Must Watch!

Most of us have probably seen this, but if you haven't, this is a must watch film. It's 7 mins 35 secs long, but hang on in there. It is brilliant, and deals with the tragic subject of too many lunatics under the umbrella of 'Guardians of the Countryside'....The perfect gap filler for B2B.

Dragon's Government's Den. 

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Egrets & Scilly Stonechats.

On a lighter and much more enjoyable note....As ever, I was grateful to Howard Stockdale for the video of the Cattle Egret at Cockersand. 

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Prompted by a comment in my last post about Stonechats seen on the Scillies, and having no idea of the status there. I was interested in whether or not they bred there. I made contact and received a reply with this brief information.... 

The Stonechat is recorded in the Annual Review and described as: Uncommon to common, a breeding resident, spring and autumn migrant, and winter visitor. The Stonechat breeds in reasonable numbers, and with a little effort can be seen most days. This autumn saw a very rare Siberian Stonechat, and the Scillies have also recorded Caspian Stonechat.

 

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My birding is often full of gratitude, and on this occasion the gratitude goes to Alan Hannington at Scilly Birding 

The Big Dip!

I got out and dusted off my twitching gear yesterday to eventually get off my arse to go see a Desert Wheatear, in and around the area since last Saturday when it was first found at Fairhaven Lake, Lytham St Annes. 

The decider for me to go was a pager message claiming the bird still there yesterday morning, but 20 minutes down the M6 and unknown to me with the pager in my pocket, the message was that the earlier one was erroneous. I spent a couple of hours parading along the beach, eventually alone with not another birder in sight, in pursuit of a bird which had clearly done a runner. 

Reed Bunting. Starr Hill. Pete Woodruff.

I had to settle for 4 Reed Bunting, one of which I got one of my half decent shots, and several Pied Wagtail, to leave here and call in at Fluke Hall on the way back to Lancaster.

Pale-bellied Brent Goose. Fluke Hall.  Pete Woodruff.

When I got out of the car at Fluke Hall, from the sea-wall a Pale Bellied Brent Goose was on the saltmarsh and was the only quality bird of the day. A saunter along the coastal path to Cockers Dyke had me seeing relatively few gulls, a good number of Dunlin feeding with fewer Redshank, 10 Goldfinch, a Little Egret, and a Wren disappearing down into the sea defence boulders.

 Juvenile Gannet. Cockersand. Pete Woodruff.

Yesterday I found this recently deceased juvenile Gannet on the shingle at Cockersand.

Although I've seen nothing official about the ID of the Fair Isle Siberian Stonechat present 16-30th October, the claim is that is has been proven as maurus on DNA evidence.

Siberian Stonechat

Wirral birder Phil Woollen touched down on Fair Isle on 13 October for a birding trip with mates, and in no time at all they were watching a female Pine Bunting, the first of many a 'goodie' they saw during the trip. 

Hopes had been high that the week would produce a mega rarity, and sure enough on day four they received a message to say a Siberian Stonechat had been found, the claim being that it was a possible Stejnegers.

Being the Saxicola person that I am - somewhere between mad keen and a fanatic - my eyes lit up when I saw Phil's account and photographs of the bird on his blog. I contacted Phil and asked if I could copy some of his images onto Birds2blog, thankfully he agreed.

Possible Stejnegers Stonechat. Phil Woollen.

There are six subspecies of Siberian Stonechat over central and eastern Eurasia, east through Siberia to China and Japan, south to northern India, Pakistan and northern Indonesia.

The most distinct characteristic attributed to the Siberian Stonechat to allow them to be identified from the two races of European Stonechat, is the tone and extent of colour on the rump which, compared to the western races, is that they are always pale rufous-buff and totally unmarked, this is clearly illustrated in Phil Woollen's excellent in flight image above, the rump patch is also considerably larger than is seen in the two western races. In autumn and winter, the overall colour of Siberian Stonechat is also paler than that of the European Stonechat. 

Confusion sets in when, S.m Stejneger is very similar in plumage detail and size to S.m maura, so much so that many vagrants that arrive in western Europe in autumn are not specifically identified, and are recorded as S.m Maura/S.m Stejneger, as it is often impossible to separate them racially in the field. 

It's also interesting, that female and juvenile Siberian Stonechats both resemble female and juvenile Whinchat in face and body pattern, in this regard Phil's top image above clearly illustrates the resemblance....but then you see the rump!

The bird that Phil connected with was eventually caught/ringed and a feather sent for DNA analysis....It would be interesting to see what the result of this will be.

Thanks to Phil Woolen for the images including my new header, excellent and much appreciated Phil.   

St Peter's Ravens.

St Peter's Cathedral. Boyd Harris.

This is the same view of St Peter's Cathedral in Lancaster which I had as I walked up East Road on Wednesday. I saw 3 Raven around the cross on the steeple, one bird was perched on the very tip of the cross, whilst the other two were diving at the perched bird....Quite a spectacle.

Garden Birds.

Blackcap Simon Hawtin

KT reports a male Blackcap in our garden in my absence on Friday morning, an excellent sighting.

The Caspian Stonechat.

The  first record of Siberian Stonechat in Britain was of an immature male found on the Isle of May, Fife, in October 1913, at the time the bird was said to have resembled a Whinchat.   

A subspecies of Siberian Stonechat - of which there are six - a Caspian Stonechat S.m.variegata, was found on St Agnes in the Isles of Scilly on Monday 18 November, the bird was a first winter male and represented only the fourth record in Britain. Only two of the subspecies - S.m.maura and S.m.stejnegeri - are truly Siberian in that they breed in that area, the other four do not. Apart from one other of the subspecies - S. m. Przewalskii - the Caspian Stonechat is the largest of the races found in the Palearctic, and the major plumage distinction from all other Palearctic races, is that both first year and adult males have a large proportion of the bases of the retrices pure white, the western part of the range have greater than 50% white in the tail, the eastern part of the range have in excess of 70% and in some cases the white in the tail can be so extensive on the outer feathers as to suggest the tail pattern of the Northern Wheatear.

There's some very interesting discussion/opinion/comment/banter on this Caspian Stonechat HERE but you'll need an interest - or maybe even a degree - in science to follow it all. 

The video of the Scillies bird is brilliant - though it is 3.23 minutes in length - enjoy it for as long as you like. 

I'd very much have liked to have found this little beauty....on Clougha perhaps, though I'm not sure how I would have dealt with the excitement!!

I'm grateful to SP for the excellent header image of the St Agnes bird.