Another Circus

It was too windy for ringing therefore I did the early run to Conder Green this morning where as is often the case from the screen, the pool looked devoid of birds but down in the creek everything seemed infinitely more promising. With CG it’s worth drilling down, looking hard and listening carefully to find the nuggets.

I hadn’t stood more than a few minutes looking through the waders in the bottom of the nearest creek when I just knew a raptor was near. Some birds froze, several called, others moved fractionally up the creek and a few more flew off quickly, but even the Mute Swans sensed something amiss and moved onto the higher bits of marsh. The birds had seen or sensed the Marsh Harrier a good 15 seconds before me as it came from the north and the Lune, over the viaduct but high then over the pool and the canal, sailing all the time south towards Lower Thurnham as quickly and serenely as it appeared. The harrier didn’t have the same effect as a Peregrine or a Merlin, a mass panic, more of a “watch out lads and lasses”, and I wonder sometimes if birds use different messages for the several types of bird of prey or if in fact they sensed the harrier wasn’t in true hunting mode but just drifting harmlessly south? In any case it was the most evident and certainly the largest vis migger this morning and whilst seeing this migration I also wonder just how many harriers are involved in Fylde Circus aeruginosus sightings this autumn, but I've definitely seen my share of them.

I went back to my search and noted 3 Spotted Redshank, 6 Greenshank, 2 Ruff, 11 Snipe, 2 Little Egret, 2 Grey Heron, 22 Teal, 15 Redshank, 1 Curlew Sandpiper and 1 Kingfisher in the creek. The pool was indeed quiet except for 8 Little Grebe and the 3 Wigeon again, with 15 Goldfinch and 8 Linnet about the thistles and hawthorn. I struggled for pictures this morning but as well as yet another distant shot of a receding Marsh Harrier I did an equally long shot of a Ruff, that most elegant of waders.

Ruff
Marsh Harrier
Snipe

I journeyed on to Cockersands to check out the finch flock and gauge the ideal wind direction for mist netting the field of set-aside, and took the opportunity for a count: 80 Linnet, 30 Greenfinch, 15 Chaffinch, 25 Goldfinch and a Whitethroat. It was a different total from a couple of days ago but the birds had just been spooked by a Kestrel, plus I know the flock size and composition will vary from day to day. Wind forecast for the week ahead – strong. Typical.

Kestrel

I looked at my watch and decided there was time for Lane Ends and Pilling Water/Fluke Hall. Between the car park and Fluke my count of Little Egrets came to 13, not unlucky for the egrets by any stretch of the imagination as they consolidate into their self-found niche. The wildfowler’s pools held about 400 Teal today, plus 2 Greenshank and the now ever present Green Sandpiper, while the Kingfisher beat me to it again as it shot off the parapet, around the marsh and into the pools. Two Kingfishers in a morning, that’s nice!

I’d noticed all morning that most of last week’s hirundines cleared out, and here where I see lots of Swallows and last week several hundred, today they were less than a dozen. It was similar with Meadow Pipits and wagtails, as I saw less than 10 pipits and zero wagtails today. The finch groups hadn’t changed much but remained separate here, with a flock of 35 Linnet then a further party of 20 Goldfinch. I thought the two Wheatears I saw were the same birds that have been around for a few days now, visiting a series of favoured spots, doing the same old things, just like me really. I finished on a high at the car park as I listened to the trilling Little Grebes with an ear open for a calling “phyllosc” or similar, when on top of a willow a Spotted Flycatcher sallied up and out then back again. I watched it for a while but my time was up.

Spotted Flycatcher
Meadow Pipit

Short Saturday

I woke at 3am due again to Ringer’s Sleep Syndrome, the unconscious fear of missing or being late for a ringing session that causes a person to wake long before the alarm clock but unable to go back to sleep. So not long after I got up, made a cup of tea then blogged yesterday’s late news before I headed off to meet Will at Rawcliffe Moss again for a 6am start.

Although the wind blew at less than 5mph we knew the forecast promised it would increase quite quickly, so we set nets accordingly and hoped for an hour or two to catch early movers. Our nets went up in the more sheltered western side of the plantation, away from the east wind. It was just as well we did because by 9am the wind blew quite stiffly, enough to make the nets very visible so we took them down.

