Spring?

Ian and I carried out some essential management work on our coastal ringing site at Rossall School this morning. We 'beefed' up some of the existing net rides by planting some willows and opened up a new 40' net ride that is totally sheltered in fairly windy conditions. This will be really useful for tape luring finches when they are moving in blustery weather.

Tools of the trade

New sheltered net ride

As we were carrying out the work we noticed that a few birds were moving over on 'vis'; namely Meadow Pipit, Grey Wagtail, Chaffinch and Goldfinch. Spring at last? In the week Ian had a similar movement over Rossall Point and the first moving Gannet of the spring.

After we had completed the work Ian went off to Rossall Point to look on the sea for an hour and I decided top have a proper walk round the school to see if anything else was on the move. I didn't have any more Grey Wagtails than the two we had go north earlier or the two Chaffinch we had go north as well. Meadow Pipits totalled five and Goldfinch did too. Not exactly huge numbers, but spring migration nonetheless.

Lots of birds were setting up territory including Blackbird, Greenfinch, Collared Dove, Great Tit, Reed Bunting, Robin and several pairs of Dunnocks. There is a good population of Dunnocks in the thick gorse hedgerows.

Some of the fields were nice and wet, and it made me think of the days that Lapwing used to nest here. Ten Common Gulls, Lesser Black-backed Gull and five Herring Gulls were making use of the 'splashy' conditions to feed. Common Gull and Lesser Black-backeds another sign of spring.


I then headed up to the sea wall and a flock of two hundred Knot flew over. Presumably they had been displaced by the incoming tide on the estuary and were heading somewhere to roost. A flock of 160 Oystercatchers and eight Curlews kept taking flight as they were flushed off the old playing fields where they were trying to feed over the high tide period. Of course you can imagine who was doing all the flushing - b*stard dog walkers! Let's not go there today!

Scanning the sea with my bins (left my scope at home) all I had were a couple of Cormorants and eight male Eiders. I then made my way back to the car. All we need now is a bit of good weather and we'll be out tape luring those Meadow Pipits. I can't wait!

A Quiet Week

I haven't posted for a few days because I haven't had anything to post! There has been a great deal of interest shown recently in an Egyptian Goose that has been knocking about in the Conder Green/Cockersands area. Local birders have been twitching it to get it on their 'Fylde' list. What a load of bollocks! It is an obvious 'fence hopper' and is as wild as an escaped budgie, but the 'mob rules' ticking mentality prevails and all must see it. Madness!

Thinking about it I have seen some exotic birds 'in the wild' in the Fylde in the past so perhaps I could be adding Golden Pheasant, Guineafowl, Reeves Pheasant, Red-eared Waxbill to name but a few to my Fylde list! I could if I kept a Fylde list of course. Anyway I have wasted enough time on this nonsense.

It would definitely seem that the Tree Sparrows are starting to disperse from the feeding station at Rawcliffe Moss as I had 95 last Wednesday (24th) and 71 yesterday (26th). I have to feed again tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see how many are left. Chaffinch and Yellowhammer numbers have also reduced and everywhere I go at the moment male Chaffinches are setting up territories and singing their heads off.

I had six Stock Dove in the week at Rawcliffe Moss as well as six Corn Buntings. Four Grey Partridges were still at the feeding station and the skies were still being patrolled by the local Buzzards and Kestrels.

It was some conservation work for Gail and I this morning in the form of checking and replacing boxes for Pied Flycatchers in the Hodder Valley. We carried out any maintenance work required on the 35 boxes I have up there and replaced any in need of replacing. I took nine new boxes with me and put all of them up. In fact I could have done with three or four more. So I think it's a trip to the timber merchants for me next week for some more wood for boxes.

Gail removing the plate from an old box

The 'new' number 13

There was some activity in the woodland and a few Blue and Great Tits were prospecting some of the boxes. We had Nuthatch, which was expected, and a calling Marsh Tit that we couldn't get on to. They do occur here, but have been getting scarce over the years. After two hours of hard work I treated Gail to a Wild Boar sausage barm cake. I know how to treat a lady!

Going Down

Are the Tree Sparrows starting to disperse I wondered as I put some food out on Rawcliffe Moss this morning. I only counted 94 this morning and Phil had 135 on Sunday (21st) and I had 208 on Thursday (18th), so there is definitely a downward trend there. It will be interesting to see what happens later this week if we get any snow and whether the numbers pick up again. It is my plan to stop feeding in early March and switch to some coastal ringing for the Spring.

