Showing posts with label Pink-footed Goose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pink-footed Goose. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Baby It's Cold Outside (And Inside)

“Minus 4° - potential for ice on roads” read the dashboard. I’d already decided that sunny and dry Wednesday would be a birding day of warm fingers, and hopefully one that might include a few photographs. I set off into the frosty landscape and headed for the A588 towards Lancaster. 

Pink-footed Geese were on the move high, south and east, to escape the inevitable guns, although a couple of hundred had stopped off in a relatively safe field bounded by a sparse hedgerow that gave a semblance of peace & quiet.

Each year becomes more difficult to both to see and to hear our wild geese on the ground as the disturbance to traditional haunts becomes more intense and threatening to feeding geese through "development", traffic - large & small, walkers, shooters, and yes, birdwatchers.

Pink-footed Geese

Approaching Lapwing Lodge and glancing left I couldn’t help but see a large raptor moving very slowly, almost hovering above a reed-fringed ditch that runs north towards the coast. The deep-v profile became more obvious upon closer approach, as did the size. But for the following traffic on the dangerous fast bend, a stop would have confirmed a Marsh Harrier, probably the same bird that has frequented this locality for several weeks now. 

The Marsh Harrier is no longer a spring and autumn migrant bird to our Fylde coast: it is now a year round resident that can be seen during the winter months, albeit in smaller numbers than at the peak the species’ autumn migration August to October. 

A stop at Gulf Lane found seven or eight Snipe hiding in the furrows of a ploughed field that has yet to dry out from the rains of August through to November. At the approaching car a few “snipped” away to hide elsewhere. A number of Lapwings were easier to spot than the crouching and immobile Snipe using their cryptic plumage to best advantage.

Snipe
 
Lapwing

More Lapwings graced the field from here all the way to Braides Farm, Cockerham where more distant birds gave approximate counts of 490 Lapwing, 150+ Golden Plover, 80 Curlew and 40 Redshank. A single Pied Wagtail pottered along the pooled track. 

This has been a poor autumn for seeing Fieldfares but I caught up with some today on the road to Cockerham Abbey where they were feasting on the now dwindling hawthorn berries. Also a few Blackbirds and one or two Redwings.

Fieldfare

Hawthorn

Fieldfare 

A single Kestrel hunted alongside the road and spent time loitering at lookout spots in the hope of spotting a small mammal meal.  At minus 4 degrees a Kestrel needs to spend more time in search of food. 

Kestrel

Kestrel

Here's that familiar song Baby It's Cold Outside. A new version dedicated to people struggling to pay gas & electric bills and to that eminent scientist recently in the news for expressing very unpleasant views. 


Enjoy the rest of your week good people and then come back soon to Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday.

 

Saturday, March 26, 2022

Staying Grounded

Saturday 26 March. There was a cold start at 0600. The temperature gauge displayed 2°C as I erected nets alone while musing over what the next four or five hours might bring. 

During the week bird news from Merseyside, North Morecambe Bay and North Wales confirmed my observations of the early week - low-key migration with small arrivals of Chiffchaffs, Lesser Redpolls, Goldcrests and Wheatears, together with unusually low numbers of Meadow Pipits in the run of clear-cold mornings. 

In North Wales there was an early Willow Warbler on Thursday 24 March together with nine Black Redstarts! I was expecting most of the above but definitely not a Black Redstart, although it was almost 12 months ago to the day of April 1st 2021 that I unexpectedly saw a Common Redstart perched at the gateposts. 

Common Redstart

By 0630 I was up and running with a cup of steaming coffee, the car ticking over and the heater turned to “Hi”. 

This site at Pilling is certainly good for Reed Buntings, already the most ringed bird here for 2022 with another three on the books today. 

Reed Bunting

Reed Bunting

In the furthest mist net lay yet another Brambling, one that at first glance looked identical to the Brambling caught on Thursday. When I turned the bird over to begin extracting there was no ring on either leg and I could see that this was also a second year female, marginally paler than the one of Thursday. 