In the continued clear conditions visible migration was quiet and birds high overhead. Early moving wagtails numbered one or two albas and 3 Grey Wagtails, and by now the 4th of September, a very thin movement of Meadow Pipits numbering less than 10. Tree Pipits featured again in what is proving a mega autumn for the species. We saw and heard at least 5 birds and caught another two. Similar to the past ten days or so Chaffinches proved the most numerous migrant/local dispersal with more than 40 individuals passing south overhead, sometimes unseen because of the height they flew at. We noted our first autumnal Woodpigeon movement as a tight flock of c30 birds sped west.

We caught 15 birds today, 12 new consisting of 2 Tree Pipit, 1 Chiffchaff, 1 Whitethroat and 8 Chaffinch plus recaptures of 2 Long-tailed Tit and 1 Blue Tit.

Tree Pipit
Tree Pipit
Chiffchaff
Whitethroat

Other birds seen this morning: 4 Grey Partridge, 3 Buzzard, 1 Kestrel, 1 Golden Plover, 10 Linnet, 15 Goldfinch and 1 Jay

Jay
Rawcliffe Moss Morning

The Postman's Late

I know it's Saturday and the post is overdue but I got delayed and I'm doing this at 5am before I head off to do some ringing.

There were some bird errands Friday which didn’t necessarily involve much bird watching but I had time for a flying visit to CG Conder Green. And guess what I saw flying away?

Little Egret

On the pool were 5 Little Grebe, the species that’s made a home for itself here, but only it seems out of the breeding season. The 3 Wigeon are still in situ, as is the Kingfisher which did a flying circuit again before it disappeared towards the main road and the reeds of the upper Conder. I found 3 Spotted Redshank, 4 Greenshank, 1 Ruff, 7 Snipe and 18 Teal plus 30 or so Redshank. In the lay-by a Whitethroat still searched through the tangled vegetation and a single Tree Sparrow divided its time between preening itself or darting onto the road and collecting food probably dropped by the wagons that park there.

Tree Sparrow
Whitethroat

I went to see a farmer chap who is keen to create Sand Martin habitat on his farm but lacks the capital that some of our conservation organisations seem to have. Anyway I gave him an article from a recent Daily Telegraph that described how Anglian Water built 350 Sand Martin burrows with sand-filled clay pipes in breeze blocks, and this year there are 180 nests. It reinforced the idea in his head and I think he will get around to doing something in the future. I hope so because he already has a few breeding Sand Martins. I also checked out the little set aside at Cockersands where the finch flock builds up daily feeding on the standard kale, quinoa and goodness knows what else mix, but the birds soon take to it. I counted about 100 mixed finches, maybe 40% Linnet, 30% Goldfinch and 20% Greenfinch with the odd Meadow Pipit and Tree Sparrow thrown in. I have permission to ring birds here so any catches should firm up the proportions of birds involved plus give some vital information on what is happening to our Linnets and Greenfinches.

Linnet
Greenfinch

Up at the farm were 2 Swallow nests with large young. One will fledge any day, the other one in about a week’s time. Let’s hope the weather holds. Plenty of other Swallows in the area of the farm got spooked by a little Sparrowhawk that then headed out towards the Lune. Jobs done I motored on up to Lane Ends in time to see a male Marsh Harrier circling out on the marsh, but it didn’t come close. After a while it headed off towards Bank End and Cockersands, where I had just come from, leaving me to listen to a Chiffchaff sing from the plantation bathed in in the warm morning sun.

I had time to do Pilling Water, just. Because a minute or two before I had watched the harrier fly east, a large raptor out on the marsh threw me momentarily. But it turned out to be a Common Buzzard doing a thermal and I couldn’t turn it into a honey. I found 5 Wheatear, 45 Linnet, 11 Alba Wagtails, 24 Meadow Pipit and 5 Little Egret. The Green Sandpiper called from the wildfowler’s pools and 3 Snipe flew into there from the outer marsh, but out near the sewage filters and the cut field I saw hundreds of Swallows. I drove back that way and estimated over 800 Swallows and took a shot of a single bird.

