Raptors

At the end of last week, I completed two surveys at my wintering bird survey site in west Lancashire; a low water count Thursday afternoon and a high-water count on Friday morning.

It was a glorious afternoon on the Thursday, and it felt like the sort of afternoon where there would be a few raptors about. Nothing rare expected, but as it was warm and sunny in early Spring, I expected a few to be on the wing.

In fact, as I was getting my gear together at the back of my car, I could hear the 'mewing' call of a Buzzard, looked up and there it was displaying! You can't beat watching Buzzards displaying; closing their wings, diving, opening their wings again and pulling up calling. Magic! In addition to this first bird, I observed several individual Buzzards displaying and it was difficult to tell how many were involved, but I have entered ten in my notebook.

In addition to the Buzzards were four Kestrels making use of the warm weather and gaining height from the thermals. No other species were involved on the Thursday, but it was nevertheless a great raptorial display!

 Kestrel

A few winter thrushes were still knocking about in the form of 24 Redwings, 33 Fieldfares and a continental male Blackbird. The only other sighting of note, and it too was encouraged by the warm sunshine was a Small Tortoiseshell butterfly on the wing.

Friday was another sunny day, but it dawned cold at my survey site with clear skies and a south-easterly wind. Raptors were again present, but not in the same number, but I did have two additional species over yesterday; a Sparrowhawk and a second calendar year male Peregrine.

I noticed the young male Peregrine perched on top of an electricity pylon with a Carrion Crow for company. The Carrion Crow was getting as close as it dared, looking at the Peregrine, looking at it!

Just two Buzzards and a single Kestrel today. Interestingly I had no winter thrushes, other than a single Fieldfare. I heard Skylark and Siskin going over, but as they were in the stratosphere, I have no idea of knowing whether they were singular or plural, but at least it was a sign of spring!

A number of Chaffinches were around this morning, ten, including two singing birds close to my VP.

 Chaffinch

Also close to my VP was a Brown Hare in the field north of my location and sadly it didn't come my side of the sheep netting, as you will see from the picture below.

The forecast is looking grim for the next couple of days, so it might be towards the end of the week before I get out again.

The Ice Duck Remains

Mid-week saw me back in the northeast near Berwick, and the weather over the winter has certainly frustrated me with this site. I have never been able to plan a few days in advance when I was going to complete a survey, and it has always been a case of reacting at short notice to a window in the weather, making a quick dash through the Borders, and this was the case this week.

On the day of my survey it was the most pleasant it has been for several surveys, mainly because the wind was just a light westerly, although there was still a ground frost that challenged my toes!

It was a high-water count on this day and close to one of my VPs out on the river were eight males and two female Eiders. The light was great, and this really showed off the colours of the males. The males were displaying with their characteristic cooing display-call that the Collins Bird Guide describes as a "far carrying a-ooh-e"; a little bit like how Monty Python might caricature some gossiping fish wives in one of their sketches. I think you know what I mean.

 Eiders (above & below)

Talking of courtship and display, the Goldeneyes were equally as busy, and the six males amongst the 35 females/immatures were busy throwing their heads back onto their backs, and then stretching their necks up, with an upwards pointing bill. Marvellous!

As the week before, the female Long-tailed Duck was hanging out with the Goldeneyes, and wherever the flock went the Ice Duck went too. A couple of Shags, and adult and a second calendar year bird, floated past my VP and were constantly diving.

 Shags

Two species of diver is always bonus and this morning it was a couple of Red-throated Divers and a distant Black-throated Diver from my second VP.

A few species of wader were moved around by the incoming tide and these included fourteen Curlews, 123 Redshanks, thirteen Oystercatchers and seventeen Turnstones.

A number of Pink-footed Geese headed northwest during the morning, 476 to be exact, and 21 Whooper Swans followed. Other than a male Sparrowhawk over the dunes, and fifteen alarm calling Linnets that were alarm calling at the Sparrowhawk that was it.

