 2 on Stalmine Moss. 

This is a productive time of year for birding, that’s for sure.

More news soon. In the meantime I'm linking to Wild Bird Wednesday and Anni's birding.

It's All About Linnets

At this time of year the start times for a ringing session aren’t too early so I arranged to meet Andy at 0700 at Cockerham. That would give us plenty of time to erect a couple of single panel nets in the plot of set-aside crops and wait for Linnets to arrive from their overnight roosts. The weather forecast gave us a couple of hours at 10mph or less easterlies in which to catch before we might get blown off course. 

Arrive the Linnets did by flying in from all directions north, south, east and west, in ones, twos and threes at first until the small groups built into larger clusters and small flocks of up to seventy birds. We estimated that in all we saw 150-200 Linnets throughout the morning, but the number of birds caught might suggest more than two hundred in the area.  

About 1030 the wind began to increase as promised and we called it a day, more than satisfied with the catch. We caught 36 birds - 33 Linnet, 2 Tree Sparrow and 1 Reed Bunting. 

Tree Sparrow

Linnet

Reed Bunting

Linnet

Although it is early days in working this site we both remarked on the number of juvenile/first year males around. The Linnet catch comprised of 19 first year males, 12 juvenile/first year females and just 2 adults, both of them males. Hopefully a bigger sample over the coming weeks will allow us to look more closely at the age/sex ratios of birds using this feeding site. 

Early ornithologists thought there to be two species of Linnet, one of which they called Linota, probably from its habit of feeding on flax-seed (Linum) from which linen is made. The other Linnet they named Cannabina from the bird having been seen to feed on hemp-seed - cannabis. There is now one species of Linnet recognised by science, the Common Linnet which has the Latin/scientific name of Linaria cannabina where Linaria refers to various plants belonging to the genus Linaria the figwort family and of which Linum is one.

We park at a roadside that is also a parking spot for wildfowlers heading out onto Pilling Marsh. The wildfowlers walk out to their spots in the dark long before we set up shop, but on the shooters return about 10am return we learnt about some of their sightings. They had recorded huge numbers of Pink-footed Goose, very good numbers of Wigeon and Pintail but had also seen a Marsh Harrier and a Great White Egret. 

The Great White Egret is something of a rarity in this area but just yesterday there was a confirmed sighting of seven Great White Egrets roosting with the long-established Little Egret roost at Leighton Moss, some 25 or so miles directly across Morecambe Bay. Two days ago nine were seen near Southport to the south and across the River Ribble. There seems little doubt that these mulitple sighting refer to some and all of the birds .

Great White Egret

In addition to our catch our own sightings while ringing included 7 Snipe, 1 Sparrowhawk, 2 Little Egret, and as per the wildfowlers, many thousands of Pink-footed Geese. 

Little Egret

There’s more bird news and more pictures in the next day or two. Don’t miss out and log in to Another Bird Blog very soon.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday.

Birder Worship Syndrome (BWS)

Sorry folks, there are no pictures of birds today, just pictures of birders as I bring you serious information and advice about a condition which can afflict birders of all ages and backgrounds. I have met birders who suffer from this illness and I can assure you that it is no laughing matter. 

Birder

Until now this disorder has been little discussed or researched but I found the following information via Wiki and reproduce it here for our mutual interest. 

“Birder Worship Syndrome (BWS) is an obsessive addictive disorder in which a person becomes overly involved with the details of an elite birder’s life, the same person’s tick list and their ability to react quickly to pager and Internet messages and to then chase, and re-identify rare and uncommon birds. Psychologists have indicated that though many people obsess over film, television, sport and pop stars, the only common factor between them is that they are all figures in the public eye. In the cases of birder worshippers and the elite bird watchers they esteem, none are in any public eye other than that of the tiny percentage of an overall population who are simply birders. Following recent cases in the birding and national press (Bird Watching magazine, Daily Mail etc, 2005, 2008, 2013, 2015 ) it is thought that a simple case of birder worship can quickly develop into more severe cases of stalking. 

