Birding – Page 3 – Enviro-Mentalist

Two weeks with a telescope.

Following my Easter Monday success I started visiting the country park more regularly with my spotting scope – aided by having a week off work. I started looking at the gulls and trying to see if there was much to be seen as it where. I didn’t expect to see much, after all, the black terns had disappeared and the little gull was nowhere to be seen, but then watching on your local patch is about appreciating what’s there all the time.

In the following two weeks I made another four trips to watch the birds. First of all I noticed that the different gulls tend to stick with birds of their own kind (not that different to people maybe). Closest to the shore and therefore people, were the black headed gulls. These are usually the largest in number and are the ones that come to the wooden pier by the visitor centre to feed on the bread thrown to the ducks.

Across the other side of the water there were a couple of flocks of larger gulls – lesser black backed and herring gulls. These were mixed but contained more of the lesser black backed – I’m not sure of the reason for this, maybe it is a sign of the decline of the herring gull which is being reported across the UK.

Then, somewhere in between there were the common gulls, although most of these appeared to be younger gulls, lacking the clean, ‘pretty’ look of the adults (they have been described as having a gentle appearance – which is true if you get a good look at them).

I noted that there were still a lot of younger looking gulls of all four species and wondered when they moult into full adult plumage – even though it was spring, do these still count as first winter adults? I noticed that the young birds all seemed to have a dark band across the edge of their tail, whereas the adults were pure white. I thought at first that this was just for the common gulls, but noticed it for the others too.

The black-headed gulls spent a lot of time sitting on the tern rafts and seemed to be tolerated by the terns there, as was the occasional common gull that ventured there. However, there was a communal effort to evict a lesser black backed gull that tried to land – when do common terns start to sit on eggs I wondered? For that matter, where do these gulls nest and breed. I have seen large flocks around various industrial estates, but wasn’t aware of any nesting sites particularly.

I had a partial answer to that by my visit on 2nd May – there were hardly any black headed gulls about at all – they had all gone. I assume they had flown off to their breeding sites wherever they are. The situation was still the same on the 4th May, but the common gulls were all but gone as well. I was left with the large gulls and about two dozen common terns. The latter look as though they are settling down on the tern rafts and it suddenly occurred to me that although I have seen them here for years, I have no idea if they have successfully bred or not. I need to know the answer to this and so now have a perfect excuse to spend two or three months with my telescope, not just a couple of weeks.

PS – my latest check of Brandon Marsh shows only a few common terns there – therefore I maintain my earlier assertion that the grass is not greener in other nature reserves.

In amongst a flock of seagulls…

No, I don’t mean the 80s pop band (they were around in the 80s weren’t they), but the black headed gulls bobbing about on the water at Daventry Country Park.

In my last post I waffled about my discovery of a totally new species for me – the black tern. Well, that wasn’t the only new species that I spotted that day when out with my scope. As I mentioned the black terns seemed to be quicker than the common terns over the water, and I had a bit of trouble following them in my scope. This was made a little more difficult by the fact that I get easily distracted and, on this occasion it was probably a good thing. Bobbing about on the water, seemingly quite happy amongst the bigger gulls, was a black headed gull. Unlike the gulls named black headed gulls (BH gulls), this one did actually have a black head, rather than chocolate brown. I was sadly very excited. Not only because here was the second new species in a day, but because I actually noticed it and decided it was different. Notebook time again (it’s becoming a bit of a habit) and I really wish I could draw, but I can’t so I scribbled instead.

I noted that the bird was smaller, as I mentioned above, that it had a black head that came all the way down its neck (that is what I was trying to get at in the picture) and that it didn’t have a white ring around its eye – I somehow knew that this was important (probably due to the huge number of bird books I had read over the years). The bill also looked neater than that of the BH gulls all around it and it seemed to have a pinky tinge to its breast feathers.

I’ll not bore you with the details, but this was a Little Gull, larus minutus, unlike the BH gull, appropriately named as it is the smallest gull, and is described as more delicate than the BH gull with which it bears some similarities. So, one trip with a telescope to the country park and two new birds to add to my lifetime list (if I kept such a thing).

The appearance of a small, dark stranger.

It all started with a tweet on Easter Sunday. Apparently there were 24 arctic terns spotted at Daventry Country Park. I wasn’t convinced, but thought I should maybe pop over and see if I could tell the difference between an arctic and common tern. By the way, I’m not a twitcher, but if there is a chance to see a new bird at the local country park? Well, I’d be a fool not to, especially on a bank holiday weekend. Besides, this means that if nothing else, the common terns were back – if you’ve never seen a common tern close up, gracefully patrolling the shallower water, then you’ve missed out.

