Sunday 31 January - Big Garden Birdwatch (how to cheat)

 My recent walk to Morton Bagot has had an unfortunate consequence. My foot issue has re-emerged and I have been hobbling around the house ever since. Fortunately this has coincided with the annual RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch.

On reminding myself of the rules I discovered they are very straightforward, maybe too straightforward. All the RSPB website says is that you should record birds from your window/in your garden for one hour over the weekend of Jan 29 - 31. It adds that you should not count birds that are flying over, and that you should only include the birds seen at any one time during your hour. I took this to mean that if, for example you see a male Blackcap which then disappears, and ten minutes later you see a female Blackcap, you can only count it as one Blackcap, unless the two then reappear together. 

This is described as citizen science. It is scientific because there are rules, but it involves citizens who don't necessarily follow them. 

A quick Google search reveals participants who say things like "I didn't realise you couldn't count birds that fly over" and "well if I see an obvious male and later an obvious female, that's two birds as far as I'm concerned". 

Having read the instructions, I only had to decide when to do my hour. Saturday was going to be very wet, while Sunday held the prospect of snow. Sunday then. 

At around lunchtime on Saturday the rain had turned to snow, and the garden held a swarm of Goldfinches, at least 20. Two Collared Doves huddled for warmth in the apple tree, while four Chaffinches hopped around the lawn. I was very tempted to start my hour there and then.

A pair of shivering Collared Doves

In the end I decided to stick to Plan A, which meant throwing in my lot with Sunday.

So this morning I waited until 09.00 and settled down to count what turned up in the clear, slightly frosty, and definitely not snowy, conditions. I soon found myself tempted to cheat...a bit.

Counting the number of birds present at any one time is a bit like (I imagine) spinning plates on poles. Your House Sparrow count reaches five, then you scan to the right and spot another, but scan back left and there are only four left. Have you seen five, or six? I should settle for five, drat them. This kind of thing happens constantly throughout your hour.

Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Redwings fly over. I can't count them. Then a Woodpigeon flies in and almost lands but keeps going. Surely I can count him? Fortunately he returned later and started walking around, so my scruples were not tested.

One question not really addressed in the rules is what counts as your garden. I have always included my next-door neighbour's dead peach tree, which very nearly overhangs our garden, and less convincingly the roof of the house just beyond the garden fence. But I don't count the big Silver Maple which dominates our end of the close. It would probably flatten our shed if it ever blew over, but I still won't accept it as a legitimate part of the survey. 

At the end of my hour I had recorded 12 species for the list, all of them definitely in the garden. I had seen a female Blackcap, the first since December, but I hadn't seen a Great Tit. Annoying, particularly as 15 minutes later one appears on the fat-balls.

In fact, an hour later I am thinking of doing an alternative hour. Can I ditch my first hour as substandard and try again? Is that in the rules? It doesn't say, so I have another go.

Two Great Tits are regularly present and I see more Goldfinches, then a Wren appears. But no Blackcap this time, no Magpie reaches us, no Dunnocks, no Starling, and I end up with fewer than the first attempt. Unless I count the birds in the Silver Maple. It hosted a Redwing, and better still a female Great Spotted Woodpecker.

In the end I decide that doing an alternative hour is not in the spirit of the survey, and settle for my first attempt.

My full list in order of appearance is thus:

Woodpigeon 2

Blackbird 4

House Sparrow 6

Blue Tit 2

Goldfinch 3

Chaffinch 3

Robin 2

Blackcap 1

Dunnock 2

Jackdaw 1

Starling 1

Magpie 1

But that's just me. I'm sure that up and down the country fellow citizens will be recording birds to their own parameters.

That's citizen science for you.

Wednesday January 27 - Another long march to Morton Bagot

 The snow melted away overnight leaving largely green fields and mud to negotiate on my latest masochistic trudge to the patch. My thought process went something like this: It's been very wet, the ice should have gone, maybe today is the day I find a Med Gull at Morton Bagot.

I will gloss over the hour and a half it took to reach the hallowed ground, suffice to say it was grey and misty. The sight of a flock of gulls in the pasture to the west of the Morton Brook lifted my spirits, as did the presence of a Common Gull among the hundred or so Black-headed Gulls. I crossed the brook and looked back to see it was still there. Phew, I could count it! We may not get another until next year.

This sort of thing illustrates the nonsense that is Patch listing. Unfortunately I have totally bought into it, so yes, I would have been disappointed if it had flown off before I could have seen it from within my self-imposed patch boundary.

