Two Cautionary Tales

The Yellowhammer Eberiza citrinella is one of my favourite birds; I have many. Very often my favourite birds boil down to those I have grown to admire and respect after witnessing their decline over many years of birdwatching. Readers of this blog will be familiar with other species I mention frequently here - Lapwing and Corn Bunting to name but two. These three, plus a number of others are British species which dangle by a population thread thanks to the horrors of modern farming,  increased disturbance from an expanding human population and uncontrolled predators. Our once green and pleasant land is being trashed like never before in the name of the of  “economic progress”.

I recently watched a Yellowhammer on top of a fence post singing its melancholic “little bit of bread and no cheese”. It carried on singing until fatherly duties drew it back to the rough field where the female would be sat tight on her second lot of eggs. Yellowhammers nest low down in a bush, but sometimes on the ground. Yellowhammers are known to sing quite late in the year, sometimes into September. Also the male sings more frequently when the female is actually incubating. 

Yellowhammer

 

The sight and sound was a “blast from the past”, welcome for sure as I don’t see or hear the Yellowhammer much these days after a more than 30% decline in 25 years. Those aren’t my figures but highly optimistic and nationally calculated ones. The decline in our local farmland is more like 80%, and still plunging downwards, observations based on many years of field work, bird ringing and generally being an inquisitive but sceptical bugger about statistics offered up by experts. This is  especially so where localised factors come into play that are not picked up by overall trends.

Yellowhammer

The Yellowhammer population was pretty stable until the late 1980’s when the present decline began until it is now “red listed” as an endangered species within the UK. The reasons for the decline are many faceted with the major culprit being agricultural intensification: 

• the mismanagement/destruction of hedgerows and associated field margins 
• a decrease in late summer cereal crops/substitution with grass/silage crops and subsequent loss of winter stubble 
• more efficient grain collection with less “spillage” and less grain left on the ground for seed eating birds 
• increased use of pesticides to remove weeds and insects 
• woodland planting along fringe habitats and the resulting decrease in suitable breeding sites for an open-area species 
• increased predation from corvids  and others
• urbanisation/fragmentation of habitat

It's an all too familiar story I'm afraid. 

And here’s tale number two, also concerning the Yellowhammer. As so often happens there follows a familiar story of man's interference with the laws of nature established during millions of years of evolution. 

The Yellowhammer, a bird native to the British Isles was many years ago introduced to a set of islands on the other side of the world - New Zealand. 

The population of New Zealand settlers in the middle 19th century grew fast. The same was true for insect crop pests, particularly caterpillars and black field crickets. Normally, pests like these would be kept under control by insectivorous birds. However, New Zealand had none available for the job because the settlers had cleared away New Zealand's forests and native birds disappeared with them.

 Yellowhammer

In the circumstances introducing insectivorous birds from England seemed to make sense. Yet, the bird species chosen by the Acclimatisation Societies, organisations founded specifically to introduce new animals and plants to New Zealand for the task included some surprises, with the Yellowhammer one of the biggest. It is well known to us today that this heavy-billed bunting is primarily a consumer of seeds rather than insects, but it seems it was not so evident back then. 

Yellowhammer

During the 1860's and 1870's, 25 ships set out from London to various ports around New Zealand with these birds on board. Some were ordered by Acclimatisation Societies, some were sent for privately. A quarter of these shipments were organised by one family, Bills & sons from Brighton, and many of the Yellowhammers came from the area around the Sussex coast. 

A scientific journal (NeoBiota) used newspapers and documents from the 19th century to reconstruct the history of how the Yellowhammer went from hero to villain in New Zealand in just 15 years. The detective work by the scientists not only identified where the Yellowhammers came from, but also where they ended up. They were able to pinpoint localities of release, and sometimes even how many birds were liberated there. 

