Guess Where

Regular readers will know where Sue and I are this week. That’s right - Sunny Menorca, our annual treat after the British winter. The winter just gone was the worst for many a year so we are really ready for this respite. 

First and foremost this is a holiday of rest & relaxation with a few birds thrown in for good measure.  Sue tells me a holiday should not include blogging so I scheduled this post before we left to include pictures from recent years.

Apologies if some seem familiar but sit back at your PC, “click the pics” and enjoy some of that the Mediterranean sunshine as we take in a few birds and landscapes of glorious Menorca. 

Menorcan Panda 

Bee Eater 

Donkey Love 

Red-footed Falcon 

Egyptian Vulture 

Lobsters 

Es Grau Nature Reserve 

Sardinian Warbler 

Hoopoe 

Es Mignorn 

Alaior

Hoopoe

Egyptian Vultures

View from El Toro, Menorca

Scop's Owl 

Purple Heron 

Tawny Pipit 

Black-winged Stilt 

Turtle Dove 

Es Grau, Menorca 

Hermann's Tortoise 

Squacco Heron 

Es Mercadal, Menorca 

Bee Eater 

Woodchat Shrike 

Spotted Flycatcher 

Fornells Village, Menorca 

A hot day in Menorca 

Back soon. Don't start birding without me.

If At First You Don't Succeed

For once there was no early morning Barn Owl. I motored past a couple of sentinel Kestrels but no ghostly owls crossed my path. I guess the owls must be sat tight on eggs by now, early May. 

The morning was to be pretty quiet for new migrants but there was evidence that the recent cold weather had not held up some birds’ urge to procreate. 

I soon found myself at Gulf Lane where Richard the farmer has tilled and then seeded the set-aside field, the scene of our winter Linnet project. A pair of Oystercatchers moved in pretty smartish with the female already sat on eggs and the male on sentry duty just yards away. The sitting female is highly visible in the bare field and already the focus of attention for marauding crows with their eyes on the eggs. Hopefully the seed will sprout and grow quickly to give some element of cover and camouflage to both the female and the eggs. The incubation period for the eggs will be between 25-30 days; it’s a long time to keep those determined crows at bay. 

Oystercatcher 

Oystercatcher 

Carrion Crow

There were 6 Stock Doves and a handful of Woodpigeons picking over the ground as well as four of our Linnet friends. 

At Conder Green the high water level dictates the presence of five pairs of Oystercatcher as the sole representatives of wading species with no sign of the several Avocets that in recent weeks took a passing interest. There are signs that Tufted Duck and even Shelducks will breed again with three pairs of the former and two or more pairs of Shelduck. 

Along the hedgerow here was at least one each of Willow Warbler, Whitethroat and Reed Bunting. 

I’m still not seeing many Swallows although it was good to note about 10/12 of their House Martin cousins at Conder Green. The martins were in their usual place at the houses and the café that overlook the muddy creeks of the River Conder. Having arrived only in the last day or two they were already collecting mud for their homes on the sides of the buildings. A Goldfinch came to see what all the fuss was about and perhaps thought the martins collected food rather than mud. 

House Martin  

House Martin 

Goldfinch 

The Jeremy/Moss/Slack lanes circuit proved quiet with little out of the ordinary. It does seem that the two species most lacking in numbers this year are two small warblers, the Whitetroat and the Sedge Warbler. These are just two of the many bird species that winter in the Sahel region, the south side of the Sahara Desert shown in orange on the map. 

It is here that birds and people literally live on the edge and  where both rely on the same natural resources of trees, water and land. It’s a landscape that is often plunged into a prolonged drought and subject to other threats such as expansion and intensification of arable & livestock agriculture, and the cutting of trees for fuel. 

If such species can survive the Sahel winter they must then embark on the long and perilous journey to and from Northern Europe. No wonder then that so many do not make it back to the UK. 

The African/Palearctic Bird Migration System

Sedge Warbler 

Whitethroat 

Along Moss Lane was a Lapwing with four tiny youngsters, so small that that they probably hatched just today. There are good numbers of Lapwings on eggs that may get the benefit of the late spring as farmers delay their usual ploughing due to several still saturated fields. The same goes for Skylarks with good numbers displaying and chasing over the rough grass where hopefully the young can soon hide from the crows. 

Lapwing & chick 

The Tree Sparrows were noisy at Cockersands where loud “chip,chip” calls gave away their nesting intentions, not to mention one or two locations. Along the shore - a few Goldfinch and singles of Pied Wagtail and Whimbrel but it was time to head home and pack for warmer days. 

