The most festive British Bird

Better views were yet to come...

First off I hope that everyone reading has had a fantastic Christmas and I wish you all the best for a bird filled year ahead.

Secondly, if I was asked to name the bird I thought was the most festive of all then it may surprise some of you.

It would not be the Robin, the poster bird of Christmas, but the Redpoll. With their rosy red colour and dainty little figure, I'm officially starting a campaign for the Redpoll to be recognised on Christmas cards across the country next year! Not only their colour, but they are more easier to see in the winter (like the Robin) and their charming little chirrups light up cold winter days.

Redpoll are fresh on my mind due to having a couple visiting my niger seed feeder over the past week and a half. This follows up the first Redpoll I ever had last year and hopefully these birds will become a regular winter visitor now.

Even the visit of the local Sparrowhawk who spent a good few minutes trying to chase House Sparrows through the hedge didn't put them off and they kept coming back for a few days after.


I got back to ringing this weekend too, going out on a cold but sunny morning. We caught about 20 birds (only 2 of which didn't already have rings on) but the highlight has to be the Redpoll that was caught. His colours and patterns looked splendid in the rising morning sun with a yellow peak and spots of red and pink. It was one of the birds already ringed but not with a ring number of our local group so fingers crossed he's a nice control!


Redpolls on Christmas cards. You heard it here first.

Parrot Crossbills on Budby Common

Having heard about the flock of Parrot Crossbills seen for a couple of weeks on Budby Common, I decided to head out this morning to search for them myself now I've returned from university.

#ParrotCrossbillSelfie

It was my first visit to Budby Common and after a long time rambling around I stumbled across a group of birders with there eyes fixed on the top of a bare tree (not a pine where I expected to see them). I counted about 12 in the tree as they rested and gave cracking views. One flew overhead and you could see its large Hawfinch-like size and hear its call. After a while of watching them in the tree they came down to the puddles on the track to drink. They then moved into a small group of pines where they began to feed on the cones, characteristically pulling them from the tree and holding them whilst removing the seeds.

They were far from scared of people and the group of around 10 birders that were there got absolutely stunning close up views, in some cases of no more than a few metres, as they fed on the pine cones and came down to drink from more puddles.

Instructions of anybody who want to find the Parrot Crossbills are as follows: Park in Budby village and take the trail at the top of the village that brings you out onto the common. From there you will be overlooking the site and should be able to see a "dip" in the land in front of you. It is that area where the birds have been sited.

The best information on the site that I have found are on Lound Bird Club's website: www.loundbirdclub.com/localbirdsightings.htm

I managed to digiscope a few pictures on my phone - enjoy!

Female feeding on a broken off cone

This male sat singing quietly for a long time

Another female feeding

Male sat on top of the pine copse the flock fed on

Pied Wagtail roost and a vocally talented Blackbird

Today's post comes with even less pictures of birds than usual (I am trying to change this by exploring digi-scoping so fingers crossed!) as my phone has broken over this week, or rather I dropped it while trying to juggle it with a sausage roll. However it was due to the fact that I had to go and pick up a replacement phone that I saw what I'm going to write about.

So silver linings and all that.

I had been down to Leeds city centre to pick up my new phone and it was about quarter to 4 as I started making way back. Remembering last year that I saw a roost of Pied Wagtails in January in the trees by the Christmas market, I took a slight detour to go and check. Sure enough, as the hospital across the road came in sight, I saw tiny little dots sitting along the railings of its roof overlooking the town square with the market. As I walked closer it became apparent that there were many more gathering as they flitted between rooftops. Above the noise of traffic and chatter from the Christmas market, they could be heard calling to one another as small groups descended onto closer buildings. There target was a line of 4 small evergreen trees sandwiched between the market and the road, only a about a metre or so above the heads of people walking by.
 Then at about 4 o clock they began to flit down in small groups, some having last minute changes of heart and flying back to the nearest rooftop. Most of them settled in the tree where they instantly became invisible. Like literally invisible. I went and stood as underneath the trees as I could get and had real trouble trying to pick any of them out. You could only see them as they moved or another one plummeted through the leaves, wings whirring furiously and tail hanging down making them look like giant humbug coloured crane flies. Luckily the tree on the end was only half covered with foliage and already had a decent gathering of wagtails in it meaning that I could get a good look at these ones that had to settle for second quality real estate.