Yellowhammers were initially warmly welcomed by the Kiwis but soon local farmers started to complain about the Yellowhammers’ taste for their cereal crops. The complaints fell on deaf ears as the Acclimatisation Societies with Government support continued to promote the introduction of Yellowhammers. In 1880 the last shipment of Yellowhammers arrived but these birds were never set free. Public pressure forced the Acclimatisation Society to get rid of them, and they were sent to Australia. 

From then on, Yellowhammers became the target of shooting, egg-collection, and poisoning. All means were allowed to rid the countryside of this now unwelcome guest. By then it was too late: Yellowhammers were well and truly Kiwis, and they remain common and widespread in New Zealand to this day. 

Yellowhammer

Who knows, pretty soon we may be asking our Kiwi cousins to return some of our Yellowhammers? If we as a nation continue down the route of destroying our wildlife heritage we sure as hell won’t have any of our own Yellowhammers left to sing of their "little bit of bread and no cheese".

Friday Flights

Friday began with a Barn Owl flying across Head Dyke Lane a hundred yards or more in front of the car. By the time I reached the spot the owl was nowhere to be seen so I didn’t hang about. There should be plenty of Barn Owl sightings soon. 

At Wrampool there was a Kestrel hanging about the set aside field together with a handful of Linnets and Tree Sparrows. Maybe the Kestrel was hoping to grab an unwary bird when it sped low across the crop a couple of times before returning to its base of the roadside trees. The Kestrel was an adult female but as mentioned recently, Kestrels seem scarce this year and this autumn I have yet to see a juvenile. 

At Conder Pool I found both Avocets on the pool, the adult and a still unfledged juvenile. A number of times the adult flew off to the creeks to feed and left the youngster on the pool margins where it continued to feed alone. Soon it will be ready for lift-off into adulthood. 

Avocet

Otherwise there was little change of both species and counts from recent visits with 140+ Lapwing, 35 Redshank, 5 Common Sandpiper, 4 Oystercatcher, 20+ Curlew, 6 Little Grebe, 2 Wigeon, 2 Little Egret, 1 Grey Heron, 1 Goosander, 6 Pied Wagtail, 12 Linnet and 2 Stock Dove. 

Little Egret

A notable absentee today was Greenshank, with not a one found, whereas a single juvenile Shelduck was the first I had seen for many a long week. 

Shelduck

 

The Shelduck, a bird of sheltered estuaries or tidal mudflats breeds in Great Britain & Ireland and has a well-defined moult migration. Most Shelduck fly east between late July and early September and head for the Helgoland Bight in the Waddensea, where they join birds from Scandinavia and the Baltic. Others remain and moult on North Sea estuaries, such as the Firth of Forth and the Wash. As a result of this migration there are very few of them around this part of Lancashire during August. In stark contrast to this situation, come mid-winter there are many hundreds along our local shores and estuaries. 

Over Glasson village there was a concentration of 30+ noisy and excitable Swifts but otherwise a handful of Swallows over the marina/yacht basin.

View across The Lune from Bodie Hiill, Glasson

Things were pretty quiet so I made my way to Knott End again. I’ve been there a couple of times this week to watch the tide in and look out for terns. 

It’s a good time of year to see Sandwich Terns and Common/Arctic Terns when they roost on the flat sands at times of high tides, taking a rest from feeding in the near Irish Sea. The Sarnies  originate from a mix of locations in Scotland, Wales and Cumbria with their normal peak migration in mid-August when in some years up to a couple of hundred may be seen at Knott End, a favoured site. 

Before the terns began to appear I walked up river and counted 2 Grey Heron, 2 Little Egret, 300+ Oystercatchers , 1 Redshank, 140 Dunlin and 5 Pied Wagtails. The Sandwich Terns obviously peaked earlier in the week because I counted less than a dozen today compared to 150+ at the beginning of the week and then 49 on Wednesday. On each occasion I noted approximately 25% of juveniles, black& brown mottled birds of the year. 

