November & December Round-up

I start with my usual excuses... it's been months since I last posted; a combination of being very busy with a new job and having found little interesting to report on. However, before I review the year in full I thought I really should make time to log all of the late Autumn months' findings.

The large ox-bow lake has not proven to be very fruitful at all; certainly for waterfowl - it did turn up some awesome ticks for passerines this year. The only waterfowl I've recorded there have been mallard, tufted duck, moorhen and teal. The latter have steadily built up in November over the summer and the photo above shows a small part of a flock 100 strong that I kicked up in late October.

Swans are largely absent from the patch and I've only recorded them flying through this year. This mute swan in early November is only my second sighting of the year.

More reliable are the traditional farmland birds. I don't know what it is about the area, but birds that are declining nationally are doing very well here. I feel truly blessed that I can count yellowhammer and tree sparrow as regular garden birds

The hawthorn was absolutely heaving with berries early this autumn, more so than anytime I can remember, and this proved a huge draw for many birds. Flocks of redwing and fieldfare blackened the skies on occasion; so much so that the trees have been decimated and the thrushes have mostly moved on. Attempts to photograph these birds feeding proved largely fruitless; this was the best I could manage of a redwing.

Other birds drawn to the berries included blackbird, bullfinch, woodpigeon, buntings but no waxwing. The commotion attracted other birds too: sparrowhawk have been very common this autumn, and feeding groups of tits and warblers have centred on the haw where the thrushes feed.

I don't recall seeing warblers in the winter months before. This year, chiffchaff have held on and will probably over-winter. This bird was seen sunbathing in early December before it narrowly avoided the attentions of a brilliant male sparrowhawk. The following weekend, four were seen at the same spot near the waterworks.

Other sightings of note include oystercatcher, little egret and an increase in snipe numbers (they seem to emerge from every grassy puddle). Fingers crossed I can add jack snipe to the year list this week!

Last of the summer whine

It's been a long time since I last posted; time has escaped me in recent weeks both in terms of freeing me to explore the patch and finding a moment to sit down and look through my notes. It's been driving me mad!! However, I have no plans this next weekend so I thought I would catch up on goings on in advance and post some of my favourite photos.

Autumn is definitely here; the colours are incredible this year and I'm hoping that any strong winds hold off until the weekend so I have a chance of capturing the woods in their full majesty. But it's not just the colours, the wildlife is changing too.

I spotted (or rather heard, then spotted) my first redwings on 17th September; six birds moved from tree-top to tree-top, North along the Swale at Warbler corner. I was particularly pleased as mine was the first inland record I could find this year. Since then, numbers have swelled considerably and these thrushes have been joined by hundreds of their feeding companions, fieldfare.

The little egrets are back after a summer long absence and I've counted them along every stretch of the river this Autumn. I wonder where they go...

Greenshank passed through in record numbers. A brief, lone sighting under the riverine wood was trumped over the following weekends with small groups in flight and a very vocal group of birds that could be heard throughout the North of my patch.

The osprey too returned through the patch and hung around for nearly a month; my last sighting being on the 20th September... the same day I saw my first ever Swale otter!! Not the greatest of views, it tormented me by coming up for air for a fraction of a second before disappearing under the water where I'd lose it. I stood frozen for nearly an hour hoping for a photo-opportunity but it never came.

Starlings have begun gathering in large numbers and at roughly the same time each evening, large flocks head west over the house to roost; to whereabouts I don't now. Here a crow sits awkwardly among an early morning gathering.

Joining the starlings on the ploughed fields have been huge numbers of linnet (I counted upwards of 100 on the fields in the Long River Loop), never settling for long, the birds whirl and rush like a shoal of bait-fish.

An even more welcome sight have been curlew. Last winter felt quiet for waders (other than snipe) but already this Autumn I have counted groups of 50+ curlew and similar sized troupes of lapwing. Against a blue sky they're quite a spectacle when they circle to choose a safe place to alight.

At the other end of the size spectrum, constantly calling, migrating goldcrest have drawn other birds in and the river trees especially seem a magnet to these feeding groups. Chiffchaff and willow warbler are the last hangers-on from the summer breeders and find comfort in the mixed flocks of long-tailed tit, blue-tit, great tit and the aforementioned goldcrest. Occasionally a treecreeper can be spotted in the mix and I'm constantly on the look-out for something more unusual. Having seen one in March, firecrest feel like a real possibility and large numbers of yellow-browed and other leaf warblers have been turning up on the East coast in some number. 

