The Mediterranean Gull.

Mediterranean Gull. Pete Woodruff.

Well, this photograph has definitely been on Birds2blog before but I'm not too worried about that as it happens to be one of my better efforts of taking a decent pic and illustrates the bird seen regularly last year off Boadway at Morecambe. I don't like birds being given abbreviated names, but for the sake of these notes I'll do that here.

I'm not really interested in accurate statistics at the moment and often aren't, but something like 14 Med Gulls have already been found in the past few days in our area - and just beyond - seven of which I found. All birds to me are brilliant but I must confess are so in varying degrees, but the Med Gull is well up the list of truly smart birds and its always a great pleasure to find one turning up in view through your telescope, in adult breeding plumage I have to refer to this bird as immaculate in its appearance.

The Med Gull has seen a significant range expansion through the 1960's and birds were present at a site in Hampshire in 1966/67 and breeding was proved in 1968. Numbers rose to almost 500 pairs at 34 sites by 2006 although the vast majority were at just three sites on the south coast of England. The Med Gull was a very rare bird in this country prior to the 1950's but is now regarded as widespread, especially along the coast of SE England, but can be regularly found in small numbers at inland gull roosts, and three-figure numbers are regular reported at Folkestone in Kent and from the Isle of White. Interesting that as I write, the RBA pager service alerts me to 5 adult Med Gulls at Walton Park in Liverpool whilst at the same time there has been NO Lancashire birds reported by this service at all today and the time now being 4.45pm, so things not picking up yet in the world of birds in Lancashire at least. 

   

I recently acquired the book above to add to my ever increasing reference library, I strongly recommend this one to you if you have an interest in keeping abreast of the status of our birds.

And finally....

Another one of those 'excellent' photographs I keep coming across during my trawling of the Internet and one definitely not taken by me but with no credit required. This image was taken recently at Cockersands and shows a female Marsh Harrier about to pounce on a Brown Hare of which this area has good numbers and counts in excess of 20 individuals are not unusual with my personal maximum being of 30 plus on one visit to the area. However, I'm told by the observer/photographer of this event that on this occasion the creature got away with its life.

I may well be trying my damnedest to keep a blog alive and enjoying it in the process but....I'D SOONER BE BIRDING!!

Todays Birds and....

Raven. Paul Baker.

Four excellent photographs the first of which is the best 'mug shot' of a Raven I ever saw, and all the way from British Columbia in Canada at that. Thanks for this Paul....I luv it!

Gannet. Gary Jones.

Thanks to Gary for this shot of the Gannet putting on the brakes as it touches down. This is excellent and is as good a photograph of a Gannet coming in to land that you could ever wish to achieve. Good on yer Gary its a superb piece of photography....and look at those tail feathers. 

With JB today in which case its not usually difficult to guess where we started. At Conder Green I first checked the Conder channel below the old railway bridge to find 4 Greenshank, for a while I had my 'recorders' hat on whilst viewing this area and counted 45 Redshank and 4 Dunlin. In the creeks I saw 5 Common Sandpiper, 2 Spotted Redshank, and 2 Ruff being a female and a juvenile, the latter on Conder Pool as it had been yesterday.

At Glasson Dock circa of 380 Dunlin and 100 Redshank, 3 Little Egret, and 2 Mediterranean Gulls were both adult and distant. We decided to take a trip down the road and into Fylde territory at Cockers Dyke not least because a juvenile Cuckoo was giving excellent views and was a rare opportunity to observe a bird which is never easy to connect with and is certainly becoming more difficult to in the days of its decrease. The only butterflies seen were a single Common Blue and Gatekeeper.

Cuckoo Behaviour. 

Some interesting behaviour/strategy was observed for thirty minutes in that this bird perched on telegraph wires, flew to ground in excess of thirty times and not once did it return to the same perch without a caterpillar in its bill. The conclusions here were, this bird could locate small prey from 40ft with a 100% success rate, the alternative of random plunging to ground wouldn't have had the same success. It was also noted that on returning to the perch with prey it then held the item in its bill for something like thirty seconds each time before swallowing it.

And the third pic....

 

Black Redstart. Zac Hinchcliffe.