Unlike us in the grey winter of Northern England the Bramblings may have faded in their winter sun destinations of France, Iberia or The Cornish Riviera. 

Brambling

Brambling

From here on the west coast Bramblings have a long journey yet before they reach their eventual destinations of Scandinavia and further east, into that presently troubled part of Northern Europe. Bramblings breed in coniferous and birch woodlands in much of Scandinavia, a large part of Russia, and northern Kazakhstan and Mongolia. 

Brambling Range in Europe
 
I gradually shed layers of clothes as the sun rose higher and grew increasingly warm. Unfortunately the clear blue skies and zero wind probably helped birds to move off site very quickly. A couple of Lesser Redpolls, 2 Pied Wagtails, Blackbirds and a singing Chiffchaff all evaded the nets and I was left to birdwatch rather than ring birds. 

Chiffchaff
 
There were lots of “pinkies”, Pink-footed Geese, around this morning, with perhaps an influx of those that wintered in Norfolk and South Lancashire, birds now ready to set off for Iceland. There seemed to be many hundreds, even thousands, over 3,000 of them when they panicked from their feeding in the Cockerham meadows when the regular aircraft climbed off from Black Knights Parachute Centre loaded with thrill seekers. 

Pink-footed Geese
 
For adrenalin junkies there’s the opportunity to throw your body out of a light aeroplane for as little as £199 with a “One Jump Taster”.  With luck you will land in Cockerham and not in Morecambe Bay.

Black Knights Parachute Centre - Cockerham Marsh
  
I think I will give that a miss, stick to solid ground and watch from below rather than have the ground rush up to meet me. 

Other birds seen today – 3 Little Egret, 2 Skylark, 1 Buzzard, 8 Linnet, 1 Lesser Redpoll, 2 Meadow Pipit. 

Andy is back from Egypt this weekend, keen to show off his sun tan and eager to get out ringing again, if slightly miffed to miss two Bramblings. Let’s hope bird numbers improve soon for his ringing fix. 

Linking this weekend to Eileen's Saturday Blog and Anni In Texas.

Sunday, September 12, 2021

Signed Off

That’s it for a while. When I finished at Cockerham today I packed the ringing gear away for a couple of weeks because Sue and I are off to Greece. There will be no ringing in Skiathos but for sure there will be a spot or two of birdwatching. 

Sunday was to be the last go at the Linnets so I started early in the half-light with zero wind and visibility across to the Lake District some 45 miles away. There was lots of noise when about 300/400 Pink-footed Geese lifted off the salt marsh and flew just half a mile away to land on farmland. We set our year calendars by the arrival of the Pink-footed Geese, always within a day or two of mid September. 

The “pinks” probably arrived from Iceland during the clear night after their 800 mile journey and then roosted out on Pilling Sands until breakfast time. I heard them later in the morning from a distance away so they found a spot safe from the guns for now until the shooters realise their wintering “sport” is back. 

Pink-footed Geese
 
I caught a couple of Linnets early doors but it soon became obvious that the numbers of up to 200 individuals didn’t equate to those of two days ago when the count was closer to 250 or maybe 300. 

In fact I finished today with seven new Linnets plus a single Robin. That makes 74 new Linnets (zero recaptures) caught here in this latter part of summer entering autumn, and 66 of those were juveniles/birds of the year. Such a high percentage of juveniles points to a highly productive year for this, a Red Listed species. 

I’m also sure that a number of those 74 Linnets have arrived from further afield, if not from Iceland, then certainly Scotland. 

Robin

Linnet

Birding was pretty quiet too although there was the now regular Sparrowhawk targeting Linnets. Flyovers came from a single Black-tailed Godwit and two Golden Plover. Also 14 Lapwing, 8 Curlew, 4 Swallow, 1 Buzzard, 1 Kestrel and 1 Grey Heron. 

The next post from Another Bird blog will be from Greece. Watch me fly!! 

Landing - Skiathos

Skiathos

No promises for bird pictures amongst the sunny Greek landscapes but I will try. 


Monday, December 30, 2019

Sunny Start, Rain Later.

