BIRDING ON THE LUNE ESTUARY AND THE FOREST OF BOWLAND...........................................................................................BLACK DARTER PETE WOODRUFF
Showing posts with label Dartford Warbler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dartford Warbler. Show all posts
....and an excellent 'mega' bird for our recording area.
OK guys....probably the briefest post I'm ever likely to publish on Birds2blog and with no photographs this time - now there's a first - but a new header illustrating a truly excellent image of a truly excellent bird which you should have had the opportunity to see in your/the LDBWS recording area but didn't....I wonder why!!
Possibly more to follow on this intriguing subject, and Birds2blog is moving into controversy mode by way of a change - well if I can't get out birding - and breaking the rules of the blog. But lets make it perfectly clear, I'm not a twitcher, year lister, ticker, just a pure passionate birder with principals.
Being that the previous post took on the thorny subject of 'how come we didn't hear about this one then'. David Cookson has a post today and by the aforementioned amazing coincidence it relates to the very same species of bird the Dartford Warbler. It is an interesting short article, and as far as DC is concerned has an excellent result. Please take a look atCoals to Newcastle
By the way, I didn't get out birding on Tuesday despite my prediction on Monday evening that there was a 99.9% chance I would do. Unfortunately....nay tragically, plans had to be changed and I was forced to continue with my 'hard labour' project which runs, and runs, and runs, and runs. So I still have to have only my third outing since the last one on 14 October 2011 and that's rather grim I have to tell you.
Well, however short 'and hopefully sweet' my posts are there's always going to have to be at least one photograph to display in them, so here's two....
Bittern. Brian Rafferty.
Thousand of people over the years flock to places like the RSPB Reserve at Leighton Moss, just to hopefully get a glimpse of the Bittern many of who go home disappointed. But on a recent visit to Mere Sands Wood Nature Reserve BR took full advantage of this bird behaving remarkably confiding and achieved some brilliant shots of this very elusive bird.
Water Rail. Brian Rafferty.
It was BR's lucky day as he also had excellent views of another elusive bird the Water Rail as this brilliant photograph illustrates. Not many can lay claim to seeing both the Bittern and Water Rail on the same day let alone achieve such excellent photographs too.
Please take a look at some more images of these two birds and moreHERE
The intention was that I did a post this evening on the Dartford Warbler until I realised I had already done one which - if you're interested and haven't seen it before - is HEREthe photograph has also had pride of place on Birds2blog before, but it's such a brilliant example of the bird and the photographer that its here again.
It's either a bit weird....something of a coincidence....or there is a direct connection but....five visitors to Birds2blog today have accessed the above linked post about the Dartford Warbler and, well wait for it....one reported this afternoon on the RBA pager service as being at Arnside Park which is in Cumbria though inside the LDBWS recording area.
A couple of points to make here....You will have noted at pole position in my sidebar the RBA link with the 'Getting The News Out' caption, and there are one or two who cry out for this idea of letting everyone know about 'whats about' as soon as you've found whatever it is you found, and lets face it that's what RBA are all about, and that's why I subscribe to it. But the cry didn't get through to whoever found this little 'stray' and he/she certainly didn't get the news out 'cos it was broadcast at 3.19pm when the bird had been found at this location almost six hours earlier at 9.30am. No doubt there's an explanation for all this, and no doubt the gunfire is heading my way right this minute with regard to this subject, but I reckon this could be someone having a practice run for April Fools day!
And whilst we're looking at DC's Dartford Warbler once again, here are two more 'Cookies Crackers'....
Black-necked Grebe. David Cookson.
The stunning little Black-necked Grebe....
Wren. David Cookson.
And the delightful little Wren. Always lots of excellent photographs to view on DC's website, so please treat yourself from time to time HERE
And finally....
Apparently a Common Sandpiper at Jubilee Tower on the Trough of Bowland road today.
The Ladybird Spider (LS) was for many years thought to be extinct in the UK, but in the 1980's a colony was discovered still clinging on. It is a truly amazing creature not only because of its bright red body and four black spots giving rise to its name of LS, but also because it is a creature which leads a fascinating life, not least because they spend most of the time underground where they create silk canopies decorated with the remains of other spiders, ants, and beetles they have previously eaten.
Today conservationists are giving the LS a helping hand by releasing some into one of the most diverse insect and spider habitats in the country at Arne RSPB Reserve in Dorset. These creatures will be yet another addition to a reserve which already plays host to a number of rare insect and spider species which includes....
The Roesel's Bush Cricket which was only discovered at Arne last year, it is quite rare and formerly found only in coastal areas of the south east.
The most interesting and intriguing aspect of all this is the method being used to transfer the LS's which is in empty plastic mineral water bottles, they are apparently the right shape and size for the spiders to make their nests in, they were captured in the heather and moss filled bottles, and having settled in and made their webs, they will be buried in holes in the ground at their new home at Arne.
