Beating Dennis

We’re braced for more bad weather at weekend as forecasters warn that Storm Dennis follows hot on the tail of Storm Ciara. There’s a yellow weather warning in place for Saturday. 

Meanwhile, and away from click-bait headlines, bird ringers scrutinise the forecasts for a window of respite where they might connect with a few birds. Thursday looked such a day with a few hours of lesser winds and the chance of an odd shower rather than bouts of rain. 

The previous visit to Gulf Lane and Project Linnet was 5 February when we bumped up the total of Linnet captures for winter 2019/2020 to 109 new ones and two recaptures from 2018. That’s about half where we hoped to be at this point in 2020. 

Recent visits to drop our supplementary seed have shown the Linnets’ hunger has overtaken their natural and normally very cautious nature as groups of up to 30 birds fed in the seed drop zone. 

Linnets 

On Thursday morning I met up with Andy at 0845 where we set the whoosh net, dropped more seed and then waited.  We didn’t hang around too long as the Linnets arrived in their customary fashion of small groups that eventually built to a flock of circa 140 individuals. 

Two pulls of the whoosh net resulted in a catch of 39 Linnets - 37 new unringed ones and 2 recaptures. The 39 comprised of 13 second year males, 11 second year females, 10 adult males and 5 adult females. 

Field Sheet 

Recapture S348959, now an adult male had been ringed here at Gulf as a juvenile of unknown sex on 5 August 2017. We have no recaptures for this bird from 5/8/17 until today, a gap of about two and a half years. 

Recapture AKE 3707 had been amongst the catch of 5 February 2020. 

Linnet - adult male 

Linnet - tail of adult male  

Not all adult tails are as clear cut as the example above. 

It seems the Met Office has gone "woke" and prepared for the year of storms ahead with a suitably non-binary, diverse and inclusive list of names in the frames but no Andy or Phil as far as I can see. 

Storms to come

Stop by to Another Bird Blog soon to see how we beat the Met Office storm predictions.

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

Highs And Lows

The morning ended on a high note following a rather disappointing ringing session. On the drive back home from Oakenclough via Garstang Town and Eagland Hill, I spotted a day-hunting Barn Owl. 

Barn Owl 

Barn Owl

Barn Owl 

Barn Owl 

Barn Owl

On Wednesday evening a check online told me that our last visit to Oakenclough was 10 November 2019, almost three months ago. At 700 feet above sea level Oakenclough can be desolate in winter, even more so given the wet and wind that continually overwhelmed plans to return. Only now, part way through February 2020 did the weather relent enough to allow a return to this our most productive of ringing sites. 

The ringing database DemOn showed that 2019 produced 867 captures at Oakenclough. Willow Warbler, Blue Tit and Redwing were the most ringed species at 85, 85 and 84 respectively, these three followed by 82 Goldcrest, 78 Meadow Pit and 70 Lesser Redpoll. Not many complaints there other than an unprecedented lack of Siskins (just 20) and far too many Blue Tits, a by-catch species that gives little return. 

As an early year exploratory visit we rather hoped that Lesser Repoll, Siskin and Goldcrest might be on the cards this morning but apart from a single Goldcrest, there was little evidence of early spring migration. We caught just 12 birds - 4 Blue Tit, 2 Chaffinch and singles of Dunnock, Coal Tit, Goldcrest, Wren , Blackbird and Great Tit. 

Goldcrest 

Chaffinch

Dunnock 

Chaffinch

Never mind. We’ll try again after Storm Ciara has passed. 

“A Met Office yellow warning about Storm Ciara has been brought forward to midday on Saturday. It is set to bring a deep low pressure with strong and possibly damaging winds, with widespread travel disruption expected.  Coastal areas may be affected by large waves and potential flooding. 

Met Office 

The warning is in place until midnight on Sunday. The forecast is of gusts between 50-60 mph across inland areas that could reach speeds of 70 mph and possibly 80 mph in exposed hills and coasts.” 

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

Forty Today

If only! Forty refers not to the ages of the ringers but to the number of Linnets captured at Gulf Lane this morning. 

