It’s Now Or Never

With the weather synopsis showing rain for Ringer’s Saturday, Friday morning became the now or never day. So off I went to Rawcliffe Moss hoping to finish about 1030 before the horse flies warm up and become hungry for blood.

Notable happenings this morning - the number of Goldfinches about, the continuing lack of juvenile Willow Warblers, recaptures dwindling as the breeding population thins out, and a Tawny Owl escaping from a mist net for the second time in as many weeks. The owl landed in the far end of a 60ft net as I was taking a Whitethroat from the opposite end. It looked towards me then flapped out and away before I could get anywhere near it. The nets aren’t really designed to hold large owls, but the day was early and I saw a second Tawny Owl later – read on!

The few nets kept me occupied with a decent catch of 29 birds, 27 new and just 2 recaptures, a Goldfinch and a moulting Willow Warbler. New birds: 17 Goldfinch, 5 Whitethroat 2 Willow Warblers – both moulting adults, and 1 each of Sedge Warbler, Dunnock and Chaffinch.

Sedge Warbler
Dunnock - juvenile
Chaffinch

Although moulting Willow Warblers look a bit messy this time of year with a mix of feathers old, new, worn, or missing, it is instructive to look closely at any emerging feathers. The adult below is in the process of renewing all flight feathers, with the tail colouration and shape a useful diagnostic feature with which to separate adults from juveniles later in the season when both newly moulted adults and fresh juveniles look very similar.

Willow Warbler – adult tail

The Goldfinch bills now betray the fact they extract seed from plants, but whether the black deposit is from our Niger seed I don’t know.

Goldfinch

Other birds seen this morning: 15 Tree Sparrow, 2 Yellowhammer, 2 Corn Bunting, 4 Skylark, 2 Buzzard, 45 Goldfinch, 120+ Lapwings on newly cut fields, and 2 Tawny Owls. Yes, the other Tawny I found on my way home, and that leaf just wouldn’t blow out of the way, but it rather made up for the earlier miss. Maybe I'll do a bit of gardening, prune that little branch and remove the overhead leaves just in case it decides to sit there another day?

Tawny Owl

Rush Job

The blog post is a bit of a hurried job this evening because I promised to push the boat out and take the better half for a meal at the exotic and expensive Knott End Steak House. So while Sue locates the bus passes, here‘s a quick summary from Pilling today and a few new, but not very good photographs.

At Lane Ends: Tufted Duck with 5 young, 3 Little Grebe, Chiffchaff, Reed Warbler and Willow Warbler. The 3 Kestrel siblings from recent days were moving between here and Pilling Water, with much interaction between them.

Lane Ends to Pilling Water: A surprise bird at PW was a Great-spotted Woodpecker frequenting the fence posts along the sea wall for a while before it flew off towards the distant trees of Lane Ends. Otherwise, 3 Little Egret, 5 Common Sandpiper, 40 Swallow, 3 Sand Martin, 12 House Martin and 5 Swift.

Sand Martin
Great-spotted Woodpecker
Swallow
Kestrel

The finch, lark pipit and wagtail count today: 45 Linnet, 18 Greenfinch, 6 Goldfinch, 14 Skylark, 6 Meadow Pipit and 14 alba wagtail, all seemingly Pied Wagtails.

Linnet
Wader and “others” count: 485 +Curlew, 15 Redshank, 120 Lapwing, 8 Oystercatcher, 18 Shelduck, 10 Cormorant, 1 male Sparrowhawk.

Lapwing

I ringed the latest brood of Skylarks yesterday, that’s 11 youngsters now from 3 nests. Let’s hope the the Evil Operator, Carrion Crow doesn’t find those nests before the youngsters fledge.

Carrion Crow
Skylark nest

Tomorrow looks like a bit of a ringing morning and an early start – I hope the last bus from Knott End is on time tonight.

More Pilling

A change of tactics today meant I washed a few weeks’ worth of muck from the car in the morning and left a walk until the afternoon; and I know I work Pilling close to death but it’s still the local patch that holds the ever present optimism for new discoveries. Today I split most of my precious few hours between watching a newly arrived Wheatear and observing the Skylarks and their territories.

The first find was not a disappointment, a very juvenile, scaly Wheatear, fresh in from goodness knows where as it sat on a post below the sea wall. It took thirty minutes of gentle persuasion before it finally saw the meal worm in the spring trap, then bingo, I took a closer look. With a wing length of 99mm and more growth to come in the next few weeks the bird was almost certainly a male, but could be of either the nominate race Oenanthe oenanthe, or the Greenland race O.o. leucorhoa.