Sandwich Terns

In the UK as a whole Sandwich Terns have shown a decline in productivity since 2000 when they fledged a record number of chicks. In the 14 years prior to 2000 it could be argued that productivity showed no clear trend, although in 1991 and between 1997 and 1999 it was particularly low. Few chicks fledged in these years due to bad weather, predation and disturbance by a variety of mammals and gulls, with food shortage implicated at only one colony. Predation on eggs and chicks by foxes Vulpes vulpes is probably the most prevalent factor determining productivity, and abandonment of a colony is often the result of predation. Nature reserve managers use electric fences to exclude foxes, which are not always successful. As Sandwich Terns nest on low-lying ground close to the tide edge, their nests are vulnerable to tidal inundation.  

"With about 12,500 Apparently Occupied Nests in 2009 the Sandwich Tern is currently identified as Amber listed in Birds of Conservation Concern" - jncc.defra.gov.uk.

Sandwich Tern productivity 1986-2014 - jncc.defra.gov.uk

Further to Monday’s post on Another Bird Blog, a review of "Britain's Birds", I hear that demand for the book has already outstripped supply and that delivery times may have to be lengthened. Just as well those blog readers were amongst the first to read my recommendation to buy and hopefully they won’t have to wait too long for their own copy of this fine field guide.

Linking today to I'd Rather Be Birding and Eileen's Saturday Blog.

Britain’s Birds. A Book Review.

Birders love their collections of field guides, generally added to or updated on each trip to some far flung corner of the world or when a new version of an old favourite is announced. Birders also like to debate the pros and cons of either an artwork or a photographic field guide and usually come down fairly and squarely in favour of one style or the other. Their preference was thrown into yet more debate in recent years by the innovative Crossley guides that sit between the two camps. 

If an opinion poll existed my guess would be that most birders favour artwork guides, so it will be interesting to see how the birding community receive a new and entirely photographic guide to the birds of the UK. The book in the spotlight today is Britain’s Birds: An Identification Guide to the Birds of Britain and Ireland by Rob Hume, Robert Still, Andy Swash, Hugh Harrop & David Tipling. Published by Princeton University Press, the book is due for launch at BirdFair 2016 and for general release in mid August. 

Britain's Birds - Princeton University Press

Via Princeton’s pre-publicity I read that the book measures just 6” by 8” and contains 3,300 colour photos within its 560 pages. My immediate thought was that the authors would do well to squeeze the requisite information into the available space and I was more than keen to see the finished article. When I first unpacked Britain’s Birds it was obvious that here was a hefty piece of work. It tipped the scales at 1200 grams, making it a candidate for inclusion in a large rucksack containing all the essentials of modern birding - cameras, lenses, a pager, a Smartphone, a large supply of Snickers and a can of Coke. 

After the obligatory Contents followed by advice on how to use the book there is a handy feature at pages 8-13 by way of thumbnail pictures of “Types of Birds”. These smaller pictures direct the reader to the most likely eventual page to find the full account of the species they are looking for. This is clearly a useful idea, especially for novice birders, but the process could never be fool proof. This is especially true in the case of “perching birds” that loose collection of birds which present so many pitfalls of ID to a beginner wondering whether a bird is for instance, a “warbler”, “bunting”, “flycatcher” or “crest”. For more experienced birders this initial selection process is unimportant but for a novice it is often a crucial step fraught with difficulties; I congratulate the authors for incorporating this idea into the book. I can see these six pages being a great help to many a budding birder. 

My own experience is that novice birders shy away from artwork guides as if the birds depicted are in some way “not real”, which is true enough, however good the artwork may be. If a purely photographic guide like Britain’s Birds makes birds more accessible to people starting out on the birding trail then that is all to the good. 

A pleasing element of Britain’s Birds is the way the species accounts are arranged in a user friendly order rather than the strict taxonomic order of many field guides, a mysterious system which flummoxes so many starting out in birding. But now in Britain’s Birds the freer list allows “Large waterside birds” to include herons, bitterns, egrets, ibis, spoonbill, cranes and storks. And Hooray! At last we have a field guide where swifts, swallows and martins appear more sensibly together under the heading “Aerial feeders”. 

