Keep Calm And Carry On

It seems that modern weather forecasts emanate from just a few sources that syndicate their findings. It’s no surprise then that mainstream TV channels have remarkably similar forecasts when most of the announcers read from a rehearsed script rather than share their thoughts as informed and knowledgeable meteorologists. The best bet is to find an Internet forecast that updates time slots regularly and one that suit a particular preference or pinpoints locations for the activity that is to be pursued. After all,  a windsurfer’s needs are quite different to those of a bird ringer! 

Andy and I continued our search of weather forecasts for one that might allow us a morning in the fresh air and a ringing session. By Thursday evening there was a chance that Friday morning might provide the requisite window so we duly pencilled it in for a trip to Project Linnet. 

It could be that continued bad weather has delayed the Linnet departure north whereby in a normal spring winter flocks have separated and individuals gone their own ways. We’ve had 35/40 around all week when I checked and dropped more seed to keep the birds interested. 

Friday saw the regular Stock Dove or two and a couple of Reed Buntings and Chaffinches feeding in the penalty area. The now resident Kestrel hovered overhead for while during its customary circuit.  

Kestrel 

Reed Bunting and Chaffinch 

A male Blackbird holds territory, and this morning at least five Skylarks in song in the immediate area where the many fence posts come in handy. 

Blackbird 

Skylark 

Stock Dove 

Many people will be unfamiliar with the Stock Dove. A quick glance confirms their fears that it is one of those messy creatures that hang around city streets. Look closer; while the Stock Dove is indeed a member of the pigeon family this small version nests in holes in trees and in farm buildings. It’s a bird of woodland edges and parkland during the breeding season and can be seen in small flocks on winter farmland. Unlike the Woodpigeon and the Feral Pigeon, the extremely shy Stock Dove is very rarely found in towns, cities or suburban gardens.  

This morning looked ideal with less than 10 mph wind and wispy cloud above. Unfortunately the Linnets didn’t play ball by refusing to visit our seed in anything other than ones and twos but instead sunning themselves in the bramble. We noted that the recently depleted Linnet flock is now quite “loose” and “stretched” compared to those of mid-winter when the birds pack tightly together. As soon as the weather takes a real turn for the better the Linnets will be long gone. 

Linnets 

We caught not a single Linnet and had to settle for a second year male Reed Bunting instead. We suspect this to be the male on territory and paired to the female seen earlier. 

Reed Bunting 

When opportunities arrived to catch three or four Linnets, we declined in favour of a bigger haul that never materialised – isn’t hindsight wonderful? We also suffered “near misses” of two or three of those Skylarks, the ones that sang on high and came down for a too brief look and didn’t stay long enough for capture. Better luck next time. 

Dear Readers, stay safe and well. Carry on as normal and keep calm is the advice from here. I have no elderly parents to worry about, but I do have five young grandchildren. Take sensible and personal precautions to avoid contagion is the key, but life must carry on.

H L Mencken in 1918:

“Civilisation  grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes. The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

Back soon on Another Bird Blog.

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

What’s Birding?

Birding? What’s that? I’d done virtually none during Fearsome February when all we had was rain, more rain and constant strong winds. 

Today I set off over the moss into the rising sun, past the farmer’s still steaming muck heaps and on the way north for a spot of birding.  

Rawcliffe Moss 

Good thing I stopped for a picture because yards away and along the fence line was the now almost obligatory morning owl. The Barn Owl was looking for breakfast while I had to shoot at ISO1600. 

Barn Owl 

A little later about a mile away I stopped to witness a mixed flock of Redwings and Fieldfares feeding in a still wet field. As the car stopped both species flew to the nearest hedgerow and mostly out of sight.  Fieldfares and Redwings are on their way north now; it will be a faster trip than their leisurely autumn migration. 

Fieldfare 

A single Yellowhammer called out from overhead wires. I hope he finds a mate soon because there aren’t too many Yellowhammers around nowadays. 

Yellowhammer 

By the time I arrived at Gulf Lane there was enough light to see and count the arriving Linnets at 45 and to note a single Blackbird and a male Reed Bunting in the bramble bushes. About 20 Linnets soon fed on our recent seed so I topped up with a fresh half bucket and left the birds alone. At the moment Saturday looks marginal for another ringing session but a series of Internet weather forecasts will record countless hits tonight.  

The whole of February with its horrendous weather saw no visits from me to Conder Green. By all accounts, due to continuous winds and record water levels, any birding here was “pretty grim" with very few birds on view. 

Things had definitely picked up today with hints of spring territories and much better numbers of birds on the water and surrounding areas. On the far island I counted over 120 Black-headed Gulls and 2 Mediterranean Gulls. 