Wheatear
Wheatear - juvenile

The area around Pilling Water was much the same as recent days, 40 Linnet, 18 Greenfinch, 8 Goldfinch and 4 Meadow Pipit, with 4 Common Sandpiper and 3 Grey Heron along the outflow. It was good to see the young Kestrels have finally emerged from the Damside nest box, with 3 birds together, alternating between hunting the silage fields, fence hopping below the sea wall and exploring the outer marsh.

Kestrel - juvenile

The next discovery was another Skylark nest to add to the one yesterday. This latest nest was just a couple of yards from the still visible remains of a previous nest where I ringed the chicks on 7th June, so this new one is almost certainly a second brood from the same parents. Today’s nest was at a handy stage whereby the three youngsters were an ideal size to ring, feathers just emerging from their sheaths and legs fully formed. Because of a Skylark’s almost completely open nesting situation, only a few leaves of vegetation overhanging the nest, the straw coloured downy growth of motionless chicks makes perfect camouflage against overhead predators.

I also checked out yesterday’s Skylark nest but from a distance, and found the parents still visiting with food, so all should be OK for more Skylark ringing tomorrow and yet another Pilling visit.

Skylark nest
Skylark chick

It’s A Lark

With a couple of hours to spare this morning I snuck out to Pilling to see what’s new. It was a good start when as I approached Lane Ends 2 Sparrowhawks were circling over the trees, then as I drove into the car park I heard a Chiffchaff singing from the plantation.

On the path to Pilling Water I saw that the next door farmer was cutting his silage fields, making hay in the morning sun, but a Lapwing wasn’t happy about him or me, and I realised there was a late brood of youngsters close by. I spotted three well grown chicks running along behind the sea wall and managed to locate two of them crouching in the grass. I always carry a selection of ring sizes and pliers in my camera bag, so quickly ringed them and let them join the escapee.

Lapwing

Along and out of Pilling Water I counted 7 Pied Wagtail, 5 Redshank, 5 Oystercatcher, 4 Common Sandpiper, 55 more Lapwings, 1 Greenshank and a Little-ringed Plover, with herons represented by 2 Little Egret and 3 Grey Heron. The finch flock was more scattered today but I still found 45 Linnet, 14 Greenfinch and 8 Goldfinch, with a token count of 3 Meadow Pipit. My count of hirundines came to 40 Swallow, 10 House Martin and 3 Swift. Strictly speaking swifts are not swallow-like at all, but are almost always included in birders' counts of mixed swallows and martins.

Swallow

To add to the find of a Skylark nest a few weeks ago, I located another this morning up near Fluke Hall, in a spot where Skylarks have sung all spring and summer. The nest may be a second attempt, or most likely a second brood, but the three young were too small for a ring and will have to wait until Wednesday when their legs are a little better formed.

Skylark nest
Skylark

So for a bit of fun ID-ing, here’s a couple of different larks looking somewhat similar, Thekla Lark and Crested Lark, both confusable with each other, and each with Skylark possibly, especially as they inhabit similar landscapes. Fortunately the three species don’t occur together much in the UK, and certainly not at Pilling on a Monday morning.

Thekla Lark
Crested Lark

Morning Edition

Our Rawcliffe Moss morning started just perfect for a ringing session, no wind, 100% cloud and no rain. All that Will and I needed to complete the picture was a decent number of birds of a good variety; by the time we packed in at 11am after a six hour stint we had met or even exceeded our target, with one or two favourite species like Reed Bunting, Sedge Warbler and Garden Warbler included in the overall catch.

In all we caught 52 birds of 9 species with a good selection of warblers and finches, 44 new birds and 8 recaptures. New birds: 12 Whitethroat, 12 Goldfinch, 8 Willow Warbler, 3 Reed Bunting, 2 Blackcap, 2 Blackbird, 2 Sedge Warbler, 2 Great Tit and 1 Garden Warbler. Recaptures: 3 Sedge Warbler, 2 Willow Warbler, 2 Whitethroat and 1 Great Tit.

After a few weeks of waiting for fresh juveniles to appear we made up ground today with 34 of the 52 captures being birds of the year. However, as in recent weeks juvenile Willow Warblers remain scarce, with upon closer examination just three of our ten today proving to be juveniles, and the remaining seven adults each in a stage of their full feather renewal.

Blackcap - juvenile
Reed Bunting - juvenile
Reed Bunting - juvenile
Garden Warbler - juvenile
Sedge Warbler - juvenile

It’s still early July so migration for small passerines is somewhat invisible, more post breeding dispersal than true “vis mig”, but we added to recent sightings of moving Siskins with a party of 17 birds flying high and south about mid-morning.