....is of two Black Redstarts currently at Preston in Lancashire and I'm grateful to Zac for allowing these two beauties on to Birds2blog. Zac commented 'if two Black Redstarts are reported in your own town you simply cannot ignore them'....I don't think anyone would disagree with that.

Breeding Successes.

For the first time ever in the UK the Purple Heron has bred successfully at Dungeness RSPB Reserve in Kent.

And for only the second time in Britain the Little Bittern has also bred successfully at Ham Wall RSPB Reserve in Somerset.

Nearer to home a conversation with a Fylde birder this afternoon revealed that the Cetti's Warbler has also bred successfully at Marton Mere Reserve in Blackpool.

An Extension!

Dunlin. Brian Rafferty.

If you was to judge this image of the Dunlin on its merits all you'd have to do is to take into account the composition and focus both of which I'd regard as perfect....Thanks for this BR its a brilliant example of wildlife photography.

Today I managed to squeeze in 2.5 hours birding which by recent standards is something of an extension for me and it was a well rewarded one too. Conder Pool claimed its status again this morning as a good location for 'collecting' birds, waiting to be found with up to 320 Back-headed Gulls was a second summer Mediterranean Gull, also on the pool was a juvenile Ruff, 3 Black-tailed Godwit all in immaculate summer plumage, 6 Common Gulls, 3 Wigeon, and c.220 Lapwing. In the creeks, at least 8 Common Sandpiper, a bird which needs to be recorded as 'at least' whilst walking the circuit at Conder Green because they tend to move around a bit, 2 Spotted Redshank, c.60 Redshank, and 15 Dunlin. I spent 1.5 enjoyable hours here this morning with a decent number and selection of birds around for a small area.

At Glasson Dock on the Lune Estuary another 2 Mediterranean Gulls were both adults, a Little Egret was again distant below Waterloo Cottage. By the time I turned my attentions to the wader population here - which is building up into large autumn-like numbers - a Peregrine Falcon came on the scene with the obvious result of sheer panic which put paid to my intentions of a serious grilling....A good time was had by all and - with other matters to deal with and my time being up - I put away my optics for another day. 

And finally....

 

Courtesy of Richard Shilling.

I've not showcased any of Richards 'Landart' recently so time to put that right with his 'Seashell Colour Squares'. Richards creative mind can be opened up on Flickr via the link in my sidebar, his work never ceases to amaze me and it will you too. Thanks for this Richard....creative as ever and much appreciated. 

Treat yourself....

Before we proceed please treat yourself to probably the best video you're ever likely to see from an ornithological point of view, you only need to  CLICK HERE ....you do need speakers attached to your computer though!

Welcome to Birds2blog....Whether you're new here, visit occasionally, or better still daily, then I hope you find something here which is of at least a little interest to you now and again and thanks for looking in, I really appreciate it.

The Spoon-billed Sandpiper is a highly charismatic stint-sized wader as you have just seen, the bird has this extraordinary bill shape which is obvious even in the young chicks, it also goes without saying it is a rarity, the population of which is 'optimistically' estimated at between 2,000 - 2,800 pairs.

I've been searching through my old records once again today and have - as always - come up with some of the things lost from memory. The picture of the Hawfinch above is taken from an old 100 year old book I posses the title of which is 'British Birds In Their Haunts' the author is Rev.C.A.Johns, was published in 1910, and is brilliant.

Over the years I have had some quite good encounters with the very secretive and overlooked Hawfinch the population of which in our county is unlikely to exceed ten pairs, but my experience of this bird definitely puts this figure in the shade, at least in the county of Cumbria where on Claiffe Heights in the Lakes I observed over thirteen visits between 1997-1999 counts in double figures on five of these visits, the best of which was twenty birds on 24 January 1998, a figure I never exceeded anywhere and probably never will. Over the years another excellent site for the Hawfinch has been Witherslack and again between 1997-2001 over ten visits here, I recorded a maximum of eight birds on 4 November 1997. Other locations I have seen the Hawfinch have been all in Cumbria at Garth Row, The Row, and Beetham. Of course like every other birder in our area I have also seen them - predictably - at Woodwell.

