Monday June 26 - A matter of conscience

 The problem with birding is that it's too popular for its own good.

This post is about suppression. No birder likes it, although some are ambivalent to it, a small minority who never twitch anything. This isn't about them, its about all the rest of us. 

It goes without saying that being on the receiving end of suppressed news isn't nice. To hear about a rarity too late because the news was not on general release is disappointing, but there are likely to be good reasons why the news didn't get out. If you don't hear about a potential breeding bird that's fair enough. More likely is the scenario where the site is private, or where the access is difficult. Also fair enough.

The really tricky part comes when you are the suppressor. This could be because you've just found something great. Naturally you will want to tell someone; your best mate, other people who regularly go birding there, maybe other local birders. It takes a brave person to tell no-one. But somewhere down the line, you're going to attract flak whatever you do.

What about if you get a call? You are one of the chosen few, but tell no-one and you're still a suppressor. You could try to take the moral high ground. Early in 2021 I was told about a Pied-billed Grebe in Worcestershire, but was asked to say nothing. I kept my word, but also didn't go to see the bird. I decided I was taking the high moral ground, but I was still a suppressor. Mind you, I had seen one in Britain before. It didn't hurt too much.

Today, I got another call. A Caspian Tern was at Lower Moor in Worcestershire. I was grateful to the caller because I had never seen one in the UK. How would I handle my conscience?

Well the first thing to say is that I went to see it. The issue here was access. The bird was on a small muddy scrape overlooked by a tiny fishermen's car park at the end of a winding rutted track. An absolute nightmare. I ended up having to reverse back along the track, and there were only about six other birders there.

Caspian Tern

The next question was what to do next. I admit I contacted three people. Two already knew, and the other was unable to go. I had now betrayed a confidence, and I was still a suppressor. I felt bad. But when I think about it I doubt the finder and his immediate associates drew up a list and dutifully called them. It doesn't work like that. One person who was called thought of me (maybe among others) and let me know. It's the way it happens.

The arch enemy of the suppressor is social media. No one rang Bird Guides or Rare Bird Alert, or sent out a Tweet.........for at least four hours. I wasn't going to blog about this bird as I didn't want to break ranks any further than I already had.

But once the news was officially out, I was in the clear. I say "officially out", I don't know whether it was the finder (who lives in the village) or whether it was done with his blessing. At least the Birdguides/RBA alerts advised people should park in the village. Even this could be a problem if his neighbours have their driveways blocked. I hope the news was released with his blessing.

The supreme irony is that we all want what he had. To find a really rare bird on your patch. What would I do if I found a Penduline Tit or a Killdeer or something equally fantastic? Could I really keep it a secret?

Maybe one day I'll find out.

Sunday June 25 - Out for the count

On a very warm and sunny morning I joined Dave for our weekly visit to Morton Bagot. We counted Marbled White butterflies (well Dave did) and came up with an impressive total of 172. Personally I was still in recovery from totting up a shedload of garden moths attracted to my moth trap on Friday night (more of which later), and also from the concentration of helping Leigh with a butterfly transect, so I failed to count anything.

We did alright for dragonflies though. There were lots of Black-tailed Skimmers, Ruddy Darters, and one or two Broad-bodied Chasers at the new scrapes, and we went on to locate our first White-legged Damselfly (never common here) for the year.

Black-tailed Skimmer

White-legged Damselfly (female)

We also saw some nice moths. A Clouded Border was probably our first for the site (unfortunately I was too slow with the camera), and a Six-spot Burnet was our first here for years.

Six-spot Burnet

We also saw several of the more regular Narrow-bordered Five-spot Burnets. It seems to be a good year for Burnet moths.

Speaking of moths, Friday night had brought 234 moths of 49 species to my garden. I do not propose to list them all, but there were pretty ones.

Scarlet Tiger

Small Elephant Hawkmoth

There were tricky ones;

Turnip Moth

On the advice of UKMoth Identification I relocated it prior to release and by gently blowing on it got it to reveal its underwing which was, as hoped, pure white (diagnostic of even the trickiest Turnip Moth).

There were 34 species which were new for the year (moth-trapping has taken a sabbatical since the beginning of the month) and just one which was a lifer. It was also tricky.