Fingers crossed for this weekend! Even if nothing unusual does show up, I'm happy just to be out and about in the company of the ordinary, especially when that's as grand as this buzzard.

Comb Raiders

Walking through the riverine wood today, I stumbled upon a crime scene. The charges? Breaking, entering and infanticide. In the first picture below, a pit dug about ten inches across, 18 inches long and 12 inches deep. In the top left of the picture, the broken combs that would have contained the larvae of a wasp-nest. In the bottom right of the picture, wasps tightly crowded around the remaining comb and presumably the queen (second picture).

At first I was uncertain what had done this. Was it the work of man? The pit was so perfectly shaped and clean-sided that it looked like it had been made with a shovel. I reasoned that there would be no motive for anybody to do this and suffer the wrath of hundreds of wasps.

I scoured my mind for animals that eat wasps. Twenty minutes earlier I'd watched a buzzard follow an osprey above the wood, so perhaps with this raptor encounter on my mind, I leapt to the very unlikely... honey buzzard! No, it couldn't be... there have been no records of honey buzzard in the area to my knowledge and certainly none so settled that they'd find and excavate a wasp nest.

Then I remembered watching ratels on TV, following honey-guides in Africa to bees nests before plundering them for their grubs and honey (as reward, the small bird picks at the scraps the honey badger leaves behind, unable to break into the nest itself). Then it occurred to me, it was a plain old badger! I know badgers can be found in the wood as I have frequently found there pug-marks left in the wet mud along the river.

Strangely, I got lost in the wood for an hour soon after (I was trying to find a short-cut between one part of my patch and another, but the route was blocked by acres of himalayan balsam!) and in my random wanderings, stumbled upon two badger setts.

Patch Update

A few passing birds are still showing up, though the overall avifauna is starting to feel a bit wintry. This handsome whinchat was working her way along the Long Hedgerow (see patch map). These pictures, though heavily cropped, are an upgrade on the 'little brown blob' efforts of my first encounter with whinchats.

A little further along the hedge in the corner of the field, a scruffy male redstart was seen in a charm of goldfinches atop a hawthorn before flying down to skulk characteristically beneath the hedgerow. I didn't manage a photo as the binoculars were glued to my eyes in a mild disbelief... before this year I'd not recorded whinchat or redstart on my patch and yet here were the 3rd record of each this year alone! Fantastic.

While good numbers of warblers hang on, they've begun to seem inconspicuous in comparison with typical winter residents. A walk through High Field flushed 5 meadow pipits, while goldfinches, reed buntings and yellowhammers are by far the most conspicuous birds, moving about in groups of a dozen or so. The only birds that let me close enough for a photo were a group of typically confiding long-tailed tits.

On the river, the common sandpiper have gone but green sandpiper and greenshank have moved in to replace them. Forty or fifty teal have taken residency on the Large Ox-bow, taking to the air in noisy groups at the slightest disturbance. Water has returned to the Small Ox-bow and a snipe was flushed; the first since early Spring.

Autumn is coming

It’s been a month since I last posted; the weekends have seen me away in the Lake District, visiting parents in Shrewsbury or on holiday in London. Trips away from the patch always turn up encounters I couldn’t expect at home… I’ve seen slow-worms and lizards at Roudsea Wood, green woodpeckers over Ambleside, gatekeeper butterflies on the banks of the Severn and ring-necked parakeets in Hyde Park.

I usually claw to be back in Thrintoft for fear of missing something, but the slow summer months have muffled that calling. So with little expectation I took to the patch this weekend to see what was about.

A very brief window in the rain on Saturday morning allowed me to jog around the short river loop. Most of the crops have been cut to stubble making passage much easier, for which I was grateful. The cattle in warbler corner have kept the sward short and the area looks highly attractive for passage birds (well I think so – I’ve no idea what a passing passerine thinks).

This thought was vindicated when I spotted a female redstart dropping from under the hawthorns to the ground to snatch a morsel before returning back under the tree and out of sight. I was afforded a couple more views before the rain forced me on. As I skirted the fields, sheltering from the downpour, I was aware that the elder were dripping in birds: goldfinch, greenfinch, yellowhammer and most of all the commoner warblers, presumably fattening up before flying South.