It's no secret, a look in 'comments' in my post 'The Common Sandpiper' reveals the fact that protocol doesn't play a part in the essays I've been doing recently and is brought into question, perhaps now is the time to put this to rights at least in part. In the above write up on the Hawfinch there are about twelve words which are attributed to my looking up the total population of  the Hawfinch in our county in the book illustrated above, the rest is based on personal observations and records. The source for the very brief details on the Spoon-billed Sandpiper was 'Shorebirds' Hayman, Marchant, and Prater.

Incidentally, I have two copies of the book illustrated above one of which is a signed copy by all three authors Steve White, Barry McCarthy, and Maurice Jones, the latter I know personally and looking through my files this afternoon I came across a 'pile' of correspondence I have had with MJ over the years and perhaps this is an ideal opportunity for me to thank him anew for his generous communications regarding all manner of things ornithological. The spare book is yours if you would like to make me any offer considerably lower than you would pay for it - £40 - in a bookshop, if you happen to be the only one to make an offer and it is only for £5 then its yours. E-mail me here merlin4@tiscali.co.uk and make your offer.

But first....

The good - exciting even - news is that Spoonbills have bred successfully at Holkham NNR in Norfolk for the first time in 300 years and you can read all about it on the RBA website HERE 

Little Tern. Ian Tallon.

No pics of the Spoonbill but an excellent photograph of the Little Tern in flight over Foulney Island, Barrow in Furness.

And the bad news is....I feel my birding is falling apart in that I could only salvage 1.5 hours today which allowed me just about time to give Conder Green an hour on the circuit and a miserable thirty minutes to look over the Lune Estuary from Glasson Dock, not nearly a fraction of the time needed to do a half decent job of this excellent area, but there you have it and you can't win them all, but I'm beginning to think I'm loosing them all.

At Conder Green the pool remains very quiet, though with up to 250 Lapwing counted that sounds like a contradiction, also the 3 Wigeon remain site faithful. An adult Spotted Redshank in the creeks has the added interest in that it can now be separated from the c.35 Redshank by its now acquired winter white underparts as opposed to the black coat it wore just a few weeks ago, an amazing and unique transformation of plumage's amongst the waders of the UK, also noted were 7 Common Sandpiper.

On the Lune Estuary from Glasson Dock, it was a half hours hard work picking out the distant adult Mediterranean Gull but always well worth the effort to find one of these smart gulls, also another distant bird was the Little Egret over by Waterloo Cottage.

And finally....

Arctic Tern. Ian Tallon.

Another excellent in flight shot, this of the Arctic Tern, the truly amazing flying machine which even man could not compete with....long live the Arctic Tern. Thanks for the photographs Ian they are much appreciated and - not for the first time -  saved the day and added interest to the blog too.

The Gull Problem.

Yellow-legged Gull (juvenile) Stuart Piner.

If your anything like me - and I reckon there are more of you out there that are than aren't - you will for the most part ignore gulls and just enjoy all the other species of birds we can find and see in this country. I myself find mature gulls an attraction and play as big a part in my passion for the birds as any other species, but the gull problem starts at the juvenile stage and continues right through the age of immaturity up until the birds become adults.

The juvenile Yellow-legged Gull in the photograph above which has recently been found on Preesall Sands is the perfect example of confusable and difficult plumage's the juvenile/immature gull wears, and it is here that I should make the comment that I have every admiration and respect for birders in the class that can readily identify such birds as these and I can tell you there aren't many of them around but I do know most, if not all of them.

In the ageing of gulls, the smaller species like the Black-headed Gull reach maturity within two/three years and exhibit less individual variation than the larger species and can usually be aged reliably. The Common Gull for example has three age groups, the Herring Gull has four. But there is more variability in immature plumage's of the larger species and some are difficult to age with certainty. As far as I'm concerned life becomes intolerable when you realise an 'advanced' 2nd year gull could look very much like a 'retarded' 3rd year one and in some cases you will read in reference books that the advice is to refer to 'tricky' birds as '2nd year types' or '3rd year types'....Oh dear, is birding really this difficult and complicated! 