Mediterranean Gull 

I have a feeling that the Black-headed Gulls will begin to dominate Conder Pool and that the year will see a good number of breeding pairs; perhaps to the detriment of other species? More so if the boisterous Greylags also stay around. We’ll soon see. 

Black-headed Gull 

Water birds and waders: 4 Shelduck, 30 Greylag 14 Tufted Duck, 42 Teal, 22 Wigeon, 18 Oystercatcher, 8 Redshank, 8 Curlew, 5 Black-tailed Godwit. Bringing up the rear: 2 Little Egret, 1 Grey Heron and 1 Little Grebe. 

At the far island a Cormorant flew in, a very striking individual with an all-encompassing white head. The Cormorant had a very distinctive appearance, a sign of full breeding plumage and imminent departure. The literature states that such striking birds may be from the Continent or South East England but that it’s difficult to assign one to either of the two races Phalacrorax carbo carbo or Phalacrorax carbo sinensis. 

Cormorant 

Cormorant - Britain's Birds 

That was me done for the morning. 

The afternoon had been assigned to making two trays of onion bhajis. 

Onion Bhajis

Let me know if you need a good recipe.  Or see any good birds.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday and Anni in Texas.

Signs Of Spring

Finally, on Wednesday a break in the weather allowed a spot of ringing at Project Linnet. I met Andy at 0700 and we set a whoosh net then poured a coffee.  

During February and after our last visit of 13 February, I maintained visits so as to keep a tally on numbers. It was vital to continue our supplementary feeding rather than suddenly stop and leave the Linnets without regular food. 

Monday March 2 had seen lower numbers with 35 Linnets only plus a couple of Chaffinches and 2 Stock Doves at our seed. An overflying Kestrel seemed also to be keeping an eye on a non-seed food source. A female Stonechat hopped along the fence and the bramble, a migrant that with luck we might be able to tempt into the catching area at the first opportunity. 

 Stonechat

We began Wednesday on 148 Linnet captures for the winter period 1 September to date. Although the figure was somewhat below our ideal figure, the decision to persevere with this project has proved immensely valuable. We have found new information about wintering Linnets and added to knowledge of Linnet migration as a whole. 

The Stonechat wasn’t around today - as suspected it was a one day wonder, a common enough occurrence in March. We saw the usual Little Egrets, Stock Doves and Chaffinches but our main attention was focused on Linnets and singing Skylarks. 

We noted at least 4 Skylarks on the move with two or more in song. We even managed to catch a single Skylark, sexed as a male through its overall bulk and wing length of 115 mm – males 105 - 118, females 98 - 108. 

Skylark 

Skylark 

Linnet numbers had dropped again with a maximum of 30 today. Even so we caught 10 Linnets to push the winter total over the 150 mark. We are pretty sure few ringers elsewhere are catching wintering Linnets and we are the only ones in Lancashire and North West England.

Our ten Linnets comprised of 9 new and 1 recapture - 2 adult males, 4 second winter females and 4 second winter males. Recapture AKE3732 was ringed here at Gulf Lane on 5 February 2020. 

Linnet 

Linnet

If the weather holds we hope for one more go at the Linnets but it seems that the falling number is a sure sign that spring is on the way as the Linnets head north and west to breeding sites. 

The Jet Stream moved south this week so let's hope it stays there so that we experience some dry, warm and sunny weather for a change. 

Help!

Help.  It's looking like there will be no ringing or birding until the middle of next week.

As if this isn't bad enough I’m assaulted on all sides after posting a few doubts that according to that eminent scientist Professor Prince Charles, the Earth and life as we know it will end ten tears from tomorrow. A fellow bird blogger on the other side of the world blacklisted me because I view Extinction Rebellion as a bunch of anarchist vandals and pointed out that Doom Goblin is an emotionally damaged, traumatised child.

And then C4, BBC newsreaders and Countryfile insert into every other sentence the phrase "global warming", and I lose the will to live.  I'm old enough to remember when the BBC was a trusted institution and Countryfile was about the countryside rather than a chance to mark my Bingo card with buzz words.

"Carbon footprint", "hot weather records", "cold weather records", "drought/climate change", "floods/climate change", "CO2 emissions", "bio-fuels", "turnips", "fossil fuels", "vegan sausage roll".  House!

“We’re not going to give a platform to climate deniers,” is the current mantra from mainstream media who all agree that humans are mostly to blame for altering Earth’s climate.  “The science is settled”. 

"The Science Is Settled"

I’m neither a “denier” nor a “believer”.  I’m an ordinary open minded bloke who does his best to seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from the complexities of the climate change story. 