Dark Pine Knot-horn Dioryctria abietella

I've just remembered. I'm supposed to be a birdwatcher. The plain fact was that we didn't see anything particularly noteworthy. Except perhaps the fact that the local Blackcaps seem to have added mimicry to their repertoire. One was giving an unusually extended warble which had us wondering whether we were actually listening to a Garden Warbler. Later on I got a text from Sam who had located a Spotted Flycatcher in Bannams Wood. As my last act of the day I slogged up the path to the bench and heard what I first took to be a Song Thrush, and then a very loud Blackcap, then a Song Thrush..then a Blackcap. I eventually concluded that this was actually just a highly mimetic Blackcap. I tried the Merlin app on it, and it too was fooled.

Shortly afterwards I heard the simple "song" of a Spotted Flycatcher. I couldn't see the bird, so pointed Merlin at it and was quite impressed when SPOTTED FLYCATCHER appeared on the display. I sat on the bench and waited, and eventually the Spot Fly appeared....and disappeared before the camera could be engaged.

Friday June 23 - a quiet week draws to a close

 I've made two very different sallies out into the countryside this week. 

The first, on Wednesday, was a return visit to the Botley Mill area (a rather uninspiring tetrad just north-west of Henley-in-Arden). My reason for going was that it incorporated a walk along the trickling river Alne, although most of the walk was through fields of improved pasture or intensively farmed crops.

The former gave me a count of 111 Meadow Browns, which isn't too bad, but only three other butterflies species, the best was being a single Small Heath. As far as birds were concerned, a single distantly singing Yellowhammer was about as good as it got. However, as this was an under-recorded tetrad many of the common species encountered were useful to plug a gap in the Warwickshire tetrad atlas part of Jon Bowley's eventually to be published Warwickshire Bird book.

Compare that visit to Thursday's butterfly transect at HOEF College Wood. Leigh K had invited me to join her and I was keen to do so as I have been wondering whether I too should volunteer. Leigh was following the rules, and had split the route into five sections, which we assiduously counted. For my part I agglomerated all the counts into one total. I was just along for the ride.

My totals were 166 Meadow Browns, 11 Ringlets, 40 Marbled Whites, 17 Small Heaths, 24 Small Skippers, 14 Large Skippers, three Common Blues, three Speckled Woods, a Brimstone, two Commas, and a Red Admiral. So that's nearly three times as many species, and larger numbers of everything than at Botley Mill. HOEF is doing something right.

We also saw at least 12 Burnet moths, most of which wouldn't settle, but of those that did I identified both Six-spot Burnet and Narrow-bordered Five-spot Burnet. I suspect the majority were Six-spots.

Both species in this shot (Six-spot top leftish, N-B Five-spot bottom rightish)

I'd never seen so many Burnets in one locality. I also added a Brown Hawker to the dragonfly list, and we heard a female Cuckoo and at least five singing Willow Warblers.

Sunday June 18 - testing the tech at Morton Bagot

 I arrived at Morton Bagot this morning on a mission to see whether the Merlin app was any good. This is the one aimed to help novice birders learn to identify birds aurally. By the time Dave arrived I had waved my phone at a newly arrived Reed Warbler, which it got right, and at a fairly obvious singing Reed Bunting, which it couldn't hear.

I soon tired of the game, but concluded it did work for birdsong as long as the subject was reasonably close. However it was pretty fiddly juggling phone, bins, camera, and notebook so I decided to continue with the old approach of just identifying birds using forty-five years of birding experience.

To be fair to Merlin it didn't make any obvious mistakes, and I can certainly see it would be invaluable as a teaching tool. 

Another plan for the day was to count butterflies. This does get in the way of the birding, but the results were remarkably different from my farmland counts last week. We logged 111 Meadow Browns, 24 Small Heaths, 14 Large Skippers, 13 Marbled Whites (nfy), 13 Ringlets (nfy), eight Speckled Woods, four Common Blues, a Brown Argus (a tatty individual we had thought was a female Common Blue, re-identified as this species by county recorder), three Red Admirals, a Comma, and a Small Skipper (nfy).

Small Skipper

I suppose it's not surprising, but clearly HOEF land scores massively over the surrounding farmland. It was also good for moths. I soon got fed up of peering at the 100 or so grass moths fluttering periodically from the grass, but those I did look at were almost all Garden Grass-veneers, the other was Crambus pascuella. There were some nice moths new for the year though; Burnet Companion, and presumed Narrow-bordered Five-spot Burnet.