Buzzard
Swallow

A Walk In The Park

I had an email. Lowell asked if I could post information on the blog about a series of forthcoming guided autumn bird watching walks in his local park. No problem, heck I’m all for encouraging people to get out and learn about birds and the environment. So I read on and the penny, or in this case the cent dropped, Lowell meant Central Park, New York, The Big Apple, with bird walks led by expert birders from the American Museum of Natural History.

Black and White Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Central Park

Now either Lowell hadn’t read my blog in sufficient detail to realise that I and most of my readers are in the UK or he understands the power of the Internet more than I do. But then I thought about it a bit more and looked through my statistics and saw that in actual fact I have over 1000 visitors from the US since October last year from places as far apart as San Francisco, Kentucky, Idaho and yes, even New York. Geography was never my strongest subject but I do know that it’s more than a short bus ride or subway journey from Kentucky, San Francisco or Boise to Central Park so I hope Lowell doesn’t think I can get him a few dozen extra punters at the drop of a Stetson, but I guess he’d be happy with one or two. So right now I’m giving everyone plenty of notice because the walks don’t start until Tuesday 7th September, SEE HERE

That’s time enough even for some of the more wealthy UK birders to hop on a plane and take part in support of a good cause. But Lowell you must realise UK birders are real tightwads, as many rarity collection buckets devoid of dollar bills but containing a myriad of ancient buttons and foreign coins long since obsolete can testify.

Yellow-breasted Chat
Hooded Warbler
Red-eyed Vireo
Wilson’s Warbler
Maybe I should go myself, especially since I have just given Lowell a free ad and he owes me. I will need a Virgin Atlantic return ticket please Lowell, preferably business or first class, plus a Yellow Cab to and from JFK.

September Start

Will and I kicked off the month with another ringing session at Out Rawcliffe. It was a slightly misty morning as the dull sun promised to burn off the thin layer of murk and leave us with clear conditions again.

Dawn Mist

Both the morning itself and our catch proved similar to other recent sessions, with not much on-going visible migration as the sun did its job. We had a mixed bag of birds, mainly warblers and finches, and for the second session in a row, no recaptures. We caught 23 new birds of 10 species: 1 Tree Pipit, our 7th of the year and 6th of the autumn, 10 Chaffinch, 2 Whitethroat, 2 Chiffchaff, 3 Great Tit, and singles of Blackcap, Robin, Wren, Long-tailed Tit and Blue Tit.

Tree Pipit - juvenile
Blackcap
Chiffchaff
Great Tit
Blue Tit

We kept eyes and ears open but logged little genuine migration with 4 Tree Pipits, 8 or more Meadow Pipits high overhead and 1 Alba wagtail, this paucity enlivened only by a party of 5 Sand Martins plus several Swallows heading rapidly south. Otherwise we thought even the local Swallow and House Martin numbers were down this morning with many birds having moved on following the several days of fine weather. Up high we also noted a dozen or two Chaffinch heading south, some we saw, and with others we just heard the characteristic autumn flight calls.

Other birds logged this morning were 2 or possibly 3 Jays, 1 Kestrel, 2 Buzzard, 15 Tree Sparrow, and the inevitable Goldfinches, with the distant but local Marsh Harrier putting in another fleeting appearance as it headed off over miles of open country.

Kestrel

Arrivals And Departures

All my birding spots are a bit like a UK airport or train station at the moment, bodies everywhere, arriving from all directions and leaving generally in a southerly direction towards the Mediterranean, or alternatively just hanging around and feeding up until it’s the time is right to go. Or, more likely in the in the current clear days and night conditions, many are on the move but fly unseen and unheard at 30 thousand feet with no reason to break their journeys.

The Swallows were clearly building up for departure this morning when I counted many parties of them on my way through Stalmine and Pilling, gathered on overhead wires as they chattered away to each other before some set off in flurries of excitement in mock departures to nowhere in particular, circling around for a while and then joining back with the rest of the assembly. It must be the continued fine weather that gets them going, both the urge to migrate and the enthusiasm they display, but there is no doubt something was in the hirundine air this morning.

