A Better Result

Regular readers will know of recent blog posts and the often poor catches of Project Linnet. 

Before today and despite a good number of visits, our total caught during the winter of 2018/2019 was a miserly 87 only; this in comparison to the winter of 2016/17 when we caught 212 and the winter of 2017/18 when we caught 242. Three of these 541 Linnets proved to have links with northern Scotland, in two cases, the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland respectively. 

In recent days I am grateful to two Scottish ornithologist ringers Tom Dougall and Bob Swann, who not only shared their own experiences and thoughts about Linnets, but offered helpful advice on improving our catch at Gulf Lane. Here is a link to a very interesting and useful paper about Linnets, first published in 2014 - “Movements of Linnets Linaria cannabina in northern Scotland. - Movements of Linnets in Northern Scotland

Most interestingly, Bob remarked to me that “Linnets are undoubtedly a species where the more people that are catching them the more information you get. When we first started catching, all our movements were between Orkney and Highland as that was where the ringers were. When folk started catching in Tayside and then Lothian they started catching our birds. Unfortunately when our study was going there were very few ringers in England catching Linnets in winter and this partly explains the lack of long distance movements down to England.” 

So Andy and I started today needing to catch up on numbers but keen to continue with our investigation of the proportion of Scottish Linnets amongst local wintering birds. This is especially useful as it appears that we may be the only ringers in Lancashire, possibly the whole of North West England who actively target wintering and “Red-listed” Linnets. 

The numbers of Linnets here at Gulf Lane has dropped from a peak of 300 in December to around 200 in recent weeks and days. So we were reasonably happy to catch 10 new Linnets to bring this winter’s total close to the one hundred mark. More than happy to report also that Tom’s advice on an alternative catching method worked, despite the Linnets’ usual skittishness. Their nervous behaviour was not helped by a Sparrowhawk which at one point shot fast and low, legs outstretched, and through the flock but without success. 

Linnet 

Sparrowhawk 

None of today’s Linnets showed much hint of Scottish variance with all wing lengths up to 82mm and no obvious grey headed birds. 

When finally the morning air warmed up a little we heard out first singing Skylark of the year; a closer look revealed a pair of Skylark in the annual location alongside the ditch in the corner of the adjacent field.  Could it be that just like the Skylark and so many garden birds now in song, the Linnet flock has reduced in size as some individuals seek to establish territories in the wider countryside? 

Skylark

The next week or more will decide but first we have to negotiate the next Atlantic storm waiting in the wings to ruin the weekend.  

Friday 8th February 2019

Stay tuned folks.  It's just a spot of wind.

Gulf Matters

Almost three weeks had flown with very little birding and even less ringing to brighten grey days. Our last ringing session at Gulf Lane had been 9th January with an embarrassingly low catch of Linnets. We’d pencilled in a day last Wednesday but when overnight temperatures dropped to -6° with freezing rain, we chickened out from skating on ice. 

My blogging/birding pal David Gascoigne in Ontario tells me that on one day last week he woke to a healthy -19°. Undeterred, his group ventured out for their customary Tuesday Ramble! 

This Wednesday promised slightly better for us, without the freezing rain but still 0° with maybe a snow shower or two, but hopefully time to make amends. I met Andy at 0800 and we set the nets then waited for the Linnets to arrive. 

An hour long snow shower didn't help matters when the circa 200 Linnets disappeared from sight. It was only when the snow stopped and the sky brightened that they returned and we managed to catch a couple - two first winter males. So it’s back to the drawing board for now. 

Linnet 

Linnets 

Other birds seen today – 16 Whooper Swans and over towards the sea wall, a single Barn Owl. 

Whooper Swans

Today's snow was the first, and hopefully the last of the winter.

Snowfall - 30 January 2019

Stay tuned. There's birding ringing and pictures when the snow clears.

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

Brambling Bonanza

With little local news, here’s a story for birders who like to hone their counting skills with massed waders; or flocks of finches perhaps? 

After good autumn counts of Bramblings on migration through the UK there were hopes that the better than average numbers might herald a “Brambling Winter”, a winter when Bramblings become relatively common.

It wasn't to be as the counts fizzled out and sightings of Bramblings broke few if any records, at least in the UK. My own autumn and winter count troubled a single handful of fingers.

Brambling 

Another Bird Blog featured the Brambling phenomenon in November 2018, but now there’s a follow-up to the story. 

Recent counts in Slovakia suggest that as is often the case, and despite the hopes of UK birders, many Bramblings have remained in Northern and Eastern Europe where as normal they exploited crops of beech and hornbeam. 

Cut to the TV News of recent weeks where heavy snowfall in Europe north of the Alps brought huge snow drifts, deadly avalanches and a degree of chaos to everyday life. 