The 'nightmare' for me is - for example - when you consider the four years it takes a Herring Gull to become a mature adult and changing its plumage detail something like seven times in the process of being a juvenile to becoming an adult. I give up....well I would because I'm a defeatist born and bred. Still....I do know as much about birds as most birders, but can never hope to know as much as others. 

I'm off to study the plumage details of a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull now!!    

The Common Sandpiper.

Common Sandpiper. Pete Woodruff.

I think there's always the likelihood that pics find their way back on to Birds2blog having been here before and this one of the Common Sandpiper is such a candidate. It was taken in the Forest of Bowland this summer and is a pleasant reminder of possibly four pairs found up here this year between Marshaw and Trough Bridge a couple of miles upstream with two pairs eventually seen with young.

We will be into August tomorrow and for more than five weeks now the Common Sandpiper has been recorded in good numbers at Conder Green which is the best location in the recording area for autumn passage birds and - since three seen on 24 June - the maximum count has been nineteen on 9 July , it is also worth noting that a bird has wintered here for the past two years which is an additional location to the already recorded sites for wintering Common Sandpipers in Lancashire. Interestingly before the established two winter records at Conder Green, I found one here on 1 November 1998 but not again after this date that winter.

I've found ringed individuals at Conder Green in previous years and this year another one was seen and I have noted the results of reading them in my post on 27 July 'Bits of Interest' just five days after finding the bird for which I thanked the three people who supplied me with the information.

In 1997-2000 the Lancashire Atlas estimated c.250 breeding pairs concentrated on the River's Lune and Ribble, and also in Bowland as I have already mentioned. The species suffered a 24% national decline between 1970-2001, whether this was due to changes in the quality of breeding areas or problems in their wintering area is not known, but sadly I have to say human disturbance was attributed to the decline in some of their breeding areas.

Outside our recording area the best location for autumn birds is in the Shard Bridge/Skippol Creek area of the Wyre Estuary with a peak count of 67 birds in July 2003. Good inland sites in autumn include Arkholme on the River Lune where 63 were counted along a little more than five mile length on the early date of 8 June 1996.

The two earliest spring birds on record are coincidentally both on the same date of 21 March in 1933 and 1966, but an even earlier one was that of a bird on 5 March, but this was presumed to have been an individual which had wintered.  

One or two notes of ringing interest are of three Lancashire recoveries all in late summer, of birds ringed in the Scottish borders in June/July, and also of one from Northhumberland which had been ringed in June. This apparently supports the south or south westerly movement in autumn proposed by BWP. The only long-distance recovery is of a local breeder which was ringed on 17 June 1968 and was found in Morocco almost seven years later on 18 April 1975.

It remains to be seen whether or not a Common Sandpiper chooses to winter for a third consecutive year at Conder Green but I must admit, watching last years bird feeding one day in the midst of the 'ice age' we experienced and with the banks of the River Conder white with ice was a little weird to say the least.   

Sluggish!

Today's birding with JB/BT was a sluggish affair to say the least and which also came to a close at an early stage due - as ever - to the beautiful summer weather we are currently experiencing.

Surf Scoters. David Baker.

But first....one of Davids photographs. David and his father Paul - both from British Columbia in Canada - have extensive photo libraries and having recently been in touch with Paul he welcomes the use of his photographs on Birds2blog and boy am I grateful for that....Thanks for this one David it is much appreciated and shows a species I'm not expecting to see in this country any time soon.

Well today's 'sluggish birding' began at Conder Green where we soon saw the female Ruff once again in the creeks where I counted 12 Common Sandpipers. On Conder Pool the Little Grebe seen again as were the three summering Wigeon, also a Goosander, and 88 Lapwing.

We left Conder Green but unknown to us all at the time the day then slowly began to grind to a halt, but we had decided to go to Knott End where the 'terns' would be beginning to congregate on the beach as they do annually around August and three figure counts are not unusual, but unfortunately the aforementioned weather had already begun to turn nasty but I did count 8 Sandwich Terns before we had to run for cover. On the way here we had driven along Gulf Lane, at one point yesterday two Marsh Harriers had been seen in this and the Sand Villa area but no sign today, but we did find at least 40 Tree Sparrows along here near Moss Edge Farm, I've seen them in the area before but a couple of years ago since I did, also along the lane more Green-veined White butterflies than I ever saw before in any one sighting with a count of forty being easy.