Burnet Companion

Narrow-bordered Five-spot Burnet

So, did we record any decent birds? Well the Grasshopper Warbler was still singing away, and late in the day we heard the bubbling call of a female Cuckoo, the first female I've heard here for a few years. A Sedge Warbler was getting very agitated near the little pond, presumably it had fledglings or a nest, and I got a shot of it before we moved on.

Sedge Warbler (ringed I notice)

The flash field now has water in it again, and I understand there has been a Green Sandpiper here during the week. Unfortunately we couldn't see it, and the Quail seems to have moved on.

The dragonfly pools produced the first Small Red-eyed Damselflies of the year as well as the usual Emperors, Four-spotted Chasers etc.

Walking through the undergrowth on the way back, we had the chance to see something completely new when a small bug fell onto my clothing. We had no idea what it was, so this was a chance to put another piece of tech to test. The Obsidentify app is usually very accurate, but can struggle with smaller forms of insect life, so we were surprised when it came up with an unequivocal 100% certain identification of the bug.

Deraeocoris flavilinea

This is a plant bug too obscure to be referenced in my insect book, and it wasn't even in its final instar. So it was still a nymph. I checked it against photos on line and it looked identical.

Hats off to the tech. I wish we'd had all this stuff forty years ago, but I also wish we had as much wildlife now as we did then. Ironic or what?

Week ending Friday June 16 - A week of frustration and annoyance

 The week got off to a dodgy start when on Monday evening I saw a Tweet by someone called Pip referring to a recent visit to Heart of England Forest land by Coughton Court. She (I'm guessing) had deployed the Merlin app on her phone which assured her she had just heard a Nightingale.  Understandably there were replies pointing out that the app was not completely reliable, and I would have endorsed the sentiment if it hadn't been for a visit I'd made to the same area about three weeks ago. 

Now I must point out that the notes I had heard, though they had stopped me in my tracks and caused me to hurry, heart pounding, towards the sound, ended inconclusively. I wasn't sure, but they had reminded me of Nightingale. Once I'd reached the spot all I could hear was Blackcaps, so I wrote the matter off as an odd piece of Blackcap song. They do sometimes mimic other birds. However, I was concerned enough to return that evening after dark. I heard nothing at all, so concluded I was indeed mistaken. The incident never even made it to a blog post....until now.

So on Tuesday morning I amended my plans and went back to Coughton Court. I listened once more to Blackcaps and nothing more. This unexpected development made me late for my planned visit to Umberslade Park Farm where last year I had found a singing Black Redstart. Could it have come back?

No it hadn't. The visit this year had almost nothing to recommend it except perhaps that House Martins were nest building, allowing me to plug a gap in Jon Bowley's Tetrad Atlas data.

House Martin

As far as insects are concerned, the mixture of sheep pasture and crops (with one area of a large field set aside for long grass) produced tiny numbers of Meadow Browns and Speckled Woods, reinforcing my suspicion that the wider British countryside is in big trouble this year.

On Friday I tried walking from Lye Bridge to Shortwood Roughs in north-east Worcestershire. It was warm and sunny again, but once again butterflies were in short supply. I was relieved to see no sign of the Tundra Bean Goose, although the field it was in is now full of crops. There were no birding highlights beyond stuff like Whitethroats, a Lesser Whitethroat, and a party of about 10 Swallows including three or four recently fledged juveniles.

Juvenile Swallow

It fell to moths to brighten the morning. I found a party of six to ten Chimney Sweeper moths at Lye Bridge, but their perpetual motion meant I couldn't get a photo. However, a Brown Silver-line was more obliging.

Brown Silver-line

This common moth has never made it to my garden, and I don't think I've seen one at Morton Bagot.

Speaking of the garden, I deployed the moth trap last night and was expecting a bumper crop this morning. Instead, the night was disrupted by a power cut which set off all the neighbours' house alarms and woke me up at midnight. An hour later I decided that most of the moths in the trap would have gone so I clumped downstairs and removed the lid of the trap. A Peppered Moth in my torchlight was almost the only moth left to escape.

I'm going right off moth-trapping.

Sunday June 11 - the big twitch? Maybe not.