After enjoying the wagtails for a good half hour I decided it was time to get home. It was when I was walking through some of the buildings at university that I heard all these Blackbirds kicking off with their alarm calls. Nothing unusual there. But as I walked by one Holly tree I faintly heard the flutey summer sound of a Blackbird's breeding song. I stopped and listened again. There it was again, but this time with a little Magpie "chuk" on the end. Now I was interested. I had never heard of crows mimicking other birds, never mind this well, so I went to take a closer look. Then, from the same tree, I heard a snippet of Robin song, and a burst of Wren followed by a quiet Blackbird trill. I eventually came to be standing underneath the tree and could make out a small black shape in the dying light. It was definitely a Blackbird, and I sat listen to it quietly serenade me with the sound of lazy summer evenings, remixed with a variety of other songs.

All in all not bad just to get a replacement phone. 

Exploring Swillington Ings/St. Aidans

After complaining that I had had no time whilst in Leeds to get out, explore and do some bird watching, I suddenly found myself with a free day last Thursday which I decided to use to explore Swillington Ings. Swillington has a long history and, like so many nature reserves, was a former coal mine. Once the mining had finished it was turned over to nature and the coal company that owned it went into liquidation. The land was then owned by Leeds City Council who have since leased in to the RSPB to develop for wildlife further. They erected a small wooden visitor centre, branded the area "St. Aidans" and restored the car park before the coal company returned to the picture and claimed ownership of the land. The site now finds itself in some sort of limbo where the RSPB continue to do bits of work on the reserve but are not allowed to open the visitor centre or car park. Luckily the area is a public right of way anyway and so access is in no way restricted but fingers crossed it isn't long before it is turned back over to the RSPB.

Swillington Ings

Anyway enough of the history lesson. I had briefly visited Swillington Ings before with my grandparents and had the shortest of walks around it before moving onto Fairburn Ings. However I've since been recommended it by many birders as well as keeping up to date with the regularly updated Swillington Ings bird group site which posts sightings almost daily. So I figured it was time to take a closer look.

I arrived about 11, parking on the road outside the entrance to the now closed off RSPB car park. A walk down into this car park turned up the first nice sighting of the day almost immediately. Underneath a giant piece of old mining machinery was an apple tree with Blackbirds feeding around it that were flushed up as I walked into the deserted car park. One of the flushed thrushes (bit of a tongue twister!) was a Fieldfare as it showed a slate grey rump as it flew away and settled in a nearby tree where I got good views through my scope. A cracking bird, unusually only the one on its one, and another tick off the winter list before I'd even gone past the car park.

Looking out from the elevated car park gives superb views over the entire reserve comprised of grassland/scrub, marsh, scrapes, lakes, reedbeds and a smidgin of woodland. After moving down to the first lake and picking up most of the common ducks and turned to look over the marshy grassland to be greeted with a flock of 9 curlews flying towards me before settling to feed in the sodden soil.
Already happy with my decision to get out and explore this site, it got better when I came across a Stonechat that briefly showed on top of some bullrushes meaning I got to tick off Stonechat as a lifer for me!

On the lookout for Red Breasted Merganser!

I then came to the main lake where 2 Red Breasted Mergansers had been spotted a couple of days before. After spending time scanning all the ducks on the lake, including a nice pair of Pintail and about 4 Goldeneye, I came to the conclusion that my luck had run out. On my way around the lake I came across a group of about 6 Goosander and spent an age deliberating whether one of the females had enough diffuse red on her neck and head to possibly be a Merganser. Had I not heard that there were Mergansers on the lake then I would never have questioned it but I found myself constantly going back to the bird to check. I had brought my Collins bird guide with me though and a check in that convinced me it was a female Goosander - a lesson that taking a field guide is always helpful!

After a couple of hours of my arrival at the reserve I had got to the tiny patch of trees at the far site where I picked up a Great Spotted Woodpecker and Kestrel before moving down to another lake with a couple of Little Egrets on it. A large flock of around 60 Greylag Geese also came onto the lake, causing an absolute racquet as they came over the tree line and descended onto the lake.