The term "birder worship syndrome" first appeared in an article 'Do you worship other birders?' by Robin A Ticker and Sylvia B Schuer (Bird Watch magazine, 2003). Ticker based his article on the journal paper by Finch et al. (Nature & Birds, 2002) which discussed the term Birder Worship Scale, first used in an academic article by Wren (British Birds 1999). 

Nonetheless Ticker and Schuer may be generally correct. A syndrome refers to a set of abnormal or unusual set of symptoms indicating the existence of an undesirable condition or quality. Indeed, many attitudes and behaviours of birders covered in this research indicate such states. 

Bird Watchers

Psychologists in the United Kingdom created a birder worship scale to rate the problems. In 2004, psychologists Marila Crowe, Arthur Nightingale and Frederik Swallow introduced the Birding Attitude Scale, a 34 item scale administered to 262 persons living in Lancashire, Norfolk and Yorkshire, perceived hot spots of the condition. 

Early research by Crowe et al. suggested that birder worship comprised one dimension in which lower scores on the scale involved individualistic behaviour such as following, watching, listening to, reading and learning about superstar birders. They further suggested that higher levels of infatuation are characterized by empathy, over-identification, and obsession with the star birder.  However, later research in recent years with larger samples suggested there are 3 different aspects to celeb birder worship. 

John Ruppell (University of Liverpool), and the aforementioned psychologists examined the Celebrity Birder Attitude Scale (Psychology Today, 2005) among 1723 UK respondents, (942 males, 781 females) aged between 16 and 70 years and found 3 dimensions to celebrity birder worship: entertainment-social, intense-personal, and borderline-pathological. 

More Birders

Pavel Cretzschmar PhD, author of Confusing Birding with Birder Obsession and creator of the Obsessive Birder Love Wheel suggests in a 2014 online article the existence of three other primary types of luminary birder obsessives: Simple Obsessional, Love Obsessional and Erotomanic, as follows. 

Simple obsessional:

Simple obsessional stalking and aggravation constitutes a majority of all cases, anywhere from 70%-80%, and is dominated by males. This form of stalking is generally associated with individuals who have shared previous birding trips or experienced casual birding encounters with their victims. A particular characteristic of the illness is “name-dropping” in conversations with lesser birders or mentioning their victims frequently in online forums, social media or blogs etc. 

Individuals who meet the criteria of being labelled as a “simple obsessional” tend to share a set of characteristics including an inability to have successful relationships in their own personal and birding lives, social awkwardness in birding situations, feelings of powerlessness in finding rare birds, or a sense of insecurity and very low self-esteem when faced with IDing a bird. Of these characteristics, low self-esteem plays a large role in the obsession that these individuals develop with their victim, the principal birder. If the individual is unable to have any sort of connection to the foremost birder with whom they are obsessed, their own sense of self-worth may decline. 

Love obsessional: 

As the name suggests, individuals who demonstrate this type of behaviour develop an intense love obsession with the birder with whom they rarely have any personal relationship. Love obsessional accounts for roughly 20%-25% of all birder stalking cases. Bird watchers who demonstrate this form of obsessional behaviour are likely to suffer from a mental disorder, commonly paranoia. 

Individuals that are love obsessional often convince themselves that they are in fact in a relationship with the subject of their obsession. For example, a woman who stalked a well-known UK birder Lee Evans for a total of five years claimed to be his partner in life when she had no personal connection to him and lived hundreds of miles away. 

Erotomanic: 

Erotomanic, originating from the word Erotomania, refers to stalkers who genuinely believe that their victims are in love with them. The victims in this case are almost always well known within the close local birding community. Erotomanic stalkers are the least common with by far the majority being men. Similar to love-obsessional stalkers, the behavioural Birder Worship Syndrome (BWS) of Erotomanics may be a result of an underlying psychological disorder. 

Individuals who suffer from Erotomania tend to believe that the birding figure with whom they are obsessed is utilising media as a way to communicate with them by sending special messages or signals via a pager or similar device and will spend many hours listening for bleeps from their machines. 