Not too bad for a survey executed at short notice!

Birds Canada

Canada has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, mainly because of having family in southern Ontario, and over the years I have visited them a few times and done some birding over there.

I also had the privilege of spending a year volunteering at Long Point Bird Observatory, and it was after that that I became a member of Bird Studies Canada. After 60 years Bird Studies Canada has now become Birds Canada, and I have an immense respect for the organisation and the work that they do. They are very much Canada's equivalent of the BTO!

My Winter 2020 copy of Birdwatch Canada (Birds Canada's quarterly journal) dropped through my letterbox a couple of weeks ago, and amongst the usual interesting articles was one on the 'State of Canada's Birds', and this was a summary of the State of Canada's Birds 2019 report. And again it has many similarities to our The State of the UK's Birds report here in the UK, not least some of the major impacts on bird populations both sides of the Atlantic.

The report showed that in Canada some bird groups are recovering compared to their numbers in the 1970s, while others are in serious trouble. Shore birds, grassland specialists and aerial insectivores (Swifts, Swallows, Nighthawks, Whippoorwills and Flycatchers) are declining drastically. On the plus side many birds of prey species in Canada and wildfowl are steadily increasing.

One of the biggest threats to bird populations over here and on the other side of the 'pond' is climate change. Climate change threatens 66% of species in North America if we don't take action to tackle it/slow it down, or "don't siginicantly alter our course" as the State of Canada's Birds 2019 puts it.

Other common threats are neonicotinoid pesticides that hamper song birds fattening up for migration, that then delays their migration south in the Autumn. And 'neonics' are a threat over here too.

Just like the BTO in the UK, Birds Canada is reliant upon the hard work put in by volunteers that carry out many thousands of hours of fieldwork to provide data on changing bird populations that enable conservationists to put conservation measures in place, or provide the evidence to enable them to pressure the government to introduce policies to put conservation measures in place.

Without organisations such as Birds Canada, and other similar organisations around the world, the world would be a poorer place. Give them all the help you can....please.

This is a male American Redstart, one of my favourite North American 

warbler species, that I ringed at Long Point Bird Observatory in 2005.

Dynamic Hedges

In conjunction with one of my clients I started work on the concept of 'Dynamic Hedges' in 2013. My client tasked me to come up with a hedge mix that could provide some pollen and nectar in every month of the year, as well as supplying food over-winter for birds and small mammals. No problem there then!

Tony was very much conscious of the fact that most of our grasslands are impoverished from a biodiversity perspective, and wondered whether it was possible to increase the amount of pollen and nectar in hedges to try and compensate for this, a little bit at least.

Most hedges in the modern agricultural landscape have their origins from the enclosures period in the nineteenth century, when large areas of land were divided up and either hedges and walls were used to form the boundaries. These hedges had to be stock proof, no post & wire fencing with sheep netting and a strand of barb then, and a great deal of 'thorn', mainly Hawthorn, was used in the hedgerow mix.

Fields today are made stock proof through the use of the above mentioned post and wire fencing, and therefore hedgerows don't need as much thorn in the mix, and other species can be introduced. Although hedgerows don't have as much value from an agricultural perspective, and they probably have more value from a biodiversity perspective, there is still some value of hedges to livestock in providing shade and shelter.

I came up with a mix of 21 species of plants for the new dynamic hedges with input from our hedger, Richard, and Tony agreed the mix and we set to work planting the dynamic hedges at one of Tony's farms in Lancashire.

The other difference between the dynamic hedge and a traditional hedge is the specification for planting. The dynamic hedge is planted 3 m wide, three rows thick at nine plants per metre. A traditional hedge planted under an agri-environment scheme for example, is 2 m wide, two rows thick and planted at six plants per metre. So the dynamic hedge is a much more weighty hedge.