After sitting on a bench for lunch it was time to walk around the reed beds before I headed home. I had been reading that birders were regularly seeing and hearing Bearded Tits in the reeds (the first year they had been recorded at the site) as well as Bittern making regular appearances. Both would be lifers for me so thought nothing of having a little wander through the reeds to make my walk longer. I did pick up two Black Tailed Godwit and what I think were three Dunlin and two Redshank (only caught a glimpse as they took off) but alas... no Bittern or Bearded Tit.

All in all I had a fantastic day at the reserve and hope to definitely start visiting it regularly. I thoroughly recommend anyone to visit!

Total number of species for the day: 41 

What's this?! An actual wild bird picture on my blog?! A male Shoveler that was close enough to shore to be photographed on my phone.

Sunset over Swillington Ings

Slower than I anticipated but...

Red Kites circling at Harewood

So this winter hitlist thing so far hit a stumbling block. In fact so has any kind of bird watching as a whole. My final year of university and all the work that goes with it means that I'm busy Monday to Friday and Sunday as well. Saturday I go to volunteer at Harewood, which is so far my only link to the natural world...

But alas last weekend the cycle was broken! I returned back home for the weekend and went on a bird walk around the National Trusts Clumber Park with my local group. The forecast was Crossbill with an outside chance of Great Grey Shrike that looks to be wintering around the Sherwood area and was seen a few days previously.

We saw some Crossbills and got absolutely cracking views of a red male using his bill to pries open cones. Superb.

And of course, no Great Grey Shrike. That space on my life list remains empty...

However one was filled on that day...

Colin the Crow's latest escape attempt...

As we walked through the woods it became apparent there was a large gathering of birds flitting round a Beech tree (the experienced birders might have already guessed where this is going). When we were able to get a view it turned out there must have been 20+ BRAMBLINGS in the tree!

Now I don't remember whether I've explained this before but technically I have seen a Brambling, but I didn't see it. What I mean is that I had a silhouette of a small Chaffinch sized bird fly over my head and a very experienced birder telling me it was a Brambling by the fork in its tail. However this time I actually saw a Brambling, lots of them! In glorious colour and everything! So I can now put them down on my list without any feeling of guilt. Marvelous.

Finally, in true blog style... I have no pictures of any of this... I really need a good camera.

Not something you often associate with Leeds...  Beauty.

Redwing... Check

Gorgeous.

So its been a week since I laid down the gauntlet to myself and have completed my first tick off the list.

Why you should never believe the rule...

It was during a tumultuous autumn Sunday at Harewood House, that went from driving storm conditions to picturesque dancing golden rays. It was during one of these stunning sunlit moments that I was watching a flock of Redwings darting between two Yew Trees as the sun glanced off their red underwings. It was a veritable pick and mix of thrushes, with Blackbirds, Song Thrush and the odd rattling Mistle Thrush in amongst the Yew branches... but alas, no Fieldfares. Probably still a little early to be coming across those commonly.

Now, something else that I noticed on my ways to University was a group of 6 Carrion Crows feeding in Leeds' Hyde Park with a couple of Magpies. This reminded me of the rule that I've often discussed with, usually more novice, bird watchers regarding the difference between Rooks and Carrion Crows. The rule goes; "If you see a group together they are Rooks, whilst one on its own will be a Crow." This picture certainly goes to prove that false! Although this may be an exception, I am still not a fan of the rule in general as family groups and winter gatherings of crows can make it incorrect. Its much better to learn to recognise the more dagger pointed grey beak and face of the Rook compared to the black all over, sleeker Carrion Crow.


I'll leave the this post on two pictures that sum up this time of year in a human and natural way. One from the fireworks at Roundhay Park bonfire and the other (no less spectacular) of autumnal fungi. Here's hoping for a great winter!

Autumn/Winter Hitlist

We're now firmly in the, remarkably warm, hold of autumn and with winter starting to poke it's head around the door in the form of the recent storm, I think it is about time I set out a target for the colder months ahead.