Morning arrived with overcast skies, a slight frost and zero wind so Andy and I set a couple single panel nets in what is basically a field of flat vegetation. After the catch of 25 Linnets on Thursday last we set the whoosh net again, hoping that one or even both catching systems might work. 

Morning Start

We have noticed how in the last week, and as the natural seed depletes, the Linnets are more prepared to come to our supplementary seed. 

Linnet

Lack of food in winter has been identified as a contributor to the national declines in numbers of some farmland birds. The observation that many farmland birds use game crops in winter prompted research into the potential of seed crops as a conservation measure and to then develop it further in helping those species that had suffered. Nowadays wild bird seed mixtures are included as an option in agri-environment schemes and appropriate Countryside Stewardship habitat options. 

Different seed crop species retain their seed for differing periods through the winter. By January and certainly into February overall seed supply reduces greatly, and is often completely exhausted. For these crops, seed supply declines as bird numbers increase during the first half of the winter, and bird numbers then drop in response to the continuing decline in the supply of food, the so called “hunger gap”.  This is a time when supplementary feeding is hugely beneficial in keeping birds alive. 

Our supplementary seed proved its worth today when we fired the whoosh net three times as the Linnets came back for more of the millet/rape seed.  Of the forty Linnets caught, 30 came from the whoosh net and 10 from the mist nets. 

Linnet

Field Sheet

The forty comprised 38 new ones and 2 recaptures from previous years. It’s very unusual to have recaptures here at Gulf Lane, the huge turnover of Linnets during a typical winter means the odds of catching the same bird twice are very low. 

At the foot of the sheet are the two recaptures - S800964 an adult male, and AJD6366, an adult female, the first recaptures of the 2019/20 autumn/winter. 

S800964 was a large male with a wing length of 87 mm, the only recapture since it was first ringed on 9 March 2018.  Female AJD6366 was first ringed here on 22 November 2018 but not in the intervening period until today.

A single Wren made 41 birds for the day. This is the only capture of a Wren on site throughout the whole of the winter, even though there is always one around.

Wren

There's more news soon from Another Bird Blog.  Maybe tomorrow! 

  

A Battle Of Wits

The latest battle of wits Linnets versus Ringers took place at Gulf Lane, Lancashire on the morning of Thursday 30 January 2020. Here the village of Pilling merges with Cockerham village at the A588 Murder Mile junction where regular ringing challenges take place in the set-aside plot owned by Farmers Richard and Helen Jones. 

Murder Mile 

Gulf Lane

Before today and throughout late 2019 and into 2020, the Linnets have taken all the honours by soundly beating ringers on 99% of occasions. The day began with a pitiful total of 46 birds caught during the whole of the winter and the Linnets probably cock-a-hoop at their ability to stick two feathers up at their opponents. The Linnets’ daily and prolonged use of the site coupled with their knowledge of how, where and when to still find natural food while avoiding mist nets is mysterious but wonderful to behold. 

The regular team of two Andy and Phil arrived in the dark at 0730 armed with bacon butties fresh from Pilling Stores, keen to redress the balance of recent disappointments. Tactics agreed they set a whoosh net in preparation for the arrival of Linnets and then dropped a bucket of millet & rape seed in the penalty area. Surely this week, as the hunger gap widens, they could win the match? 

Whoosh Net 

Linnets arrived in dribs and drabs of fives, tens and twenties, until by 1100 hours their numbers had swollen to 120 or more. There followed the familiar end-to-end stuff as Linnets flew back & forth and around the plot while coffee supping Andy and Phil grew more frustrated at the Linnets’ reluctance to sample the rape and millet. 

And then just as it looked like the game might end in a draw, at 1115 the flock made a dreadful mistake. One of their number rested in the penalty area and began to feed, closely followed by more. Whoosh! Too late, the ringers had scored a last minute goal. 

Linnet 

A total of twenty-five Linnets was the best of the winter; this comprised of 11 second-year males, 9 second year females and 5 adult males. No adult females.

There seemed to be a few Scottish participants today by way of a couple of noticeable dark, streaky females and also three males with wing lengths of 85 mm. 