In addition to the Tree Sparrows at the feeding station there were fifteen Chaffinches, two Grey Partridges and three Yellowhammers. A flock of 104 Lapwing flew over heading in a south-easterly direction and a Buzzard flew along the front of Curlew Wood. Back at the barn I had a further eleven Chaffinches, six Yellowhammers and a single Kestrel. All this was happening with a background accompaniment of whistling Teal from a nearby pond.

Talking of sweet music from the Teal, my two 'babies' below can make sweet music when cranked up to number eleven!

Boxes

The snowy weather put paid to any birding this morning so I decided to finish off the nine boxes I had virtually built a couple of weeks ago. They needed holes putting in, proofing and plating to stop those pesky Woodpeckers from enlarging the hole!

Boxes ready for proofing

The boxes will be going up at one of our nest box schemes for Pied Flycatchers in the Hodder Valley.

Pied Flycatcher taken at our nest box site,
courtesy of Steve Young

Playing Russian Roulette with the fog......

......and taking the bullet...again!

I didn't arrange to go ringing this morning as the forecast talked about the chance of some fog and I didn't want to drag the lads out for a third week running to put some nets up and take them down an hour later when frozen! Also, I went to see a band last night in Burnley and it was after midnight before I got back from the gig. However, when you have been getting up early virtually every weekend for 34 years to go birding, and within that 26 years for ringing, it's hard not to wake up at first light and feel tempted to have a peek outside at the weather. And that's exactly what I did at 6.30 a.m.

It wasn't misty, nice and clear, so it was poles on the roof-rack, nets in the boot and off to Rawcliffe Moss. I put two nets up at the feeding station and it looked good. First round eight birds and no fog, second round frozen nets and f*ck all birds! So once again I have two sixty foot North Ronaldsay nets draped over my shower rail in the bathroom!

As I said I did catch eight birds which were two Chaffinch, Tree Sparrow (only second for the year), Robin, Coal Tit, Yellowhammer and two Blackbirds. The Coal Tit was a retrap and was ringed on Rawcliffe Moss on 2nd October 2005 as an adult, which means that this bird is nearly six years old at least! Interestingly, until today we have only retrapped it twice, the last time being in February 2006!

Below are a couple of pictures of Chaffinch and Yellowhammer from this morning. The Chaffinch was a first winter and as can be seen from the second picture was replacing an outer tail feather.




It looks like the forecast for tomorrow is for it to be too windy for ringing, so it will be a mornings birding or nest box erecting for me.

2 for 1

Over the past 3-4 days I have been to Rawcliffe Moss twice to feed. Rather than post details twice I thought I would just give a brief summary of what was about. Yellowhammer numbers remained fairly stable at 22, but Tree Sparrows had increased to an impressive 208. The Corn Bunting flock near the barn didn't appear on either day and all I had were three birds near the feeding station. I had my first Fieldfares for a while on the moss when 17 flew from the Alders opposite the barn.

Below are a few pictures of Hawk Owl that my good friend Nigel in Canada sent me recently and I thought I would share them with you. What a stonking bird!

Icing Sugar

This is the description Will gave to the state of our nets on Rawcliffe Moss yesterday. They were covered in hoar-frost and when you shook them to try and clear them, the frost that sprinkled to the ground was just like icing sugar! More of that in a moment, but first I need to rewind to Saturday (13th).

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get out birding today as I had go to Sedbergh to a cracking book shop called Westwood Books to return a copy of 'Swifts - A Guide to the Swifts and Treeswifts of the World' because I had bought two copies. My original copy I bought a while ago, but the second copy I bought a couple of weeks ago when I was last in there, even though I was carrying a list of all my Poysers, Pica Press's and Helm guides to avoid just this happening!

On the way there Gail and I called in at the feeding station to put the usual two buckets of seed down. At the feeding station I had eight Yellowhammers and 112 Tree Sparrows. As we drove off the Moss we stopped to have a look at the 'Little Owl' tree and sure enough one was there looking down at us with that cross expression.


Yesterday found Ian, Will and I at Rawcliffe Moss for a ringing session. Regular readers will know that we got fogged off last week and as I drove there through mist patches I had a feeling of deja vu! Ever the optimists we put the nets up and crossed our fingers. One male Chaffinch later and we decided to pack up as the nets were once again white with frost. They weren't frozen solid like last week, but were a lovely white sparkly colour with their coating of hoar-frost.

It was difficult to know what was happening on site because of the mist coming and going but my notebook records six Yellowhammers, eight Corn Buntings and two each of Grey Partridge and Great Spotted Woodpecker. Roll on Spring!