Although these obsessives have unrealistic beliefs, they are less likely to seek any form of face-to-face meetings with their victims and so mainly use their victim’s name in the hope of impressing others. In extreme situations where the obsessive is rejected by their target, an unforeseen and sometimes tragic outcome might ensue. In a recent case (Birdwatch magazine, September 2015), a birder expected that their target might sit next to them during a sea watch on the Yorkshire coast. When the object of their attention refused to do so and sat alongside another birder instead, the obsessive threw himself from the cliffs at Flamborough Head and was taken by the currents out into the North Sea, never to be seen again.“ 

So, dear readers, and in conclusion, you may recognise this affliction in a particular birder you know or meet occasionally in the course of your bird watching. Always treat them with care, consideration and respect as they are unwell. If possible, take the person aside and explain gently that they may be suffering from BWS and that they should seek professional advice as soon as possible. 

Bird Photographer

 

It’s back to the mundane stuff tomorrow when if the wind holds off across the farm fields I’m due to meet Andy for another crack at those Linnets. 

Log in later to see how we do. 

YBW and Linnets

Yellow-browed Warblers seem to be everywhere again this autumn. Not to be left out of such excitement there was one calling loudly around the garden on Sunday afternoon. Several times I heard the loud, coal tit-like slurred call and then managed to locate the tiny warbler in the tall sycamore of a neighbour’s garden. The sycamore branches almost overhang my own garden in a couple of places so I’m not certain I can claim the YBW as a first for my garden list. Within a minute or two the bird had moved on, not to be heard or seen again that day or the next. 

 Yellow-browed Warbler- Photo credit: Hans Olofsson via / CC BY-NC-ND

Considering that the first Yellow-browed Warbler was only recorded in Britain in 1838, and that over the next 130 years only 300 of these Siberian sprites were seen on our shores, their now regular September appearances give birders food for thought as well as a reason to go searching for one of their own.

Yet the incredible migration strategy of these tiny warblers may indicate a more serious long-term climatic trend. By rights, each autumn Yellow-browed Warblers should head south east from their Siberian breeding grounds to winter in the warm tropical forests of Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. But over the past few decades, increasing numbers have been sighted across Britain and Western Europe, down to Spain and The Canary Islands during September and October.

This may be an indicator they are improving their survival rates by seeking out new wintering territories in Africa and close to their relatives the Chiffchaff and the Willow Warbler.

On Monday I met up with Andy and we headed to Cockerham to follow-up the permission to catch Linnets. As a ringing group in recent times we have caught less than twenty Linnets annually, such is the species’ decline and the reason that we wish to use this opportunity. We cut a single ride in the set-aside field much quicker than we imagined which left us time to have go at catching a few birds. Despite our upsetting their dining table the Linnets came back very quickly and although the sun shone on our single net set low in the field and the breeze was less than ideal, we managed to open our account with two Linnets, a first autumn male and a first autumn female. We both feel confident we can catch more Linnets in the coming weeks and therby collect important data on this declining farmland bird.

We had to remind ourselves how to sex Linnets in October when there are lots of similar looking juveniles/females and also when most males have lost their striking red and orange breast feathers. On a male the white on the inner parts of the 7th-9th primary feathers reaches the feather shaft itself or is less than 0.5mm in width to the shaft. On a female the same inner parts of the 7th-9th primary feathers never reaches the shaft itself and shows a darker zone, 0.5mm wide or more. In other words, the male has more white in the wing than a female, a feature that can often be picked up on Linnets in flight during the autumn. The difference can be seen below.

Linnet - female

Linnet- male

Linnet - male

Whilst ringing we noted many hundreds of Pink-footed Geese overhead, all heading south. In amongst the set-aside field we also saw a couple of Goldfinch and Tree Sparrows. A Kestrel circled around a couple of times and there was also a Sparrowhawk which made a single attempt to snatch a Linnet by flying into the set-aside crop, scattering the finches in all directions.

The Sparrowhawk failed but for sure it will be back. And will too for another look at those Linnets.

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

Comings And Goings

After two weeks in Greece I was keen to get back on the local scene but with an iffy forecast and a grey, overcast sky I thought there might be no birding. And then the clouds lifted a little to brighten both the sky and my mood so I set off over the moss roads. 