In fact by the time I reached the flash field it had joined a flock of Black-headed Gulls standing on ice which has still not melted yet. 

Common Gull 

For the record, I counted 232 Black-headed Gulls before noticing that the ice sheet had thawed at the edges allowing nine Teal, several Snipe, and 19 Lapwings to find places to lurk.

The back of the nearest flash, Teal and Snipe present but tricky to spot.

The Little Egret I saw at the weekend made a brief appearance, and I saw the first of five Stonechats discovered to be still present.

Little Egret

I decided to have another kick through the marsh by the Pool. This produced more Snipe which when added to those visible at the edge of the nearest flash made a grand total of 17. There were no Jack Snipe once again, but I did get a patch year tick as a Golden Plover called a couple of times from somewhere above me. 

Exiting the pool field I heard another bird I needed, a singing Mistle Thrush. The flutey notes were drifting over from the hamlet in the distance, but I couldn't see it. I did spot two more pairs on the walk back, and I'll leave you with a picture of one which visited our garden in the snow the day before yesterday.

Mistle Thrush

This is the least regular thrush species in our garden. It found the tasty mouldy apple impossible to resist and seemed to be top of the pecking order, keeping the normally belligerent Fieldfare off its prize.

Sunday January 24 - Walking to Morton Bagot

 It has to be said that today was probably not the best day I could have chosen to attempt to walk to Morton Bagot across the fields from my front door, but choose it I did.

The forecast snow arrived just before I set out, and the outward journey was pretty miserable. Driving snow added to my directional issues, but after several unnecessary circumnavigations of fields I should have walked across I arrived in the vicinity after about 90 minutes.

I actually took a wrong turn (one of many) and found myself in the marshy field beyond the flash field, oops. Before I retraced my steps, my blundering flushed a Little Egret which was probably the bird of the morning.

Once back on the right route I found my way to the Morton Brook, and as the snow eased a bit it felt great to be back on the patch.

The Kingfisher Pool

The only water that was ice free was a corner of the Kingfisher Pool, although the 15 Mallard I flushed had actually been standing on the ice which covered 90% of it.

Although the nearest flash was completely ice-bound it was covered in gulls.

The nearest flash

I had chosen to leave my scope at home, and carry sandwiches and a flask instead. With hindsight this was a mistake. Through binoculars I counted 192 Black-headed Gulls and eight Lesser Black-backed Gulls which is a pretty decent count for here.

Zooming in on the gulls

Behind the flash I could see a couple of Lapwings and at least four Snipe. A scope would certainly have bumped up that total.

I had time to circle the weedy field as the weather worsened once more. Five Stonechats were still toughing it out. They will be greatly relieved if the expected milder conditions return next week. A small number of Skylarks flew over, but I didn't see very much else at all.

There is something rather magical about Morton Bagot in the snow though, so I'm glad I made the effort.

A hurrying Hare

The best conditions were reserved for the walk back although the snow that had fallen since I set out had completely covered my footprints, causing further confusion.

These sheep were disappointed I wasn't dishing out bales of hay

The main point of the exercise was to prove to myself that it could be done in the course of a morning, and as I returned at one o'clock I felt vindicated.

Morton Bagot is back on the agenda.

The results are in (moth stuff)

 I've been stuck indoors since my last post by a wide variety of excuses and events. The leg pain cleared up, only to be replaced by foot pain (probably a recurrence of my Morton's Neuroma) - strangely appropriate. Then there's the rain. And finally having to be in to accept supermarket deliveries.

The only light relief has been watching the Grey Squirrel tidying the garden by taking mouthfuls of leaves to build a drey, and a pair of Robins disappearing into our shed with beak-fulls of leaves, clearly nest building. This is likely to lead to conflict over the local moths when the trap goes out in Spring.

And speaking of moths......when an email arrived from Nigel Stone this morning with the results of his dissections of last year's tricky moths, I was delighted to have something to do.

Obviously there's the thorny issue of taking specimens to deal with first. I would only say that two of the following moths simply expired before I was able to release them (so I might as well have got their identity checked), and as for the others, unfortunately there was no other way of determining what they were with certainty. I keep such activity to an absolute minimum.

Anyway; two were new for the 10km square. The Lesser Common Rustic (which was found dead in the trap), and Mompha bradleyi (a really cryptic micro which was only discovered to be living in the UK in the 1990's when someone realised that some specimens of Mompha divisella in Herefordshire were actually M bradleyi.) They have since been found in various parts of the South Midlands, but I'm not sure how widespread they are in Warwickshire. In fact I have now learnt that this was the fifth record for the county.

