Early Bird

After a few early mornings I was cream crackered last night so decided not to join the other lads ringing but have a little lie in followed by some gentle birding - the plans of mice and men! I hit the road at about 0730; still too early for some I thought, when the roads to Pilling seemed deserted save for the occasional budding Valentino Rossi trying desperately to take the side off my car and the knee caps off their legs.

I sought refuge in Lane Ends car park and took a walk to Pilling Water in the course of which I saw and heard my first Whimbrel of the year whistling overhead but flying south. I’m sure the bird would turn around pretty soon and head north to Iceland if more of its buddies suddenly came the other way.

Down at Pilling Water, I was clearly the first there as all was quiet, quiet enough for the Fluke Hall Barn Owl to be poised on a fence watching for a careless animal and even taking time out to clean its talons from a recent encounter. It flew lazily around the creek and the rough grass and perched up a few times, posts and trees a plenty.

Barn Owl
Barn Owl
Barn Owl
I heard a Willow Warbler singing from the willows where the newly topped up lone crow’s nest stands out like a sore thumb. I think maybe the wildfowlers allow a nest on the principle that a pair of dominant Carrion Crow pair can control the local crow population in an environmentally friendly way. Around the creek and pool below I counted 5 Swallow that once again quickly went on their way. Then out on the marsh 3 Little Egrets, scattered far and wide with seemingly no hint of a pairsome.

There is a vibrant healthy little population of breeding birds on the stubbly set aside that surrounds the pools and old creek; 2 or more pairs of Oystercatcher, Lapwing and Redshank together with Skylark, Meadow Pipit, Greylag and the inevitable Mallard. With my traps ready I searched the Wheatear rocks for little white arses but found none, only Meadow Pipits, a straggly party of 20 or more zipping between the ditch, the fields and the sea wall. Wheatears don’t always arrive early morning, but maybe follow the sea wall from the west, only showing up at my catching spot in the afternoon; but that’s now another game plan for another day.

Destination 2 Conder Green as I gave Bank End a miss when I saw the plane scoot low over the quarry and land on Chris’ fields as the off loaded parachutes dropped towards the sea wall.

As expected, fairly quiet at CG: The brown and getting blacker Spotted Redshank, Curlew, Grey Heron, a Goldeneye pair, a Tufted Duck pair, 2 Black-tailed Godwit, 9 Teal and displaying Oystercatchers and Lapwing still to settle their business.

Goldeneye
Lapwing
I got word the other day of the Starling I caught in my garden on 5th December 2009. It hadn’t travelled far – from Preesall in fact, but it was first ringed in May 2002 as a nestling. Not an amazingly old Starling, more middle aged really at 7.57 years when the UK longevity record is about 17 years and the Danish one 22 years.

Starling

Up, What A Lark

I must say these early starts don’t get any easier, particularly after a winter respite of 8 a.m. beginnings; but if the birds want worms and the ringers want birds, they both must make the effort and get out of bed early.

I met Will at 0615 on Rawcliffe Moss to a red sky in the east and the usual glow of optimism and anticipation that ringers possess in abundance. It was a very quiet session of ringing with very little grounded, but as is often the case, enough to keep us interested and occupied for four hours with a dribble of visible migration that added to the ringing. In the nets it was a slowly, slowly two birds an hour with only five new and four retraps, although we did catch our first Willow Warbler of the year. Other birds: Reed Bunting 4, Dunnock 2, Blue Tit 2 – I said it was quiet. One Reed Bunting provided us with a good example of an adult’s spring tail shape and condition.

Dawn Pheasant
Willow Warbler
Willow Warbler
Reed Bunting Tail-Adult
Reed Bunting
Blue Tit
Visible migration, all south to north this morning came as 22 Redpoll, 2 Sand Martin, 1 Swallow and 8+ Meadow Pipit. “Other” birds seen and heard but not directly attributable to today’s migration included another 5 Willow Warbler, 28 Curlew, 7 Linnet, 6 Goldfinch, I Sparrowhawk , 1 Buzzard, 1 Kestrel , 3 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 6 Corn Bunting and 4 Skylark, with perhaps the surprise bird of the morning, a Greenshank. The latter noisily circled the steep sided wildfowler’s pool before realising it was too deep to linger before heading off north again.

The Sparrowhawk picture is dedicated to Will who doesn’t believe that Sparrowhawks ever do anything but fly over, round or through mist net rides and probably only after the nets have been taken down.

Greenshank
Sparrowhawk

More King Harrys

We just seem to carry on catching finches in Will’s garden. Today we passed 75 new Goldfinch for the year, with during that period a handful only of retraps which shows a continuous and consistent passage of birds through February, March and to date in April, with perhaps today a hint of them tailing off.

Total of new birds caught this morning: Coal Tit 2, Goldfinch 7, Chaffinch 4, Lesser Redpoll 1, Siskin 1, Collared Dove 2, Robin 2 and Great Tit 1.

Retraps came in at one each of Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Nuthatch, Greenfinch, Great Tit , Blue Tit and Dunnock.

