The Tree Sparrows Just Get 'Cuter'!, 16th November 2008

We had another ringing session today at our feeding station on Rawcliffe Moss and the Tree Sparrows were definitely not playing ball! Numbers were similar to recent weeks and I counted 128 birds flying away from the feeding station after we had put the nets up. All we ringed were 2 Tree Sparrows and a single Chaffinch. The weather didn't help much either as it was a little breezy and from a northwesterly direction so we had to have the nets a fair way from the hedge to prevent them snagging on the Hawthorns. This meant they were a little more visible and probably had an adverse affect on the catch. Looking at the forecast for the next week we won't get there to ring anytime soon so hopefully the next time we put some nets up the Tree Sparrows will have forgotten what a mist net is!

Despite the lack of ringing this morning the birding was good and a number of birds seemed to be arriving from the north. In fact over the previous evening every time I went out to my garage to get a bottle of liquid refreshment from my beer fridge Redwings were on the move and so were a few Snipe. It's very difficult, if not impossible, to estimate numbers based on contact calls so all I do is when I hear a call I stand and wait for a minute and count the number of calls during a minute and record the time and number of calls per minute in my notebook. For example last night over my house in Thornton Cleveleys, Redwings were calling at a rate of 12 calls per minute at 1930, 1 call per minute at 2020 and 3 calls per minute at 2300. I think you get the idea. At least it gives some idea of the density of passage if nothing else.

Anyway, back to this morning. Thrushes were certainly on the move and as I put nets up in the dark Redwings were calling along with the odd Snipe. As dawned arrived we had 50 Redwings and 484 Fieldfare fly between south and west. A number of the Fieldfares were also flying high with Woodpigeons. Pink-footed Geese were also on the move this morning and continually moved south. Numbers totalled 3,219, but there were a lot more further west that were impossible to count because of the distance involved.

Whooper Swans were also a feature of the morning. We had a group of 7 and 9 go southwest and then we had a larger group of 23 go west. Raptors were represented by singles of Kestrel, Merlin and Buzzard. The Merlin was my first on the farm this autumn. In the past I have witnessed some fantastic 'dog-fights' here between Merlin and Skylark, including on one occasion when the Skylark dived into the woodland to try and escape the Merlin and the Merlin followed it in and shot out the other side minus the Skylark.

Driving off the farm Phil and I stopped at the south end to look at a flock of birds feeding in a potato field and then flying into the hedge. The loose flock included 12 House Sparrows, 10 Blackbirds, 40 Chaffinch, 5 Song Thrushes, 2 Corn Buntings and a resplendent male Brambling. Nice.

A Pleasant Interlude, 14th November 2008

I had a meeting today at Seaforth NR and over lunchtime I had a quick hour look round with Andrew and Steve. The most impressive site were the flock of 18 Scaup close in on the nearest pool. They were a cracking mix of males, females, first winters etc and looked absolutely fantastic in the perfect light we had at the time. I only wish that I had my camera with me.

There were large numbers of wildfowl, particularly Teal, and my count of 300 would have been a huge under-estimate. Eight Goldeneyes and 10 Gadwall were nice as were the flock of 230 Redshank. Something was continually putting the wildfowl, waders and gulls up, but we couldn't detect what it was. As Steve said at the time if you can't see it, it is most likely a Sparrowhawk and I have to agree.

Just as we were about to return to the office to continue our meeting Andrew picked up a cracking adult Med Gull on the far pool. Not a bad way to while away an hour 'at work'!

You will see below a picture of a Great Horned Owl that my mate Nigel from Canada sent me. If you have read my blog before you will know that I do like to show some of Nigel's pictures from Canada because he does catch some impressive beasts!

You can see why it is called a Great 'Horned' owl in this shot.

Eating Me Out Of House And Home, 10th November 2008

I can't remember whether I have mentioned the feeders on my office window before or not. Anyway, my office is on the first floor and I look out on to some semi-natural ancient woodland with a bit of rhododendron under cover. I have two feeders on my office window; a seed feeder that I put sunflower hearts in and a peanut feeder. The sunflower feeder has two feeding ports and boy do they get used. At the moment, the Coal Tits mainly, are emptying this feeder in half a day! There is just constant traffic of Coal Tits to and from the feeder to the woodland. Other species using the feeders include Blue Tit, Great Tit, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Long-tailed Tit, Nuthatch and Great Spotted Woodpecker. Of the course the Nuthatch and Great Spot only use the peanut feeder.

I called at my feeding station today and put some food out. At first I thought there were no Tree Sparrows there, but the wind was quite strong and the birds were sitting tight in the hedge. They were difficult to count and I had a t least 120. A few Chaffinch, Reed Bunting and Great Tit were feeding there as well.

As I had just popped out from work I didn't really have time for a proper walk round but I did have 2 Buzzards, 16 Skylarks, 1,400 Starlings and 639 Pink-footed Geese.

The Right Trousers and Back In The Land Of The Bird Scarers, 9th November 2008

I was at Rossall Point at first light this morning for the second outing of the autumn/winter in my fleece lined winter sea watching trousers and today they were very much the right trousers! The wind was SSW and at times probably gusting up to 45 mph, particularly when some squalls came through. High tide was at 0745 and for the first hour a good number of Common Scoters moved west out of the bay and totalled 159.

After the Common Scoter passage things quietened off a bit and I had 2 Great Crested Grebes, 2 Guillemots, 2 Eiders and single Auk sp. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a flock of 30 Turnstone flying low over the shingle with a Golden Retriever running at full pelt in hot pursuit. It's at times like this when I wish I could magic up a .22 rifle to 'take care' of the bird scarer! As a consequence of the bird scarers wader numbers were low with 51 Oystercatchers, 18 Sanderlings, 3 Grey Plovers and 44 Turnstones.