Tree Sparrow 

Tree Sparrow 

Back home a pair of Collared Doves aren't having as much luck. They spent all of Wednesday building a nest in the apple tree. Today the sticks were all over the grass and I suspect the doves need a bit more practice at building a home. It's bit like birding; repetition and training makes for a better job.

Log in soon for some summer sunshine and colourful birds with Another Bird Blog. 

Local Rarity

A Barn Owl floated across Stalmine Moss but that wasn't the reason to stop. I’d heard a local rarity singing from the same spot where I saw a couple of the creatures in deepest winter. It was a Corn Bunting, that once abundant bird of local farmland but now a very occasional sight. 

Corn Bunting 

Counts of Corn Buntings are now desperately low. There are hardly any local breeding records and pitifully low numbers in wintertime when we might expect a few to feed on farmland stubble. Therein lies the problem. 

Not too many moons ago the Fylde was a summer arable landscape of growing vegetables followed by views of autumn and winter stubble, fields of waste and weed seeds left from the harvest that kept myriads of buntings and finches alive through the winter.  Those same fields are now grass and silage for sheep and cows, meat the only food that most people eat since abandoning live vegetables. Big Mac and the like have a lot to answer for. 

I read an article recently that suggested cooking skills may die out completely in the next two generations because we Brits are losing interest. Although we declare ourselves too busy to cook from scratch, opting instead for takeaways and factory food, we have plenty of time to watch TV.  The national obsession with cookery shows and watching other people prepare food on TV does not prompt us to actually cook anything other than microwaved ready meals or beans on toast. A home-made steak and kidney pie is now as rare as hens-teeth in Kentucky Fried Britain.

I digress. Back to the birds. There was a scratchy singing Whitethroat too, one of 8/10 seen this morning; so at last they have arrived. Likewise a few more Swallows scattered around farms, 30+ in total but still very few House Martins, the latter still in single figures. 

I stopped briefly at Braides, the scene of much frenzy last weekend with birders desperate to add a few Yellow Wagtails to their yearly list. How many Yellow Wagtails went unseen in other similar locations is anyone’s guess. Today a couple of Linnets, a pair of Kestrel, one Grey Heron, several Swallows, and unusually for here 4 Rooks. The Rook is a more handsome and beneficial bird than the ubiquitous and villainous Common Crow. 

Rook

I called at Conder Green where the water level is still too high for many species but the four to five pairs of Oystercatcher are not so choosy so remain on territory. There was a single Common Tern on the nesting island, the first tern back in 2018 as far as I know. I noted the bird wore a very shiny ring on the right leg but far too distant to read the inscription. Also, a single lingering usually winter only Goldeneye, 6 Tufted Duck, 6 Teal, 2 Pied Wagtail and a Kestrel. Along the hedgerow - a singing Whitethroat. Nearer to Glasson singles of Lesser Whitethroat and Willow Warbler.  

Common Tern

The circuit of Jeremy, Moss and Slack Lanes threw up a good selection of migrant birds in the shape and sound of 4 Wheatear, 4 Whitethroat (all males), 2 Sedge Warbler, 2 Willow Warbler, 2 Reed Bunting, 2 Meadow Pipit, 2 Pied Wagtail and 1 Whinchat. 

Whinchat

It was good to count 12/15 Skylark although a flock of 110 Linnets is suggestive of the still below average temperatures. Heartening also to see upwards of 15 Lapwings sat on eggs but impossible to predict how many will survive the plough of the coming weeks. 

Not everything is late this spring as proven by the Blackbird with a beak full of giant worms for the family meal. Good to see that the Blackbirds at least survive on a diet of fresh food. 

Blackbird 

Please login soon to Another Bird Blog. Can’t promise rarities but there’s always a picture or two!

Linking this post to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

Poor Old Oyk

There came something of a surprise with a recent email from the BTO. 

The message concerned an Oystercatcher found dead by a member of the public at our ringing site near Oakenclough on 18th April 2018. The bombshell was the fact that our Oystercatcher had died at the grand old age of 22 years, 7990 days after being ringed at the same place on 2nd June 1996. 

This is a site where a number of pairs Oystercatchers breed every year, an inland and upland location with a reservoir where the Oystercatchers nest on the rocky shores dependent upon water levels but also in adjacent fields. Even my memory of ringing occasions doesn't stretch back 22 years so I looked up the original ringing data on our Fylde Ringing Group database and there it was. Ring number FR86494, ringed as a chick, one of two youngsters on 2 June 1996. 

IPMR data

I searched my memory bank recalled the day as an occasion when three of us (Gary, Bob and me) called in at Oakenclough to ring a nest of three Yellowhammer chicks and 5 Willow Warbler chicks found a week or so earlier. 