Lesser Redpoll
Lesser Redpoll
Siskin
Goldfinch
Nuthatch
Coal Tit
Collared Dove
The Nuthatch were busy in and out of their tree hole this morning and remained undeterred from their activities when we caught the already ringed male which returned to its labours immediately after release. Likewise busy in nest boxes in the garden were Jackdaw and Coal Tit.

Other birds seen today: Buzzard, Stock Dove 2, Lapwing 4, Swallow 4, already busy in and out of the outbuildings, Grey Wagtail 2 and Grey Heron 3.

It was an enjoyable session that started deliberately late at 0800 on the assumption that tomorrow will be the early 0600 start if that high pressure holds. Watch this space.

Trickling Through

There was a trickle of migrants at my usual cold corners this morning rather than the hoped for rush of migration to turn them into hot spots. Yet again hat and gloves were essential bits of kit for the first hour or more in the brisk westerly.

With an eye and an ear on the sky I killed time and counted the waders at Knott End, 190 Redshank and 200 Oystercatcher, with 7 Eider waiting at the ferry terminal. Things were so quiet I found time to confirm for Birdtrack breeding House Sparrow, Collared Dove and Starling along the Esplanade where the large old terraced houses provide ledges and cavities galore. Below the Esplanade a couple of Meadow Pipits were not this morning’s migrants, neither were 2 Pied Wagtails or the 3 Twite feeding on the remnants of the seed provided for them. I was just about to move on to my next migration hotspot when 2 Redpoll flew over heading east. One positive, it does seem to be a better spring for Redpoll, and maybe that is because more of them left us during the abnormally cold winter and they are now returning bang on cue, as they used to do? Someone said to me just the other day that plainer birds often make for better photographs: I suppose that the closely related Twite and Redpoll might be described as “little brown jobs” without many distinguishing features?

Lesser Redpoll
Twite
Fluke Hall and Ridge Farm were similarly quiet, with grounded Meadow Pipits numbering 18 and resident singing Skylarks 6. A spring flock of Linnets along the gorse numbered about 45, with 3 local Stock Dove feeding quietly in the stubble field whilst 2 Wheatear below the sea wall were probably new in. Another group of Linnets numbering 6 were alongside Fluke Hall Lane, as was a singing Chiffchaff with briefly, a perched up Merlin that as I approached, flew over Wheel Lane.

There was a little more spring activity during my Lane Ends to Pilling Water walk where I found 2 Chiffchaff, one singing and one silent and a lone singing Willow Warbler in the plantation, a Reed Bunting, 2 Wheatear, and then on the water noted the Little Grebe pair with eggs. Again, I noted the quiet staccato of overflying Redpoll, putting down one in my notebook.

All was mainly quiet at Pilling Water save for a Stoat that scurried around the stones, boulders, pipes and maintenance equipment left there by the Environment Agency. I think the Stoat makes a living by preying on the rabbits that make a home in and under the same leftovers, but it moved so fast I had no chance of taking a photo today, the one below taken earlier in the winter, when it was properly cold.

Stoat
The few birds around were 3 Sand Martin and a single Swallow over the wildfowler’s pools that seemed to disappear as quickly as they arrived, 2 Little Egrets and a few more Meadow Pipits and Skylarks.

Swallow
Things look better for the next three days with a building high pressure and the promise of a few ringing sessions on the horizon.

Warm Weather?

1862 And All That

No birding or ringing now for a couple of days. That old problem of the unkind elements I’m afraid, but the less said about that the better for now.

In between times I like to browse through old bird books, so as the rain hammered down on the conservatory roof I opened up ‘British Birds in their Haunts’ by The Reverend C.A. Johns, first published in 1862, and my copy revised as late as 1948.

Often in these old books it’s the language itself that is intriguing, the use of long forgotten words or phrases, the rather stilted prose or often the realisation that not so many years ago birds were for collecting as trophies or for eating, not for looking at. Occasionally there is unique, long forgotten information that not only tells us about the bird but also documents social history. And of course there are the sometimes awful stylised plates, the sketches that were rather obviously usually drawn from the skins of shot birds or distant views obtained without the aid of binoculars or telescopes.

British Birds In Their Haunts 1862
In the book I happened upon the pages for Ruff. Below I quote directly from the book, and whilst I will leave readers to make up their own minds about the paragraphs, it all makes for fascinating history. For me it also brings back memories of the old Ruff leck that used to take place on the River Ribble at Warton Marsh every year in the 1980s, where I would sit out of sight on the embankment, spellbound by the Ruff’s antics.