Soggy Seed, 8th November 2008

I sometimes wonder whether I should have called this blog Rawcliffe Moss birder as most of my entries are from here at the moment! I was at Moss House Farm again this morning to 'top up' at the feeding station and I did manage to have a walk round in between the blustery showers. There was plenty of seed left at the feeding station but it was very soggy after all the rain and a fresh supply was required. I only counted 60 Tree Sparrows at the feeding station today, but when it is windy they are very difficult to count as they stick close to the hedge. Also, the time of day makes a difference, as I know that some of 'my' birds fly off northwest, presumably to another feeding station on Pilling Moss.

At first walking round, as it was so blustery, it was difficult to get an idea of exactly what was about, but with a bit of patience and perseverance birds appeared. At first I thought Thrush numbers were down but by carefully walking a number of hedgerows and wooded areas numbers increased and I ended up with 23 Redwings, 18 Blackbirds, 4 Song Thrush and 50 Fieldfares.

'Continental' type Blackbird

I don't know what possessed me to do this but I decided to count the Pheasants as I walked round the farm. Yes, I know, I can hear you all screaming "what on earth for"! Anyway, I did, and counted 41. What that means I am not sure! Other than there are one or two Pheasants around.

Back to proper birds and one of the main features of recent walks round the farm have been the number of Skylarks and Starlings and this morning was no exception. I counted 52 Skylarks feeding in stubble in different fields and 5,141 Starlings in different groups. Pink-footed Geese were very much in evidence, but the majority of the birds were getting up in the distance from Pilling Moss, and I counted 2,504.

I had two more Woodcock in the 'L' wood. The second bird that I flushed gave cracking views. It was very close when I flushed it and it had to really power vertically upwards to clear the bramble that it was feeding amongst and for a few seconds I could pick every feather detail out on the bird. As soon as it cleared the bramble it flew round and dropped down again. Superb!

'Cute' Tree Sparrows

I took the morning off work today to do some ringing at my feeding station on Moss House Farm. The forecast for this coming weekend wasn't good, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to ring some Tree Sparrows. I always forget how 'cute' Tree Sparrows are in both meanings of the word. There is the 'cuddly bunny' attractiveness of them but their most frustrating 'cute' side is their uncanny ability to avoid mist nets!

'Cute' Tree Sparrow

And this morning was to be no exception. Although there were 195 Tree Sparrows at the feeding station I only managed to catch 15 of them! In addition to the Tree Sparrows I ringed 3 Chaffinch, Robin, 4 Blue Tits, Reed Bunting and 5 Long-tailed Tits.

Aadult Blue Tit

The numbers of Buzzards, sorry Common Buzzards (don't get me started!), were far less today and all I had was a single bird along with two Kestrels. Thrush numbers were perhaps up a little from a few days ago and I had 37 Redwings and 25 Fieldfares. Finches and buntings included my first Brambling of the winter, 9 Yellowhammers and 23 Corn Buntings.

The prize for the most numerous species this morning would have to go to Starling as I had 15,399. One flock alone I estimated at 12,000 birds and to be honest with you it was very likely to be half as big again! Numbers of Pink-footed Geese couldn't compete with this and I had 3,723 during the morning. The only other wildfowl I had were 6 Whooper Swans.

Buteo Air Supremacy, 2nd November 2008

This morning at Moss House Farm the (Common) Buzzards were very much in evidence and at one point 4 were thermalling together over the 'L' wood. I have put 'Common' in brackets because these prefixes that we attach to a number of bird species now really annoy me. I can only assume that we are doing this for the benefit of the Americans who can't name their birds properly anyway. American Robin! What Robin, it's a turdus! So we now have 'common' this, 'northern' that and 'european' the other and it drives me mad! Mind you if someone from the BOU taxonomic committee is reading this they would probably tell me that this is based on a sound scientific basis!

Anyway enough ranting and back to the Buzzards, just plain old simple Buzzards and what a spectacle they were as they circled round and round gaining height. It was as if they were in some sort of gliding competition and were attempting to out soar each other. I called at the farm to feed and my mate Phil had got there just before me. Now I like bumping in to friends for a walk round and a natter, but it is the nattering that's the problem and it is down to me. I think because in my job I work alone all day in the main and when I am in the company of fellow humans I tend to talk too much and today was no exception. So that's why I prefer to bird alone so I am giving it 100% concentration. This morning walking round with Phil we probably didn't see as much as we should have because I was talking too much by telling Phil what a fantastic Northwest Ringers Conference he had missed the day before.

There weren't as many thrushes around this morning and we only had 33 Redwings knocking about and most of these we had flushed from some thick cover along a ditch on the edge of Curlew Wood. Numbers of 'Pink-feet' were around and we had 2,310 moving around.

In addition to the Buzzards the only other raptors we had were single Sparrowhawk and Kestrel. I don't know whether it is me or not, but I have seen a good number of Kestrels this year and not as many Sparrowhawks. Perhaps the Kestrels have had a good breeding season.

As usual the feeding station was dominated by Tree Sparrows and 140 were feeding on the seed along with a handful of Chaffinch and single Reed Bunting. Skylarks were still evidence in the stubble in the 'big' field and 16 were getting up and down from there.

The 'big' field

From the plantation we flushed a Woodcock from a clump of Alders and that was my first of the autumn. The only sighting of minor note was a flock of 300 Starling feeding in stubble. Numbers of Starlings have increased in recent days.