With another hot and sultry day in prospect I drove to meet up with Dave wondering whether the Quail was still present and whether it would attract much of a crowd.

The answer was only in the affirmative if three's a crowd. We were joined by Andy G as we approached where it had been singing last night, and right on cue it performed for us.

Earlier on, Dave had spotted a small moth in the grass and asked what it was. It turned out to be a White Plume, apparently quite common, but a lifer for me. Cheers Dave.

White Plume

Although it's still early days, there are signs that the insect season in proceeding as normal on the patch. Several Meadow Browns, Large Skippers, Common Blues, and Brown Arguses had joined the usual Small Heaths. Unfortunately I had left my notebook at home, so no real attempt was made to log numbers.

We arrived at the flash field to survey what appeared to be a large patch of dry mud. But after about five minutes a little bit of Patch gold flew in. Two Curlews were circling the field, and soon dropped out of sight on the nearest flash. These were probably evidence of another failed breeding attempt somewhere in the county, but were very welcome here nonetheless.

The Curlews

It turned out that there was a tiny bit of water left, and the Curlews had joined the three remaining Lapwings there. A further surprise were the pair of Shelducks which lifted up from what remains of the trashed Kingfisher pool. They seemed pretty agitated which presumably means that at least some of their brood is still alive.

A pair of Pied Wagtails were feeding their recently fledged juveniles in the same area.

Juvenile Pied Wagtail

By now the heat was making life uncomfortable. Plenty of dragonflies were on the wing, including several teneral stage Ruddy Darters, but as usual the Emperors at the dragonfly pools were reluctant to settle.

It's just too hot.

Saturday evening June 10 - The Quail

 A call from Mike Lane had me dashing to the patch to record his latest find. A couple of years ago, almost to the day, Mike had been sitting in his photography hide when a Red-backed Shrike landed in front of him. This afternoon it was a Quail.

He didn't actually see it, but was kind enough to tip me off. I didn't see it either, but it was calling every now and then from the same field he had seen the Shrike. Perhaps I should invest in a hide!

I made several attempts to record the bird on my camera's video thingy, and ended up with several long periods of Skylarks, Song Thrushes, Lesser Whitethroats, Sedge Warblers etc. It was starting to sound like a Springwatch Mindfulness moment. Eventually I got this:

There are two brief bursts of Quail song, followed by a Quail-less mindfulness moment which ends when I realised I was likely to get soaked by an impending downpour.

Saturday June 10 - Should we be worried?

 I must be honest, I haven't done much birding since the Spotted Sandpiper twitch on Monday. Instead I've been worrying about insects. 

Four non-birding days nevertheless including drives to Birmingham, Solihull, and Alcester (Hillers Garden Centre) in sunny warmish weather, and in all that time I saw just one butterfly, a Large White in Hiller's Garden. This doesn't feel normal. Our garden which is carefully left a mixture of messy with long grass and plenty of bright flowers produced no butterflies at all.

I did finally get out on Friday and birded around Alvechurch, seeing nothing better than a Red Kite and a family party of Grey Wagtails. The weather was warmer, and I saw a few Speckled Wood butterflies and some Longhorn Moths Nemophora degeerella, making me feel a little encouraged.

Longhorn Moth N degeerella

It should be said that it has been quite a cool spring and that there is usually a dip in butterfly numbers in early June, but I fear that years of relentless tidying up and spraying roadside vegetation, not to mention insecticide spraying of crops, may be finally bringing on the insect apocalypse which environmentalists have been warning about.

I decided to put trap out in the garden to see whether I could discern any difference there. The temperature overnight was 12 degrees C, and in the last few years at the same time of year in similar temperature I have caught 43 moths (2021), and 41 moths (2020). 64 moths in 2022 was on 15 June, so a tiny bit later.

Last night's score was 32 moths of 19 species, that's significantly down but not disastrous. 

Because I haven't been trapping for about three weeks 15 of my 19 species were new for the year. The highlights were a Clouded Border which I saw resting on the fence last night but wasn't around this morning (first for a couple of years), a Sloe Green Pug (changed my mind), Elephant Hawk-moth, and Lime Hawk-moth (annual but stunning), and a Freyer's Pug (only the third or fourth for the garden).

Green Pug

Freyer's Pug

I hope I'm just crying wolf.