Large falls of snow covered much of the Bramblings’ food supplies with the result that they fled south beyond the Alps and into Slovenia in search of new food supplies. During this time Slovenia remained relatively snow-free as newly arrived Bramblings homed in on the Zasavje area. It was here that other Bramblings had already found good feeding amongst carpets of beechmast following a heavy seed crop during a productive summer. 

Counts in recent days and weeks by Tomaž Mihelič and the other Slovene ornithologists of the country’s DOPPS - BirdLife Slovenia (Društvo za opazovanje in proučevanje ptic Slovenije) realised a count of between 2 to 5 million Bramblings in beech woods along the River Sava, a tributary of the Danube. 

 Bramblings, Slovenia (© Tomaž Mihelič)

Bramblings, Slovenia (© Tomaž Mihelič)

The counts showed a minimum of 2 million but probably as many as 5 million Bramblings, all contained in an area of about 100 square kms, a number representing a sizeable chunk of the whole European population. Every night the Bramblings packed into a stand of trees covering just 5 hectares (a circle about 250 metres in diameter). The exact site of the roost is not revealed so as to prevent disturbance, but it has drawn crowds of locals to watch each evening.

Stop press. With fresh snowfall around, latest counts suggest up to a staggering 10 million Bramblings. 

Brambling

Looks like we in the UK will have to postpone our Brambling Winter to another year.

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

Murder On Hampstead Heath

An exchange of texts sealed the decision. The nagging south easterly wind and hint of more drizzle meant no ringing the following morning. Some things never change. 

Over the moss roads I found a regular but shy Barn Owl that would have little of my photography intent as it disappeared into - a barn. What else? 

In the same area only a year or two ago was an entirely different individual that would hunt long into the morning hours over a well-defined and regular circuit and cared little about a lens poking from a car window. Such are the subtle differences that sometimes allow us to separate one individual from another but where traditional nest sites prove their worth by allowing successive generations to breed in familiar places. 

Barn Owl 

New landowners at Braides have changed the landscape. Not to everyone’s liking I hear, with Natural England for one unhappy with the levelling of the previously Under-Stewardship land. There was still a good count of 2000+ Lapwing, a few dozen Redshank, several Curlew and a lone wagtail, but the distant scrape so valuable for wildfowl and waders has disappeared under an unfriendly plough. 

I’d not been to Conder Green for many weeks and by the paucity of on-line accounts, I had missed little. 

Except for 3 Egyptian Geese my counts proved strangely resonant of pre-Christmas days with 90 Teal, 45 Wigeon, 22 Redshank, 15 Curlew, 3 Little Grebe, 1 Little Egret and a single Rock Pipit. 

Christmas and New Year generated visits to Conder Green from bird watchers keen to tick the newly arrived exotic Egyptian Geese, a feral but now established affiliate to bird lists. 

There are thought to be around 200 pairs of Egyptian Geese in England, mostly in Norfolk and the south-east but the species rarely travels in any numbers to the colder north of England or even the warmer Fylde, hence the bird listers.

Whether these three probable siblings will stay around as one into the spring and summer is perhaps unlikely given the species’ known aggressive traits. 

Egyptian Goose 

It was around Christmas that a brutal murder took place on Hampstead Heath. 

“A pair of Egyptian Geese lived blissfully at Kenwood Pond on the Heath for many years. The original pair mated for at least seven seasons and produced up to seven goslings a year. The male was a good father, protecting his young from aggressive dogs, often rushing his family into the safety of the pond waters. 

Their lives were ripped apart by a territorial battle between the resident male and an intruder, who returned for a second time having been chased off earlier in the summer. The pair had survived the best part of a decade until the fateful day that the younger but stronger adult, perhaps even one of their own goslings from years gone by, returned to enact a bloody and hostile takeover. A bitter fight ended brutally, with the resident male killed and drowned in the pond below Kenwood House." 

Around a year ago the same pair were caught in a less traditional drama: a photographer described an incident where the now-deceased male goose took exception to a drone flying near to his family. The drone hovered near the nest and the male took off, crashing into the drone from above and sending it spinning into the water. 

If only someone had thought to mention this to the assorted politicians, Police, RAF, Army and Gatwick officials watching the invisible drone. Or perhaps the innocent couple who spent 36 hours in Police custody?

From Conder and up to Cockersands, the lanes were mostly unproductive. I heard lots of noise around the Tree Sparrow colony along Moss Lane where by now the sparrows are well aware of impending spring. 

Otherwise there was very little except for a small gang of 40-45 ground feeding Fieldfares and a couple of Kestrels. Fieldfares are mostly absent now, hard to find until their spring passage North begins in March and April. 

Fieldfare 

Meanwhile, and despite the dreary weather, the Linnets must be fed even though we aren't able to manage a ringing session. A count of 300 was pretty good and many soon dropped onto the fresh seed I dropped. 

Linnets

Maybe next week, but the forecast does not look good. 