Being the heathland specialist it is, the LS - along with birds like the Dartford Warbler and Nightjar - has suffered over the years from the loss of its heathland habitat through destruction. More than 90% of lowland heathland has been lost to such things as commercial forestry, development, and agriculture.
So....lots of fingers crossed at this project and the attempt to save the LS.
Last week will go down in my book as the worst for some time and for one reason or another I've done no birding since the exceptionally good and rewarding day I had last Tuesday in the Marshaw/Tower Lodge area in Bowland. I have a feeling if I continue to have these spells of no birding - five days now - and follow the trend of non-bird related posts, there's going to be the need to change the title of Birds2blog to maybe....Wildlife2blog!!
With the recent moorland wildfires - and the risk of more, especially if this dry weather continues - we're finding more and more open access areas closed in the attempt to minimise the risks. These fires will have undoubtedly affected many species including the Nightjar, Dartford Warbler, and Woodlark. Heathland in the South of England is important for these birds and fires in other parts of the UK will without doubt have affected lots of ground-nesting birds.
One bird to single out of all this is the Twite which could have seen a large percentage of this species affected in the North of England where nesting Twite are confined to the South Pennines, where around 100 pairs nest in small colonies. These birds used to occur much more widely in England, but for varying reasons they have declined, but have hung on to this area because of the abundance of hay meadows rich in seeds. It is thought that these recent fires could have affected more than a third of the English population, and this a bird seen as one of the most threatened species in the country even without these devastating fires.
We've been having some rain in the past couple of days, lets hope this has dampened down the tinder dry moorlands, grasslands, and heaths and that the breeding season can continue in the safety of fire free areas like these.
A pretty smart looking woodpecker with a name which does the bird no justice in my opinion, seen on a recent visit by Kah Wai to Malim Nawar in Malaysia, with an excellent video below in which Kah Wai describes the bird seen nest excavating as 'cool' and quite rightly so.
It doesn't come as much of a surprise that the first Dartford Warbler (DW) was discovered on Bexley Heath near Dartford in Kent in 1773, incidentally the same man who found this bird was also responsible for naming the Kentish Plover which had been first discovered in Kent 14 years after the DW in 1787 when it was then an unknown species, yet again the same man was involved with the Sandwich Tern the first of which was again found in Kent in 1784.
The DW is a species almost exclusively insectivorous which suffers adversely in long cold winters and habit loss, favoured heathlands have been converted into housing and agriculture. They previously bred as far north as Staffordshire but a massive loss of 80% of lowland heath severely reduced populations. Having barely recovered from the harsh winter of 1946-47, the winters of 1961-62-63 almost wiped out the entire British population and the number of breeding birds was thought to have been as low as twelve pairs.
The DW now breeds in most counties of the south coast of England, distribution has also expanded, and as climate change continues towards warmer summers and milder winters a further expansion in the birds range might be expected, how long before we can have them here in Lancashire, in the winter months they are known to follow Stonechats around, but finding a Stonechat now seems hard enough never mind a DW.
The bird in the stunning photograph above is that of a Dartford Warbler which has been at the curiously named World's End in Denbighshire, Wales since Wednesday 2 March....Another image with a 'brilliant' tag with thanks to DC.
Footnote.
Interestingly also in Wales and with no stragglers further north than Staffordshire a bird was observed for two days at Tremadoc, Caernarvonshire in May 1932.
Seeing this photograph of the Goldcrest at an unusual head on angle which creates a quite comical look to this the smallest bird of the west Palearctic which can weigh in at its lowest at a mere 4.5g, reminded me of the reduction in numbers of bird species like this one and the Dartford Warbler since the UK suffered the coldest winter in 30 years when temperatures fell to a lethal -22 degrees centigrade on one occasion at Braemar in Scotland.
Some people were delighted to find birds they were feeding in their gardens which they had never seen before, birds like the Fieldfare and Redwing, not to mention some bigger surprises with Woodcock and Reed Bunting appearing on occasions.
Based on personal observations at several locations since our last winter I've collected clear evidence of a complete absence of Stonechats at some, and a serious decline at others, and at one location in particular the highest number so far this summer has been a count of nine Stonechats on 22 June, this at a site where a count in the breeding season in recent years could reach in excess of thirty birds. I was therefore not a little surprised to read in a magazine news article recently that initial impressions suggest that many individuals of Stonechat have survived through the winter of 2009/10 and that the bird remains a common sight on heaths, coastal sites, and uplands.
And finally....
Marsh Harrier. Paul Foster.
A male Marsh Harrier comes in to land - with undercarriage lowered - into the reed beds at Leighton Moss, an excellent image with thanks to Paul for this, and to Warren for the Goldcrest above.