Below is a list and percentages of the plants that we use in our dynamic hedges:
 

Hedge Plant	Percentage of Total
Hawthorn	48
Blackthorn	9
Hazel	5
Holly	4
English Oak	1
Common Gorse	3
Cherry Plum	1.5
Alder	1
Goat Willow	2
Field Maple	2
Wild Cherry	1
Wild Pear	3.5
Bay Willow	5
Bird Cherry	1
Crab Apple	3
Dog Rose	2
Rowan	2
Elder	2
Guelder Rose	2
Honey Suckle	1
Birch sp.	1

Since the original concept of the dynamic hedges their use has moved on beyond that of just increasing the diversity, and ultimately the pollen and nectar available in the hedge, to that of climate change adaptability, carbon sequestration and even an element of re-wilding. I'll come back to this in a moment.

It is worth mentioning that the word 'dynamic' is crucial in terms of these hedges, and the above planting mix is not meant to be a 'one size fits all', this was a mix that I felt would work at my clients farm in north Lancashire where they were first trialled. The idea is for them to be dynamic and the species mix can be altered to suit local environmental factors such as soil type, climate, moisture etc.

We have had some input from academics and organisations, and the eminent ornithologist Professor Ian Newton kindly had a look at the hedges 3-4 years after they were first planted, and he was impressed with the rate of establishment and diversity within the hedge. At this stage I hadn't included Birch sp. in the mix, and it was Ian's suggestion to do so.

We organised a training day for the National Trust to give them the opportunity of looking at the hedges in the hope that they might adopt the principle of dynamic hedges on some of their properties and estates. Since the training day the National Trust at Dunham Massey is actively establishing hedges that follow dynamic hedges principles, and the specification of the hedge and their raison d'etre have been circulated widely to staff in the northwest region and nationally, and has been well received.

The National Trust said to us that "it is clear that Dynamic Hedges are well designed to help deliver NT vision for High Nature Status farming across our farmed estate as part of our Land Outdoors and Nature programme...and that the...approach to the establishment of new, species-rich hedges is endorsed by the National Trust and that we are looking at ways to incorporate...this...thinking into our management when suitable opportunities arise". 

Since then colleagues of mine in Cheshire and Northumberland have been looking at dynamic hedges, and looking at ways to develop them further for carbon sequestration on farms, and perhaps a type of re-wilding by increasing the width of the hedges to 6 m. 

Adaptation to climate change is also a crucial element of dynamic hedges. Plants are very slow, understandably, to adapt to climate change mianly because they can't move (or not very quickly), so establishing hedges with a diverse mix of plant species will most certainly help hedges adapt to a warming climate, and ensure that hedges are very much a part of the landscape, providing habitat for bird species moving because of climate change. 

The other important aspect of dynamic hedges is disease resilience. We don't know what or when the next disease will be that could potentially affect hedgerows. Think of Ash dieback and the devastating affect this will ultimately have on hedges in the north of England, where Ash is often the main hedgerow tree. Increasing the diversity within the hedge, increases the ability of the hedge to withstand disease.

I can hear you asking why haven't you mentioned this work before? And the answer is mainly that it has been a work in progress. We wanted to see how well the hedges established and how easy they would be to manage with traditional hedge management techniques such as hedge laying. We, I say we when I mean Richard, have already layed a hedge that was only planted in 2013. It was laid just six years after planting, that is how quickly these hedges establish. Richard tells me that it was one of the easiest hedges he has laid.

More work is required, but the time is right to get dynamic hedges out there, and we are working on that with the National Trust. I just thought I would give them a shout out to readers of my blog, to help spread the word.

Below are various pictures of dynamic hedges at the farm in north Lancashire where the first of these hedges were established.

One of the first dynamic hedges to be planted in 2013 (above), and how it 

looked in 2017 below.

 The above was a dynamic hedge planted in an exposed position in 2014, and 

how it looked in 2019!

Over on the right you will see that I have updated Fylde Ringing Group ringing totals up until the end of February. Again, Linnet is the only species in double figures and the totals so far this year are solely down to Phil and Andy. The only new species added to the list in February were Wren, Blackbird, Goldcrest and Dunnock.

