Sunday February 25 - still kicking my heels

 Although I have been out of action again this week, others have stepped up to the plate.

Arguably the most interesting news comes from one of the commonest of birds. Tony and Leigh catch an awful lot of Blue Tits at Morton Bagot, and they regularly re-trap them. Occasionally one is recovered elsewhere, but given that Blue Tits are not really migrants, these are generally local. So news that one of their birds flew into a mist net in Oxwich on the Gower Peninsular was quite something. The bird was a juvenile when ringed at Morton Bagot on October 12 2023, and then moved 175 kilometres west south west before being caught on February 18 2024.

My garden Blue Tits are likely to be much more sedentary

The key to understanding this movement is the age of the bird. Juvenile dispersal is definitely a thing for most resident species, but only through ringing can the potential extent of these movements be revealed.

Staying with Tony's news. As darkness fell on February 20 he spent time with his trusty night-vision device surveying the fields around Morton Bagot and came up with a remarkable 11 Woodcocks. Only one of these was caught, and proved to be a re-trap of a bird he'd caught earlier in the winter. The surprise is that there are so many Woodcocks using the site. It just shows how day-time birding can miss the bigger picture.

Yesterday, there were two noteworthy reports. John Coombes texted me that he was watching a Short-eared Owl near Ragley balancing lake just west of the village of Arrow. This was right on the edge of my circle, so I convinced Lyn I could be there and back in an hour. It turned out that the bird remained for 15 minutes before being discovered by the local corvids and chased off towards Wixford. I arrived just as John texted news of its departure.

Meanwhile, John Chidwick was visiting Morton Bagot and discovered that a pair of Avocets was resident on the nearest flash. This is their earliest return to the patch. I chose not to push my luck by going for them too, particularly as they should remain for the spring. Ironically Dave went there this morning and they were no longer present. He did see a pair of Stonechats but not a lot else.

The other potential distraction is moths. Unfortunately the nights have got distinctly cold this week, with morning frost. Only a fool would put his moth trap out.

I put my moth trap out last night, and amazingly caught two moths. They were just Common Quakers, but I was very grateful for them.

Common Quaker on frosted foxglove leaf

What else can I tell you? Earlswood remains very quiet, the stand-out being a male Brambling on a garden feeder in the village. The long-staying Tundra Bean Goose at Bittell Reservoir was discovered along Watery Lane, Lea End a mile east of the reservoirs yesterday.

Hopefully I'll be birding again before too long.

Tuesday February 20 - Birding by proxy

 Unfortunately Lyn still requires my full time assistance and until we find a way to alleviate the situation I am unable to go birding (unless its a quick dash to see something less usual). Fortunately I'm getting plenty of messages from friends to keep me updated. I'm birding by proxy.

Tony and Leigh have been to Morton Bagot in the last few days, ringing a Woodcock on the 15th, and catching 38 birds (13 retraps) on 17th. These were mainly the usual fare but included a youngish Sparrowhawk.

Second-year male Sparrowhawk - Tony and Leigh

On February 18 they ringed at dusk and caught four Reed Buntings, also observing several Toads which are now out of hibernation.

Female Reed Bunting

They reported seeing three Tufted Ducks and the usual Barn Owl, the latter being seen by Mike Inskip yesterday. Mike had also been to Morgrove Coppice where he saw a Woodcock and a Red Kite. John Coombes has let me know that he has seen a pair of Alexandrine Parakeets at Kinwarton for the first time this year, and then a juvenile which appeared from within the tree suggesting that they bred successfully last year.

As for me, the lack of birding is an opportunity to do more mothing. Normally I do very little in February, but last night I just completed my fifth session and it proved well worth it. My count of 30 moths included 24 Common Quakers and also three Hebrew Character (nfy), a Small Quaker (nfy), a Twin-spotted Quaker (nfy, first since 2020), and best of all my first ever Small Brindled Beauty.

Small Brindled Beauty

Twin-spotted Quaker

Hebrew Character

Small Quaker

The Small Brindled Beauty is described as uncommon and local in Warwickshire, so I was very pleased to get one. They are noticeably smaller than the more usual Brindled Beauty (which I haven't seen yet this year), and fly from mid February (early March is typical for Brindled Beauty). 

