First Signs of Spring

Some very mild days over the past couple of weeks, with temperatures in double figures on several days, has helped with the onset of Spring.  In particular, in my garden, frogs have returned to the pond to spawn.  In fact, they have pretty much finished, which is quite early compared to other years.  In excess of 100 frogs have created a huge batch of spawn that covers the northern bank of the pond.  In past years, their frenetic activity has attracted one of the local Common Buzzards - it would swoop down, land in the water and walk about until it speared a frog in its talons, then fly up to a nearby oak bough and devour its catch.  After about 30 minutes it would repeat the exercise.  This would go on for many hours until it had had its fill.  This year is the first year in many that this has not happened, maybe put off by a local black cat that has also taken a fancy to the movement despite best efforts to remove it.

However, this morning, March 1st, I opened the curtains and disturbed a Grey Heron that flew off from the pond.  Another bird was perched on the garden shed, which followed its companion up and away.  No further frogs have been seen, so I guess they have finished off the stragglers between them.

A few bumble bees have been seen, including 2 sightings of the now regular Bombus hypnorum, Tree Bee.  It is surprising how over a few years this recent colonist has become firmly established.

Another recent coup has been the sighting of at least 4 House Sparrows, no more than 400 yards from the garden.  I thought that this species had become extinct from this area, with only 2 garden sightings, the last being 6 years ago, so this was very encouraging.  I even managed a scope view of a male and female in a distant hedge from the lounge, which is even better!

Blackcaps are quite regular visitors to the feeders at present, usually a lone female, but also a female and a male, so at least 2 maybe 3 birds.  Bramblings are also fairly regular, but in small numbers.  They usually build slightly in number in late Winter through March, but the maximum daily count so far is just 5 birds, 3 males and 2 females - still, always a delight to see.  Siskins are also more regular this time of year before they depart to their breeding grounds.

The other sign of Spring is the sound of the Tawny Owls' courtship song.  Described as a 'xylophone trill' this rather musical un Owl-like low trill is made by either sex and can be heard most evenings at present.  Hopefully, this is the precursor to another nesting attempt in the owl box - certainly at least one bird is seen fairly frequently roosting at the entrance to the box at the moment.

Same old...

Not much of note to mention at the moment.  A female Green Woodpecker that took a bath in the pond on 3rd February was a garden year tick.  This species is usually more obvious in the late summer when youngsters often appear to feed on ants in the lawn.  I remember returning home after the birth of my daughter to find one clinging to a curtain rail in the lounge and pecking the wall!  The cats had obviously brought it in through the cat flap and then found it too scary and let it go.

A male Blackcap has appeared a couple of times and small numbers of Siskins are now visiting the feeders as well as feeding with the local Goldfinches in the silver birch.  One of these Goldfinches has possibly contracted the dreaded trichomonosis, as it was rather lethargic, puffed up and hopping around the patio in very un Goldfinch-like way.

Flyover Starling and Skylark also made it onto the garden year list, which slowly climbs.

The moth species are equally low so far this year, comprising 3 macro and 2 micro species to date.  I don't tend to start light trapping until at least March and rely on the kitchen and porch lights.  Winter, Early and Pale Brindled Beauty have been attracted to date along with Agonopterix heracliana and Acleris ferrugana/notana.

Woodcock

An up to the minute posting for once!

Literally 5 minutes ago, as I looked up from the computer and out of the front window, I watched the silhouette of a Woodcock flying north over the house along the edge of the adjacent wood - fantastic!

This is actually my second record of Woodcock following a bird in November 2007.  That one flushed from the base of a holly bush just the other side of my fence as I walked to the shed.  It almost gave me a heart attack as it exploded up and away through the wood!

BGBW

The RSPB's Big Garden Bird Watch took place last weekend.  I duly spent my timed hour on Sunday morning looking at the back garden and had a few pleasant surprises and a few regular absentees, which seems par for the course with this event.  I managed 15 species, of which a female Bullfinch was new for the garden year list - never a regular visitor.  Another scarcity appeared in the oak tree in the form of a Stock Dove.  4 Lesser Redpolls alighted in the birch briefly before departing, being my first birds since January 1st.  Lastly, 2 Bramblings, a male and a female, were not unexpected - numbers of this species have been very low this year, even though the Chaffinch flock numbers about 40 on some days.

Later in the day, a male Blackcap made a brief appearance in the lilac before flying next door - thereby missing the BGBW totals!

Walk Like an Egyptian!

Well fly like one anyway.... Finally, on the morning of January 23rd, after more than 7 years in the property, a lone Egyptian Goose was seen flying north up the valley and away - a new bird for the garden. I am surprised at how scarce water birds are here, as I am probably within 3 miles of the river Thames, yet have only seen a handful of Mallard, a few Mute Swans and slightly more regular Canada Geese.