However, not willing to admit that I wanted to see if I could see arctic terns that possibly didn’t exist some subterfuge was in order and I suggested a walk but only a quick trip into the country park with my small binoculars to see if the terns had come back. This worked and we happily sat for ten minutes or so watching the aforementioned common terns wheeling about. There were other gulls there too, but I was only interested in the terns. However, something else caught my eye, some of the terns seemed darker, but it could just have been a trick of the light – after all, there was some sun despite it being a bank holiday, and I did only have my little 8 x 24 bins with me.

I thought about them during the rest of our walk, wondered if perhaps they were younger terns or if I was just seeing things. More information was needed, so I went back later in the afternoon (trying to reduce my exposure to the many families and their dogs off leads that were bound to be there) armed with my telescope and a notebook.

I was right, they were definitely darker, they moved a lot faster too and never stopped. There were no arctic terns there, but there were a couple of dozen common terns. These had the good grace to stop once in a while on the tern rafts so I could get a good look at them. (Arctic terns apparently look like common terns but have no black on their beaks in summer and have longer tail streamers). The dark strangers didn’t, so I had to resort to note taking, a habit that I need to get into. (As I read on a completely different subject, about fungi as it happens, you should describe something first, then try and identify it, rather than trying to do it the other way round and therefore potentially miss some important features.)

Anyway, this is what I noted down;

darker wings than the common tern, darker below than above.
seemed slightly smaller than the common tern
white rump and greyish tail
lightish under the wing and the grey wings had white edges in flight
seemed to be faster than a common tern

Once back home it was time to hit my myriad of books. There was only one conclusion, I had spotted some black terns, something I didn’t even know existed until Easter Monday.

According to the RSPB handbook of British Birds it is ‘smaller than the common tern’. The Collins Bird Guide gives this description: ‘typical marsh tern. In summer body black, under tail white; slate grey upper wing and tail, underwing entirely silver-grey; bill and legs dark red’ (although on this point the RSPB disagree and claim it has a black bill and it definitely looked black to me). It is a ‘light airy bird that flies with great agility’. This sounds exactly like the birds I had been watching. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo, but there are plenty on the web if you want to see this pretty bird.

It is apparently a common passage bird through the UK (which means that you might see it in spring and autumn on its way to somewhere else) and has made a few unsuccessful attempts at breeding in the UK. I was a little unsure as to whether I had really seen some of these until I noticed someone tweeting that there were some at Summer Leys nature reserve over the other side of Northamptonshire – I guess I was right after all and these were probably the same birds.

Daventry and District Invaded

Many people may have noticed some unusual visitors to their garden during the recent cold snap. They look like thrushes, but there is something a bit different about them. Those of us not fortunate enough to have these birds in their garden may however have noticed flocks of light coloured birds flying over head, or hopping about in the fields. Or, if disturbed on a walk round the country park, flying up out of the hedgerows making a loud chacking alarm call.

Did you see a large thrush (about the same size as a mistle thrush), but with a grey head, and chestnut back, perhaps it flew off and looked very pale underneath, or a flock of pale looking birds flew over you? These are fieldfares, visitors from Scandinavia, three quarters of a million of which arrive around the end of October (braving the north sea and the waiting, hungry gulls), slowly spreading south and west, making the return journey in March and April. Their arrival has been seen as a sign of winter for centuries, dating back to Chaucer’s day when they were trapped and eaten for food, apparently they are as tasty as quail (which I have also never eaten).

Unlike most thrushes, these are very gregarious, they arrive in flocks, leave in flocks, wander around the countryside in flocks and even nest in groups back in Norway. When was the last time you saw a flock of song thrushes (or more than a couple together for that matter)?

Normally fieldfares would feast on invertebrates and are usually seen in groups ‘head up, chest out, all facing the same direction and spread evenly across a snow-dusted field’. However, once the ground freezes they move into the hedgerows to eat berries, particularly hawthorn, and will also take advantage of windfall apples and cotoneaster berries in larger gardens.