Swallow
Swallow
Swallow

I had an hour or two before babysitting duties so made my way to Lane Ends to walk the wall. There were Swallows and House Martins on the move here, with birds flying low over the salt marsh, heading west but pausing occasionally to rest up on the remains of a tree left on the marsh by recent high tides. I counted at least 140 Swallows and 25 House Martins, and whilst I half expected a Hobby to appear in the warm and calm conditions, the best I could muster was the usual Peregrine sat (or is that stood) a distance out on the marsh where it remained for the next hour or so. I guess the Peregrine had already eaten because it seemed in no hurry to eat again. The pools gave me 4 Tufted Duck, 2 Little Grebe, 2 Little Egret late departing the sometimes roost and the now resident but elusive Kingfisher. I had a couple of Grey Wagtails over plus 3 “albas” and 2 rasping Snipe as they flew high towards Cockerham.

Along the sea wall it was a Meadow Pipit and wagtail morning with 30+ Meadow Pipits seemingly off-passage for a while, feeding in the area of Pilling Water and the UU dump. Likewise I found three Pied Wagtails here with a single Grey Wagtail and 2 more calling overhead, plus a single Wheatear on the rocks. Finches today were 25 Goldfinch and 15 Linnet, and I almost forgot, one calling but hopefully more than a single Greenfinch at Lane Ends.

Meadow Pipit
Pied Wagtail
Grey Wagtail

A biggish count again of 11 Little Egrets here, plus the two earlier Lane Ends birds reflects the counts in North Lancashire and elsewhere this autumn as the species goes from strength to strength. Even the cold winter has not dented this bird’s growing population. I didn’t trespass to see the Greenshanks today, I didn’t fancy panicking 100 Red-legged Partridge, the numerous fattened-up Mallard and the wild and wary Teal, but even from the wall I clocked the Green Sandpiper, 2 Greenshank and 2 Reed Buntings.

Reed Bunting

A very pleasant and productive hour or two, and even the babysitting wasn’t entirely without birds when “sans bins” I saw 3 Little Egrets on Knott End shore while waiting to treat Olivia to a ferry ride to Fleetwood. We certainly know how to live it up in these parts.

An August End

It was more ringing this morning when after another clear and windless night, Will, Ian and I met up at for Out Rawcliffe for the last session of August.

It was repetition again in the form of the first birds of the morning when Grey Partridge came off the set aside to fly into the potato field, and although we doubled our previous total by seeing 4 birds, I don’t think that miserable quantity strictly counts as a covey? As we walked up the centre track of the plantation a Tawny Owl flew ahead and back into roosting cover and we didn’t see it again.

Once again we had by our standards a quite productive morning and a mixed bag with 21 new birds of 9 species and unusually, zero recaptures: 2 Whitethroat, 11 Chaffinch, 1 Willow Warbler, 2 Dunnock, 1 Great Tit, 1 Blackbird, 1 Robin, 1 Meadow Pipit and 1 Swallow.

Swallow
Meadow Pipit
Chaffinch

Birds we didn’t catch this morning included a Tree Pipit sat unseen under a mist net until we approached, then later another bird that landed on the farm track and fed for a short time before it continued south. Near the top of the plantation a party of Long-tailed Tits numbering at least 15 individuals thankfully avoided our nets.

It was calm and clear all morning with nil cloud once the sun rose which didn’t help spotting any visible migration taking place, and apart from a soon-after-dawn burst of albas and Grey Wagtails heading south and the afore mentioned Tree Pipits, there was little happening. We think that our second double figure catch of Chaffinch in recent days is related to local movement, but also to the fact that a small number may be roosting in the plantation itself.

Other birds seen this morning; Jay, Kestrel, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Sparrowhawk, 3 Buzzard, Grey Heron and the Little Owl at the “horsey barn” that is so reluctant to be photographed and flies into the roof space when my car slows down. One of these days I'll catch it unawares or when it's just having a doze.

Great-spotted Woodpecker
Little Owl

Bird watchers always like to see birds in immaculate spring plumage, but at this time of year the reality is that not only do lots of adults go through a full moult, but juvenile birds also undergo moult of their body feathers. Here’s a couple of shots of juvenile birds this week, the Blackbird we caught this morning, and a Robin in my garden this week. Give them a few days more and by early September they will look a little smarter.

Robin
Blackbird