A Colourful Day

For today’s post there are more pictures from our recent holiday to Lanzarote. There lots of them so "click the pics" for a continuous slide show; and I hope everyone likes egrets!

One of the easiest spots to see the endemic Berthelot’s Pipit is strangely enough one that is overrun with tourists, just off the road from Yaiza at the Islote de Hilario visitor centre for camel rides en route to Timanfaya. 

Traditionally, the farmers of Lanzarote used camels to help cultivate the dry, difficult land. They were brought from the nearby African mainland. Today the camels have been replaced in farming, but a tradition of caring for them survives. The remaining camels earn their living by carrying visitors over the rough terrain of the Timanfaya National Park. At the camel station there is a small but very interesting museum, showing how farmers used to work with the camels. Displays of harness and farming equipment, and old photographs of the work, bear witness to the resilience of both man and beast in the harsh landscape. 

I met up with national park worker who takes a break in the car park where he shares his lunch of Lanzarote cheese with a regular group of 10/12 Berthelot’s Pipit’s. Continually active and dashing around constantly the tiny pipits are not easy to photograph, and because of light reflections from the volcanic rock, it’s best to set the camera to underexpose. Wander not too far away and there might be a Cattle Egret or two stalking though the dry landscape. 

Berthelot's Pipit

Berthelot's Pipit

 

Camels at Islote de Hilario, Lanzarote

Camel rides at Islote de Hilario, Lanzarote

Cattle Egret

Cattle Egret

On this particular day we stopped off at the old port of Puerto del Carmen hoping to see a few birds in the marina. There were a couple of Little Egrets, several Turnstones, 2 Common Sandpipers and lots of Yellow-legged Gulls hanging around the tied up fishing boats,all hoping to snatch a meal from anything the fishermen had overlooked. It was clear that the birds involved had a regular beat, inspecting each fishing boat in turn, the egrets in particular paying special attention to the boxes and containers that had recently held fish. It's interesting that the local Turnstones have learnt to forsake the rocky shore to turn over instead the bric-a-brac on decks of fishing boats.

The colourful old boats made for some brightly hued backdrops. 

Little Egret

Little Egret

Little Egret

Little Egret

Little Egret

Little Egret

Little Egret

Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote

Little Egret

Common Sandpiper

Turnstone

Turnstone

Turnstone

Common Sandpiper

 Yellow-legged Gull

Log into Another Bird Blog soon for more news, views and pictures. I'm still working through Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology since Darwin but a review will appear on here very soon.

Linking today to Anni's Birding Blog ,  Eileen's Saturday Critters and Camera Critters .

More And Less

A week after getting back from holiday I finally plucked up the courage to go birding for an hour or two and it was to the “old faithful” Conder Green and Glasson that I headed. After almost 30 years or so of visits I’m sure if I still had my old Mark 1 Escort Estate of all those years gone by it would pretty much find its own way there. 

The wind hasn’t let up much, making it difficult to count the waders and wildfowl but a little perseverance gave 190+ Teal, 35 Wigeon, 5 Goldeneye, 2 Little Grebe, 4 Lapwing, 6 Oystercatcher, 10 Redshank, 2 Curlew, 1 Little Egret and 1 Spotted Redshank. So nothing much changed in my 3 week absence, numbers and species much the same as winter birds linger on. 

The car park and railway path indicated that a few birds thought spring to be in the air, even though my hat, gloves and scarf said otherwise. In song were 2 Dunnock, 3 Great Tit and a couple of Linnets, although the male singers were amongst a flock of 18/20 in the tallest trees. A couple of Blackbirds here and also 6/8 Chaffinch but neither of those species in song,  plus a croaking Raven overhead.

I spent some time at Glasson watching the 12 Goldeneyes, the majority of them males which broke off their feeding spells to display to the few females on offer. The water was a bit choppy for pictures but I managed a couple in between the birds heading for the centre of the basin if any passer by showed even the least sign of walking the path. 

 Goldeneye

Goldeneye

Goldeneye

There was a single Great Crested Grebe back on the water, the bird sticking to the far reeds where the present water level can surely rise no more and leave ample nesting choices. The picture was taken here last summer on a much sunnier and calmer day. 

 Great Crested Grebe

Also here, 35+ Tufted Duck 3 Cormorants and 1 Grey Heron. 

Cormorant

During my absence fun was had with a Glossy Ibis that turned up in a field at Thurnham Hall, so on the off chance I drove up the familiar road and parked at the church.

It’s many years since my ringing birds at Thurnham where Marsh Tits, Garden Warblers, Spotted Flycatchers, Blackcaps and Nuthatches regularly turned up in the nets and where the fabled Lesser Spotted Woodpecker put in a final appearance before going locally extinct. There were no digital cameras then.

 

Lesser-spotted Woodpecker

No Marsh Tits or lesser spots today, just Great Spotted Woodpecker, Mistle Thrush, 2 Treecreeper, 15 Fieldfare, 1 Redwing, 2 Nuthatch and Coal Tits, lots of them. 