Linnet- adult male 

Linnet - second year female 

Twenty-five Linnets represents 20/25% of the morning’s spot counts so the catch is unlikely to be repeated soon, the Linnets are too cute for that to happen. 

The meaning of “cute” - attractive in a pretty or endearing way. 

Or - clever or cunning. 

Take your pick. 

And anyway, the weather forecast is not good for the next few days or more. Back to normal.

Linking this post to Anni's Blog and Eileen's Saturday.

Take Five

Sunday; it’s raining again. We’ve had a tortuous week of 100% cloud with drizzle and mist but no sign of the promised sunshine. 

Saturday was guaranteed to be rain free, all the Internet sites agreed. And the BBC, so it must be true. 

I met Andy at Gulf Lane at 0730 to a light drizzle and intermittent screen wipes. We decided to press ahead because days are running out for Project Linnet. Soon, the flock such as it is in relatively small numbers will disintegrate with many birds heading north. The flock has now reduced to 70/90 and showed reluctance to commit to our seed dump and nets while there is still natural food from last summer’s growth of seed pods. 

Linnets 

We managed five only, all second year males. That’s just 46 Linnets caught for the period September – January, a dismal show. Just three weeks into the year and already a few of the males show good amounts of red on their chests. 

Linnet

Otherwise birds on site consisted of the usual ditch-dwelling Little Egret, the resident Kestrel and a couple of Chaffinches. 

Chaffinch

Are we disheartened? No, the show must go on so we dumped fresh seed and pencilled in a fine day sometime never. 

"Heck", or words to that effect.  Little Ben, my old Citizen watch had stopped again. We’d been there for hours so it was definitely not five past nine. 

As a solar watch a Citizen is designed to tell the time by converting light energy into electronic energy that moves the hands around the dial to then point at the appropriate numeral. Light energy received by a solar cell under the dial converts into electronic energy. The energy is stored in a rechargeable battery that moves the mechanism. It’s very eco-friendly and makes a major contribution to Climate Emergency. 

The trouble is that for three or four months of the year of the Northern Hemisphere my wrist is hidden from daylight under a shirt, a jumper and a jacket where the sun hardly ever shines. The usual solution is to leave him on a south facing windowsill for a day or two and pray for daylight or a dose of sunshine. But if the battery struggles the hands stop again. Time stands still, tic but no toc, a second hand without a sweep and a mischievous grin on his untimely face. I’m afraid that unless he improves soon Ben will become victim of our throwaway society when I chuck him in the recycling. 

In the meantime a watch is very important to birders. I need one to check the time of local tides and to make sure I wake early and turn up for a ringing session at the appointed time. Last week I hit the Internet and YouTube in search of a wrist watch for forgetful people, one with automatic wind in place of solar energy.  It must have minimalist looks and a leather strap. No bling, no bells and whistles and no deep-sea diving. Apart from those essentials a sweep second hand is a handy extra for sending the grandkids on a timed run around the block to give me a ten-minute break, or timing Sue on sinking a G&T.

Via DuckDuckGo I discovered Sea Gull Watch Store, an appropriate but imprecise name for a bird lover.

Sea Gull

Sea Gull Watch Store is in China. Even better, were I to buy, I might be helping Chinese people make a few bob at the expense of overpriced, over-hyped designer brands that only footballers and Chris Packham can afford. 

I found a Bauhaus style for my budget- a RODINA at $99 (£79) that looks exactly like a NOMOS – an expensive German brand at a hefty £1360 and more. 

Nomos - £1360 

Rodina - $99

My new watch is what some might call a fake, a copy, a rip-off.  I prefer to call my Rodina a “Tribute Watch”. Like “Neil Diamond” at the local pub who looks and sounds a little similar to the original chart topper but when he introduces the next song you just know he’s from Batley and not LA. 

“Bauhaus” - literally translates to “construction house”- a style that originated as a German school of the arts in the early 20th century. Founded by Walter Gropius, the school eventually morphed into its own modern art movement characterised by its unique approach to architecture and design. 

Will this new watch be any good and get me to Gulf Lane on schedule? Time will tell. I’ll let you know soon.