Lesser Common Rustic

Mompha bradleyi

The remaining moths were also garden ticks: A Red-line Quaker which I unfortunately only took a terrible photo of before finding it dead the following morning (it was extremely worn), a Parornix scoticella which isn't featured in my micro-moth book and which UK Moth ID told me could not be identified from my photograph. They are nevertheless not particularly rare. A Coleophora serratella, unfortunately none of the Coleophora moths can be identified without dissection. This is apparently the commonest of that group. And finally a Caloptilia robustella which was a very pretty little micro moth which would have had to remain robustella ag without Nigel's confirmation of species.

In total last year I recorded 25 species which were new for the 10km square our garden sits in. Most were micros, probably reflecting the limited appeal micros have to some moth-ers, but there were also five macros: Lesser Common Rustic, Rufous Minor, Cypress Pug, Slender Brindle, and Olive. 

Finally, I saw Mike Lane's footage of a Redwing eating Sloes on the BBC's Winterwatch yesterday. I am fairly sure it was filmed at Morton Bagot.

Sam is still watching birds at Morton Bagot, and saw 50 Lapwings and a Shoveler there yesterday.

Friday January 15 - exercise isn't always good for you.

 I've done a very silly thing. Earlier this week I got it into my head that I could get my daily exercise by running on the spot. I forgot that my legs are 61 years old (my brain being about eight), and after about two minutes of vigorous "jogging" a sharp pain in my calf brought the session to an abrupt halt.

After hobbling around the house for the last four days I decided I had recovered sufficiently to go for a walk up the hill to Skilts Common. The two hour walk was what I probably should have been doing in the first place, but provided very little that could be described as a highlight.

As I returned to the A435, where traffic is a lot heavier than in the last lockdown, I was reflecting that my best bird had probably been a Grey Wagtail which stood on a large pile of manure for not quite long enough for me to take its photo. 

Fortunately fate was to provide a twist in the tale as the stars of the show, a flock of 52 Golden Plovers hurried northwards. Perhaps the morning hadn't been a complete waste of time.

This only leaves our garden to blog about. Since milder conditions have arrived most of the Redwings and all of the Fieldfares have gone. One good thing about staring out of the kitchen window is that I find myself actually watching birds, not just recording them. The two male Blackcaps have sorted themselves out into a dominant bird and a submissive one which gets chased remorselessly. The alpha male is still not satisfied, and has taken to defending "his feeder" against the ever hungry Goldfinches which really only want the sunflower hearts, and even bullying the local House Sparrows which admittedly are more interested in the fat-balls.

Billy the Blackcap

Another bird which has taken to bossing the sparrows about is a scarce visitor to the garden. I recently defrosted our garage freezer and decided to chuck out the soggy bread found therein. Pretty soon this attracted a male Pied Wagtail which, like the Blackcap, became very possessive about this unexpected windfall.

Pied Wagtail

This afternoon it was briefly joined by a female (or maybe a young male) of the same species and all hell broke out. The loser has bounded off to find a less well-defended garden.

This morning the feeder had another couple of visitors. Two Siskins stopped by to see what all the fuss was about. Small numbers of these finches regularly fly over during the winter, but they don't often visit.

Siskins

This is a much better view than I normally get at Morton Bagot. Only three other species of finch have frequented our garden this year. Goldfinches are the commonest, and have peaked at 20 individuals. Three Chaffinches are also present every day, but the third species, a Greenfinch, probably qualifies as a rarity.

The only news I've heard from Morton Bagot again comes from Sam of HOEF. He has seen about a dozen Snipe, four  Teal, and a couple of dozen Mallard. 

My leg is stiffening up again, and I doubt I will be visiting the patch any time soon.

Morton Bagot update

 I haven't been to the patch this week, and made a late decision not to go today.

Sam of HOEF reported the presence of two Wigeon, some Starlings, and a Stonechat toughing it out on Thursday.

I am not sure when I will be resuming patch-watching in the light of the worsening covid situation.

Thursday January 7 - getting addicted to the garden

Today has been remarkably cold, the freezing fog refusing to lift resulting in a maximum temperature of -1 degrees C.

I had not planned to watch birds today, but immediately after noticing three Fieldfares fighting all-comers  on the lawn I was hooked.

I didn't feel like another day of sketching, so went for the easier option of filming.