The pages devoted to each species are occasionally double spread which helps to even out the load of the detailed information about identification, size, variety of plumages, voice descriptions etc. However the design of all of the pages including single sheets that cover a species remains uncrowded and allows the photographs centre stage. Distribution maps in the right hand corner of each page are of necessity small (60x40cm) in order to fit the available space. I have some reservations about the accuracy of a few species I know well locally, e.g. Cetti’s Warbler, Lesser-spotted Woodpecker and Corn Bunting, but in general the maps seem truly representative and accurate given the ever changing but mostly declining numbers and status of so many UK species. 

In “Acknowledgements and photographic credits” the authors tell us that Britain’s Birds was ten years from conception to completion, a mammoth piece of work that required a phenomenal amount of time and effort from the authors. As we might expect given the many advances in digital photography in recent years, the 3,300 photographs from 251 photographers are without exception of very good, even exceptional quality, sharp in focus and reproduced with true to life colours. The combined efforts of both authors and photographers paid off big style in Britain’s Birds which sets a new benchmark in photographic field guides that will be hard to beat. 

Britain’s Birds lives up to the pre-publication claims by being bang up to date with the inclusion of everyday species, races, vagrants, rarities, together with both category D and E species. The book is comprehensive, user friendly and jam-packed with essential information on status, populations, distribution and conservation. For those who like to browse, there are many high quality photographs to admire. I recommend it to readers of Another Bird Blog as a book they must buy. My already well-thumbed copy is now in a safe but handy place for quick reference. 

 

Britain's Birds -  Princeton University Press

Produced to Princeton’s usual exacting standards this is a fine book and something of a steal at £19.95 or $35 direct from Princeton University Press or slightly less from Amazon.

Amazon has a number of turn-over pages where potential buyers can see a selection of actual pages before they buy. I predict that few people will not choose to buy Britain's Birds resulting in a large demand - best to order it quick.

Linking this post to World Bird Wednesday.

Overground And Underground

I set off this morning just in time to see a spectacular sunrise appear over Cockerham. Our west coast of Lancashire has remarkable sunsets also but there’s something very special about the light of a new day dawning over misty fields. 

A Cockerham Dawn

As usual I was on my way to Conder Green where with luck and more than a little perseverance it is possible to see a good selection of birds. I wouldn’t be disappointed, especially as the regular Barn Owl was doing the rounds of the road and the marsh at a steady 20 or so mph in trying to evade my camera and the odd vehicle that came by, even at 0600. 

Barn Owl

The usual birds graced the pool and the nearby creeks with waders at 90+ Lapwings, 30+ Redshank, 14 Oystercatcher, 5 Common Sandpiper, 2 Avocet, 2 Greenshank and 1 Dunlin. In the egret and heron department were the customary 3 Little Egret and a single Grey Heron, the numbers of both yet to show any real increase this autumn. 

Common Sandpiper

Tufted Duck have been present all spring and summer in fours, fives and sixes with the appearance today of a single brood of tiny young. With just three in tow the female has considerably less than the 10 or so ducklings more typical of the species immediately after nesting. The female flew in alone from over the canal calling to the youngsters as she landed that the coast was clear. The chicks quickly left  their hiding place in bankside vegetation and joined mum on the water. 

Tufted Duck

Other wildfowl seen - 6 Little Grebe, 2 Wigeon, 1 Teal and 1 Goosander. Four Swift flew around briefly and I suspect they were migrants as overall Swift numbers are down in the past week or two. How soon does summer change to autumn.

A quick look at Glasson Dock revealed several Coot, 6 Tufted Duck, a single Great Crested Grebe, and 2 Common Terns fishing both the dock and the yacht basin. 

I drove back over Stalmine Moss where I followed the song of a Yellowhammer, an increasingly scarce farmland bird which has reached almost celebrity status with local birders. A yellow male was singing from a fence post with a browner bird flying off as I approached the spot. 