Otherwise our sightings were: 100+ Swallow feeding over nearby fields, 10+ House Martin, 2 Swift, 30+ Lapwing, 3 Oystercatcher, 2 Corn Bunting, 2 Skylark, 4 Stock Dove and 2+ Buzzard.

Stock Dove

Double Report

There’s not an awful lot to mention from this morning’s birding except returning waders stealing the limelight, as they often do in July, when they are usually more obvious and easier to seek out than skulking, moulting warblers hiding in thick, summery vegetation.

The morning started with a Barn Owl again at 0730, one of the Burned House Lane birds patrolling the fields next to the Z bends with the double white lines; so I daren’t stop, but instead glanced left then motored on to Pilling for my morning walk.

At Pilling Water I approached the wildfowler’s pools with care as birds are often tucked below the bank, unseen until a body is too close, and then as if to prove it, 11 bright-plumaged, fresh in from Iceland Black-tailed Godwits flew noisily off before I could drop any lower onto the open ground that surrounds the pools. The godwits caused 5 Oystercatchers and 3 Redshanks to fly off, but a single Little-ringed Plover stayed on the pool, together with a Common Sandpiper and a couple of Lapwings. We associate Little-ringed Plovers with the stony margins of water courses but on migration they aren’t that fussy.

Black-tailed Godwit
Little-ringed Plover

On the outer part of Broadfleet and the surrounding marsh I counted another 4 Common Sandpiper, 70+ Lapwing, 22 Redshank, 40+ Curlew and 2 Grey Heron. My passerine count was almost identical to recent days with 8 Goldfinch, 6 Greenfinch, 8 Pied Wagtail and 2 Meadow Pipit, with still the Linnet flock but their numbers now increased to a healthy looking 60+ birds.

Linnet
Meadow Pipit

I’ve been looking for a Wheatear for a week now without any success but finally found one today on the stones below the sea wall but it didn’t hang around the spot to take my meal worm, and instead carried on in the direction of Fluke Hall.

I just sat quietly on the stile minding my own business when three Carrion Crows pointed me in the direction of a Stoat, running towards me on the landward side of the sea wall. The crows harried the Stoat from above, calling and drawing attention to the little predator, but when it spotted me it turned tail then ran back to where it had come from, before eventually disappearing into the long grass. Stoats are fairly frequent along here, making a living from bunnies and other small animals, carrion and probably ground nesting birds. I’ve missed a few photo opportunities lately when the creatures have spotted me on their route ahead, and I hope one day soon to meet face to face again with the engaging little creature.

Stoat

In contrast to my lack of numbers birding, the latest totals from our Fylde Ringing Group is that we ringed another 265 birds in June, more in fact than in both January and February, but a lesser total than the migration months of March, April or May. More than half of June’s 265 birds were accounted for by 110 Tree Sparrow youngsters from nest boxes and 36 Swallow chicks. Pied Flycatchers came in third place with a total of 27 birds, a small number of adults but mainly nestlings. Now we are all looking forward to the birds of autumn time!

A Tale Of Two Halves

Another shower-dodging, breezy morning saw me try my luck at Conder Green where I bumped into PW on the windswept viaduct. We chatted briefly whilst both looking west at the incoming clouds and bemoaning the summer, watched the local House Martins battling over the salt marsh, then went our separate ways with better luck we hoped.

On the pool and creek I counted 1 Grey Heron, 9 Common Sandpiper, 2 Spotted Redshank, 4 Greenshank, 2 Black-tailed Godwits, 55 Redshank, 12 Oystercatcher and 5 Curlew before I headed south to more familiar territory of Pilling. If only our locally occurring Greenshanks were as accommodating as the few I saw in Egypt.

Greenshank
Oystercatcher

At Lane Ends the sky to the west looked dark to say the least as I set off to Pilling Water thinking the rain had moved around and north out over the bay; no such luck as I got the tail end of a heavy shower and a good soaking in exchange for 1 Reed Warbler, 40 Linnets, 1 Greenfinch, 2 Kestrel, 5 Pied Wagtail, 3 Common Sandpipers, 1 Grey Heron, 28 Curlew, 18 Redshank and 80 Lapwings.

A Pilling Sky

I called it a morning, drying out at home then did a little garden ringing pm when the wind dropped and the showers died out. Goldfinches are back in numbers for the irresistible Niger feed and I also caught 3 Blackbirds – adult female and 2 juveniles, one of them in the stages of growing its blacker male tail feathers. Also 2 Wrens and a juvenile Robin – the fault bar mid-way through the tail tells a tale of changeable food availability of late.

Goldfinch - adult
Goldfinch- juvenile
Blackbird - juvenile
Blackbird - juvenile male
Wren
Robin - juvenile
Robin- juvenile