I didn’t see the Glossy Ibis but I sure found a good few memories. More news and maybe memories from Another Bird Blog soon.

A Sunny Day In Lanzarote

There’s still post-holiday catching up to do but I’m also struggling for inspiration to do local birding when the weather seems to be in the same evil mood it was more than two weeks ago. This UK weather takes some getting accustomed to after the warmth of the Canary Islands. 

So for today’s blog post there are pictures of Lanzarote birds and the Lanzarote landscape. "Click the pics" for a tour of the island and a glimpse of its birds.

Staying in the south of the island meant we travelled around those parts the most, handy since the working salt pans, the Salinas de Janubia were close by, as was the pretty little village of El Golfo perched on a rocky but sheltered shore. 

Salinas de Janubio, Lanzarote

Birding the saltpans isn’t easy as there is no way to approach the wary waders before they see you and fly to their various hideaways around the huge expanse of water. With a couple of visits there was little in the way of unexpected sightings with common birds to the fore, as in Black-winged Stilt, Redshank, Greenshank, Kentish Plover, Common Sandpiper, Ringed Plover, Turnstone and Little Stint. I double checked a single plover which turned out to be a Golden Plover, when it’s not unknown for American Golden Plovers to turn up here 100 miles out in the Atlantic Ocean. Not the best shot of a stint - I blame a breezy morning! 

Black-winged Stilt

Little Stint

Black-winged Stilt

Turnstone

There’s a spectacular road to El Golfo, one to enjoy in our Alfa Romeo, the hire car upgrade, somewhat more upmarket than the usual bog standard Corsa or Fiesta. The sharp-eyed will note the Alfa is parked at Famara in the north of the island where the scenery is impressive but where birds are non-existent, the reputed Barbary Falcon remaining hidden to our eyes. 

The road to El Golfo, Lanzarote

Famara, Lanzarote

The trip north wasn’t without success as we saw both Houbara Bustard and Cream-coloured Courser near a village called Soo. 

A walk to the Green Lagoon is a must, as is a coffee-stop where the gulls wait on the shore for the restaurateurs to deposit the remains of their morning’s fish gutting. In January it seems to be 99.9% Yellow-legged Gulls in Lanzarote with just the occasional Herring Gull to be seen. 

The Green Lagoon, Lanzarote

Yellow-legged Gull

Yellow-legged Gull

Coffee Stop at El Golfo, Lanzarote

Explore a bit further along the shore away from the plodding tourists and there might be a Common Sandpiper, Ringed Plover and Little Egrets to see, with if you’re lucky a Spanish Sparrow or two. 

Spanish Sparrow

Little Egret

Common Sandpiper

Spanish Sparrow

That’s all for now and I hope to get out birding soon and post some local news. 

Otherwise I’m engrossed in Ten Thousand Birds, Ornithology since Darwin and will post a review of this wonderful new book very soon.

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

A Curlew And A Yellow Submarine

Back home from two weeks in Lanzarote with a seemingly endless list of things to do so I put together a blog post until we’re truly up and running. 

One of long list of my holiday emails waiting for catch up concerned the recovery of a Curlew ringed a few years ago. 

Turn the calendar back two and a half years to 9th June 2010. Will and I are in the hills above the market town of Garstang on the western edge of the Bowland hills where we are on the lookout for wader chicks. We found a couple of broods of Curlew chicks that day, eventually tracking down the youngsters despite the frantic and determined efforts of the adult birds to see us off their home patch. 

Curlew

FC79566 was one of a brood of three healthy chicks ringed that day.

Curlew chicks

Flip the calendar forward to 13 January 2014 and Liverpool John Lennon Airport alongside the estuary of the River Mersey, 7 kms southeast of Liverpool city centreand some 62 kms from Garstang. An airport worker is conducting routine checks of the runways to ensure the safety of planes landing and taking off when he comes across the freshly dead corpse of FC79566. 

 The Mersey Estuary and Liverpool John Lennon Airport - http://www.airliners.net/photo//0832289/L/

I contacted the Operations Planner at the airport Andrew Hepworth who told me that the bird was probably hit by an aircraft but as no pilot reported a possible strike the cause of death could not be confirmed. Andrew went on to say that due to their proximity to the Mersey estuary this time of year does result in large numbers of Curlews close by. Groups of Curlews regularly fly over the aerodrome fence boundary and settle on the airfield. As a result the resident bird control operators are constantly shifting them back over the fence and back to the shores of the estuary below. 

Curlew

 

“As you appreciate we do get our fair share of dead birds/strikes and these tend to be curlew, woodpigeon, gull species, swifts during the summer, and the odd kestrel.” 

In 2002 Liverpool Aiport was renamed in honour of John Lennon, a founding member of The Beatles, 22 years after Lennon's death. A 7 ft tall bronze statue stands overlooking the check-in hall, and a tribute to the Beatle’s well known song Yellow Submarine graces the entrance to the airport. 