A call in at Cockersands would have found me struggling to find an answer to the question why, but I did note 14 Eider drifting by on the tide. And that was it, the end, all over, finished, throwing the towel in, good bye....Life - and the weather - can be so exciting at times karnit!

And finally....

    

Fox Sparrow. Paul Baker.

Not the most glamorous of birds the Fox Sparrow, but look at those 'arrowheads' brilliant aren't they. Thanks for this Paul.

The Clougha Plod!

Heather on Clougha. Pete Woodruff.

Clougha didn't quite look like this today but in a few days time it certainly will with its splendid carpet of Heather. I spent an excellent five hours up here and on Birk Bank today, excellent not because of the weather - it was a bit like the last couple of days in October rather than July with heavy grey cloud and quite a cool breeze - or the birds, though they were excellent as ever but not in abundance as they never really are in the uplands and its never much of  a task to note everything seen and here they are....

It started of very good with 14 Redpoll silently and unknown to me in the car park area until they 'burst' out of a tree, from then on they were very mobile for a few minutes until they departed the area. I ended the visit here today having found 8 Stonechat but nothing particularly remarkable about that being four juvenile together, a solitary male, and a pair with a single juvenile despite my hanging around them for quite a while to see more, so supposing the lone male had a mate lurking around somewhere there are no more than three pairs on here in 2010.

To make up the twelve species seen today I recorded 8 Wheatear, a Jay which I heard only, 12 Meadow Pipits including a young bird, 2 Willow Warbler, 6 Curlew, a Kestrel, Buzzard, Grey Heron, c.180 Carrion Crows, and 4 Red Grouse which I didn't see until I'd been here four hours and was looking like I was going to enter a blank for the visit which would have been a first in more than twelve years.

There was a serious altercation between the four Stonechat juveniles I found, a Willow Warbler, and Meadow Pipits which included the young bird. It was difficult to pin point the aggressors but I'd suggest the Stonechats as they don't tolerate other birds very well or very much if at all.

I paid particular attention to the fact I never heard - let alone saw - a single Wren today, a bird normally seen in number on all visits here. 

And finally....

    

View from Clougha. Pete Woodruff.

Neither of these photographs are from today's visit, the top one was taken one August day a few years ago as was the one above on a winters day, if you try hard enough you can see the faint rainbow which didn't develop into much as rainbows go, and if you keep trying you can also see the church at Quernmore to the left of the rainbow....but I'm struggling to impress now I know!

The Short List.

I just about managed to squeeze in a couple of hours birding today which didn't amount to anything like exciting, but any birding time is good time.

Gannets. David Cookson.

But first a photograph of the Gannets on Bass Rock with my thanks to David who is currently posting his account and pictures of the visit HERE and is recommended reading/viewing.

I didn't get to Conder Green until 10.45 this morning and was surrounded in just about every direction by some pretty heavy rain showers but actually escaped all of them which made a pleasant change for me avoiding my 'staring out the windscreen at the rain' routine. I made the best of a circuit here and noted most of the birds on offer which amounted to very little, but I'm beginning to sound like the 'anything about' man who often turns up in the hides I'm in at places like Leighton Moss.

On Conder Pool Mondays four Greenshank were again in hiding behind one of the islands, the juvenile Great-crested Grebe and 3 Wigeon were all the pool had to offer save a Brown Hare which made a cautionary walk through some shallow water, by the way....can these creatures swim? A Spotted Redshank and 10 Common Sandpiper were in the creeks, and at least 34 Swift went over going south.

On the Lune Estuary at Glasson Dock which was by now well taken over by the tide but which had conveniently pushed c.950 Dunlin in close and which I grilled in the hope of the 'odd one out' along with c.650 Redshank, so the return of the waders continues. And so ended my brief birding day and my 'short list' was complete....better things to come surely! 

At least 30 Swift over my house as I end my write-up at 8.50 pm.