The other member of the thrush family that visits in winter is the very pretty redwing. These arrive about a month before the fieldfares and are usually heard before they are seen, thousands arriving at the east coast overnight, making ‘seeping’ noises (not sure what that sounds like!) as they travel further west in their flocks. Hundreds of thousands of them arrive each winter, but these are less robust than the fieldfares and other thrushes and a particularly harsh winter could result in the majority perishing. They also leave to venture back to Scandinavia around April.

These little thrushes are very similar to the song thrush, but they have a cream stripe above their eye which makes them unmistakeable, even at a distance. The red patch under their wing is just visible when perched, but contrasts with their creamy underparts and becomes much more visible in flight.

These are much shier than the fieldfares, and, although they feed on the same invertebrates and berries they are more likely to be found in hedgerows than in the open fields. As soon as they are disturbed they will fly off into higher trees, making their alarm calls (hence my incredibly poor picture being the best I have managed to date). I think that they tend to come into gardens more often than fieldfares (although neither have appeared in mine), being particularly fond of cotoneaster berries.

These little thrushes are also apparently quite tasty, years ago they were particularly prized in France where they arrived in time to fatten themselves up on the ripe grapes.

So keep your eyes open for these winter visitors, there are lots around Daventry, and they are likely to be here into March, depending on the weather.

Big Garden Birdwatch

One hour’s birdwatching duly completed. I decided to go for the Saturday morning as soon as I had finished getting dressed. For the first 15 minutes or so, there really weren’t many birds around. I saw two blue tits as I opened the blind and there was a male blackbird that turned up after about 10 minutes. I was starting to get worried.

However, slowly they started to arrive, with a couple of house sparrows and a pair of great tits being the next guests. Then pandemonium – more house sparrows, only this time there were about 10 (I definitely counted this number, but it could have been more). They were hurtling about the garden , making lots of noise, then they careened into next door’s conifer and then they were gone.

Most of the usual suspects were about; a couple of dunnocks and two robins as well as another couple of blue tits (all there at once which is unusual as they usually chase each other off). But, no finches for quite some time until a couple of goldfinches turned up. Then some more and finally I counted 8 at once. I love these, they are so bright and noisy, they enliven any garden.

So, total species count was only 7 this year. I was not surprised by the lack of starlings as they don’t often come into the garden, they just make lots of noise in the roof, and the cage I have put round the bird feeder has deterred the wood pigeons and collared doves this winter. The greenfinches didn’t arrive until late morning and I have no idea what happened to the chaffinches on Saturday. However, the thing I am a little concerned about is that I only saw the one male blackbird, no others, male or female. I haven’t seen more than one since either, so I am not sure what has happened to his mate as they were often in the garden together.

Volunteers wanted to join World’s largest wildlife survey from the comfort of their own home.

This weekend (28th and 29th January) sees the next instalment of the world’s largest wildlife survey. The RSPB has been running the annual check on the state of garden birds each year for 33 years. It started life as a survey done by members of its Young Ornithologists Club before being made open to all. Last year the Big Garden Birdwatch had 609,177 participants who saw a grand total of 10,262,501 birds.

So, why is the Big Garden Birdwatch important? Each year it provides a snapshot of the status of the more common birds that we see every day (and some not so common birds) and, because so many people take part it gives a good average for the UK as a whole. Over the years it has highlighted the reduction in common birds such as house sparrows and starlings, which, although spotted by a large proportion of the public are not around in the same numbers as they used to be.
It also highlights when different bird species start visiting gardens in bigger numbers. One year may be an anomaly, several years establishes a trend. Recent increases have been seen from long-tailed tits, bullfinches and goldfinches, mainly due to the increase in bird food types offered by those feeding the birds.
A third reason that the birdwatch is important is that it has highlighted changes in migration patterns such as blackcaps which rarely overwintered a few years ago, but are now regularly spotted in gardens in Winter (in fact I have had one visiting my birdfeeders every year for three years).

The top five birds seen last year were House Sparrow, Starling, Blackbird, Blue Tit and Chaffinch, although there were some unusual sightings including ravens, buzzards and red kites. Not unexpectedly the top five were similar in Northamptonshire, but with Woodpigeons pipping the Chaffinches for fifth spot. What I find interesting about the results is that there are some birds such as robins and blackbirds which were spotted in high percentages of gardens, even if the average number per garden was not very high (also possibly hindered in some cases by an inability to tell the males and females apart).

So, how do you take part? Simple. Choose one hour this weekend (28th / 29th January), I find mornings are normally better for bird activity, write a list of the birds that you are likely to see (include a line for male and females if you can tell them apart) settle back and count the birds that come into your garden. Be careful not to count them twice, only count the maximum number that you can see at any one time. Then, submit your sightings online at www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatchresults . You can also find a useful guide to help you identify birds on their website.

