Ringing news

 Hot off the presses, Tony has emailed me details of the recovery of a Meadow Pipit they trapped just over a couple of weeks ago.

It was a first-winter bird which had been trapped at Netherstead on 10 September 2020, and was retrapped just 12 days later on 22 September 2020, 173 kilometres to the south at Hayling golf course in Hampshire.

The Meadow Pipit's progress

I suspect that Hampshire will not be its final destination, more likely southern France or Spain, but this recovery neatly illustrates the journey these pipits are making as they bound overhead each autumn.

Tuesday Sep 29 - Morgrove Coppice

I've found myself a little short of time this week. Balancing home life and dodging yucky weather left me with just a two hour slot this morning. conditions were perfect for woodland watching, still and sunny, so I headed for Morgrove Coppice for my first morning visit there.

The mixed woodland combination of scots pines and larch next to oaks and birch leaves plenty of possibilities, and I quickly got onto the tail of a large tit flock which was accompanied by a couple of Chiffchaffs, numerous Goldcrests, and an unseen tacker which I assumed was a Blackcap.

Once they had moved through I switched to checking the pines for finches, and duly recorded several Siskins and Lesser Redpolls.

Lesser Redpoll

Although several Redpolls landed at the top of the conifers, I had discovered that the majority of the them were in the birches when a flock of about 50 small finches suddenly erupted into the air before disappearing from view. The calls suggested Redpolls, but I couldn't relocate the flock in the time I had.

In fact I ended up slowing right down and just chilling out in the car park as a trickle of Meadow Pipits, and Skylarks flew past. It was very relaxing.

I also nodded to a never-ending flow of dog-walkers, most of whom were responsibly ensuring that they were prepared to take home their doggy waste. Most of them! I was disappointed to find several dollops on the boardwalk waiting for the next lucky wheelchair owner to labour past.

Oh dear there I go again, the grumpy old man gene has kicked in.

Sunday September 27 - Lots of Chat(s)

Things started well this morning when I heard a Crossbill as it flew over me on my way back from the paper shop.

I joined Dave at the patch just after 09.00am and we had hardly walked fifty metres when Dave spotted the bird of the day, a Wheatear.

Wheatear

In a normal year this might have seemed less impressive, but it scores points for being only the second here this year, and for being fairly late in the season. 

We continued that theme as we reached the gap in the hedge by the beehives. A Whinchat and a Stonechat were waiting for us, and we went on to record a total of six of the latter on the site.

Whinchat

Stonechat

There's no doubt that Morton Bagot is a very good place for chats as they pass through in spring and autumn. Overhead movement of Meadow Pipits continued, but the numbers were small, and there were also still quite a few Lesser Redpolls and Siskins around, plus a flock of at least 150 Goldfinches.

Lesser Redpolls

We found ourselves inadvertently dog-walking this morning as one of the hamlet's resident dogs adopted us and followed us on the full circuit. It proved quite good at flushing Pheasants but less useful at finding us anything rare.

It's behind you !

The flash field contained no surprises; the Little Owl, two Wigeon, 44 Teal, and a Green Sandpiper, while the only Snipe was flushed from the weedy field by a Sparrowhawk.  

Although the northerly breeze kept the temperature pegged to 14 degrees, the sunshine did encourage plenty of insects out including numerous Hornets and several species of butterfly. The most unexpected of these was a Brown Argus, notable due to the late date.

Brown Argus

The dog flushed a Green Woodpecker out of the ridge field, but was blissfully unaware of a Kingfisher which unexpectedly whizzed past us few minutes later. A number of "common" birds were seen for the first time in a while. Five Mistle Thrushes flew high over Clowse Farm, a Song Thrush was the first for ages signifying the end of their moulting season when they seem to become invisible, and a party of 40 Starlings was accompanying 16 Lapwings in the field beyond the flash field.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Finally, I can't resist putting in this male Great Spotted Woodpecker which was less wary than they usually are.

All quiet on the mothing front

 The temperature has plummeted in the last few days, and overnight was just five degrees. Only a fool would put their moth trap out in such conditions, unless of course he was doing the garden moth survey and was bound to the date.

In fact I was pleasantly surprised to find several moths and no wasps in the trap. The moths comprised only three species; 12 Lunar Underwings, two Large Yellow Underwings, and a Shuttle-shaped Dart.

There was also some by-catch. This means insects that are not moths. Keen entomologists would be getting their microscopes and killing jars out and identifying everything. I am not that kind of insect identifier. I prefer to glance at them and say "big orange caddisfly (looks vaguely familiar), large Cranefly (looks very familiar), Gnat (not interested)".

However a fly resting on the window did look unfamiliar, and my interest was piqued enough to photograph it (though not to measure it, to my cost).

Soldierfly (Sargus bipunctatus or S flavipes)

The Twitter community are great. Between them they know everything, and I got some responses suggesting it was a Soldierfly (possibly Sargus sp). This massive leg-up led me to check the relevant groups and realise they were quite right. Two common ones have yellow legs, S flavipes and S bipunctatus. One is twice the size of the other.

I should have measured it.

Wed Sept 23 - mostly Blithfield Reservoir

 It's been a while, just over 12 years in fact, since I last visited Blithfield Reservoir. As an autumn destination there were few places to rival it in the West Midlands, and for over 20 years I made regular trips up there. On my last visit, 2nd June 2008, I joined up with Graham M and we found a Turtle Dove. Today, Graham was still there, but there hasn't been another Turtle Dove since.