Stalmine Moss

Yellowhammer

I stopped to watch a pair of Buzzard circling overhead but then noticed what looked like a small animal immobile in the centre of the carriageway. It was a very fresh but also very dead Mole. 

Mole - Talpa europaea

The Mole Talpa europaea is one of the most common and widespread of mammals in the UK, but because it spends most of its life in the tunnels which it digs, it is rarely seen. For most people, it is the familiar sight of molehills of soil in woods and fields and even on lawns which is their only experience of these secretive animals. 

Moles are only about 15cm long, but have stout forearms and broad front paws with strong claws which give the animal its ability to tunnel so effectively underground. Their bodies are roughly cylindrical with no neck and a pointed nose, and they are covered in thick, dark fur. 

A Mole’s diet mainly consists of earthworms, but they also feed on beetles and other insects, even baby mice and occasionally shrews if they come upon them while on the surface. A mole needs to eat the equivalent of its own bodyweight each day. In autumn they make a store of hundreds of earthworms to last them through the winter. The worms are usually chewed off at the front end so they cannot crawl away, but remain alive and so provide fresh food for several months. 

Moles are not blind, as most people believe. They do have eyes and internal ears, but these are very small to prevent them being clogged up and damaged during tunnelling. Although they can see, the mole’s eyesight is poor, with no ability to detect colours, just light from dark and movement. However, the mole has a special weapon to help it find other animals underground - an area of bare pink skin on the snout covered in tiny pimples that detect movement and the scents of prey and other moles. 

Large molehills mark the position of a nest, sometimes known as a “castle”. A line of small molehills marks the direction of a deep tunnel while a continuous line of earth marks a very shallow tunnel. Moles are considered as pests where they damage lawns and fields that farmers like to see flat. Many methods are used to try to eradicate them, often with only limited success. 

Mole harvest at Pilling

Stay tuned to Another Bird Blog. This weekend I am studying “Britain’s Birds”, an entirely new and must-have photographic field guide due for publication in mid-August. Read my review on here very soon. 

Britain's Birds

That's all for now. In the meantime I am linking this post to Run A Round Ranch and Anni's Birding Blog.

Late Off The Mark

Early rain delayed my birding start until the skies held a patch or two of blue.

I drove around Jeremy Lane, Cockerham thinking I might see the local Barn Owls but had to make do with a Buzzard that frequents a dead tree a field away. The Buzzard is yet another species which seems somewhat scarce lately, in direct contrast to recent years when the population spiked noticeably upwards. Maybe it’s just a natural cycle rather than anything untoward, a scenario that is always a possibility in this part of sporting Lancashire where long-standing ideas about Buzzards and the need to “control” them persist. 

Buzzard

There are still lots of fields of lush grass as the farmers wait for a dry spell in which to cut and dry their crop. Despite this I managed to find several Brown Hares and even a large flock of 300 + Curlews hiding in a slightly less rampant crop. 

Along a stretch of roadside ditch Sedge Warblers were feeding young and even a Reed Bunting in song, but less than 30 Swallows on the whole circuit. I noted a few Linnets and Goldfinches about today with perhaps the beginnings of small flocks feeding on the plentiful seed heads at this time of year. 

Goldfinch

 

Linnet

Along Moss Lane I found myself driving behind a Weasel in the throes of dragging a dead vole along the road. I slowed the car to halt to take a closer look, hoping the Weasel might stop but it tugged its prey into the roadside vegetation and was lost to view. 

Weasel - By Bering Land Bridge National Preserve [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The weasel (Mustela nivalis) is a fearless little killer easily confused with the larger and more frequently seen Stoat (Mustela erminea). A Weasel is about the size of a large mouse and reminds me of a skinny squirrel whereas a Stoat is closer to the size and bulk of a brown rat. A Weasel is about 15-25cm whereas a Stoat is 15-30cm. 