So, happy birdwatching and thank you for taking part in a wildlife survey.

Goosanders – See them now at the Country Park

We all have certain triggers in life that remind us of past times, or tell us that something new is happening. For me, the sign that Winter has arrived is the appearance of goosanders (mergus merganser) at Daventry Country Park. This Winter I was surprised to see them at the end of November, particularly as, if you remember, it was quite mild and sunny. However, a few days later the weather turned chilly and there was a bit of frost at night. Winter had come.

So, why am I so interested in these birds? It is not just their weather-forecasting abilities that I like about them. They really are stunning birds, particularly if they catch the Winter sun. They are quite a large bird, not really looking like a duck. They swim low in the water, being very pointy with a thin red bill, which gives their group its name – Sawbills. The serrated inner edge allows them to grip slippery fish, which they search for by swimming with their head under water before diving down with a jump to get them. (Amazing fact number one – they can dive for up to 45 seconds.)

The duck and drake look quite different. Whilst the duck is grey with a chestnut coloured head with a shaggy crest, the drake is much sleeker. He has a bottle green head which looks black unless it catches the sun, some black on his back, but the rest is mainly white (with a hint of pink!).

Whilst these are not the rarest of birds, in fact their numbers are increasing (there are about 2,600 breeding pairs, numbers tripling in Winter to about 16,100 birds) they do face a threat from the owners of fisheries due to their particular love of salmon and trout. (Amazing fact number two – a young goosander eats 33kg of fish in order to reach adulthood.)

Whilst researching this article, I also discovered amazing fact number three (well, puzzling fact really) – after breeding most of the male goosanders from Europe migrate to the north of Norway to moult – I have no idea why they do that. The females stay put – I am not sure if this is due to parental requirements.

So, next time you are in the country park in Winter (the goosanders tend to stick around into February) look out for some very white and black, long, sleek pointy birds. They tend to sit around in groups, close to the dam, particularly from about halfway up.

To quote from Birds Britannica goosanders ‘spend long periods asleep or loafing on the water and, on a cold, bright Winter’s day there are few more lovely visions than a group resting in a backwater, their smooth contours and patterns mirrored in the river’s surface.’

A surprise at the country park

We went for a walk in the snow today, partly to get some exercise and to enjoy the fresh air, partly to look for snowy photo opportunities.

I hadn’t planned to go to the country park, I figured that it would probably be fairly frozen and possibly filled with dogs – which if you are not a dog owner does not make for a relaxing stroll. However, after wandering along the old railway track and deciding we didn’t want to go into town we headed left for the country park.

We were a little surprised to see that all of the small streams that run into the country park appeared to be ice free, even at the edges and debated as to the reason for this.

We walked through the woodland on the west of the reservoir for a change heading for the entrance. There were a lot of small birds about, wrens, robins, blue tits etc, but nothing unusual.

We had just about made it to the entrance when I saw a water rail. Although I realise it is probably a sad thing to admit to, I have to admit that I was very excited. You see, I have seen reports of good sightings at Brandon Marsh, I have even been there on the days when the alleged sightings have been made, but I have never seen one. Now, here I was, about a metre away and with a camera fitted with my best low light lens. Such opportunities only come round once in a lifetime! Whilst these are not uncommon birds, they are quite secretive and I would never have expected to see one so close to the busiest part of the country park.

The cold weather had obviously made it decide that it could stop being secretive or it could be dead and that wandering into the more populated parts of the country park would have to be done. In fact it seemed so intent on looking for food that a bright pink small child wandering past noisily didn’t deter it from its wading. It was only the barking of a dog that made it run away but not before I had taken some reasonable pictures.

What a fantastic day – a nice walk in the park, a new birding first and some good photos – perfect. Bring on the waxwings!

Big Garden Birdwatch

So, it was the time of year when all garden birds traditionally do a bunk to the hedgerows and rooftops so that they cannot be counted in the RSPB’s big garden birdwatch statistics. Well, that is often the way that it feels. Still, every year I sit by the window for an hour and try to count all of my little feathered friends.

There seems to have been extra publicity this year due to the concern that the recent cold weather may have done for half of the little birds that we would commonly find in the garden. Is it the case – we will have to wait and see, but, for once, my garden was brimming with life – I struggled to keep up as birds flitted from one side to the other. It appears that my tactic of early morning (9am) nature watching, when it was still cold, paid off.