Even on Thursday/Friday a few things were immediately noticeable, the seeming lack of Swallows and the sudden arrival of large numbers of Pink-footed Geese. While in Greece I saw thousands of Red-rumped Swallows but our local Barn Swallows have mostly gone. Meanwhile Pink-footed Geese arrived in large numbers from Iceland or short stop-overs in southern Scotland. The pinkies’ route south takes some skeins directly over our house on their way to South West Lancashire, generally their first port of call in England. I saw and heard many hundreds of geese overhead while tidying the garden on Thursday/Friday and then more on Saturday morning. 

Pink-footed Geese

Pink-footed Goose - Iceland to Lancashire

I stopped at Wrampool to look at the field of wild crop set-aside and where I hoped to see finches feeding on the seeds of the now finished flowers. Within fifteen minutes of parking up I noted approximately 160 Linnets arriving in small flocks from several directions as the birds dived into the base of the crop. I imagine the ground would be littered with seeds by now.

Linnet

'Set-aside' was introduced by the European Economic Community in 1988 to help reduce the large and costly surpluses produced in Europe under the guaranteed pricing of the Common Agricultural Policy. It was also designed to deliver environmental benefits following damage to agricultural ecosystems and wildlife as a result of agricultural intensification. Under the scheme farmers claim support payments based on the size of the area used to grow cereals, linseeds, oilseeds and protein crops such as peas, beans and lupins. To qualify for these payments all but the smallest producers must 'set aside' part of their arable land and take it out of production. This helps in the protection of the countryside as it means farmers have no longer financial incentive to remove hedgerows and trees which support valuable wildlife. 

Where such schemes are run with enthusiasm and commitment they benefit declining farmland birds, as proved by the small but valuable plot at Wrampool where Linnets and other species will be able to feed throughout the winter and thus increase their survival chances. Every little helps. 

Later I spoke to the land owner who gave his permission to carry out a monitoring and ringing programme on the plot in the coming months. It will be most interesting to see the number and throughput of Linnets feeding here. The Linnets may be joined by “seven coloured linnets”, a local name for Goldfinch that I learned only today from the friendly farmer, a native of South West England. 

"Seven-coloured linnet"

Further along the coast road I stopped at Braides Farm to survey the puddled field and counted 240 Curlew, 145 Lapwing, 30+ Teal and 3 Snipe. There was a noticeable southerly movement of Skylarks overhead, many high up, others more visible, with 20 or more in the fifteen minutes I spent there. The Skylark movement was also evident at Conder Green, my next port of call. 

In the shallow creeks I noted 7 Goosander feeding in quite separate groups of a trio and a foursome; clearly they were different families and keeping apart from each other. Goosanders breed in the upper reaches of the River Lune north of Lancaster and beyond into the Lake District and Scotland but do not breed in this coastal part of Lancashire. They are also a shy species and subject to some persecution from the angling and fishing fraternity, and hence difficult to approach. 

Goosander

Also in the creeks - 45+ Teal, 4 Snipe, 10 Redshank, 4 Curlew, 1 Spotted Redshank, 1 Common Sandpiper, 1 Kingfisher, 3 Little Egret and 1 Grey Heron. On the now full of water pool - just 11 Little Grebe, a couple of Cormorants, 3 Pied Wagtail and several more Teal. 

At the railway bridge I heard a good number of “chirrups” overhead as Skylarks dribbled over in ones and twos, together with a fair number of Chaffinches and Greenfinches following the tree line of the riverside and dropping into the hawthorns at the car park. 

Chaffinch

I latched onto a Swallow heading quickly south and then saw four more heading the same way. They could be the last of the year!

Greece Again

Why bother to go on holiday? I asked the question on Wednesday evening after viewing the overgrown garden, the pile of letters and junk mail waiting to be sorted, never mind the dozens of emails. 

And then I downloaded the pictures from two weeks in Skiathos to reveal the answer to my question. The island of Skiathos may be just 46 sq km, but many people choose to return for their holidays year after year for the simple fact that it has amongst the best beaches of the Greek islands, a large variety of tavernas, places to stay and the fact that it has a spectacular coastline that begs to be explored. The day before we left for home we too felt the pull of the island and left a deposit to secure our room for 2017. 