Ice Duck

I was back in the northeast again yesterday, and in fact since I was there last week I have done very little birding other than recording the birds in my garden on a daily basis, mainly because of the weather.

It was cold yesterday, and on my drive through the Howgills, with views across to the Lakes and further on the North Pennines to the Borders, there was snow on high ground. There was a hard frost at my survey site near Berwick too, and even the sand was frozen! Cue the climate change nay sayers who stupidly confuse weather with climate, and use cold weather as their argument that climate change isn't real. That numptie Trump in the US is an exponent of this! Anyway, don't get me started...enough of climate change!

The sun rise was beautiful, and I suppose where better to watch the sun rise, but on the east coast!

 Sunrise

I had a low water count to complete yesterday, and what is interesting about this site is the lack of species feeding in the estuary. I think this is because of the type of estuary it is, with very little mud, mainly a rocky substrate with sand. The two main wader species that I record were Redshank and Curlew, and I had 81 and 30 respectively of each.

 Curlew

Perhaps my best sighting of the morning was a female Long-tailed Duck, mainly because they are so scarce in the Irish Sea where I bird, but also because of the great views I had of it. I was counting a flock of Goldeneyes, 21 in total, when I saw something different surface and there it was an Ice Duck!

 Goldeneye

Ice Duck is a name given to Long-tailed Ducks in Northumberland and other local names from the around the British Isles that I like are Sharp-tailed Duck, Swallow-tailed Sheldrake and Sea Pheasant. And it is easy to see how some of these names have been derived when you think of the Ice Duck.

I had cracking scope views of the Long-tailed Duck all morning, but sadly she never came within camera range. Ah well, maybe next time!

Other than the Goldeneyes on the river I had eight Eiders and two Shags, and also a lot of Mallards that I haven't counted up yet. A couple of calling Rock Pipits, a flock of 47 Pink-footed Geese north and singing Skylarks from the dunes, and that was it. Time to head back south through the Borders where there was even more snow on the higher ground.

 Shag

Roll On Spring

I haven't had a lot to post about of late, mainly due to this never ending cycle of wet weather we have been having, with the jet stream plonked on top of us dragging in a wet, windy and westerly air stream! It's either blowing a hooley or pouring down, or both, and the words "roll on spring" are never out of my thoughts for long!

Sadly, we might have to get used to these warmer, wetter winters as climate change bites. Then again if you listen to good old President Trump, climate change is nothing more than a myth, a conspiracy theory invented to stop or slow economical development. I'm afraid Trump, alongside other climate change nay-sayers, need to wake up and smell the coffee. Climate change isn't something that you have to believe in or not like Father Christmas, it's real end-of, it's not up for debate. I don't know why I am so grumpy about it today, maybe it's because I am fed up with the constant wind or rain and not being able to get out and commune with nature, or more to the point perhaps I am fed up with scientific fact being politicised which seems to be hapening all the time these days. It seems to be in vogue to deny science!

Anyway, enough of my grumpiness as there were a few birds earlier in the week, and I mean a few. I was back in the northeast at one of my wintering bird survey sites. The drive to the site takes about three and a half hours, and when I come off the M6 at Gretna it is a pleasnt drive northeast through the borders, a part of the world that I love.

There was lots of floods alongside rivers such as the Esk, Ewes Water, Teviot and Tweed. Alongside sections of the Tweed all winter I have seen large numbers of Swans, and I had thought that they might have been Whoopers. I have nothing to base this on other than their size, and numbers, and flashing past in a car at 60 mph it's hard to get much on them. Every time I see them I have been looking for somewhere to pull over and take a proper look, and I have come to the conclusion that 'numbers of Swans in roadside fields = zero laybys'! However, when I was driving back mid-week I did get some half-decent views from the car at the closer birds and they were Mutes! So, maybe they are all Mutes. I'll have to speak to my friend George and find out.