I managed to see a total of 13 different species this year, more than the 10 that @naturesvoice for the RSPB tweeted. The count started with the ever reliable pair of blue tits, so it should because I think one of them roosts in the pipe from the boiler. They were sooned joined by blackbirds (I counted 5 at one point – not bad for a garden that is only 20’x30′) and chaffinches. The male chaffinches are certainly starting to get some more colour as we move towards Spring, but they are still hard to keep track of as they zoom from one side of the garden to the other, one minute on a feeder, the next foraging around in the undergrowth.

I was particularly pleased that the bullfinches turned up within the allotted hour – they tie with long-tailed tits as my favourite bird – they have been visiting the garden all Winter. I was worried that they would not show today, but, 3 turned up and stayed for a while. (Looking on Twitter it appears that these lovely birds are becoming more common in gardens and, indeed, have recently been removed from the BTO’s Red List). I was also particularly pleased when I saw some sparrows in the garden. I am sure that you have all read the reports about the disappearance of house sparrows, and I definitely haven’t seen very many since the Summer, but, I got a maximum of four, including a couple that turned up just before the end of the hour and stared pitifully at the saucer of frozen water (don’t worry, we went out with fresh water just after the hour).

The best surprise of the hour came from the song thrushes though. Before the Winter we had only rarely seen one young song thrush in the garden in the entire 10+ years that we have lived here, although we can usually hear them singing from the old railway track. However, this Winter one has started putting in an appearance, although he (or she) is usually chased away by a very territorial blackbird (as if there is any other type). But today I was delighted to see two song thrushes in my garden at the same time – partly because they are another bird not doing well, and partly because I am a keen organic gardener and they will certainly help my war against snails.

The total species count as mentioned before was 13 and consisted of blue tit, great tit, greenfinch, bullfinch, chaffinch, robin, dunncock, blackbird, song thrush, starling, house sparrow, wood pigeon, collared dove.

The only regular that did not put in an appearance was the goldfinch. Throughout the year we have up to 8 of these noisy, colourful characters in the garden, but, it appears that they are not very fond of the cold. Throughout the 2 weeks of snow they did not put in any appearance as far as we can tell, but reappeared once the snow had gone. Similarly, they appeared later on today, once the air had warmed up a little. I am not sure where they go, but they are still welcome when they come back.

Winter bird watching.

As you are no doubt aware Winter can be a great time for birdwatching. Not only do you get the Winter visitors such as Redwings and Fieldfares, but the numbers of our ‘native birds’ are swollen by imports from the rest of Europe – coming for our supposedly milder climate – I guess they have had a bit of a surprise this year, but it is still probably warmer than back home. In addition, they have fewer places to hide, unless they can find some evergreens.

Unfortunately I have found a couple of downsides to birdwatching in Winter – the weather is colder and, it is dark when I go to work and when I come home so ornithological opportunities are somewhat limited. However, I have noticed a large influx of redwings and fieldfares onto the industrial estate in the last week – they have found the sea buckthorn berries that I walk past each morning – yesterday I saw about 20 fieldfares on my way into work, not a good view in the morning gloom, but, good enough.

An added bonus for me, if not the birds this week is that a grey wagtail was tempted into the warmth of the warehouse (joining the wren and robin already there) affording rather nice views, I think it has been coaxed outside now though.

Of course, come the weekend and the opportunities for staring into the snow covered garden increase – this morning was particularly good – well, once I had replenished the feeders. As well as the usual suspects (i.e. blue tit, robin, chaffinch etc) I also spotted a total of 6 bullfinches – a record for my garden – three of each flavour and all there at the same time. We had seen three last weekend, one pair and a lone male which was tolerated by the other two. We had therefore assumed that it was one of the three chicks that had been about in the garden last summer, but to see 6 at the same time was sadly quite exciting after all, this is a bird that has just made it off the BTOs red list of conservation concern. These handsome little birds that spend their time in pairs and make a sound like a squeeky bicycle pump tie with long-tailed tits as my favourite birds. (They are edging into the lead at the moment as they are regulars in the garden so they earn extra points on the lovely birds register.)

None of these would be about if there were no food for them, so please make sure you feed the birds in winter, particularly when it is cold and the ground is covered and frozen – the ones in my garden are particularly fond of sunflower hearts.