The Roller And The Bullfinch.

The European Roller is a rare vagrant, though over the years has amassed a total in excess of 300 records in Britain.... 

European Roller. Noushka Dufort

....but this one is in France.

I was amazed and surprised when I first saw the image of this Roller, amazed by the brilliant quality of the photography, and surprised at the Common Shrew in the birds bill. I had no idea this species of bird would take a shrew to feed to young as this one was doing according to the account by Noushka, thinking this birds diet was that of invertebrates.

So I did some reading up on the Roller to discover in one of the best reference books I possess - The Birds of the Western Palearctic - that the Roller feeds mainly on insects of medium to large sized beetles and crickets etc, making no mention of supplementing with the likes of an animal as large as the one in the photographs above.   

But more reading expanded on the Rollers feeding habits to claim....'The European Roller feeds on invertebrates, such as beetles, crickets, locusts, caterpillars, flies and spiders, they are also known to prey on small numbers of larger animals such as frogs, lizards, snakes and small birds'....and according to this evidence obviously the shrew.

And the Bullfinch.

Bullfinch David Cookson 

I was a little more than surprised to find 5 Bullfinch in Lancaster Cemetery on Wyresdale Road last Thursday. A species not found very much away from it's resident breeding grounds mainly in the Silverdale and Arnside, the Lune Valley, and the Heysham area. 

During last years breeding season 17 pairs were found on Warton Crag, and at least 3 pairs were in the Heysham area, but I found no records from the Lune Valley in 2013. But it's always a bonus to find the Bullfinch anywhere in our recording area away from traditional sites, and they were certainly an unexpected bonus for my visit to the cemetery last week. The most interesting Bullfinch I ever found was of four seen at Birk Bank on 1 November 2004, I saw four here again on 22 November when my records read that they were all male. I don't personally recall ever seeing Bullfinch in our area of Bowland before or since these records, but it is interesting to note that 2004 was the year of a massive invasion of continental Bullfinch into Britain around mid-October. 

Thanks to Noushka for the dramatic images of the Roller and the Common Shrew, and to David for the stunning male Bullfinch. 

The Reply....

....and another excuse to post some more brilliant photographs on Birds2blog whilst I continue with the long awaited normality to return in my birding life....this is not funny and never was. 

The following is an e-mail regarding the current Preston Guild celebrations in connection with the risk of disturbance to the breeding Common Terns at Preston Dock. I don't want to make any comment on the contents of the message save....'I don't like the sound of a firework display set off from a barge in the middle of the dock, and reckon neither will the Common Terns like it'....However, my sincere thanks to Tim Joel for getting in touch with me on the matter. 

Hello Peter

Thanks for your email regarding the Common Terns at the Docks, the RSPB have also been in touch. The majority of the Riversway Festival activity taking place a week today is located on the grass land adjacent to the control tower and the swing bridge. The water activity including dragon boat racing and boat trips has minimal impact on the water. There is a small firework display on the Saturday night which is set off from a barge in the middle of the docks. All the activity is planned in conjunction with the marina who manages the water space and the Preston City Council team who operate the bridge and maintain the docks area.

Thanks for bringing this matter to our attention.

Tim Joel Festival and Events Officer. As for the brilliant photographs.... Common Tern. Peter Guy. As the Common Tern is a current topic at Preston Dock, this is a pretty impressive image of these two engaged in some sort of aerial display there. Whinchat Brian Rafferty I'm not ever able to resist a photograph of the Whinchat and this one is no exception. Not an easy species to come by these days - let alone photograph one as good as this - but always to my delight whenever I find one. Puffin David Cookson A brilliant portrait of everbodys favourite the Puffin with a bill full of Sand Eel for its young. Roller Antonio Puigg And the Roller....there's one currently in Aberdeenshire if you want to get your bike out and get on up there. And the local MEGA....what I presume is the same roaming bird for several days now in Lancashire, a male Montagu's Harrier is spending some time in the Champion Moor area ESE of Slaidburn, and still there as I write at 12.20pm. So you can see this bird either on your way, or on your return to/from Aberdeenshire. I have no idea why his post runs of the off the page in places on the right!

On a Mission.

This is my fifth year at Barbondale of being involved with a nest box scheme jointly with John Wilson directed in the main to the Pied Flycatcher (PF) which until now I've keep quiet about based mainly on the popularity of the area, but also the privacy of the land I refer to where permission obviously had to be obtained to erect the nest boxes in the first place. In this regard I have always been of the opinion that the least said about this the better. Whilst I don't particularly like being in a position to dictate....'do what I say, not what I do'....I'm sure it is appreciated that being on private property the scheme would be in jeopardy if anyone was found to be trespassing in the name of obtaining a photograph, or to take a closer look at the boxes and their content if that was the case.

All of this said, I think there is nothing more to be gained in the silence as lots of birders/photographers/or just visitors to the area will by now know - or have seen for themselves -  some of the nest boxes from the path, and I can only now trust that we can all keep to some sort of code of conduct to the advantage not only of the birds, but also the delicate balance between the private land they occupy which is below an accessible footpath, to this end I can share the success story of Barbondale and its PF's, the full story of which I'll post at some later date, meanwhile, back to today's 'Mission'.      

Since 30 April I've made five visits this year to Barbondale that has slowly built up over the weeks to today's findings which has seen the continuation of what I can only hope will be the success story of 2012 for the Pied Flycatchers of Barbondale, an area of old woodland which held  few - if any - of the species in the recent past, though I don't pretend to know the full history in this regard. 

On my last visit I was able to establish that ten PF's were in the woods this year representing five pairs, four of which had a nest with seven eggs with the fifth nest holding a female sitting tight which I was not prepared to disturb. Today it was found that the five nests held a combination of eggs and recently hatched naked young, add to this the excitement of finding two female which were ringed of which was one was found to be an adult female ringed last year which has returned to Barbondale to breed once again as a two year old bird at least, more excitement was in the fact that this bird was ringed here on the very same date as this recapture today 7 June.....To be continued.


With all this going on today I had little time to do any birding but did note, c.14 House Martin which surprised me, if these birds were not from a decent colony at the farm here I can only assume they were on a feeding mission, also a few Swift over, up to 4 Redstart males, a Spotted Flycatcher, Dipper, Nuthatch, and a Great-spotted Woodpecker. Opportune feeding behaviour was noted on Barbon Beck again today as on 18 May with Pied Flycatcher, Redstart, Meadow Pipit, Chaffinch, Wren, Reed Bunting all taking advantage of insects available on the stream as opposed to insects not available elsewhere, JW and I both agreed on this.

And finally, well we do have to have a couple of pics don't we, five actually.... 

Sanderling. Peter Guy.

First the Sanderling at Rossall Point, hard to believe the epic journey to its high Arctic breeding grounds this small wader will be about to undertake anytime soon.

Wood Sandpiper Antonio Puigg

And another wader the Wood Sandpiper. Will this bird be going to breed in northern Europe, or perhaps in the Scottish Highlands where the flooding of some previously drained traditional marshes may start to help this species in the future.

Roller Antonio Puigg

A Roller present at Aldbrough in East Yorkshire for several days now has dearly tempted me to become a 'twitcher' for the day, but I haven't yet succumbed....some bird.

Thanks to PG/AP for the photographs, much appreciated.