Knott The Arctic

This morning the Knott End pack ice resembled a scene from a Spitsbergen travelogue. From the esplanade I pencilled 1100 Oystercatchers in my notebook but wasn’t entirely sure if I should be on the lookout for Polar Bears too.

Oystercatcher

The Twite flock was bigger this morning at 80+ mobile birds, unable to find the seed put out for them that now lies buried under the ice and snow. The Rock Pipit was around near the jetty again, plus a Song Thrush, a refuge from the café garden, and then 6 overflying Skylark closely followed by a single Lapwing looking for something green and unfrozen. As the tide ran in I counted 135 Shelduck on the water, plus 4 Wigeon.

Shelduck

Wader numbers were similar to yesterday with 60 Redshank, 30 Ringed Plover, 13 Turnstone and 35 Knot.

Knot
Knot
Ringed Plover

In places you do have to tread carefully because the cryptically feathered Turnstones can go unnoticed and fly off before they are spotted. Even their white belly is useful in the snowy terrain.

Knot, Turnstone
Turnstone

There were the usual gulls hanging around for a free meal from the parked cars. There is simply no unfrozen fresh water about now, and I watched a Common Gull scoop up snow as a substitute.

Common Gull
Common Gull
Common Gull

Here's a picture of the Black-headed Gull from yesterday, the new temporary header that I have vowed will stay there until the arctic weather goes elsewhere.

Black-headed Gull

On Ice

With any plans for ringing literally "on ice" there were two places on my keep moving itinerary this morning, a look at Lane Ends followed by a walk along Knott End promenade for the incoming midday tide.

I didn’t hang around at Lane Ends, where standing around for more than few minutes invited hypothermia, but walked the sea wall to Pilling Water then back to the car park on the lookout for just about anything that still survives the extreme weather. Whooper Swans this morning, about 140, then quick, rough counts of 550 Shelduck, 400 Teal, 180 Wigeon, 40 Lapwing, 25 Curlew and 15 or so Redshank. Of the small birds I still found 40 or more Skylarks and 5 Meadow Pipits braving the elements but nothing else save the Blackbirds, Robins and Dunnocks that survive around the car park.

It was a good bright morning and I thought I might have better luck with the tide and waders at Knott End where the ice and snow covered the beach, foreshore, the walkways and the jetty. It didn’t take long to find a good but not especially numerous selection of waders either roosting or feeding, but I was careful not to disturb them nor venture too far onto the treacherous icy surfaces.

Ringed Plover
Knot, Turnstone
Grey Plover, Redshank, Dunlin, Turnstone, Knot
Redshank
Turnstone
Knot
Redshank

For the record my counts were 30 Turnstone, 1 Grey Plover, 48 Redshank, 22 Knot, 14 Ringed Plover and 3 Oystercatcher.

A few Shelduck in amongst the ice floes sailed past the end of the jetty, as they looked for food at the tide edges.

Shelduck

Also along the foreshore were approximately 45 Twite and a single Rock Pipit.

Twite

I’d spent an hour or more taking pictures and I was pretty much frozen to the core so headed home for a hot drink and a sit down in the warmth, unlike the birds I’d just seen.

Black Red

Winter officially begins December 21, 2010 with the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. Well I’ve had enough of winter already, sick of the ice and snow, so roll on the longer days of January, February and March I say.

In Cyprus back in the warmth of November I took quite a lot of photographs of Black Redstarts. Because of the rubbish weather again today, and in the absence of any birding it seems a shame to waste those images by keeping them on the PC.

For anyone that isn’t aware, the Black Redstart is a surprisingly scarce UK species whereby the breeding population may be about 100 pairs only. Since about 1900 the UK population grew to include urban habitats that resembled their ancestral habitat of mountainous stony ground. Both during and after World War Two this included bombed areas, and then in subsequent years the species also colonised large industrial complexes that have the bare areas and cliff-like buildings it favours; in the UK, most of the small breeding population nowadays nests in industrialised areas.

Black Redstarts appeared very numerous in Cyprus, not entirely surprising as the species is a common winter visitor from October through to February. These birds are mainly of the European race Phoenicurus ochruros gibraltariensis which breeds in the bulk of Europe and east to Ukraine and Crimea, with the area of the Mediterranean Sea the main wintering area, and a small number of birds as far south and east as Egypt and the Middle East. So it looks like I will be reacquainted with more black reds when in Egypt next year.

