To the hills.

This won't take long - though the survey did - and I didn't use much ink and paper either. And look....a post with no blue or red highlights! 

I was off into the hills on Tuesday, up Clougha and Birk Bank to be precise, for the first time for more than five months on 26 March. I spent the customary five hours and walked about eight miles during which time and distance I searched intensely for the Stonechat to no avail. 

OK, so we know the Stonechat on Clougha, Birk Bank - and many other upland locations I'm acquainted with - met its end following the second successive harsh winter. But a pair wintering on Clougha in March brought some hope, though I would suggest the summer which followed dashed any hope for many ground nesting birds like the Stonechat and was pretty well equal to the harsh winter they had just endured and survived. So it won't take long to write up my Stonechat report for 2012....or today's records either.

You can't help but wonder what a days birding in an area like this would have been two or three hundred years ago, what species and what numbers of birds would you have encountered. Today I recorded just eleven species which probably didn't total more than 100 birds in the five hours including the 'painfully obvious' top four on the list which I was certain to see and on this ocassion had no intention of counting.

The list....

Carrion Crows

Rooks 

Jackdaws

Swallows 

Great Tit
Kestrel 

2 Wren

4 Wheatear 

2 Raven
10 Lesser Black-backed Gulls overhead on thermals 

21 Red Grouse

Out of the history book....

Savi's Warbler. John Leedal.

I was looking through my stock of JL's old pics once again and came across this one of the Savi's Warbler at Leighton Moss in 1991. John took this from the Jackson Hide and I remember the day like it was yesterday. The picture isn't the best one in the world, but a Savi's Warbler nevertheless. The bird has an amazing song very much like that of the Grasshopper Warbler as can be heard in this recording....

Kentish Plover. John Leedal.

And this one of 'the other' Kentish Plover. This bird returned to Rossall Point at Fleetwood for about six consecutive winters, and is the very same individual I found on the groyne at Teal Bay on 19 November 1994 and was found back at Rossall Point later the same day....Halcyon 'Birding' Days. 

American Golden Plover. Copy Permitted. 

An American Golden Plover was found at Cockersands yesterday 5 September and was seen again today....I think there may be more about this on Birds2blog later.

The Ring Ouzel.

Ring Ouzel male at nest with young. Peter Guy.

A set of circumstances means I'm at the computer again today amongst other things....not good for mind or body actually but life can be dangerous at times can't it.

First I must thank Peter Guy for the image of the Ring Ouzel feeding young at the nest, not a photograph achievable to everyone and in many respects thank goodness for that. It seems many birders have had success in the trek up the Langden Valley this spring to see this enigmatic bird along with other 'upland specials' on offer, and I've seen and spoken to lots of happy people at the car park at this result though I've not yet been up there myself.

The Ring Ouzel is mainly restricted to the uplands and not well covered by breeding bird surveys. The species has always been less common in Ireland, it bred in most counties in the early 90's but by the mid/late-90's had decreased in range considerably and then only the most mountainous areas were occupied. The contractions of the species were cause for alarm and some dedicated surveys were undertaken in some selected regions and a population decline of >50% was revealed during the 1990's.

Breeding birds from GB and Ireland appear to depart in September to winter in SW France and NW Africa and there is a second peak of birds at coastal observatories in October, these are probably migrants originating in Fennoscandia where the population appears to be more stable. The reasons for the decline of the Ring Ouzel in this country are not fully understood, but studies have suggested that - for one thing - the extent of heather cover was important in the determination of site occupancy. Population declines were also noted two years after high spring rainfall in Morocco which was known to reduce juniper pollination the consequence of which 18 months later was the lack of abundance of the berries that form an important food source for the wintering Ring Ouzels.

Photograph by Neil Wright/BirdLife Malta.

Please take note of this image of a Marsh Harrier which appears to have had an extremely lucky escape from the hunters guns. Please link to the BirdLife Malta website from my sidebar on the left to keep up to date with this sickening and disastrous situation in Malta and in particular to read an Open Letter to the Prime Minister regarding attacks on conservation areas and the people connected.

As I write there is a report of Savi's Warbler in the Leighton Moss area, and site directions/instructions are available at Leighton Moss RSPB Reserve some of the staff of which are policing the area.