As we motored out of the site at the entrance we spotted a pair adult Oystercatchers with two chicks so stopped to complete a successful excursion with a little bonus. Sadly, the Yellowhammers were the last ones ringed at the site as it became very overgrown with rhododendron resulting in the area becoming unsuitable for a number of species. 

Oystercatcher chick

Oystercatcher 

Although 22 years is a good age, it’s not quite the longevity record for Oystercatchers. The oldest known Oystercatcher was ringed as a chick in 1970 and later found in 2010, on the same beach in Cumbria, not too many miles from Lancashire. At that time, it was already 40 years, one month and 2 days old. 

Despite the known longevity of the species Oystercatchers are a vulnerable and Amber-listed in the UK.  From the BTO - Breeding Bird Surveys since 1994, which include birds in a broader range of locations and habitats, show strong increase in England but a significant, moderate decline in Scotland. The increase in nest failure rates during the 27-day egg stage probably results from the spread of the species into less favourable habitats, where nest losses through predation or trampling may be more likely. There has been widespread moderate decline across Europe since 1980. 

There is a moral to this story. It is that where possible, everyone should always look at dead birds and examine the legs as there may be a ring, British Museum/BTO or a foreign scheme. High quality metal rings are designed to be long lasting so that the inscription does not easily wear and may be legible for the lifespan of the bird and longer. The information resulting from finding and reporting a ringed bird, dead or alive is very valuable to science.

British Museum bird ring

Linking today to Eileens' Blog.

Change Of Scene

With a forecast of a good sunny morning I decided to have a drive up to the hills to see how things were going in this belated spring. With luck I’d have three hours of birding before the parades of wannabe Bradley Wiggins’ showed up in their day-glow clothing and very loud voices that scare the birds away.

It’s a forty minute drive and a bridge over the northbound M6 before I hit the beginnings of the Trough of Bowland.

"Click the Pics" for a closer look. 

Bowland, Lancashire 

Bowland 

The quiet of early morning was broken mostly by the sounds of displaying Curlew and Lapwing. To lesser extent were the calls of Oystercatcher, Redshank and Snipe, all in the throes of establishing their breeding territories but the last three tend to be later breeders. 

Redshank 

Oystercatcher 

Snipe 

I lost count of the Mistle Thrush seen and/or heard. From every bit of suitable woodland or copse came their loud, fluty song. 

Mistle Thrush 

If Meadow Pipits have been rather thin on the coast they were around in large numbers this morning flitting around on every stretch of fence or dry stone wall for miles. Again, I lost count, or rather made no attempt at a total as they were just everywhere.

Pied Wagtails were numerous but not nearly so many as pipits. I found a couple of pairs of Grey Wagtail along Marshaw and Tower Lodge streams. It was at Tower Lodge that I both saw and heard Siskins, Lesser Redpolls and a single male Redstart. 

Meadow Pipit 

Meadow Pipit 

Pied Wagtail 

I saw at least 4 Wheatears on the journey. They seemed very mobile and were probably migrants. 

Wheatear 

Not so the Red-legged Partridge, in loud song from a dry stone wall. Our Red-legged Partridge is not native to Britain but instead are feral or left overs from autumn shoots of released birds. Altogether it is an attractive bird that is able to hack it in the English countryside, unlike our native Grey Partridge which has become a rare sight in modern Lancashire. 

Red-legged Partridge 

Bowland, Lancashire

And while we are on the subject of Bowland, here’s an udate on the case against Bleasdale Estate gamekeeper James Hartley. Previous post here.  Mr Hartley faced 9 charges as follows:

1. Disturbing the nesting site of a Schedule 1 wild bird (13/04/2016) 
2. Killing a Schedule 1 wild bird (13/04/2016) 
3. Killing a Schedule 1 wild bird (14/04/2016) 
4. Setting trap / gin / snare etc. to cause injury to a wild bird (between 13-14/04/2016) 
5. Taking a Schedule 1 wild bird (14/04/2016) 
6. Possessing a live / dead Schedule 1 wild bird or its parts (14/04/2016) 
7. Possessing an article capable of being used to commit a summary offence under section 1 to 13 or 15 to 17 (13/04/2016) 
8. Possessing an article capable of being used to commit a summary offence under section 1 to 13 or 15 to 17 (between 12/04/2016 – 27/04/2016) 
9. Causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal – Animal Welfare Act 2006 (between 14/04/2016 – 15/04/2016) 

The case collapsed last week after District Judge Goodwin ruled the RSPB video evidence inadmissible at a hearing at Preston Magistrates Court on 28 March 2018. 

The only bird of prey I saw while driving through Bowland on Saturday was a single Kestrel. The killing goes on.

Log in soon to see more birds on Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to World Bird Wednesday with Stewart.