So I'm setting out a target, a hitlist of birds and spectacles of which I want to have seen all of them by the time March rolls around. So here it is.

- Redwing
- Fieldfare
- Waxwings
 - Some sort of Starling murmuration (Having seen that there are none around me in the centre of England, I'll happily take the slightest shred of murmuration action)
 - Smew, Goldeneye, Goosander - any and all winter waterfowl
- Barn Owls hunting during the light.
- Wild Swans, particularly Bewick's
- Urban Pied Wagtail flocks
- Wintering Warblers (Blackcap or Chiffchaff would do nicely)
- Any winter flock lifer gulls
- See a Firecrest!
- Lapwing/Golden Plover gatherings
- Get a decent view of a Brambling!
- See (or perhaps at least hear) a Cetti's Warbler

So there we have it.
Some are vastly more achievable than others and there are probably some that I've missed out but will think of later.
I'll be ticking them off on this blog over the coming months, with the hope I'll be able to get some pictures too. And with that... time starts now!

The clock is ticking...

Phalarope-less Fairburn

So I've suffered my first major "dip" as they call it in the birding circles. Missing out on a rarity sighting. Although it was a week ago it's still raw. Oh no... I must be becoming a twitcher...

So it turned out my trip to Fairburn was Phala-hopeless. Yes, I'm unashamedly proud of that pun.

At least it was a nice day for it...

Anyway, I got there at about 10 o clock on the Sunday morning after it had been seen the Friday and Saturday before - at half 6 on the Saturday night no less. Now I was tempted to skip lectures on the Friday to see it when it first turned up, but being a good student I resisted the temptation. Then I went volunteering at Harewood on the Saturday so couldn't see it then - or so I thought.

When I got back from volunteering I was telling my flat mate about the Phalarope that I wanted to see and that it would be a great tick off my list. He told me to go then, at that moment (which was about 5 past 5 in the evening). I had checked Fairburn's website which said that the reserve closed at 5 so I told him I couldn't go, but no matter.. it had been seen recently and it would be unlikely to move over night. It was here I made two major misjudgements. One: Phalarope migrate by night. Saying a Phalarope will still be around because it won't move during the night is like saying that the roosting owl you found in the tree one evening will still be there because it won't move overnight.
Two: I could have gone that very evening, when I got there the following morning it turned out the scrape wasn't in the reserve itself but on the side of a road that many people had been parking on to look.

When I got there the next morning there were two main theories being banded about by sorrow filled, too little too late birders. Some thought that the bird had simply moved on. That it wasn't supposed to be here and that it had been feeding frantically over the day before and gone. The other theory was much more mysterious...

A birder earlier that morning had claimed to see it floating head down in the water, dead. This was unconfirmed but the birder himself was sure enough that it was the Phalarope to alert the wardens. A twitcher the previous day had said it was getting constantly attacked by the Black Headed Gulls, so perhaps there is some truth in the birders dark tale.

Either way, I didn't see it. Dead or alive.

But I did use the morning to explore all the scrapes and pools at Fairburn that I wasn't aware existed on what turned out to be a gorgeous early October morning. I did see a bird that I hadn't seen before as well. A nice female Pintail from the hide. Not a Phalarope, but still a lifer. There had also been a lot of talk about a Great White Egret that had been seen for multiple days around the pools which, of course, I didn't see. It could well have been dead as well. One day they'll dredge that pool and find an ancient Indian burial ground of scarcities and rare birds...

So there we have it, I missed out on the Phalarope... But I'll get the next one.

Cassidy doing her best to cheer me up!

Back at Harewood and the possibility of Red-Necked Phalarope!

The bird garden's Guinea Fowl enjoying the benches.

 So last weekend was my first weekend back at Harewood House. I had been looking forward to getting back all summer. Just being outside, mixing with the public and being hands on with the birds is a fantastic way to spend a day. Throw that in with the friendly, welcoming staff that work there and it makes it a really enjoyable experience.

So the day involved just the normal jobs. Feeding, cleaning the water, washing the food dishes, and so on. While doing the rounds of the pens I ran into a little hedgehog stumbling around. I presume he must be hungry or suffering some form of illness as hedgehogs shouldn't be as active as he was being during late morning. But he was happy for me to get close enough to take some really good pictures with my phone before I left him to go about his business.