So although I didn't set out to count everything from dawn till dusk, I couldn't help noticing that there were even more birds than yesterday. At least five Redwings, seven Blackbirds, and 20 Goldfinches were bouncing and fluttering all over the place. It was truly addictive.

My only regret was that when a male Siskin briefly joined the Goldfinch flock before deciding the feeder was too crowded, I fluffed my chance to get a photo of it.

I would like to say I won't be bothering tomorrow, but with the temperature set to remain low I cannot give any such undertaking.

Wednesday January 6 - Locked down again

 Here we go again. We have to stay indoors and not meet anyone indoors except in a support bubble or outdoors apart from one other person for local daily exercise, or medical appointments, or shopping. 

So I should be able to carry on as before, as the above describes my life.

But today I decided to stay very local indeed. The plan was to count all the wildlife I could see from the house from dawn to dusk, and also to try to rediscover any artistic ability I may once have had. Unfortunately I have let it slip, and despite picking a bird which wouldn't move around much, it took me a number of attempts to come up with something I'm not too ashamed of. 

I give you; the Woodpigeon. Well I've got to start somewhere.

As usual I got bored drawing the background.

Obviously this is a common bird in the garden, and is one of only three species which has attempted to breed here.

At Morton Bagot they were ridiculously common in the days when the land was arable farmland, and are still pretty common now that it's mostly trees. My Birdtrack statistics tell me I have recorded the species on 1152 visits since 2007 and the accompanying graph illustrates their yearly trend.

My feeling is that, partly due to its ubiquity, but also because it is not easily caught, there are a number of question-marks about its movements. The species is present all year, but both over our garden and at Morton Bagot huge numbers appear in late autumn. Many of these are apparently migrating, but where are they coming from? Where are they going?

This graph demonstrates the peak counts at Morton Bagot for each week of the year.

Incidentally, all these neat graphs are generated by my own Birdtrack records and I think all birders should join the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) to submit their own stuff. It gives a lot back.

Turning briefly back to my garden; my first creature was a Red Fox which called from the street at 05.15, quickly followed by a singing Robin. 

I recorded 119 birds of 29 species, the highlights being eight fly-over Ravens, a brief appearance in the garden of a Song Thrush, and regular sightings of two male Blackcaps, which joined the two Redwings, and six Blackbirds guzzling the windfall apples I had preserved from our apple tree.

The full list was:

                                            In garden            Over garden

Cormorant                                                            1

Lesser Black-backed Gull                                    2

Herring Gull                                                         2

Woodpigeon                            4                           10

Stock Dove                                                           1

Feral Pigeon                                                         5

Collared Dove                         1

Great Spotted Woodpecker                                   2

Magpie                                    1                            3

Jackdaw                                   1                            7

Rook                                                                     10

Carrion Crow                                                         2

Raven                                                                     8

Wren                                        1

Blue Tit                                    4

Great Tit                                   1

Long-tailed Tit                                                        1

Blackcap                                  2

Starling                                    5                            15

Blackbird                                 6

Redwing                                   2

Song Thrush                             1

Robin                                        2

Dunnock                                   1

House Sparrow                         8

Pied Wagtail                              1

Chaffinch                                  3

Goldfinch                                  6

Lockdown is what you make of it.

Ringing update - Saturday January 2

 Tony Kelly has once again kindly shared his ringing data for the patch. We didn't see the ringers on Sunday morning so I believe the data is from Saturday.

Their highlight was an unusually heavy and long-winged Song Thrush. Weighing in at 106.6g this was much heavier than they typically are (around 74.4g), suggesting it has been finding Morton Bagot an excellent place to find food.

They also re-trapped a Lesser Redpoll which they had originally ringed here last winter, on10 Jan 2020. Clearly this bird also likes the patch.

The full list (retraps in brackets) was:

Blue Tit 19 (9)

Great Tit 7 (2)

Long-tailed Tit 8 (3)

Goldcrest 1

Blackbird 3

Song Thrush 1

Robin 1 (1)

Dunnock 2 (1)

Chaffinch 1

Greenfinch 2

Lesser Redpoll 1 (1)

Long-tailed Tit - per Tony & Leigh Kelly

On the subject of Long-tailed Tits, Dave and I counted a single flock of 17 of them along the Morton Brook on Sunday.

Sunday January 3 - one of those days

 All too often visits to the patch are quiet, and occasionally frustrating. This was one of those days.

It was cold, although there was a hint of thawing, and mostly cloudy. The light northerly was a bit stronger than on New Year's Day, and few patches of last night's snow lay in Stapenhill Wood.