I feel I'm making the best of it, but will hopefully be back in the field before too long.

Friday February 16 - Hopwood (and a quick twitch to Earlswood)

I finally managed to get out birding today, choosing to visit another gap in my Circle map. This time it was Hopwood, just north of the M42. In fact I parked at Hopwood Services where I was pleased to find a large flock of Siskins feeding on alder seeds. It was a bright sunny start, so the camera came out.

Male Siskin

Female Siskin

Seeing Siskins at close range in bright sunshine is hard to beat.

The map told me that a footpath led north from the Services towards Hopwood itself. What it didn't tell me was that it led through an excellent looking area of scrubland which If I'd had a bit more time might have worth spending longer in. The best bird here was probably a Bullfinch. 

A quick loop around some local farmland brought me one unexpected sighting as six egrets which I assumed were Little Egrets flew in from the direction of Upper Bittell before appearing to land in a field behind a stand of trees. These days you can't take anything for granted with Egrets, so although I hadn't seen anything to suggest Cattle Egret I did at least try to relocate them in the hope they hadn't been as far away as they'd seemed. Unfortunately, I couldn't find where they were, and I had run out of time.

Back home I made sure Lyn was OK, before noticing in a Whatsapp message that there was an Egyptian Goose at Earlswood. Well I only saw one around here last year, so I had to go.

Egyptian Goose at Earlswood

As twitches go, it was about as efficient as you can get. The bird was exactly where Tony Philp had said it was.It was also an Earlswood tick.

The recent mild weather has encouraged a few insects out. Bumblebees frequently fly past the front window, and I was encouraged enough to put my moth trap out on Tuesday night. I caught just two moths (Clouded Drab (nfy) and Common Quaker). The next night was even balmier and Lyn suggested I try again. Perhaps I should have because I later learned that Jason Waine caught 139 moths of 29 species in his garden at the other end of Redditch that night. I'd have been pleased with that number in July. Mind you, his garden does back onto a substantial wood.

I think I'll have another go tonight. Watch this space....The result was:

27 moths of four species. 24 of them were Common Quakers, the others were Clouded Drab, Satellite (first since 2020), and Dotted Border (first since 2021).

Clouded Drab tastefully placed on a Foxglove leaf

Satellite

Dotted Border on windowsill (flew off when I tried to place on Foxglove leaf)

Starlings

 Thanks to Linda and Mike Moffat I got news that the Starling roost in Redditch town centre is pretty spectacular at the moment.

I went there this evening and drove up to level 10 of Car Park 2 before walking the last couple of levels to the roof. From there it was possible to watch the birds arriving from 17.00, with the crescendo being at 17.20 when the birds all pile into the Leylandii below.

I estimated at least 9000 birds in total.

Its well worth a visit, but don't forget to pay £1.50 at level 4 for your parking on the way out.

I was hoping to post a video, but the file's too big for my computer. So here are a couple of photos.

Sunday February 11 - Some signs of spring

It's been an unusual week, not least because Lyn and I went away for a couple of nights, our first "holiday" for several years. Sadly we were dogged by bad weather and poor health, so it wasn't really the bright new dawn we might have hoped for.

In our absence, Tony and Leigh came up with the best bird, pulling a Common Redpoll out of their mist-net at Middle Spernal on Wednesday.

Wing length 74mm and 2 grams heavier than Lesser

Immature male Common (Mealy) Redpoll (per Tony Kelly)

As for me, I tried a walk around Alcester Heath, just east of Cookhill, on Tuesday. One field there was full of Redwings, Fieldfares, and Starlings, but was very hard to observe due to a combination of furrows and weeds. I also found a couple of Marsh Tits in a small wood below the main road.

Yesterday I gave Lower Bittell a quick look, hoping the Great White Egret which has been resident for a few weeks might be visible. Unfortunately there was no sign of it (probably on Upper), and my only year-tick was a solitary Little Grebe tucked into the bulrushes.

When I've not been birding I've been finding other things to occupy my time. I have for example added a butterflies and moths Morton Bagot list page to this blog. This list contains no night-time moth trapping because I have not sought permission to trap any there, only moths seen incidentally whilst birding.