An Unfunny Game

The release of non-native game birds and their impact upon the environment is in the news again this week. It is an issue mentioned several time on Another Bird Blog with the intention of alerting Joe Public to elements of the countryside that David Attenborough does not show. 

An estimated 40/50 million Common Pheasants and up to 10 million Red-legged Partridges are released into the countryside prior to the shooting season opening each 1 October.  

Red-legged Partridge 

Pheasant

The current pheasant and partridge shooting seasons draw to a close at the end of January 2020. The 2020 season opens on 1 October for Common Pheasant and 1 September for Red-legged Partridge. Releases of captive-bred birds occur prior to this, usually in July when trailer loads of pen-reared game-birds are transported to the shooting fields and released. Being pen-reared and regularly fed from leaving the egg the youngsters find most of their food from bins spaced at regular intervals throughout each shoot. 

Pen Rearing

 Off To The Shoot - Raptor Persecution Scotland

Feed Bin

The waste from transportation and feed bins provides rich pickings for predators of the crow family, mainly Carrion Crows. This easy availability of food throughout the winter months may have been a factor in the crows’ increased population since the 1960s, a trend associated with increases in nesting success/earlier laying. 

Carrion Crows take nestlings of small farmland birds and the eggs & chicks of waders, a fact of life easily witnessed by field workers. Some studies have found that crows along with their cousins the Magpie and the Raven have surprisingly little impact on the abundance of other bird species. I’m pretty certain those studies have not taken place in the Fylde Lancashire where it is not uncommon to see many hundreds of Carrion Crows on fields that are regularly shot and where lines of feed bins cross the landscape. 

A white Red-legged Partridge 

Carrion Crow 

Around 60% of game-birds released for shooting in the UK, an estimated 25/30 million birds, do not end up at their intended fate of being shot. This constitutes wastage, raising economic, environmental and ethical questions. There are four main reasons: predation, disease, starvation and dispersal into the wider countryside. Roadkill and agricultural operations contribute yet more often unquantifiable deaths. Early morning drives through areas of shoots will see many fresh corpses on carriageways where inexperienced and newly released game-birds meet the combustion engine. 

Pheasant Roadkill

The National Gamebag Census (NGC) records information provided by around 600 participating estates throughout Britain on shooting bags. There is no actual quantification of releasing as the NGC is a fraction of the actual shoots, many of which are on a small scale basis of individual and/or neighbouring farms. This I know because there are a number in this part of Lancashire and where gamekeepers are reluctant or evasive in revealing the number of game birds they “put down” (release). 

From "Birdwatch" magazine 21 January 2020. 

The non-profit legal entity Wild Justice revealed this week that it has sent a second letter to The Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) about the effect of releasing millions of non-native game-birds into the British countryside. 

Last July Wild Justice challenged DEFRA's failure to assess the ecological impact on sites of conservation interest of releasing approximately 50 million game-birds into the countryside. The government department took two months to respond, but agreed that the Secretary of State would undertake a review of the release of such birds on or near protected sites. 

Since July 2019 DEFRA has failed to act. With zero progress, Wild Justice pursued the challenge and wrote again urging DEFRA to act quickly. 

In the letter, Wild Justice's lawyers Leigh Day stated that, with DEFRA having recognised the problem in September 2019, "it would be unlawful for those releases to take place in 2020 unless the possibility of them having detrimental impacts on the sites in question had been properly considered and specifically ruled out ahead of time".  As such, "the Secretary of State needs to initiate those processes now". The lawyers added: "To hold off doing that would lead to illegality later and so be unlawful now." 

Mark Avery, a co-director of Wild Justice columnist, commented: "We started this legal challenge last July, DEFRA took two months to respond (mid-September) and now we are past mid-January, only six months from the time when game-bird releasing might start again. DEFRA needs to get moving. This legal letter is designed to give them a very firm shove." 

It’s good news that Wild Justice should tackle this subject but I question their limiting the campaign to “sites of conservation interest”. The release of non-native game-birds is a problem that impacts the whole of the countryside, all of which is of conservation interest given the catastrophic decline of so many birds of farm and field during the last 40 years.

Linking this post to Eileen's Blogspot and Anni's Birding.