Monday June 5 - The Upton Warren Spotted Sandpiper

 Today is our wedding anniversary, and plans were afoot. Then I heard that a Spotted Sandpiper had turned up at Upton Warren. Nineteen years ago we had almost completed the drive home from our honeymoon on Skye, when I popped the question. Do you mind if we stop at Marsh Lane Gravel Pit so that I can see a Spotted Sandpiper? Thirty minutes later I returned to the car the ask for more time to see it!

Lyn is a very understanding woman. She raised no more than her eyebrows when I suggested a small delay to our plans this morning. 

So I went, got the last but one space in the carpark, and saw the bird. It was an absolute cracker.

Spotted Sandpiper

So that's a Worcestershire tick as well as an Upton Warren one. Both lists are pretty much defunct. My last visit to Upton Warren was to twitch the Bonaparte's Gull during covid.

A quick scan across the Moors Pool revealed a plethora of birds including Pochard, Teal, Avocets and Oystercatchers. 

It's a different world to the one I have chosen to inhabit, but I can still visit from time to time.

Sunday June 4 - Morton Bagot

 The day treated us to a bright sunny morning with a light north-easterly and news of a potential Circle year-tick from yesterday. All to play for then.

The new bird was a Ringed Plover. Context is everything. Anyway we weren't running towards the flash field. Instead we ambled to where the ringing had taken place last week, and probably yesterday, and quickly confirmed that the Garden Warbler was still singing away. We also added a somewhat distant singing Grasshopper Warbler. I filmed the Garden Warbler while we could still hear the Gropper, and I believe I can just about hear it on this extract.

Quite a few House Martins were heading back and forth overhead, and on reaching the pool/scrapes field we discovered why. They were taking advantage of some wet mud which is all that remains of one of the scrapes. Nest-building was clearly in full swing.

House Martins

We counted at least 14, so that means seven pairs as a minimum, slightly up on recent years. There were also one or two Swallows having a look.

We finally got to the flash field where the recent drought has largely drained the nearest flash. At least 13 Lapwings and 16 Black-headed Gulls were standing around, and eventually we located three Little Ringed Plovers. Then, to my relief, we found the Ringed Plover. It seemed to be a first summer bird, lacking an orange-based bill, or particularly bright legs.

Ringed Plover

Inevitably Dave and I were turning our attention towards insects, or rather the lack of them. We did manage a reasonable selection of dragonflies, moths, and butterflies, but the numbers seemed low. Is this just the early-June dip which is sometimes commented on where butterflies are concerned? I hope so, but we both thought there were fewer bees, flies, and all the other stuff which seemed so obvious in previous years. Perhaps last year's hot summer has knocked insect populations, or maybe we're just wrong.

Common Whitethroat

We still got plenty of year-ticks. Two Common Blue butterflies, a Brown Argus, and a Large Skipper were butterfly ticks, two Hook-tipped Grass Veneers Crambus lathoniellus, and a Yellow-faced Bell Notocelia cynosbatella were moth year-ticks. The latter may have been a site first for me, but I'm still trying to put a list together.

Hook-tipped Grass Veneer

Notocelia cynosbatella

Brown Argus

Dragonflies on the wing included a Black-tailed Skimmer, and two Emperors.

If less is more, then it was another pretty decent visit to the patch.

Friday June 2 - Getting my mojo back

 Today was a better day. Fully engaged, finding stuff and then twitching a first for Haselor.

I had no real expectations of my return to Pink Green. I logged birds carefully and made my way to the ditch, almost dry, which marks the start of the river Alne. A Roe Deer with two fawns was nice to see, but by the time I left a field containing several cows and a bull my best bird had been a juvenile Coal Tit.

Fortunately after walking through Holt End and turning for home I paused at a nice little scrubby area at the edge of a small wood. After about five minutes a Spotted Flycatcher popped up onto a branch before retreating to the wood. The camera came out and eventually the flycatcher returned.

Spotted Flycatcher

It was really pleasant to watch this bird, formerly reasonably plentiful but no longer guaranteed locally. I had twitched one last year, but chose not to chase a couple at Earlswood this spring.

The icing on the cake was a text from John Coombes who had found a Greenshank at Haselor Scrape, a site first. I drove down to see it, although it turned out to have relocated to the more distant of the two scrapes. 

Greenshank

It was also nice to see John C again, although I wasn't able to stay for much of a chat.