While the early bird may catch the worm, the early worm must see the bird, or so I convinced myself as I headed out into the warm morning sun at 7am this-morning. I was right… two chats were working their way along the track that cuts high field in two. They were very jumpy and appeared to be in juvenile plumage, so I wasn’t sure whether they were stone or whinchat. A blown up brown blob on the back of the camera confirmed whinchat, my first ever patch record!

I let Nick know and while I waited for him, checked warbler corner for the redstart. It was dead in comparison with Saturday. It’s notable the difference a day and a change in weather can make. Back on high field I spotted Nick making his way towards me and scanning the horizon spotted another familiar shape… osprey! What a cracking morning. The bird was mobbed by gulls and a sparrowhawk while it appeared to hover over the river. I like to believe it was the same bird that passed through in March and the same bird that hung around for two months last Autumn.

A stroll around the remainder of the patch revealed no further migrants, though I did clock this small copper, another year first and my 20^th butterfly species. Butterflies were numerous today and far and away the commonest species was wall; a fantastic sight to see so many of these nationally declining brown butterflies. Painted lady, peacock, small, large and green-veined white were also recorded.

PS. I'm no writer, so try and compensate for this with good images. Today was a failure on both counts!

Sunday Blues

As I write this I'm sat watching my kids play in the front garden... the two swifts have just dropped from their nest in our roof and skimmed inches away from Joe and Jessicas' heads, who carry on horse-playing oblivious to these fantastic birds.

Today I made a decision to redraw my patch. I'm not sure of the precise rules of the Patchwork Challenge, but given it's my first year I'm sure there won't be a problem. In my haste to define a patch in January I incorporated a lot of land that is inaccessible. Furthermore, it's been made clear that walkers are not very welcome in certain areas so I've eliminated these too. Thankfully, I recorded no unique birds in these areas so my patch total year to date would remain the same if I'd begun the year with this territory.

The resulting saving means that I've been able to stretch the patch, incorporating all of Langton Woods and the fishing lakes to the North, and all of High Field to the railway line to the South. I attach a redefined map of the patch below, together with labels that I often refer to, as reference.

The Meadow

It wasn't long ago that I was bemoaning the lack of any real meadow in the area, and while this is still true when I consider the meadows I grew up with in Shropshire, Richard's organic farm around St Wilfrid's is starting to spawn some optimism. Grass is forced to compete here with other plants, predominantly red clover...

...and this means that a greater diversity of flowers can be found supporting a greater variety of insects. Here a back-lit meadow brown nectars from white clover...

Beetles are too many to classify. I see plenty of these about but none of my books helped to identify them; I think another expensive field guide is on the cards!

Other flowers that have taken hold in the previous week include this Hedge Woundwort...

...and (I think) Nipplewort....

Ringlet number in scores and large skipper are now turning up in every sheltered corner.

Sunday Blues

I set out before the sun breached the horizon to try and photograph the common blues in Langton Wood. Unfortunately, they've been flying for a few weeks now and the wet and windy weather has contributed to them all looking a bit tatty...

The wind picked up to a bluster, making macro photography impossible, so I decided on a change of plan. Swapping common blue for electric blue, I headed to the Riverine Wood to stake out the increasingly conspicuous kingfisher moving about; I presume due to a newly fledged nest or parents feeding hungry chicks.

Joe and I discovered a messy pile of freshwater mussel shells on the bank last weekend and I wondered who the culprit might be. On my way to the kingfishers I identified a lead suspect in the investigation, caught at the scene of the crime...

After two hours of waiting, my patience paid off and a pair of kingfishers started to hunt near to where I was sat. Unfortunately they didn't show in the open, ignoring what I though was the most likely perch, but I was delighted to get a closer view than I've had for many years.

Spotted Flycatcher

I'm catching up on a few weeks of manic busyness in which I've barely had time to get out and explore the early summer, let alone sit at my computer sorting through photographs. That being said, I have made it out for the odd hour here and there and was rewarded last weekend with my first spotted flycatcher of the year.

Bird-wise, things have been pretty quiet so I've turned my attention to searching for less flighty subjects. After my initial dismay, rigorous searching has turned up little pockets of flower diversity here and there. Poppies are obvious in nearly every field...

Cut-Leaved Cranesbill can be found along the field edges where the farm machinery has compacted the earth and suppressed the grass...

Common vetch is a big draw for bees, like this Carder Bee...