The lean, fast and vicious Weasel preys on small mammals like mice and voles. Stoats can manage rabbits and rats. Both kill by biting into the base of their prey's skulls. Both species are light brown with pale underside but the Stoat has an obvious black tip to its tail that the noticeably smaller Weasel lacks. This is often the only distinguishing feature gained from the normally brief views given by either species where size is difficult to judge. 

Over the years I’ve managed to get a few pictures of Stoats but never a Weasel. It’s possible to just see the black tip of the Stoat’s tail but otherwise this animal is remarkably similar to a plainer Weasel. 

Stoat

At Conder Pool there was a Little Stint but briefly before it flew off calling, over and beyond where the Avocets hang out. There’s a number of puddles and pools out of sight and behind the islands close to the canal where birds can feed undetected and undisturbed for many a long hour,. Quite unlike the roadside view point where vehicles lumber noisily past and birders poke their heads into view. 

Clearly visible Lapwings numbered some 170+, from the calls more hidden from view. Also 30+ Redshank, 8 Oystercatcher, 2 Greenshank, 2 Common Sandpiper, 3 Little Grebe, 3 Little Egret, 1 Grey Heron and 1 Goosander. 

For a week or more there have been two Avocets, one adult and the single juvenile now nearing fledging. Like many other wader species, one of the pair has already left to fly south before the other, leaving the remaining adult to care for the youngster. In many wader species it is the male which remains with the chick and the female which leaves. In this case, because both male and female Avocets are pretty much identical, so it is impossible to say with certainty which one is left, but more than likely it is the male. 

It’s also interesting that the average breeding success of Avocet pairs is just 1.1 young, so our local pair managed to more or less hit the notional average having lost at least two youngsters in the early stages. 

Avocet- Neokortex [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

 

Here’s Charlie from the BBC with tomorrow's weather. 

Weather Forecast

Things are looking pretty grim up North again. But log in soon to see where Another Bird Blog has been on Thursday.

Linking today to Eileen's Blog and Run A Round Ranch.

Thursday’s Birding

More birding this morning as I headed over the moss road into a glorious sunrise, one eye on the lookout for early morning owls. It’s best to keep the other eye fixed on the single track road where the unwary might find their car sliding off the road into a field 15ft below should a tractor appear from nowhere. I wouldn’t see a Barn Owl until I arrived at Conder Green. After a good number of sightings throughout the early part of the year our local Barn Owls are now harder to find. 

The Moss

First I pulled into a farm gate at Crimbles to count the flock of feeding Curlews. On Tuesday I estimated more than 450 in the field. This morning, and after the torrential downpours, thunder and lightning of Wednesday, the Curlews numbered more like 700. The rain had freshened up the grass, puddled tractor tracks and no doubt brought more worms to the surface for the Curlews to take their fill. 

At Conder Green a Barn Owl hunted all over the marsh, ducking and diving into the long grass, stopping just occasionally to take a breather on a fence post. The owl had such a circuit that it disappeared from view for minutes at a time but then to reappear at times from an unexpected quarter. Unfortunately the bird didn’t come very close, hence the “rangefinder” shots. When a Barn Owl appeared from over the far side of the canal and flew around the margins of the pool I wondered if there might be two in action, but probably not. 

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

 Barn Owl

“Greens” appeared again with the single Greenshank and Green Sandpiper while both Redshank and Lapwing numbers are lower than of late with about 40 of each. Just 5 Common Sandpiper today, the peak of their autumn return already passed. 

Greenshank

 

The young Avocet now ventures away from the adults by exploring the further edges of the pool but looks to be a week or more from first flight. The usual wildfowl still present by way of 4 Tufted Duck, 2 Wigeon and 1 Goosander with the addition today of 4 Canada Goose. Also on the pool – 3 Little Egret and 1 Grey Heron. 

A piece of excellent news is that I counted 5 active House Martin nests at Café de Lune and it is obvious that the martins prefer this building to others very close by. There’s no doubt that birds in general know exactly what they require in any given situation and that second best will rarely do. 

There are mobs of noisy Starlings about now, the flocks comprised of mostly juvenile birds like the one below. Juveniles of the year soon moult many of their brown feathers and start to take on the spotted appearance of an adult like the one standing along a wooden gate.  