Plate XXV
“Both the systematic names of this bird are descriptive of its quarrelsome propensities: philomacus is Greek for a “warrior”, pugnax Latin for “pugnacious”. Well is the title deserved for Ruffs do not merely fight when they meet, but meet in order to fight. The season for the indulgence of their warlike tastes is spring; the scene, a rising spot of ground contiguous to a marsh; and here all the male birds of the district assemble at dawn, for many days in succession and do battle valiantly for the females called reeves, till the weakest are vanquished and leave possession of the field to their more powerful adversaries. The attitude during these contests is nearly that of the domestic cock – the head lowered, the body horizontal, the collar bristling and the beak extended. But Ruffs will fight to the death on other occasions. A basket containing two or three hundred Ruffs was once put on board a steamer leaving Rotterdam for London. The incessant fighting of the birds proved a grand source of attraction for the passengers during the voyage; about half of them were slain before the vessel reached London. Ruffs are gluttonously disposed too, and if captured by a fowler will begin to eat the moment they are supplied with food; but however voracious they may be, if a basin of bread and milk or boiled wheat be placed before them it is instantly contended for; and so pugnacious is their disposition, that even when fellow captives, they would starve in the midst of plenty if several dishes of food were not placed amongst them at a distance from each other.

Many years have passed since these birds paid annual visits in large numbers to the fen countries, they were however highly prized as delicacies for the table, and their undeviating habit of meeting to fight a pitched battle gave the fowler such an excellent opportunity for capturing all the combatants in his nets, that they have been gradually becoming more and more rare. The fowler in fact has been so successful that he has destroyed his own trade.

Another peculiarity of the Ruff is that the plumage varies greatly in different individuals – so much so indeed that Montagu, who had an opportunity of seeing about seven dozen in a room together could not find two alike. These birds are now become rare, but occasional specimens are still met with in different parts of Great Britain, and at various seasons; but if they are ever served up at a table, they must be consignments from the Continent.”

What a shame I don’t have pictures of Ruff in breeding plumage. The ones below were taken at ‘CG’- Conder Green last autumn.

Ruff
Ruff

Do feel free to leave comments. Phil.

Check It Out

It was a “Where Do I Go?” this morning with another cold, brisk north westerly wind blowing. So I headed inland for Rawcliffe Moss where although I might be a little windswept I would find some birds. I also planned to check the vegetation in the mist nets rides, mainly the growth of leaf cover that helps to make the nets invisible when we eventually get there on a kind-to-ringers, flat morning.

I was early enough to find a Barn Owl hunting the rough edges and ditch that mark the field boundary, and although the light wasn’t fantastic, I did get a few photographs today, with 3 Roe Deer performing a backdrop.

Barn Owl
Barn Owl
Roe Deer
Top Of The Windy Moss
On top of the blustery moss there weren’t many birds, the corvids in the stubble, a wandering Kestrel, a couple of Lapwing pairs and in the plantation, Chaffinch, Reed Bunting, Goldfinch, Wren and a couple of Blackbirds, all highly visible in the sparse foliage. The net rides were pretty bare, little ground cover, no leaf on the trees, catkins only with the remains of last autumn’s vegetation available to provide a few hiding spots for the Whitethroats, Willow Warblers and Sedge Warblers that arrive very soon.

What Leaves?
Chaffinch
Reed Bunting
I walked back towards the farm buildings in the course of which I found 3 pairs of Grey Partridge, 4 Curlew, 2 Buzzard, another Kestrel and 1 pair each of Oystercatcher and Lapwing in the field that they both nested in last year.

Buzzard
6Lapwing
Up at the top I hadn’t heard a singing Corn Bunting or Yellowhammer, so I wasn’t surprised when I found a flock of 28 Corn Buntings still hanging about near the farmer’s old spill, likewise the 4 Yellowhammer that came for a look. Neither party was too keen on posing up for me this morning; the blustery wind didn’t help as old buildings, rusted, discarded equipment and abandoned plastic rattled in harmony to spook the birds feeding efforts. The buntings seemed content to sit it out in the hedge until things looked and sounded less dangerous.

Corn Buntings
Corn Bunting
Back home where I complained about the lack of Greenfinch all winter, a pair has almost built a nest in a blowy, thin juniper just two metres from the back door. And I thought birds were clever, but I suppose I have only to look through the kitchen window to check on progress and keep that nest record up to date.

Greenfinch

Cabaret Time

Its ages since I caught any Lesser Redpolls, Carduelis flammea cabaret. It is another one of those species that just got scarcer, especially in this neck of the woods. So it came as a pleasant surprise to catch a couple in Will’s garden today when we grabbed an afternoon ringing session in fine weather between the bouts of wind and threatened rain. Will has noticed a movement of finches through his garden in the last few weeks, mainly Goldfinch and Chaffinch, but with small numbers of Siskin and Lesser Redpoll feeding on the black magic.

A couple of nets and three hours saw us catch 32 new birds: 14 Chaffinch, 14 Goldfinch, 2 Great Tit and 2 Lesser Redpoll. We added to this with 9 retraps: 2 Chaffinch, 3 Great Tit, 3 Goldfinch and 1 Dunnock.

It was good to see birds reaching their colourful best today.

Male Lesser Redpoll
Female Lesser Redpoll
Goldfinch
Chaffinch
Will told me that Nuthatches have nested in the garden for at least the last 11 years, as we watched them going off to a nearby stream to return with mud with which to plaster up the chosen tree hole. Both adults were caught earlier in the year.

Nuthatch
Other birds today included a single Swallow, singing Mistle Thrush, nesting Jackdaw and breeding Lapwing and Oystercatcher in adjacent fields.