Dave joined me and we discussed birds we "needed" for the year. Dave quickly spotted one of these, a Jay which I failed to get a tickable view of. This rather set the tone.

I suggested we had another crash around the marsh, but this again failed to produce any Jack Snipe, and in fact we only flushed two Common Snipe. The flashes were still frozen but at least a couple of female Teal were new for the year. We paid our respects to the local Tawny Owl.

As we walked along the course of the Morton Brook a flock of about 30 Black-headed Gulls flew south on the other side of the hedge, another year tick.

Shortly afterwards I was fairly sure I heard a Brambling call, but it was distant and Dave didn't hear it, and after a certain amount of soul searching I decided not to count it.

We walked through Stapenhill Wood, but again there was no trace of any Woodcock. A Marsh Tit and a few Redwings and Fieldfares, plus a party of seven Bullfinches was all we could find.

Stonechat

Very few birds had come close enough to be photographed, and I eventually settled on a mid-distance image of one of three Stonechats seen to avoid the ignominy of a complete blank.

There's always next week.

Friday January 1 - A new dawn ?

With 2020 finally out of the way I was up early and planning to start the new year before it got light. Well that was the plan. In the event I overslept and arrived at 08.00. 

The landscape looked pretty bleak, the weather managing to combine a hard frost and heavy cloud which for the first two hours was low enough for an annoying light drizzle. 

Cold and unappealing

My first bird of the day was a Blackbird, and I went on to log a total of 54 species before dusk. The total is only of any significance if you compete against previous years' efforts, which I do. 52 last year, but 58 the year before.

The best record in that first hour was a fly-over Siskin, but only because it was the only one all day. A little while later the first Peregrine of the year was spotted on one of the pylons.

Peregrine

I would later see it again at dusk. The rest of the morning was spent seeking out birds which should be present, with mixed success. A Tawny Owl in the usual place was not to be the only one I saw today, and a stomp through the marsh added nine Snipe but no Jack Snipe (which was disappointing).

All the shallow pools were frozen solid so waterfowl were virtually absent; a few fly-over Mallard, Canada Geese, and Greylag Geese, plus a couple of Moorhens was all I could manage. Similarly, just one gull, a Lesser Black-backed made it onto the list.

After a single Stonechat in the morning, I found two more during the afternoon. Occasional Yellowhammers flew over, but I saw only three Lesser Redpolls all day. By late morning the sun made an appearance and a pair of Sparrowhawks responded by circling over Bannams Wood. My last bird before midday was a Greenfinch at Netherstead. 

Having headed home for lunch, my return an hour later was greeted by more cloud and light drizzle and a slightly keener north-westerly breeze. A pair of Nuthatches at 13.32 brought the total to 51. 

It's rare to see other birders at Morton Bagot. During the morning I had chatted to HOEF volunteer Dave Rawlings and his wife. Dave R was very knowledgable about the local area, but admitted he wasn't a birder. However, early in the afternoon I bumped into Neil Duggan (who is definitely a birder), and he had seen a bird I needed for the day. A Brambling had been perched in a small tree at the south end weedy field, and he also directed me to where he had seen a Tawny Owl which was not the one I usually see.

Well I saw the owl. I would propose that there is a Patchworkers Law which states "if you spend the whole day at your patch trying to get a big list and another birder is on site, he/she will always see something you miss".

The weedy field at the south end was pretty disappointing. All the Redpolls have gone, and I didn't see much else there. However, 10 Reed Buntings in the hedge bordering the Ring Ouzel field was a good count by recent standards.

My 52nd tick was rather mundane. Six Red-legged Partridges flew from the field below Bannams Wood at 14.48. 

Back at the car, my final plan was to drive to the church and give the flash field one last look. The walk down through the huge pasture field added more Starlings and Redwings to the day's total; 274 of the former, and 160 of the latter. My 53rd bird was found for me by a bunch of Chaffinches. They were going potty in the hedge, and turned out to be mobbing a Little Owl. Thanks guys.

The last bird was my best. At 16.08 a Barn Owl was flying along a hedge towards me until it saw me and did an abrupt right turn. By the time I got my camera out it reappeared and I managed a very brief snatch of film in the gloom.

It would have been longer but I made the classic mistake (again) of trying to zoom in. This resulted in a larger but more blurred image, which I have edited out.

I didn't see one here last year for the simple reason that I tended not to visit either early or late. Plenty of other people told me that Barn Owl had been regular throughout the year.

Let's hope that 2021 is a whole lot better than 2020.