We have 0900 starts for now until the days lengthen but amazingly or not, our garden Dunnocks and Great Tits are already in song? How do they know? 

Great Tit - CC-BY-SA-3.0

There was sunshine this morning so I kicked off at Linnet Square and dropped yet another bucket of seed at the catching spot where dummy poles mark the line of our whoosh net. Tracks and holes in the soil told me that our seed had been found by small mammals and deer.

Trouble is, the mild, wet weather and the Linnets themselves have conspired to make catching impossible since August. The past three winters have seen a number of counts around the 400/500 mark but this season’s average is around 130 only with and a total catch of just 28, way below our target. The count this morning was 150/160 very mobile Linnets and several Chaffinches, none of which stopped to use our seed while natural food seems still plentiful. The sowing mix the farmer uses is so good that the resultant seed seems to last right through the winter until the flock disperses in March. 

Linnets 

Linnet Square 

There was the usual Kestrel, 2 Stock Dove and a single Little Egret. 

When fifteen minutes later I stopped at Conder Green the effect of the continued mild weather was noted again by way of a female/first winter Marsh Harrier. A "Gold Top", circling over the back of the pool and behind the bund, pursued all the way by a complaining Magpie. 

Marsh Harrier  

It was roughly 20/25 years ago that Marsh Harriers were something of a rarity in this part of Fylde, central Lancashire. It was around that time that Marsh Harriers began to breed in the northernmost part of the county at Silverdale, since when the species has never looked back by increasing its spread and numbers into more southern parts of the county. 

In recent years the  harriers seem able to survive through the winter months by preying on the abundant wildfowl in their chosen wetlands. There have been sporadic attempts to breed on farmland here in Fylde but with very limited success. 

The harrier was the highlight of the pool with little else to cheer except the continued and consistent presence of 140+ Teal in the tidal creeks. Otherwise it was 15 Redshank, 4 Curlew, 24 Wigeon and singles of Little Grebe, Little Egret and Grey Heron. 

Little Egret

Grey Heron  

Teal 

There was a second Grey Heron at Glasson Dock along with 25 Tufted Duck but zero Goldeneye. The Goldeneyes tend to fly into Glasson Dock at the onset of ice and snow. Our wintry days with zero temperatures have so far been counted on one hand. 

I looked for the harrier in the fields beyond the pool with no luck except for two quite separate gaggles of geese, 20 Greylags and 19 Pink-footed Geese. Never the twain shall meet. 

Glasson Dock 

Greylags 

Pink-footed Geese

By 11am clouds rolled in and rain began to fall. I reluctantly headed home after an interesting few hours and a forecast for Tuesday of a decent day. 

Andy thinks we should try for a catch of Linnets but I’m not so sure. 



Saturday, September 7, 2019

Spotted Saturday

If August is predictable as warblers and Swallows journey south to Africa, September is less so. 

Just this week saw the first returning Pink-footed Geese when a gaggle of around 200 flew over Pilling and then to the salt marsh beyond; the geese seem to arrive earlier each year. And then the weather turned more autumnal with strong winds and high tides that blew petrels, skuas, manxies, fulmars and gulls closer to shore. 

Manx Shearwater 

Pink-footed Goose

On Saturday came a break in the squalls when a ridge of high pressure built from the North West. With it came a chance of ringing at Oakenclough but with less certainty about what we might catch given the arrival of September. Would it be a morning of finches, warblers, pipits and wagtails, or perhaps a mix with a few of each? 

It was 0600 when Andy and I met at the ringing station to a cold easterly and 9 degrees C. The cold start gave a slow opening to the catch but as the morning warmed more birds arrived, especially the diurnal migrant, Meadow Pipit. Missing from our catch today were Willow Warblers, a regular feature here during June, July and August, but replaced now by Goldcrests, a September species for sure. 

The really noticeable migrant today was Meadow Pipit with a count of 100+ in steady and small arrivals from the north, a number reflected in our catch of 36 birds and 8 species - 14 Meadow Pipit, 6 Goldcrest, 5 Blackcap, 3 Chiffchaff, 2 Spotted Flycatcher, 2 Goldfinch, 2 Robin, 1 Blue Tit, 1 Chaffinch. 