I've also deleted my Twitter (X) account after finally getting fed up of all the adverts, the algorithms dictating what content I should see, and in particular Elon bloody Musk. 

This morning I joined Dave at Morton Bagot. Our expectations were low, so we were quite happy to discover the first pairs of Tufted Duck and Coot here this year. They were taking advantage of the temporarily high water levels in the scrape field. We could almost imagine we'd got the pool back.

Tufted Ducks

Coots

We found four Stonechats, an unringed pair on the plastic tree guards, and a ringed pair in the scrape field. The fact that both the male and female were ringed makes me wonder whether this was a different pair to those last week even though the male was sporting a colour-ring on its right leg. Even with a scope we still couldn't read it.

Female Stonechat (ringed)

Male Stonechat (colour-ringed)

In the flash field about 30 Teal were displaying to each other, 21 Lapwings keeping them company, while the Shelduck drake has now been joined by his mate.

The pair of Shelduck

We also counted seven or eight Common Buzzards and a Red Kite circling on thermals over Bannams Wood.

So even though there were no additions to the year-list, the signs of spring are unmistakable.

Sunday February 4 - Trying to make things happen

 The current birding malaise is of course due to the time of year. There seems to be little to be done about it, but Dave and I did our best at Morton Bagot. 

For one thing there was a chance that the colour-ringed Stonechat might still be present. Our chances of reading the ring were hampered by my forgetting to put my scope in the car, and this was particularly regretted when we duly found the bird to be still there. The camera was the only option, and I tried harder than last week to creep up on the Chat.

Ring still illegible despite heavy cropping

The female Stonechat was more obliging, but was definitely unringed. In the afternoon, Tony came down with his scope and camera, but the wind had got up and he was unable to get a clear enough view of the ringed male.

Female Stonechat

Another option was to count Jack Snipe in the pool/scrape field. This involves higher levels of disturbance than I would like, but we kicked up five Jack Snipe and a similar number of Common Snipe. I also found a Barn Owl's feather as I made my way across.

Barn Owl feather

There wasn't much else to commend the visit. Lapwings were down to just two birds, and the small party of Teal on the furthest flash were no longer accompanied by any Wigeon or the Shelduck.

It remains very mild, so when I got home I decided to give the moth trap a try. Unfortunately it was windier than I had expected and the light only attracted two Pale Brindled Beauties and a Common Quaker. The latter was the first of the year, and was in very fresh condition.

Common Quaker

This species is very common in the garden in early spring. Also attracted to the bulb was an ichneumon wasp. As it was so early in the year I thought it was worth some research. This produced a name; the Cream-striped Darwin Wasp Ophion obscurus.

Opheon obscurus (or is it?)

Unfortunately there was a snag. Apparently these wasps are undergoing a process of taxonomic investigation which may lead to the ones that fly in winter being split into a different species.

There is a reason I don't look too closely at wasps.

Thursday February 1 - Oldberrow area

 This morning I decided to undertake a long walk across farmland between Morton Bagot and Henley. It basically covered much of tetrad H in SP16. I know this because back in 2008 and 2009 it formed a part of the BTO Atlas area I was working.

Unlike Morton Bagot, where HOEF has transformed the habitat since those days, the Oldberrow parish has remained a mixture of sheepwalk and arable farmland, part of which is still covered by Higher Level stewardship. It also contains a number of private woodlands which were off-limits.

Sadly, it has lost its Tree Sparrows and I didn't find any Reed Buntings or Partridges today. However I was pleased to locate flocks of at least 80 Linnets, 19 Yellowhammers, 45 Skylarks, and 76 Starlings in the parts I was able to visit. I felt obliged to stick to public footpaths, and would certainly have seen more if I had wandered more freely.

Yellowhammer

While I was pleased to see an array of familiar farmland birds, there wasn't much that was new. The best on offer being a pair of Red Kites, now starting to rival Common Buzzard in abundance. 

Red Kites

Common Buzzard

The walk also plugged a bit of a gap in my recent attempt to cover all of my circular patch.