In terms of University work, it's about time I started work on my final year project. I have over 1 million pieces of data in a database that all of my ringing group (Sorby Breck) have compiled over the years and I am very greatful for them letting me use it. Unfortunately the daunting size of this data is making it difficult for me to be able to prise out any specific questions that I want to answer. I'm looking to focus on the timings of moult in various species and seeing if that is affected by weight or climate. This has been made all the more difficult by the fact that I can't find anyone before me who has used the BTO codes in this kind of scientific study. But I'll get there eventually!

I'll finish on two things... Today there has been a Red Necked Phalarope present most of the day at the local RSPB reserve Fairburn Ings. Lectures today stopped me visiting and I won't be able to visit tomorrow due to volunteering. However if the birding gods keep the Phalarope around till Sunday, I'll be straight down to try and see the first one at Fairburn since 1976 and tick off a lifer for me.

And finally here is a picture of some feathers collected from some of the aviaries at Harewood and stuck on my wall. See if you can guess what they are...

An article in Bird Watching magazine!

A few months ago I got in touch with Matthew Merritt, the editor of Bird Watching magazine, about writing an article for them. Matthew was very enthusiastic and my article about bird ringing got published in the special Autumn edition of the magazine. Just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone at Bird Watching, it's fantastic!

Front cover

My article

The Second Coming

Picture yours truly, sat in his new house in Leeds after returning to the city to spend his final year studying his degree. After a morning of a long breakfast and an episode of Breaking Bad, which everyone in the world seems to be watching, he pulls up a chair to his desk and opens his laptop. The start button flashes blue as he presses it and, once its loaded, finds his way to the Blogger log in screen. After typing in his unnecessarily long password, Close Encounters of the Bird Kind opens up before him. After deleting a few old drafts that were half started over the summer, he opens up a brand new entry and reclines in his chair, hands on the back of his head as he lets out a contented sigh.

It's good to be back.

Right then, where to begin? Well I guess first off I'll give you a synopsis of the Summer...

First of all I got a job. I was leading cave tours around Creswell Crags, which has been mentioned in at least two posts on here before. Apart from being fantastic, it also allowed me to see some top wildlife. But looking through the hundreds of pictures I have taken over the summer, it can essentially be summed up in two words - Bird ringing and Moths.

Brace yourself, there's going to be a lot of pictures.

Lets start with the moths. You already have the background to my nocturnal Lepidopteran (fancy word for moths and butterflies) adventure from the previous blog post "Moth-ing?". So we'll skip the formalities and get straight to the juicy stuff. What follows are pictures of moths that were attracted to the light in my garden or found around the house.

Swallow Tailed Moth

Marbled Beauty

Fan-foot

Common Emerald

The Snout

Silver Y

Herald

 So there's a selection of the moths that I had attracted or seen around. You may have noticed that the last picture is sat on a rock. That's because I found him deep in a cave with lots of other moths called "The Tissue", where I think it was just taking refuge before it got dark again.

And before we get all birdy, here are a couple of friends that came to keep me company one night when I was mothing...

The Hendgehog that came snuffling around my feet...

...and the Wood Mouse that was knawing on the feeder a few feet away!

 Now lets move onto the birds. We'll start with a pretty special one.

Thanks for finding this nest goes to Dean and his wife Mel, who were conducting a Breeding Bird Survey and came across this stunning species. After careful observations they found the nest and we were able to ring it. But enough of the teasing...

This is a picture taken by the climber when we conducted a check to see whether they were big enough to ring. Any ideas?

 They are of course... Hobbys!