I have been reading the blog of a birding friend who lives across the border in sunny Berkshire and was interested to see the amount of time he spends looking up from his garden and the birds he sees flying over. Sensing a similarity, I have challenged him to a competition to see who can see the most number of species from the garden in 2011 - a bit of harmless fun, as we both will no doubt continue to carry on doing what we do anyway. We appear to have a similar number of garden species, though the spread is somewhat different, so it will be interesting to see the result on December 31st!

Some of the more interesting birds I have seen thus far in January include 3 Blackcaps, 2 females and a male on the feeders on the 1st - never to be seen again! A single Lesser Redpoll also on the 1st; 2 Ravens circling with Red Kites over the valley before drifting off south on the 13th - very unusual here in the winter. The rubbish picture above was of a pair flying over in the autumn, which is when I usually see them; 1-2 Marsh Tits seen most days and both male and female Bramblings occasionally, though only ever one bird at a time so far. My resident Tawny Owls have been seen on and off roosting in the box, but sadly a dead bird was found last week, which may have been a victim of the cold and lack of food - he was intact and had not been attacked by any animals. We did find a dead bird a few years ago in similar circumstances.

2010 Moth Highlights

Before I move on to 2011, I should also record some mothing highlights from last year.

First of all, a new moth for Bucks, Acleris logiana. This whitish looking micro cannot be distinguished from another micro, Acleris kochiella, without dissection. Luckily I have an acquaintance who does this for me. Acleris logiana used to be confined to Scotland, but has recently arrived in the south of Britain and is spreading northwards. I actually had 3 records: 5th and 23rd November 2009 and 20th March 2010.

I tried some pheromone lures for the first time to see whether I had any local Clearwings, which are not attracted to the normal light traps. I managed to find Currant Clearwing and Red-belted Clearwing and shall try this method again in 2011.

Two other micros that are not recorded very often in Bucks were Acrocercops brongniardella on July 9th and two records of Endothenia nigricostana on June 7th and July 9th - quite a pretty black and orange moth.

Migrant wise 2010 was a bit thin for me. I trapped two White-points on August 20th and 28th and a Dark Sword-grass on August 27th.

Plenty of new moths for the garden though - not listed here, but I hope to keep up to date with these in 2011!

A New Year's Resolution and 2010 Recap

Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, I have not updated my blog in an eternity. I have resolved to start again in 2011.

It is a shame that 2010 was missed, as it was a particularly productive Autumn for birds - both new for the garden and repeat records of scarce birds. However, I have noted the highlights below:

A productive period began on August 17th, whilst having a morning cup of tea. At 8:35, looking out of the lounge window, I noticed a line of large brown waders flying fairly low north up the valley - there were 8 birds in a broken V - like an inverted tick. Through bins I could easily make out fairly long evenly down curved bills, but not much on plumage. They had a languid flight style with slowish wing beats, all of which pointed to Curlew rather than Whimbrel, a new garden tick!

5 days later, on August 22nd, a hoped for garden tick, came at 3:20pm. A high flying raptor moving in a steady SSW direction is always worth a look, as it suggests a migrating bird rather than a local Common Buzzard or Red Kite. The bins revealed an obvious Osprey in steady glide. The long wings, long hand and spread fingers together with a shortish square cut tail were diagnostic. The white body and throat were also obvious. Lack of obvious black greater coverts below suggested a juvenile, but the bird was fairly high, so I cannot be certain. The bird only gave an occasional shallow flap, but otherwise was in constant glide. It actually flew directly overhead and at this stage the wings could be seen to be held forward at the carpals in typical gliding posture.

Another 5 days passed, then on August 27th I sat down at lunchtime and looked at the back garden - there was a slight break in the weather and a bit of blue sky actually appeared fleetingly. A large flock of tits was moving through the silver birches and oak at the bottom of the garden and into the beech wood that lies adjacent to the property. It comprised Blue, Great, Coal and Long-tailed Tits in quite large numbers, but little else could be picked out other than 2 Willow Warblers and a Nuthatch. At 12:30pm, a female/immature type Pied Flycatcher landed in my field of view in a silver birch and promptly disappeared. Slightly disbelieving, I watched the spot and luckily it reappeared and I was able to watch it for a couple of minutes before it moved off with the flock through the wood. This emulates a similar occurrence from 2004 when a fem/imm type Pied Fly was seen in the same silver birch before moving off through the wood in a similar manner.