I have two VPs at my survey site close to Berwick, and on the maps I record all the species observed from the VP with any associated activity, and the maps can look quite busy. At the same time in my notebook I record any personal highlights, and I suppose it is the personal highlights that give me an indiaction of how quiet, or not so quiet the session has been.

The personal highlights in my notebook for my survey mid-week consisted of just seven species, not good. Before the tide ran in there were a number of Curlews, Redshanks and Turnstones feeding in the estuary numbering 45, 52 and 18 respectively. What is interesting is that as soon as the tide has covered the feeding areas, even though there are areas where the birds could roost, the birds move on, presumably to other feeding areas. This makes the site very quiet indeed at high water. I suppose I am used to sites locally in Liverpool and Morecambe Bay, where at high water there isn't anywhere for the birds to feed and they roost close to, or relatively close to feeding areas.

 Curlew

At high water on the river were eight Goldeneyes, three Eiders and a single Red-throated Diver. That's six out of the seven species in my notebook, and number seven were two Rock Pipits that flew over calling.

The forecast for the weekend...you've guessed it is for more wind and rain! Roll on spring, after all it is just around the corner!

Back To Back

Back to back could refer to the past two glorious days I spent at Fleetwood Beer Festival, but it actually refers to two back to back survey days at my wintering bird survey site in west Lancs. Going back to the beer festival there were about 100 real ales on offer and I managed to sample about twenty of them, and very nice they were too!

The first day of my back to back surveys was on Wednesday, Wednesday afternoon to be precise under full cloud cover with a moderate southwesterly wind. It was most definitely quiet, the main feature again being the wintering Thrushes, with 223 Fieldfares and 40 Redwings. Associating with the Fieldfare and Redwings were Starlings, and in total I had 661.

As the afternoon drew on a few Buzzards took to the air and I recorded four over and past my watch point. The only other raptors were two Kestrels, and that was it. As I said, very quiet.

I was back the following morning and what a difference a day makes, as I was there at first light and it was glorious under clear skies and very little wind.

As I walked towards my watch point I flushed seventeen Mallards from the pond close to where my VP is located. As the Mallards headed away from me and started to climb, I noticed a raptor closing in on them. I lifted my bins and there was a female Peregrine giving chase! I didn't see the outcome, but I doubt very much that she was successful.

Later on in the morning I heard a Raven calling, looked up and I could see it perched on top of a close electricity pylon. This bird then flew off and a second bird flew into view. I love watching Ravens, and as this bird flew through the landscape it was contunually rolling, as Ravens often do, when all of a sudden the Peregrine appeared again and attmepted to mug the Raven! This bird was either extremely tenacious or very hungry. Again I didn't see the outcome, but surmised that it was another failure because a minute or two later I heard a 'rehk rehk rehk rehk' coming from the same pylon, and there perched near the top was the Peregrine. I trained my scope on her and I could see that she was a second calendar year bird, and she continued to call bobbing her head.

I took a few snaps of her, but the superstructure of the pylon was mostly in the way, and then she took to the air, flew round in a arc past my watch point and disappeared off to the south. Magic!

 Peregrine (above & below)

Fieldfares and Redwings made their presence felt again this morning with 204 and 39 respectively. Chaffinch and Song Thrush were both singing, and adding their voices to the growing number of early morning songsters.

 Chaffinch

The light was crystal clear, and when two Great Sotted Woodpeckers flew directly over me (I'm not sure where they were heading!), the red on the vent and belly really stood out. Five Buzzards were in the air this morning, making use of late morning thermals as the sun warmed the ground. On my drive home I had a few Buzzards at various locations circling round and making use of the thermals.

Just one Kestrel today, and five Long-tailed Tits later my stint was over, and I headed home with thoughts of the 38th Fleetwood Beer Festival that evening! 

Over on the right you will see that I have updated the ringing totals for our group, Fylde Ringing Group. The only species to be ringed in any nymbers in January was Linnet with 31, courtesy of Phil and Andy.