This post is not to debate the merits of today’s apparent consensus that humans have a decisive, apocalyptic impact on the climate. It might be correct, but there is enough doubt and curiosity in my mind to want to examine and question it; more so when it is accompanied by a fervour equivalent to religious fanaticism.  Perhaps my cynicism stems from the time as a child when my parents packed me off to Sunday afternoon Salvation Army while they found better things to do?

Funny that.  At the time I really believed in the Biblical Flood and Noah's Ark.  Fell for it hook line and sinker.  Mind you, back then I was seven or eight years old.

Noah's Ark

The point is that if someone is absolutely 100 percent convinced that there is a Climate Emergency, as evidently 99% of mainstream media do, they have a right to say their mind is settled.  But please never say the science of this or any equally complex subject is “settled.” I could quote many, many examples from ornithology where the science is ever changing and far from settled. But, leave that aside for another day. 

The crucial lesson was learned centuries ago, when something far simpler than Earth’s climate was hotly debated.  Back then the scientific community was convinced beyond doubt that the planet lay at the centre of the universe.  In the sixteenth century, Nicolaus Copernicus, a “geocentric denier,” to use today’s scornful labelling, was mocked for believing the sun was at the centre of everything. Mainstream scientists and university professors of the day decreed the science settled and justified their “evidence-based” derision of Copernicus by citing the piles of data in favour of the geocentric consensus. Tragically, if a good number of today’s “trusted sources” had been around, silly old Copernicus would not have been allowed to argue his case. 

Ditto for that other notorious geocentric denier, Galileo Galilei. In the early seventeenth century even the Catholic Church, which had long since reconciled scripture with science’s earth-centred consensus, condemned Galileo for his wayward thinking. Declaring that both science and scripture were settled, the Pope’s chief inquisitor sentenced the aged astronomer to house arrest but only after shaming him into publicly recanting his denial of geocentricism. 

Albert Einstein once faced a similar kind of lynch mob. In his day the scientific establishment believed that time and space were absolutes, and cited as incontrovertible proof a vast literature of peer-reviewed, published studies. Collectively, mainstream scientists mocked Einstein’s belief that space and time were relative. Yet, as everyone now knows, Einstein, like Copernicus, Galileo, and scores of other vindicated “deniers” over the centuries, ultimately disproved the promoted scientific consensus. 

The list is long of examples in history where scientific consensuses have been disproved. Worse - disproved only after “deniers” were crushed and destroyed for questioning nonconformist interpretations of available evidence. 

The lesson should be crystal clear. Science, the most brilliant discipline, the only method for understanding the universe, is fallible and therefore always up for debate. 

Current policy is dangerously unscientific. And so are the calls by many individuals to not just silence, but also to punish or deny a voice to anyone who dares to question the current consensus of human caused climate change. 

What these “scientists” are telling us is that a Climate Emergency will destroy the west’s economic and social ecology even though: 

• There’s no evidence that current changes in the climate are different from the fluctuations in climate over many centuries 
• The idea that a chaotic and highly complex climate can be significantly affected by anything human beings do on their tiny pinhead of a planet in a vast universe is intrinsically absurd 
• All climate forecasts are based on computer modelling which is unable to process this level of complexity and unpredictability; modelling that is also susceptible to false assumptions fed into the programmes, programmes that go on to produce false results 
• Much evidence of current environmental trends is ambiguous and contested 
• Scientists in climate-related fields can often obtain grant funding only if their research corresponds to the theory of apocalyptic anthropogenic global warming. 

Nevertheless, scientists with intellectual and moral integrity continue to challenge this bogus science with integrity, curiosity and facts. Kudos to them.

Meanwhile our old friend John Kettley just stuck his head above the BBC parapet. Lucky for him he no longer works there otherwise he would be collecting his P45 on Friday.

John Kettley

Don't worry John.  The BBC will soon become extinct too.

Little Surprise

Birders with eyes on the skies and ears to the ground will not be surprised by a RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) report that raptor persecution shows no signs of slowing down across the UK.  Are we also shocked to learn that while the figures are scandalous enough, they simply scratch the surface when many incidents go undetected and unreported? 

Another Bird Blog has alluded to this in the past when in this part of Lancashire the Common Buzzard mysteriously disappears from regular locations where countryside folk love their shoots.  Exchanges with such folk reveals a huge distaste for Buzzards, Sparrowhawks and Peregrines. In many cases the same people have little or zero knowledge of each species other than their own ingrained prejudices and misconceptions about "hook-bills". 

Buzzard 

Peregrine 

Sparrowhawk 

The RSPB revealed this week that 2018 saw 67 incidents of bird of prey persecution confirmed in England alone, equalling the previous highest in the country noted way back in 2007. These figures come as the RSPB’s Raptor Persecution Hub, originally launched in 2018, and now for the first time depicting a full 12 years' worth of confirmed raptor persecution incidents back to 2007. 