It seems nearly every bee and wasp has a harmless fly or moth that mimics it; this huge hoverfly (volucella bombylans) is trying to pass as a red-tailed bumblebee...

Other insects like this Tawny Longhorn beetle use bright colours to warn birds that they might not make a very tasty mouthful...

I checked my nest-boxes again in the riverine woods and the two blue tit nests had already emptied; it must have taken just a few weeks! Other fledglings were obvious in the wood too, I noted great spotted woodpeckers, great tits and wrens all being fed by their parents out of the nest.

The river runs clear if the rain doesn't fall for a few days and armed with my polarising glasses, I try and spot the species of fish. Chub and brown trout can be seen sitting in the current waiting for passing tidbits. Grayling are seemingly invisible, but give themselves away as they pluck insects from the surface with their tweezer lips. Shoals of small fry mingle with the minnows, bullhead, stone loach and stickleback in the shallows and I was pleased to find these tadpoles in among them.

To find tadpoles in the river is, while not uncommon, not expected. These must be the young of common toad as frogs will only spawn in still water. Unlike 'frogpoles', 'toadpoles' are distasteful to fish so they have many more options for places to string their eggs.

Nest-Boxes Part III

We've been lucky to have a pair of swifts use the roof-space for the last couple of years. Last year I counted that they successfully reared three young. The roof is prime real-estate and is also shared with countless house sparrows and a pair of starlings. To encourage more swifts to the house, I built a swift nest box in April using a design I stole from the internet.

The box can support two families of swifts and hopeful they would occupy this rather than my roof, I fixed the box as high as I could manage on the front of the house.

The fantastic news is that we have swifts nesting again in the house. The disappointing news is that they've snubbed my hard work and instead have opted again to use the roof!

Hidden Warblers

A quick walk around the patch yesterday started promisingly with maybe* four garden warblers singing in the aptly named Warbler Corner area of the patch. These birds must have dropped in during the week, a bit later than I expected and probably held up by the persistent adverse winds.

*I say 'maybe' as while I do try and be systematic, there is always the possibility that the birds get ahead of me and are counted twice!

The sun was bright, so I tried my luck again with the sand martins. In order to get the fast shutter speed required to capture them in flight, I have to either increase ISO (and degrade image quality) or open the aperture (decreasing depth of field) and the gloomier it is, the more of each I must do. I think I'm beginning to get the hang of it, but I've still not managed 'the shot' I have in mind.

In the North of the patch, a walk through the wood turned up marsh tit, common sandpiper, grey wagtail, jay and sparrowhawk; all lovely birds, but nothing new and so it remained for the day.

Today I set about photographing the garden warblers and dragged my hide and provisions to Warbler Corner. Hours passed and while they were very vocal and active, they remained high in the willows and out of frame. When they did come to eye level they were typically behind me! I will return with bait next time to see if I can encourage them to follow a regular route upon which they can be photographed. I gave up for the morning and decided to try the oxbow lake for new arrivals.

I'd barely walked 100 yards from where I'd been sat all morning when I heard a strange call coming from dense shrubs alongside the flooded wood. I couldn't put my finger on what it was... it was showing the range of blackcap or garden warbler, but was singing much more slowly and with a more baritone voice. The warbler refused to show itself so vexed, I asked Nick to come and help me identify it.

No sooner had I dropped Nick a message, the bird began to sing in full; speeding up and singing loudly. It was a reed warbler! Such a familiar sound when walking through wetlands, but completely alien when out of context here... there are no reeds for a mile in any direction! That was my hundredth species this year and a new one for Thrintoft so I was delighted. Nick turned up and we listened to it for a while, but frustratingly it would not break cover to have its picture taken.

I returned earlier this evening and it was still present, but again remained shy and out of sight.

99

I've joined the Patchwork Challenge for the first time this year. I'm not sure whether it's been a good or a bad thing... I've certainly got out more, but probably at the expense of other things I enjoy. Before, I would describe myself more as a general wildlife enthusiast and not a birder... I would focus on small photo projects and spend a lot of time in one place. Now, the desire to keep the list ticking along is forcing me to cover more ground and focus predominantly on birds.

I'm currently on 99 species for the year, including two lifers: merlin and firecrest. I set myself a target of 100 birds for the entire year and so have exceeded my own expectations. I think I'm going to get to 100 and then take it easy for the summer, maybe starting in earnest again in the Autumn. That got me thinking, what will the hundredth bird be?