There aren’t many bird pictures in this posting as the weather was mostly too clear and sunny for large scale migration, but there are lots of photos of the island and the places we visited. Several locals told us how there had been a lack of rain for the previous three months, a fact that became all too obvious once we began to explore in our go-anywhere Jimny and viewed the tinder dry landscape.

Don't forget to 'click the pics' for a close-up of Skiathos.

The plane’s approach took us close to the sister island of Skopelos with Skiathos Town on the right, just before the pilot turned right towards the rapid and heavily braked landing on the short, but recently extended runway. 

Skiathos Town

 

The Bourtzi, Skiathos Town

Around The Bourtzi, Skiathos

The Old Port, Skiathos Town 

Next stop Skopelos

Skiathos Town from the Airport

Arrival - Skiathos

Our host Makis Mathinou met us at the airport and just twenty minutes later we settled down in our favourite room at the idyllic, stunning and totally soothing Hotel Ostria. I am reluctant to mention this hotel on the Internet for fear of the place becoming too well known. Some secrets are best kept that way. But word does seem to have got around via the dreaded Trip Advisor, and quite deservedly, anyone wishing to stay at The Ostria must be quick off the mark to reserve a room.

The hotel has resident Hooded Crows and plays host to Scop’s Owl, Little Owl, Spotted Flycatcher, Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Red-backed Shrike. It also offers free drinks from the swimming pool to Barn Swallows and Red-rumped Swallows and on occasion, Bee Eaters which join the swifts and swallows overhead in the hunt for flying insects. We had one sighting of Bee Eaters this year when a party of eight or ten flew around before heading off towards the nearby shore. 

The Ostria, Agia Paraskevi

Hooded Crow

We had a super two weeks and even though the weather turned a little dodgy in week two with a couple of mornings of heavy rain to disrupt migration, the birds never arrived in any numbers. Even after downpours the landscape remained dry and parched with a lack of standing water where migrants might normally be found.

On a number of days we called in at Aselinos and the tomato farm near Xanemos beach and found Yellow Wagtail, Whinchat, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, House Sparrow and Red-backed Shrikes, together with Barn Swallows, Swifts and Red-rumped Swallows, plus the ubiquitous Hooded Crows. The cliffs at the tomato/pepper farm are a good spot to watch for gulls and Eleonora’s Falcon as it’s not far from the falcon’s stronghold of Kastro just along the coast. Yellow-legged Gull is the neighbourhood gull of Skiathos but unlike our closely related UK Herring Gull, the Yellow-legged Gull of Skiathos remains wary of human contact and wouldn’t dream of snatching a sandwich. 

Aselinos, Skiathos

Red-backed Shrike

 Yellow Wagtail

A dodgy morning near Xanemos

Eleonora's Falcon

 Yellow-legged Gull

On other days we explored the unmade roads and tracks of the wild north coast to the beaches of Kanapitsa, Kechria, Ligaries and Agistros where we came across more shrikes, flycatchers and Whinchats but this time with Common Whitethroat, Blackcap and Lesser Whitethroat amongst the Chiffchaffs. There are one or two pairs of Ravens on the island, birds which alerted us to the presence of on high Honey Buzzards, a Kestrel and more Eleonora’s.

On our journeys we we found similarly minded people, not birding, but simply exploring and enjoying the landscape, mostly in the obligatory Jimny.  Anyone thinking of driving in Skiathos, dont worry. The only things to be be wary of are taxi drivers on flight days, tourists strolling along the narrow streets of town, or helmetless locals riding motorcycles. Sticking to rules is not something the Greeks enjoy. 

Which Way? - Skiathos

 

Skiathos goat

Agistros - Skiathos

Whinchat

Jimnys- Skiathos

Kechria - Skiathos

Spotted Flycatcher

Looking for warblers- Skiathos

Kanapitsa - Skiathos

Skopelos and Tsougria viewed from Kanapitsa - Skiathos

Skiathos is a captivating island that has great charm, a fascinating history, wonderful beaches, a friendly and civilised population and one that boasts an amazing array of tavernas in which to spend an evening. I heartily recommend it to readers. In fact, I’ll drink to that. Cheers everyone! 

Dish Of the Mum - Skiathos

Tourists - Skiathos

Back soon with more to enjoy.

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