The weather this morning was vile, with heavy rain which would have forced me into the hides if they hadn't been closed as a Covid precaution. So I just got wet. On the other hand, virtually the first bird I saw as I reached Tad Bay was a Great White Egret. You didn't see many of them in 2008 (well I didn't).

Great White Egret

It was soon joined by a Little Egret, one of four I noticed around the reservoir. They were around in the early 2000s but they didn't fit my image of Blithfield.

Great White and Little Egrets

Tad Bay looked much as I remembered it except for one detail. Where were the thousands of ducks, and where were the waders ? I eventually located four Curlew and two Snipe before the rain intensified and I beat a retreat. It was quite good for Cormorants I suppose, I counted 82.

At Admaston I met up with Graham and we had a catch up. He confirmed what had become apparent, the wader numbers have fallen off a cliff in the last 20 years. He hadn't seen a Ruff here this year, a mind-boggling fact given how regular they used to be. He had seen a small party of Ringed Plovers and Dunlins which I somehow contrived to overlook in my enthusiasm to see a Grey Plover which had been present for a few days.

Grey Plover

As with most of the arctic waders, I have not seen very many in the UK since I started concentrating on Morton Bagot.

I walked down to the Blythe Bay as the weather rapidly improved, and it was certainly not birdless. At least 150 Meadow Pipits, over 50 Alba Wagtails, and a flock of 130 Linnets were flitting around the short turf and adjacent field, while the bay itself was plastered with geese. A count gave me 1016 Canada Geese, and 668 Greylag Geese. The latter have increased tenfold since the olden days, whoopee. A Blithfield tick swam into view; two Egyptian Geese. I dutifully rang Graham just in case they were rare here, but they weren't. A flock of 117 Wigeon went some way to improve the wildfowl count, as did at least 202 Tufted Ducks.

So I left with two site ticks and a feeling of sadness that the place I remembered had changed, and I would say for the worse. I had a similar experience at Draycote this winter, and I believe its a symptom of the havoc mankind is reeking on the planet.

Finally some local news. The ringers went to Morton Bagot on Monday evening and caught 13 Meadow Pipits and a Chiffchaff, while Lyn and I were wandering around Morgrove Coppice seeing a fly-over Yellowhammer, hearing a Green Sandpiper which was presumably on the pool I haven't found yet, and seeing numerous Siskins flying around.

Silver Y

We also had a good view of the migratory Silver Y moth to finish up.

Sunday September 20 - more birds in the bushes

 I was joined by Dave this morning, keen to tell me all about the birds he saw in Suffolk over the course of his recent holiday. He'd done well, and for a while this morning I thought he'd brought the birds back with him.

It was a bit cloudy at first and there was a moderate north-easterly blowing. We reached the end of the start of the access road at Netherstead just in time to witness the passage of a massive flock of tits. About a dozen Long-tailed Tits accompanied similar numbers of other tits, and at least nine Chiffchaffs and two Blackcaps. Suitably encouraged, we were at pains to log every warbler we could find across the site. We came up with figures of 17 Chiffchaffs and six Blackcaps. I felt sure we'd beaten the patch record count for Chiffchaffs, but it has turned out that we missed it by one bird.

Adding to the general feel of the day were small flocks of finches. Most were the usual Goldfinches, but we also noted a significant increase in Redpolls (20), and Siskins (18). These were flying around constantly, intermixed with Meadow Pipits (24). The birding felt good.

Inevitably things quietened down as the morning progressed, but we did find a solitary Whinchat in the pool field.

Whinchat, distant as ever.

The flash field contained the usual suspects; 38 Teal, three Wigeon, 22 Lapwings, at least one Green Sandpiper, and seven Snipe.

Snipe

Green Sandpiper

At least the waders were a little closer than they had been on my last visit. At one point a flock of hirundines appeared (we had seen none at all until then) and we estimated 14 House Martins and three Swallows before they were suddenly gone. Migration in action.

Add caption

Back at Netherstead we found a Small Red-eyed Damselfly on the pools and the usual hawkers and darters zipping about. Meanwhile the fence alongside us was found to contain four Stonechats. 

Three of the Stonechats

Attempts to get all four to pose nicely were unsuccessful. It was still a positive end to an enjoyable morning.

Wednesday Sept 16 - Some encouraging signs

 I've decided that the title of my last post was too downbeat. Despite a late start this morning there were a few reasons for optimism. To begin with the wind direction has shifted to a light easterly, although it remains warm and sunny.

A Grey Wagtail flew over Netherstead, and a Stonechat perched briefly on the hedge by the pond.

Stonechat

It is starting to feel that summer is truly behind us. I heard a single Swallow twittering, but couldn't pick it up against the blue sky. There were no Whinchats, and the only warblers were Blackcaps (five), and Chiffchaffs (four). There was also no large movement of Meadow Pipits, just a slow trickle.

However, the nearest flash produced waders. Two Green Sandpipers were the first for about a month, Snipe have increased to at least four, and there were at least 16 Lapwings. The recent dry spell has only dropped the water level by an inch or two and there is still no mud, but its clearly enough for these waders.

Green Sandpiper

The Wigeon was still present as were 37 Teal,  a Redpoll, and a Little Owl.

The rest of the visit was quiet, but was enlivened by only my second Grass Snake here. It was a better view than I had last time, but it still disappeared into the grass near the dragonfly pool before I could get my camera into play.