Starling

At Glasson I found 2 young Moorhen with no sign of an adult nearby. A Common Tern fished the water of yacht basin at Glasson with 60+ Swallows feeding over the still water and 2 Pied Wagtail feeding exploring the towpath and the moored boats. There are lots of young wagtails around at the moment and they outnumber adults by seven or eight to one. 

At Bank End, Cockerham I found 20+ Pied Wagtails, a Wheatear, 2 Stock Dove and 50+ Sand Martins. We have not been able to catch and ring any the Sand Martins this year as their nest holes are far too high up the quarry face. 

Moorhen

 

Pied Wagtail

A trip around Jeremy Lane and Moss Lane found more gangs of Starlings as well as family parties of Whitethroat, Sedge Warbler and Reed Bunting. It was time to head home, job done until next time on Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to Anni's Birding , Eileen's Blog and to Run A Round Ranch.

Present And Correct

This is getting to be a habit from my travels, reporting an absence of species. Last week it was a scarcity of Swallows, a blog story that struck a chord with more than one reader. Today was the absence of our UK Common Kestrel a lack of which caused me to think back to the number seen in recent months. The answer was “very few”. 

Driving over Stalmine Moss I passed a farm that is a traditional Kestrel location. Sure enough there was a single Kestrel on duty and sure enough, as this one always does, it flew off over the farm buildings as soon as the car slowed to a stop. I know of at least four or five locations in Pilling/Stalmine and Cockerham where there might be Kestrels, and at this time of the year, evidence of breeding in the form of flying youngsters. This year there are none, giving one more reason to worry about the state of our local bird populations. After all, maybe it’s important that birders should note the birds and the numbers they see but also vital to report what they don’t see when they are normally present and correct?

Kestrel

Many local farms are taking a long overdue cut of their crop of silage. Silage is made either by placing cut green vegetation in a silo or pit, by piling it in a large heap and compressing it down so as to leave as little oxygen as possible and then covering it with a plastic sheet, or by wrapping large round bales tightly in plastic film. The fermented silage is later used to feed the many sheep and cattle which crowd the fields in this area. I found a few potato fields in recent days but the rearing of sheep and cattle for supermarkets or export is widespread. This is both easier and more financially rewarding for farmers than growing labour intensive, time consuming and weather dependent spuds or carrots. In this part of Lancashire it now unusual, even rare, to see a field of crops other than grass. This all-encompassing grass monoculture has a damaging effect upon wildlife as a whole, and not just birds. 

 Silage

As I passed Crimbles I slowed to note 450+ Curlews feeding in a field cut just yesterday, the waders taking advantage of the still soft ground and short sward. Had I stopped the car rather than slowed the always shy Curlew would have flown over the sea wall and back to the marsh just 50 yards away. 

Curlew

At Conder Green the Avocet pair has a single well-grown young but the Common Terns appear to have left. The single Common Tern I later noted at Glasson Dock flew across to the River Lune rather than follow the canal back to Conder Green. 

Also on Conder Pool/creeks - a single Green Sandpiper again, 5 Common Sandpiper, 2 Stock Dove, 4 Tufted Duck, 2 Teal, 2 Little Grebe, 1 Little Egret, 15+ House Martin, 4 Swift. 

Lapwing

Little Grebe

At Glasson was evidence of a post-breeding gathering of Swallows with 70+ congregated around the assembled boats where they rested on the masts and rigging in between bouts of hawking insects over the water. 

Glasson Dock

Otherwise was a single Common Tern, 1 Grey Heron, 4 Tufted Duck, 2 Pied Wagtail and a further 8+ Swift hawking over the dock buildings and the village itself. 

Grey Heron

Tufted Duck

 Lesser Black-backed Gull

I’d enjoyed a useful couple of hours birding but now the other “b” my life beckoned in the form of babysitting. 

More birding soon with Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to World Bird Wednesday.