There’s an interactive map where a user can filter and search for incidents in their own locality.  The visual map makes for a better appreciation of a problem that will not go away.

RSPB - Raptor Persecution 

Over a 12-year period, 22 species of bird of prey were targeted. Species of highest conservation concern include Hen Harrier (13 incidents), Northern Goshawk (24), White-tailed Eagle (4) and Golden Eagle (14). 

Common Buzzard is the most frequently persecuted, with 428 incidents involving the species. Red Kite is in second place with 189 incidents and Peregrine Falcon - 131 in third. 

Red Kite 

Other victims include Eurasian Hobby, multiple Long-eared and Little Owls and singles of Red-footed Falcon and Eurasian Eagle-Owl. The Red-footed Falcon was well documented at the time, a well-twitched bird seen in Staffordshire and Lincolnshire before being found shot in Cambridgeshire. 

Red-footed Falcon 

There are several clear black-spots, where persecution is highly prevalent with little surprise that the majority are in areas of upland habitat, often used for driven grouse shooting: 

•  North Yorkshire accounts for more than 10% of the 1,200+ incidents over the 2007-18 period,   with   132 at an average of 11 per year. 
• Highland Scotland with 71 incidents (5.6%)
• Scottish Borders at 58 incidents (4.6%) 
• Angus at 44 incidents (3.5%) 

Shooting is the most common form of persecution with 484 confirmed such instances. Poisoning was close behind on 472. A further 194 were due to trapping of which 104 were pole/spring traps, while 30 findings were of nest destruction. 

The figures above are simply the number exposed and will have little bearing on the actual number of birds of prey targeted in the year while detection rates remain low. Mounting evidence shows that crimes against raptors are more covert as the perpetrators become more secretive in their movements. This follows the enactment of vicarious liability legislation and the increased use of satellite tags to monitor raptors and a reduction in poisoning incidents, presumably because such crimes become increasingly easy to detect. 

Buzzard 

The figures show that few areas of the UK are unaffected. It is also obvious that the highest concentration of these incidents tend to occur where the land is managed for intensive driven grouse shooting. 

The RSPB - “This data underpins the need for urgent changes which must be made to protect our magnificent birds of prey, and put an end to this appalling slaughter once and for all."

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

Another January

We’re into the third week of storms with no prospect of birding or ringing for several days. Storm Ella is lined up to be next. 

Almost every day has been so awful that I have struggled to get out birding or ringing, even for the occasional “window of opportunity”. Everyone is pretty fed up, not least those people whose homes have been flooded.  Fortunately here in coastal Lancashire, apart from fencing panels, we have escaped any serious damage, but there’s more to come from the current cycle with its misplaced and overactive jet stream.  

UK 2020 - Getty Images 

Meanwhile the Government is happy to blame so called “climate change” for the damage and destruction while muddying the waters, diverting attention from building on flood plains; or forgetting to mention the Environment Agency’s failure to properly maintain dykes, ditches and rivers because of the European Water Framework Directive 2000. Roll on 2021 when Britain becomes again an independent nation, free from the dictats of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, and when our politicians will be paid for making decisions of their own. 

For those of an enquiring mind willing to read other than mainstream media I recommend:

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/02/18/boris-tories-floods-arent-our-responsibility-blame-climate-change/

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/02/16/the-link-between-climate-change-and-britains-winter-storms-clue-there-is-not-one/

That’s the whinge over for now.  Meanwhile a few pictures from January 2011 and a holiday in sunny Egypt where we saw a somewhat limited range of species within the confines of the resort of Makadi Bay, Hurghada.  A couple of miles of beach plus 15 or so lush hotel grounds provided ample time and opportunity for birding while soaking up the winter sun. 

Makadi Bay, Egypt

 Red-throated Pipit

Bluethroat

Kingfisher

 Kestrel

Laughing Dove

Makadi Bay 

Sleepy Camel

Striated Heron

Osprey

Cattle Egret 

 Makadi Bay, Egypt

Makadi Bay, Egypt

Hooded Crow

Bluethroat

Kingfisher

Greater Sand Plover

Greenshank

Cattle Egret

We had a great time with two weeks of unbroken sunshine in the eighties when back home there would be rain, wind and whatever else the British weather might throw at us.   

I know someone who went to Hurghada just two years ago. Following terrorist atrocities in Egypt the rules are now more controlling whereby tourists are unable to leave the confines of their hotel grounds, barred even from walking into neighbouring hotel surroundings because of security concerns - such a shame.

It's raining now.  Back soon - sometime, never?

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