When we went back over a week later, the climber once again went up to the nest and passed us the two birds down. He had shouted down that one of them was heavily entangled in bailer twine (which you can see on the first picture above) so that it was being held face down in the nest. He managed to free it from the nest and pass it down to us on the ground. It was in a really bad way and had twine covering its entire body. The first chick was growing really well and was ringed straight away so it could be placed back into the bag so as not to stress it out. My trainer then went to work on twine on the second bird, if she can get a badly tangled Wren out of a mist net then we had faith she could do it!
It became apparent that it was severely constricting the birds right leg, so much so that it had changed the colour of the leg to pink rather than yellow. Incredibly, after patiently working her way through the twine, she managed to completely free the chick. As luck would have it, Dean (who found the nest), is a physiotherapist, and so advised that we slowly massage the leg to increase the blood flow. Miraculously it started to move its toes and grip onto my ringers fingers. Obviously we were unable to ring its right leg, so a ring was placed on its left leg and the BTO were informed.
If we hadn't turned up to ring the chicks then I have no doubt that the chick would have died within a few days and we at least gave it a fighting chance. Dean and his wife have since been back to the site and saw at least one juvenile had fledged, and were confident that there was another calling from within the tree that had the nest. Fingers crossed the second chick made it too!

First chick - a picture of healthiness

The second chick after being freed from the twine. The effects of constriction on its right leg are clear.

 What follows is just a gallery of some of the birds we caught over the summer, enjoy!

Tree Pipit

Reed Warbler

Goldfinch

Grasshopper Warbler

Willow Tit

Greenfinch

After missing out on a Sparrowhawk for the 4 years that I've been going bird ringing, it was finally a joy to be able to ring one. This stunning first year male did a right job on my fingers with his talons, but I think I can forgive him as he turned up on my final morning before heading back to university.

What a send off!

Moth-ing?

Is that what is called? Mothing?

Apparently, noting down nearly all the birds I see isn't enough list based activities for me and I've now decided to take the plunge with moths. After thinking about it since returning from my field trip in Malham, it was chatting to some invertebrate people at a stall at Creswell Crags that finally tipped me over the edge. That night I borrowed a light bulb from my Granddad, a white sheet from my Mum, two bricks and some bike handle bars and created this masterpiece of moth attraction!

The pinnacle of moth catching.

However it transpires that there are either a lot less moths in my garden than I anticipated, or that I'm going about the wrong way to catch them. Over two nights I only managed to attract two "macro"moths (that is, proper moths), and if numbers continue at this rate then my moth... attractor (?) may need to undergo some serious evolution.

Heart and Dart

Riband Wave

A ringing demonstration... without much ringing

As part of the RSPB's big wildlife weekender at Creswell Crags this past weekend, Sorby Breck ringing group was asked whether we would be able to do a ringing demonstration over both days. As we were the closest people to the site and had already ringed there before, it was entrusted to us to provide the public with a snap shot of the bird ringing experience. Thanks to Eleanor's hard work, the BTO had sent us enough promotional material to recruit a small nation. The groups nest recording had meant we had enough old nests to use in a "Guess the Nest" quiz, whilst Mary's feather collection provided a brilliant "Match the Feather to the Bird" quiz.

It was a good job we had so much other stuff going on because the birds were not playing ball. As many of you may know, feeding station ringing is generally a no no in the summer, whilst ringing into the afternoon often doesn't turn out much results either. Extreme heat isn't something that's great for bird activity either and, you guessed it, we just so happened to fall on the two hottest days of the year so far. Add those to negatives together and you get a total of 12 birds for the Saturday (many of them ringed before the actual event opened at 11am) and only 4 birds for the Sunday... Including one retrap from the day before. The species we caught were Blue Tit, Great Tit, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Nuthatch, Chaffinch with our efforts to bag a Moorhen flawed despite having one run into the bottom shelf of the net only to free itself and escape. It has to be remembered though that every bird caught is fascinating to those members of the public who are interested as it is unlikely that they've seen wild birds so close, and it was great to talk to them about what we do and give them information about the birds.

It's rock art of an Ibis... only upside down

The staff at Creswell Crags and the RSPB were fantastic all weekend and continuously offered us water and snacks. The Crags staff also let those interested go on the two cave tours that they run to see Ice Age rock art or to explore a cave and learn about the Ice Age people. Free cave tours wasn't something I expected to be given when I signed up as a bird ringer, but I enjoyed both greatly! Stick a top class cafe in the mixer and you've got a brilliant site and altogether brilliant weekend.

Perfect end to the weekend