The surprise bird today was Spotted Flycatcher, not one but two individuals, both first years, but caught three hours apart. It’s a species that we catch quite rarely although we suspect that some bred quite close to here this year. 

Spotted Flycatcher 

The Chiffchaff wing shows a shape and formula that is quite different to its close relative the Willow Warbler i.e. the short 2nd primary feather, “rounded” wing shape (3, 4 and 5 of very similar length), and emargination to the 6th primary feather. 

Chiffchaff 

Chiffchaff

Below is the wing of an adult Meadow Pipit that displays uniform olive tones, the squared olive/buff tips to the median coverts without “teeth”, well-defined margins of the greater coverts, plus tertials all of the same age. 

Ageing Meadow Pipits can be more difficult when birds born early in the season display many characteristics of adults, with sometimes just a few pale buff juvenile feathers left. The fourteen Meadow Pipits today split 11/3 in favour of first years but similarly sized catches might easily contain no adults, especially so as autumn progresses. 

Meadow Pipit 

Meadow Pipit 

All of our Blackcaps were first year birds, four female, one male, and one likely male with hints of a black cap. 

Blackcap  

Other birds today - 2 Jay, 15+ Swallow, 2 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 1 Nuthatch.

Linking this post to Anni's Saturday Birding.


Thursday, November 30, 2017

Plovers Galore

Ask any birder their least favourite time of the year and November is bound to feature highly. 

Autumnal contact calls and mornings of migrants on the move becomes a thing of the dim but not distant past, to be replaced by thoughts of where to spend the mostly grey, murky mornings that November brings. Damnation to those dark mornings where a sprint from the starting blocks rarely beats a doggie walker to an early stroll, or where midday sun quickly becomes 2:30 pm, faded light, and a trail of bouncy finches headed to a rapidly approaching roost. 

With sunrise timed at 8:06 am it was just 0750 plus two when I set off in the usual directions. “Plus two” was the time it took to clear the windscreen of frost.  Now there’s a novelty but with the bonus of clear skies and promised sunshine. 

A single shooters’ car stood at Gulf Lane. By all accounts the shooters have enjoyed a poor season as the “pinkies” refused to cooperate with well-practiced plans. Often the geese have gained height too quickly and were out of range of the guns, or they played it cool and flew west, east or north across the bay of Morecambe. This year the geese have roosted further out in the bay and stuck to the main tidal channel that has moved north with the result that by the time the geese fly over the marsh they can be too high for the shooters. 

When I looked across the bay from Lane Ends and towards Heysham Power Station the geese were uncountable through the sheer density and distance of the flock but certainly in many tens of thousands. 

 
Pink-footed Geese and Heysham

Sadly, I spoke to a person who was heading out with the sole objective of shooting a Golden Plover. Like me, he’d noticed that in recent days and probably as result of poor weather and snow north of here, our area had seen a large influx of these beautiful but still unprotected plovers. To the eternal shame of Great Britain in 2017, Woodcock, Snipe and Golden Plover are waders of “legitimate quarry”. 

Golden Plover

Just like the geese the numbers of Lapwings and Golden Plovers today were almost uncountable in the many fields that line the coast road. From Pilling Lane Ends to River Cocker I estimated 4,000 Golden Plover and 7,000 Lapwing, many hundreds of Curlew and in the region of 7,000+ Starlings! 

Golden Plover and Lapwing

Golden Plover and Lapwing

Lapwing

The Linnets at Gulf Lane numbered 170+ with still a male Sparrowhawk in attendance but an unsuccessful one at least on this occasion. Not far away was a Buzzard, one of four that I saw on my travels today. The photo distance is about on the limits of tolerance for a local Buzzard and even then it stares into the way off lens. 

Buzzard

I tried my luck at Conder Green with the distant duck. A dartboard max of 180 Teal, 37 Wigeon, 35 Tufted Duck and 40 Mallards told me that water levels were up and waders were down to handfuls of Redshank, Lapwing and Curlew. Conder Green holds more “tufties” than the more traditional site of Glasson Dock at the moment with a quick look there showing just 12 Tufted Duck but 3 male Goosander. 