Having A Barney

It had been months since I’d seen a Barn Owl after something of a bonanza in 2019 when almost every outing had produced one. So what could be better than to start Saturday morning with a Barn Owl and a good one at that? 

A drive over Stalmine Moss on Saturday morning in the half-light of 0730 saw the owl as almost the earliest bird and the first to make me stop and then lift the camera. It was snap decision time - the light was poor. I clicked on F7.1 at ISO 1000 and crossed fingers. A few snaps and the owl detonated off the tree stump and out of sight. So it goes, all of fifteen seconds with the ghostly apparition. Barn Owls are not there for our human ephemeral delights but to simply grab a meal without worrying how long their pose lasts. 

Barn Owl 

Barn Owl

That’s all very well but how does one follow a splendid creature like a Barn Owl? Well how about a major rarity, a Corn Bunting? There were two along Union Lane that flew from a straggly bush and into the rough field beyond and where I struggled to see them again. It’s a location I have seen Corn Buntings in the past and where a couple of years ago one sang from the same roadside post for a week or two. 

Corn Bunting

Corn Bunting 

Recent WhatsApp forums report more Corn Buntings, up to 100, not far away at Eagland Hill in recent weeks. These may be addition to these two on Saturday plus the five to ten I’ve seen on Rawcliffe Moss in the last ten days or so. 

It's likely that all of these Corn Buntings are of the same ilk, ones that at times congregate together at scattered feeding sites or form overnight roosts. This is very much a mystery invasion because no one knows where these Corn Buntings come from. They have not returned as a precursor to the breeding season but more a visitor who arrives in deepest winter and then departs very soon after. 

As discussed a number of times on Another Bird Blog, the Corn Bunting is more or less extinct as breeding species in this flat Fylde of Lancashire. For a number of years now it is a winter visitor only. 

As a species the Corn Buntings is known to be home loving with its movements and migration on a small scale. However both the 1998-91 Atlas and the Winter Atlas suggest that some breeding areas are abandoned in winter as birds move to coastal areas. My own theory is that the Corn Buntings we see in winter are part of the fragmented population of the most northerly and eastern parts of the UK, whereby some individuals move west during the coldest part of the year. 

The Bird Atlas of 2007-2011 shows the English population of Corn Buntings consists of small scattered populations along the South Coast from Dorset to Cambridgeshire and then Kent to Suffolk, plus arable farmland on the East coast from Norfolk and up towards Durham. Almost certainly, the larger population of England has declined again since 2011, just as in the Fylde. 

Meanwhile, the Corn Bunting is now probably extinct in Ireland and almost so in Scotland where a tiny relic population clings on in the Uists of the Hebrides. 

If only we could ring some of these winter birds, both BTO ring and colour ring, a relatively easy way of learning more about a species; unfortunately Corn Buntings are notoriously difficult to catch in both the breeding season and the winter during times of bare cover. A search of BTO data reveals the number of Corn Buntings ringed in recent years as:

34 in 2014 

90 in 2015 

36 in 2016 

52 in 2017 

56 in 2018 

These figures include nestlings ringed, just 53 for the five years above 

Corn Bunting 

In other words, a pretty poor data set from which to work to discover just what is happening to our Corn Buntings. I fear we may be past the point of no return for this most iconic species but I hope not. 

I managed to resist the lure of Eagland Hill on Saturday, the now long lost Purple Heron, the subject of millions of digital images. 

Purple Heron 

It seems the local farming community are fed up of countless tickers parking in their single track passing places. One such farmer, sick of the daily stream of ne'er-do-wells has decided to cut his field of heron-friendly long grass in mid-January. It’s a task normally left for the warmer, dryer days of March. But now in an effort to kill two birds with one stone, he fettled the field so as to encourage the heron to find another source of animal matter many miles away. That job might at the same time inspire selfish and inconsiderate tickers to follow suit.  Perhaps go birding instead? 

I think Plan B may be to shoot the heron and return Eagle Land to rural peace and quiet of Old Lancashire where eagles, kites, harriers and buzzards soared all day and the sheep knew the rules.

Sheep at Eagland Hill 

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