I had to wait only 6 days for the next highlight. On September 2nd, post school pick-up and kids teas, I sat down and looked out of the lounge window. Almost immediately I picked up a distant raptor circling over the valley to the east. It had elevated wings, but looked very dark with a pale head through bins. Suspecting a Marsh Harrier, I dashed for my scope but predictably, the bird disappeared and I thought I had blown my chance. However, about 10 minutes later at 16:40, what was presumably the same bird appeared again distantly to the east above 2 Red Kites. Through the scope it was obviously a female/immature type Marsh Harrier. I watched it glide WNW over the north end of the valley, circling a couple of times before disappearing from view. It was a very dark brown looking bird, although the long squarish ended tail appeared reddish in good light, pointing to adult female. However, the pale gold colouring appeared to be restricted to the head and the hand also looked quite narrow, coupled with the overall darkness of the bird means that it was probably a juvenile - the upper wing was never visible. The yellow legs also stood out at long range contrasting with the dark brown under body. This is my 4th consecutive year to have Marsh Harrier over the valley, so far all between August 26th and September 21st and also all mid-afternoon birds.

And then another 6 days to September 8th - I found a presumed female Marsh Harrier at 5:50pm circling the east side of the valley heading generally north, but in no particular hurry - it had a reddish tail and plain brown upper wing with no obvious sign of pale tipped greater coverts. Over the next 40 minutes it remained on view on and off in the area to the north, where a newly cut corn field is partially viewable from my house. There were obviously some small animal corpses available and the Harrier was seen twice on the deck in the company of 2 Common Buzzards (to which it deferred) whilst a corpse was picked at. Otherwise it was quartering the field in late afternoon sunshine - I tried a record shot at great distance which was trully awful! (see above) I last saw it at 6:30pm, but it might well have stayed longer, as my view is quite restricted.

I had to wait until October 16th for the next garden tick. I looked out of the window at 9am to be greeted by a falcon attacking a small bird fairly high over the north end of the valley. My immediate thought was a late Hobby chasing a late hirundine, which in itself is quite unusual. However, when viewed through bins, I could see that it was a Merlin attacking a Skylark - wholly unexpected! I can honestly say that I have never seen anything like it, it was like watching an aeroplane dog fight - the Merlin made 5 or 6 attempts to catch the Skylark in a very tight area, manouvering up, down and around, once adopting the more usual thrush-like wing flaps of attack. They disappeared off south, so I don't know if the attack was successful. I can only summize that as this is not how I would normally expect to see a Merlin chasing larks i.e. at 100ft rather than over a field, that the Merlin was on a southerly migration route through the valley and chanced upon a Skylark migrating West (as they do in small numbers at this time of year), which produced this opportunistic assault. Due to light conditions, I could not discern much on plumage other than it looked brownish, so I would suggest that it was a female/immature type. This represents the 10th species of raptor that I have seen in the valley, and from the house. (11 if you include the escaped Red-tailed Hawk that was around for a few months in 2005/6 and actually bathed in the pond one morning! (see above))

2010 has been a bumper year for both Waxwings and Mealy Redpolls, that have appeared in large numbers since the autumn. On the morning of November 24th, I was able to add Mealy Redpoll to the garden list - it was feeding in my garden silver birch with a single Lesser Redpoll and c10 Goldfinches. It stood out immediately due to its noticeably larger size, approaching Goldfinch and its overall paleness compared to the Lesser Redpoll. The undersides were generally pale whitish with streaking appearing to be restricted to the flanks. There was a pale pink wash to the upper breast. The wing coverts/scaps were brown. but the central back was white with black streaks. The single wing bar was white. Unfortunately I didn’t get a good view of the rump, but it appeared whitish. It was only feeding for a couple of minutes before the flock flew off - Redpolls only tend to feed sporadically in my birches.

On December 5th, the other mass invader of the autumn, Waxwing was also added to the garden list, when at 9am, a single bird alighted at the top of a neighbour’s line of cherry trees – a favoured spot for resting birds. Unfortunately it only stayed for a couple of minutes before flying off low north. I watched the general area for a further 30 minutes, but there was no further sign. This was slightly unexpected due to the absence of many berry bearing trees in the area, but very welcome!

On December 26th, my biggest ever flock of Redpolls comprising 12 birds, was observed feeding in the silver birches for about 30 minutes before flying off south. One of the birds in this flock again stood out as being Mealy. Over the period I was able to scrutinise it as it fed and was fairly still, albeit the flock being spooked a few times, but they kept coming back to feed. I shan't describe the bird in detail, but it was probably a female or first winter bird, because although the rump/upper tail coverts was difficult to see when feeding, when it flew to different positions it revealed an obvious pale grey rather than white rump.

So a pretty spectacular avian autmun/winter. Roll on 2011!