There wasn’t much luck towards Cockersands where the 500+ Whooper Swans have done a bunk. More likely is that the farmer decided the trampling of his field was getting too bad, hence the lines of tractor tracks throughout the field which betray an extravagant amount of back and forth action but nothing in the way of crops. 

Best here was a flock of 25+ Greenfinch, in recent years a number now almost unknown plus handfuls only of Tree Sparrows and Fieldfares.

Greenfinch

The First of December already. It will soon be Christmas with only 24 days of birding left for the lucky ones.

Linking today to Eileen's Blog.


Sunday, October 1, 2017

This And That - Sunday October 1st

A run around the block on Saturday before the rains came didn’t produce too much in the way of birds. Sunday and it's still raining. 

I checked out the Linnet flock at Gulf Lane in the hope of a ringing session soon but a glance at the weather for the coming week doesn’t hold out much hope. While I was away in Greece Andy added another 25 Linnets and a handful of Goldfinch to the totals. Looking today most of the Goldfinch seemed to have moved on with the flock of 100+ birds almost exclusively Linnet. October is the peak migration time for Linnets so we expect the flock to increase again soon and also that those birds will include Linnets from further afield. 

Of course in Greece I’d missed the mid-September first arrivals of Pink-footed Geese to Lancashire but rather made up for it with many skeins flying off the marsh and over my head towards an inland destination. I’d counted more than 1700 in dozens of flocks before the movement died off and I too moved on. 

Pink-footed Geese

There was a Wheatear on the gateposts at Braides Farm with approximately 90 Lapwing and 100 Curlew scattered across the long grassy fields. 

Wheatear

A good find on a flooded field at Pilling/Rawcliffe Moss was a single Ruff feeding amongst a flock of 95 Lapwing but little else with a Saturday shoot with its accompanying noise and disturbance about to begin. 

Ruff

So in the absence of local news, and not much prospect for the coming week against the tail ends of two hurricanes, here’s more from Greece, 14-28 September 2017. 

A friendly horse - Platanias, Skiathos
 
Alonisos, Skiathos

The Yellow-legged Gulls of Skiathos are quite unlike our large UK gulls in exploiting the process of rubbish disposal and the British love of feeding birds. The Yellow-legged Gulls of Skiathos rarely come ashore but spend their time feeding offshore and sitting on the mostly flat sea, apart from on windy days. It was along the shore here at Alonisos that we had super views of an Eleonora's Falcon as one dashed left to right and quickly out of sight after being chased off by a Kestrel. 

Yellow-legged Gulls, Alonisos, Skiathos

I didn’t get any new birds this year but had a butterfly “tick” by way of a White Admiral Limenitis arthemis, a woodland species that we found along the margins of an olive grove near Alonisos. It took me a while to find this on Google because perhaps naturally enough, I searched for “black butterfly”. Doh! Seemingly, this species occurs in the UK and is increasing. 

White Admiral

We saw many, many Swallowtails this year, probably hundreds - a very beautiful butterfly that we also see during May in Menorca. “Papilio demoleus is an aggressive and very common butterfly. It is perhaps the most widely distributed swallowtail in the world.” – Wiki. 

Swallowtail

Below is yet another Red-backed Shrike and then a Whinchat. We saw very few Whinchats this year due to the lack of migrant birds as a whole. Also, not a single Wheatear and very few Yellow Wagtails. 

Red-backed Shrike

Red-backed Shrike

Whinchat

I knew that Spotted Flycatchers occasionally eat fruit but never witnessed it until this year in Skiathos. In the dry summer of Greece blackberries aren’t nearly as plump as those from a UK hedgerow but clearly good enough for a Spotted Flycatcher. 

Spotted Flycatcher

Spotted Flycatcher

Spotted Flycatcher

Skiathos

The Boat Yard, Skiathos

Stay tuned for more news, views and photos soon.

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesdasy.

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