Linking today to World Bird Wednesday,  Anni's Birding and Eileen's Saturday Post.

Slaughter In Spain

I offer no apologies for the photographs in this post. They should be shared far and wide, mostly to our representatives in the EU and the UK. 

The slaughter of birds for amusement continues apace in many countries in Europe. It is commonplace in Spain, France, Portugal, Greece, Malta and Cyprus to name the most notorious. 

From my friend in Spain, Fernando Gavilian Lopez. 

De cómo exterminar al Zorzal común. Capítulo 2. Imágenes de esta semana subidas a las redes sociales en España. La especie se nos va. 

Google Translation - How to annihilate the Song Thrush. Episode 2. Images uploaded to social networks this week in Spain. The species is going away.

I am so angry that words fail me. Isn't this what we adults should be doing in 2019?

Thank you.

Linking this post to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

Down Memory Lane

Surfing as one might on a rather dull morning and on the website of Fylde Bird Club, Lancashire, I stumbled across a page full of their old Newsletters. The newsletters, now in PDF form and dated from 1983 to 2017 provide a source of historic local information to both members and non-members alike. 

Inside June/July 1983 Number 4, was a piece submitted by one Phil Slade about the finding of a rare bird on a June evening in 1983. In those days I was a member of the club, one of ten or twelve founder members who set up the club as a way of developing interest in the local site of Marton Mere, a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). 

In the early eighties the mere was threatened with development by interests wholly unsympathetic to wildlife. Despite the SSSI the mere was a free-for-all to many varied interests with little concern for its status as an SSSI. Club members took on an evening rota to try and deter the many undesirable elements from destroying the site’s value – birds’ egg thieves, scrambler bikes, unruly dogs with and unruly owners, charging horses topped by inconsiderate riders. You name it, Marton Mere had the lot.  

After an encounter one evening with a muddy dog and an unpleasant owner I recall taking a different route to escape the abuse.

Read on …. 

Fylde Bird Club June/July 1983

Fylde Bird Club June/July 1983

Fylde Bird Club June/July 1983

Apologies about the quality of the images above.  This was pre-digital and pre-mobile phones.  Remember that?

Whiskered Tern

Whiskered Tern

Also, from Page One above: "Information regarding breeding birds in the Fylde has been somewhat sparse, so strengths and weaknesses of locally breeding birds must unfortunately pass undocumented for another year - let's hope we can improve on this for the future".

Strange then that a year or two later some members of the club helped put a block on bird ringing at the mere, studies that would have provided much needed data. It was because of this myopia that I broke my relationship with the bird club.  It is only in very recent years, following a proposal from Andy Dixon plus a new enlightened approach from Blackpool Borough Council, that ringing is now encouraged and supported.

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

Testing Times

Andy and I arranged to meet up at Gulf Lane this morning to test our latest theory about Linnets - we catch better on frosty mornings? 

There was a ground frost and a temperature of -1° at 0800. We had been here on Saturday 4th January and despite a spot count of 400 Linnets we caught a big fat zero, not a single one; the Linnets just weren't interested, this in contrast to 2nd January when we had a catch of twenty-seven. The difference between the two days was - on January 2nd there’s been an overnight frost followed by an icy morning of -2.5°. In total contrast the morning of Saturday 4th January was much warmer at 7°C. My post, Another Bird Blog of 2nd January - “Twenty seven was our best catch of the winter, probably helped by the frosty start and the Linnets’ keenness to eat”. 

These are wintering Linnets only, ones which and dependent upon the coming weather, may be back on their way North as early as March. That leaves us just eight or ten weeks to reach our target of 200 new Linnets for the winter period. Another 100 to go. 

We set the nets followed by another bucket of millet and rape seed then waited for the Linnet’s arrival. Although the Linnets arrived in good numbers – up to 300, we caught just four. All four were females today. So although it’s back to the drawing board for our next theory, we do not give up so easily and remain convinced that catches will improve. 

Linnet - First winter/second calendar year female 

Linnet - First winter/second calendar year female 

“Ringing has been an important research tool for the conservation biologist over the last 100 years. Effective conservation of wild bird populations requires understanding of bird ecology, the factors driving population change, and evidence that proposed conservation measures can be effective. Bird-ringing studies can provide a wide range of data types to aid and inform this process, and in many cases these data are not available without the capture and marking of individual birds.” 

The above is a summary of a paper from Ringing and Migration “The value of ringing for bird conservation”, written in 2009 by Guy Q.A. Anderson and Rhys E. Green. 

The full paper, too lengthy to post here, includes sections on: 

• Movement between seasons in resident species 
• Dispersal Migration routes and strategies 
• Survival rates 
• Productivity 
• Genetic relationship 
• How to improve the value of ringing for conservation gain 

Read the full paper at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228501270_The_value_of_ringing_for_bird_conservation