During the latter part of November of all the dozens of Black Redstarts I saw, all were of similar appearance: Upperparts of grey-brown with brown, smoky/dusky washed underparts from the throat that merged gradually into a paler washed belly and a whitish vent area. It was often surprisingly difficult to see the orange-buff of the undertail, but easy to pick the actual birds out from way off due to their characteristic jizz, shimmering tail and sometimes surprisingly loud alarm calls. Of course by November juveniles of the year will greatly outnumber adults, and I thought that on most occasions I was watching a bird of the year. Additionally, from about August first year males have an almost identical appearance to the duller female, and the whitish wing panel of this western subspecies does not develop until the second year. In one or two of my photos there are the visible remains of a nestling’s yellow gape, and in the extended summers of parts of Europe this feature is perhaps to be expected in November.

Unfortunately, with one exception, a confiding hotel garden bird seen here, the redstarts weren’t too easy to approach, like most species on the well-hunted, rather infamous island.

I hope these photos today helped to gain a few more admirers for Black Reds. Meanwhile I'm keeping fingers crossed for birding or ringing soon.

Snowbirds

It was about minus 10 or 12 degrees this morning, ice on top of layers of frost and hard-packed snow. Not the best weather for driving down some of the out-of-the-way lanes that birders like to go, but the sun was up and after yesterday I needed fresh air. I negotiated slippy, Smithy Lane, where gritting wagons never venture, reached the main road without mishap then headed towards Lane Ends. At the junction of Wheel Lane by the stubble fields 15 Fieldfare and 6 Redwing vied with a couple of Blackbirds for the remaining hawthorn berries, skitting across the road as my approaching car crunched noisily over the ice and snow - not easy trying to use the car as a hide today.

Approximately 130 Whooper Swans were in the field, merged into the white backdrop, waiting for the strong sun and their paddling about to thaw the icy flash. They came and went quickly to head just inland, out of sight where they have another refuge. Once I got to Lane Ends I revised my count to a combined 265 Whoopers as there were more of them on the distant marsh, some halfway to Cockersands so far away were they.

Whooper Swan
Whooper Swan

Lane Ends was bitterly cold and unsurprisingly, no one there apart from a second insane family birder, another PS braving the elements. I left him scanning the marsh and headed off to Pilling Water for a warming walk even though I didn’t expect to see a lot.

At the outflow ditch that is the famous water I found 8 Skylark, 350 Teal, 120 Wigeon, 8 Shelduck, 400 Mallard and a Reed Bunting gamely hanging on. The cold weather has made tighter flocks of Jackdaws, and I counted a noisy 450 between the water and Fluke Hall where they make the most of leftovers from the shooter’s wildfowl food. The duck were pretty active, mainly because of a Peregrine that flew at them a couple of times without success before it went out to the edge of the marsh. On the way back to Lane Ends I watched a single Kestrel hunt the fence line ahead of me, but both frozen pools and the woodland were deserted apart from a few Blackbirds and now semi-tame Woodpigeon, so that was about it for my meagre efforts.

At home I dug out more apples from the freezer, blitzed them in the microwave then chopped them up with a hoe in a quarter-bucket of bird seed and fat balls. The birds enjoyed the mixture and I hope it helps a few more survive the promise of continued cold weather. Here are a few more pictures of birds in the snow and ice. When we take the time and trouble to look, aren’t garden birds just ace?

Fieldfare
Fieldfare
Song Thrush
Blackbird

Chaffinch
Starling
Collared Dove
Brambling
Redwing

Yuk!

Here we were happy with zero snow, and then last night it came with a vengeance when the wind went westerly to blow the white stuff in from the Irish Sea instead of sending it down to Wales. So to answer one of my reader’s questions yesterday, we rarely get any up here on the north-west coast of Lancashire, but last night we got about 5cm. That’s nothing like the quantity they get up in Maine USA, where the last time I passed through the Airport on my way to some Caribbean sunshine, there were 2 metre high drifts alongside the runway.

So I stayed around this morning, caught up with paperwork and IPMR and took a few photographs of birds in the newly snowed back garden where I dumped more apples and bird seed.

A couple of Redwings spent the morning at the far end of the garden in the holly trees where they took the last of the berries.

Redwing
Redwing
Redwing

The Redwings neatly avoided the Starlings whereby the shy thrushes would have lost out against the voracious beasts.

Starling

There was only one Collared Dove this morning but it posed for me.

Collared Dove

The Goldfinch didn’t turn up this morning, just the Chaffinches.

Chaffinch
Chaffinch

The Blue Tit came frequently but didn’t hang around, unlike a couple of “Lottis” that hung on my fat balls briefly.

Long-tailed Tit
Blue Tit
And what is the season of cheer without a good old British Robin?

Robin

Grammie G, it may not be up to Maine’s excesses but this is what I woke up to today. With a bit of luck it will all disappear overnight and I can get out ringing tomorrow.

Yuk!