Below is a list of birds I have previously seen locally that I've not seen yet this year. I've ordered them into three groups: birds I expect to see; birds I might see; birds I don't expect to see again on the patch:

Birds I expect to see:

• Siskin
• Great Black-Backed Gull
• Spotted Flycatcher
• Hobby
• Peregrine

Birds I might see:

• Cuckoo
• Greenshank
• Sedge Warbler

Birds I don't expect to see again:

• Rough-Legged Buzzard
• Turtle Dove

In addition to these, there are a few birds that I've never seen locally that I remain optimistic about. After all, I'd never seen redstart, woodcock, grasshopper warbler, merlin, stonechat and firecrest before this year.

• Pied Flycatcher
• Jack Snipe
• Dipper
• Reed Warbler
• Whinchat
• Willow Tit
• Pink Footed Goose
• Waxwing

So what will my hundredth bird be? Well... it not being winter rules out a lot of the above, so I'm going to plump for hobby. They are a favorite bird of mine having seen one for the first time just a couple of years ago chasing swallows on the long river loop. That encounter made me seek them out in the raised bogs of Shropshire and I was lucky enough to witness a couple of birds hunting dragonflies. Stunning.

UPDATE 15/05/16 - my hundredth bird turned out to be a reed warbler

Home to Roost

A belated write-up of the weekend on the patch... I  find myself busy just as Spring takes hold; the good weather brings out the beer-garden game, quoits, among other activities that vie for my time in the clement weather.

The weekend started very positively; my first swift this year was not seen whizzing high in the sky or heard screeching between the houses, instead it was knocking at the eaves of the cottage, testing for somewhere to get in. I like to believe it was one of the two birds that bred here last year, or maybe one of the three fledglings they produced. Regardless, it roosted in our roof on both Friday and Saturday night and has not been seen since.

The chill never really lifted on Saturday, it hung in the air like a sea fret, held there by the cold North wind. Everything was quiet and I resorted to checking in with the regular cast. The sand martin colony was very busy as usual, with most nest holes appearing suitably excavated for their residents. I counted the nest holes and was pleased that there were a precise 100.

I counted the warblers on a circular walk via the oxbow lake; there were more than 30 whitethroat and 20 blackcap; a staggering number, really. I was unable to differentiate clearly between common and lesser whitethroat as while I stood in the big field, I was audio-jammed by two sparring skylarks. Another yellow wagtail was found; the furthest from the river I've encountered one. At the lake, the tufted duck population has grown to seven birds, predominantly drakes. Grasshopper warbler was heard again briefly and distantly; probably the same bird I found during the week.

Roe deer, wet from the dew-soaked wheat shoots:

The dunnock, a plumage underdog and a bird deserving of greater attention:

On the lake itself, I've begun hearing plops as I walk around the reed bed. To date, I've been unable to identify what's making the noise. Romantically, I'm hoping there are water voles or water shrews, but I expect they'll turn out to be frogs or rats.

Sunday morning began as Saturday ended; cold and damp. A walk around the Eastern boundary of the village searching for sedge warblers turned up a garden warbler in the grounds of the gasworks; the first I've seen for two weeks and hopefully the first of many more.

When the fret cleared and the sun came out, I headed for the woods. The browns and greys of winter are now a distant memory and the paths have been narrowed by the verdant growth.

Bluebells have pushed through where the canopy has thinned and are out in number. The odd red campion breaks through the purple understory and stands proudly in contrast.

I was buzzed by the first brimstone of the year and (I think) my first record in Thrintoft while I checked my nest-boxes for activity. Disappointingly, I've not seen any birds entering or leaving the boxes, though there is evidence some are being used (twigs, droppings, etc in the nest-holes). That said, whenever I approach box seven a pair of marsh tits angrily announce their feelings toward my presence, so I suspect they've taken residence.

Further through the wood I stopped to watch two fly-fisherman. I was not the only spectator either; a pair of racing pigeons had stopped in the wood and were taking great interest in the men. Though strictly not a wild-bird, I was very impressed with this handsome chap.

Finally on the way back home, a blue falcon-like bird shot across the path in front of me. I was sure it was a male cuckoo so hung around for a while, hoping for a better view. The mystery bird made no second appearance, but while I sat this brown hare came very close, completely at ease in my company.