Yellow Submarine at Liverpool John Lennon Airport - Wikipedia

I’ll catch up with fellow bloggers soon and post pictures of Lanzarote. 

Also, as soon as I can find precious time for a determined read, there is a review of a stunning new book Ten Thousand Birds - Ornithology Since Darwin. 

Stay tuned.

Linking today to Anni's Birding Blog,  Camera Critters Blogspot and to Eileen's Saturday Critters.

Sparrow Fans Only

I’m still out of touch on holiday. So for today’s there’s a pre-scheduled blog post for all the sparrow fans out there itching to get out and check their nest boxes quite soon. I included a set of my pictures of Tree Sparrows from various locations and a variety of places.

I found some fascinating information online about the Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus), a common enough bird where I live but one hard to study as the species is extremely shy. Nesting adults leave nest boxes even as one approaches and care must be taken when ringing nestlings at the correct stage to avoid desertion by the adults. Even watching Tree Sparrows at feeding stations or in everyday field work can be difficult as the species seems to flee from inquisitive human eyes. 

Tree Sparrow

 

A number of bird species deposit eggs into other nests and it is not easy for parents to tell their own eggs from others. Such parasitism is well documented in many bird species, particularly the cuckoo and cowbird families. Despite the apparent difficulties of studying Tree Sparrows, researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna discovered that Tree Sparrows can recognise eggs deposited by other Tree Sparrows but do not always reject them.

From University of Veterinary Medicine -- Vienna (2013, December 11). Egg dumping -- and rearing. ScienceDaily.

Tree Sparrow

 

"Building a nest, laying and incubating eggs and taking care of a hungry brood are very demanding on birds´ energy budgets, so it is obviously in their interests to ensure that the young they are caring for are their own. Brood parasitism sometimes makes this a difficult proposition: strangers -- either of their own kind or of another species -- might want a free ride and deposit their eggs into ready-made nests. The reluctant "hosts" pay a high cost. At the very least, they waste energy on unrelated offspring, while at worst their own eggs or hatchlings are killed by parasitic chicks". 

"Strategies to avoid egg dumping vary from species to species. Birds might count eggs or recognize foreign eggs by variation in colour or size and if possible reject them. But recognizing foreign eggs is not always easy and not all species or individuals succeed. Some birds do not seem to discern even obvious differences, while some that do are physically unable to eject the strange eggs. Even when hosts manage to eject eggs from the nest, their motivation for doing so is unclear. Are they keeping the nest "sanitized" for their brood or are they attempting to prevent parasitism?"

Tree Sparrow

"The Tree Sparrow seems to have evolved strong variation in egg coloration and size between clutches, probably to enhance its ability to discriminate parasitic eggs from its own. To test for the ability to recognize conspecific eggs, Herbert Hoi and colleagues at the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology of the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna introduced both real eggs and cardboard models into the nests of Tree Sparrows. The scientists used flat objects to ensure the birds would easily be able to remove the fake "eggs" if they wanted to (flat objects are easier to grasp with the beak than round ones). To investigate which features made ejection more likely, they included model eggs with features that are not typical of Tree Sparrow eggs". 

Tree Sparrow

The researchers also checked for the sparrows' motivation for ejecting eggs by introducing the models either at the time of egg-laying or during incubation. "If the motivation is to defend against egg-dumping, we would expect egg ejection to happen largely when the females are laying eggs," explains Hoi. "If they do it during incubation, they probably just want to keep the nest clean for their hatchlings”. In two related experiments, the researchers tested the consequences of adding eggs to 30 nest boxes during egg laying and to another 30 during incubation, first using real eggs and then using flat paper models. 

Tree Sparrow

The birds removed foreign eggs from the nest in about a third of cases in the first experiment, although the remainder accepted and continued to incubate parasitic eggs. When flat models were used, 81% of the objects were quickly thrown out, regardless of the time of introduction. The results point to an anti-parasite behaviour, albeit an imperfect one. The birds sometimes seem to have a hard time ejecting foreign eggs with their beaks, although it is also possible that they do not always correctly identify them. 

"Our tests on motivation are interesting. The sparrows threw out foreign objects of a different size more often during the egg-laying stage but they were more careful to remove unusual white objects during the incubation stage," says Hoi. "This shows that avoidance of parasitism is a motivation but nest sanitation also plays a part because the sparrows probably think the white, non-round objects are egg sacks and broken shells, which are usually removed from the nest after the young hatch." 

Tree Sparrow

Over a number of years our local Tree Sparrows have given many a cause for thought, leading one to think that not only is there more to the world of the humble Tree Sparrow than we imagine, and also that they are shrewder than we initially give them credit for. I guess that this interesting piece of research reinforces that impression. 

More news, views and birds later. Another Bird Blog which is back on home territory very soon with pictures from Lanzarote 2014.