The Start of Spring migration?

A breezy walk to Eske/Pulfin Fen was the first for a while due to the fact that I've been feeling pretty rough recently. Still with a fuzzy head I marched up to the lake, flushing a male Yellowhammer from underneath a bush with a few Skylarks in song.

At the lake still a lot of ducks; Wigeon, Mallard, Teal, Gadwall, Pochard and Tufted Duck. Two female Goldeneye on the river and a male on the lake were signs that winter is still not over and a male Pintail was another indication of that. However, a few recent arrivals also suggest that spring is on its way. Four Oystercatchers were squabbling over a territory and two Shelduck were also present. These two species are not present at Eske in the winter but do turn up in spring, with the Oystercatchers staying to breed.

Another nice bird was a Goldcrest singing and some male Chaffinches calling from a nearby copse were also convinced that spring is coming. I can only share their optimism and hope that some migrants might begin to pass through and liven things up - I've grown a little tired of the winter ducks. Notably, there were no Redwings or Fieldfares today and only small numbers of Blackbirds : it seems that they may have departed already.

Cormorant, Treecreeper and Tetnus!

Enough sunshine today to tempt me outside, just the short distance to Figham Common. Walking along the river flood defenses I could see that many of the fields to the east were flooded by a few centimetres of water. I expected to see some birds feeding on these such was the extent of the flooding - but nothing. I can only imagine that these fields which are usually used for sheep receive too much fertilizer and flood too infrequently for the invertebrates that wading birds such as Lapwings favour.

A Cormorant was in the river and must have found a very good fishing spot because it refused to fly away, even when I was only a few metres away - it simply continued to fish, catching something every 20 seconds or so.

The bushes and shrubs at the far end of the common were alive with Greenfinches, Chaffinches, Blue Tits, Great Tits and Long-tailed Tits, with lots of Blackbirds foraging under a row of mature beech trees; but just one Redwing and no Fieldfares. Interesting to me was a Treecreeper calling ina hawthorn bush, having seen one in the unlikely position of in a lone bush in the middle of flooded grass the last time I was at Figham. This location was not so wierd, but this bird seems to have decided that 10 beech trees and some hawthorn scrub constitues a woodland.

Plenty of Skylarks were singing, a few Reed Buntings seemed to be pairing and a nice male Yellowhammer was almost singing - he must think that spring is here already.

On my way back to the car I managed to slip in the mud and rip the skin on my left hand on a piece of barbed wire. The spike went right in and I was caught on the fence. When I unspiked myself I noticed that the barb was not only rusty but covered in cow's hair and mud. Having not received a tetnus injection for 12 years I had the inconvenience of going to the doctor for an injection. Amazingly I was in and out in under 5 minutes having had the injection. Wow! This goes a small way towards restoring my faith in the NHS. There is still a long way to go though as they messed up my hernia operation last year.

More of Swinemoor

Just got back from a couple of hours walking around Swinemoor Common, Beverley. It wasn't really a birdwatching walk, I was with three friends from college and we were inspecting the place for our management plan assignment. We came up with ideas like retaining the surface water through spring and summer, and grazing the grassland through late summer and autumn to manage it for wetland birds. The idea is to keep horses off of it through the breeding season to allow Lapwings and Snipe to raise their chicks without the threat of trampling. None of this is actually going to happen of course, it's purely hypothetical.

Other idea we had were a bit of selective tree planting, nest boxes for tree sparrows, roosting boxes for bats and managing visitor access by encouraging them to use an interpreted trail.

However, there's always time to look for birds and we saw quite a good number of Golden Plover, a couple of hundred in total, 40-50 Lapwings, 2 Snipe and 5 Redshank. Alongside were about 40 Common Gulls, 10-20 Black-headed Gulls and 2 Herring Gulls. A Grey Heron flew over too and a Kestrel hunting kept disturbing the waders and gulls.

Yellow-legged Gull?

Yesterday morning I went, once again, to Eske/Pulfin Fen. It was very bright, but a light northerly breeze was pretty chilly. The walk was a tale of two halves really, with the first half (the walk up) being virtually birdless, almost no ducks on the lake and only two Fieldfares were of any interest. Beyond the lake 33 Mute Swans were feeding in a field, but no Whooper Swans today.

On the way back (second half), suddenly the lake was filled with ducks and Geese. The regular 200 or so Greylags all landed in the lake as I watched and 2 Canada Geese were sitting on the island, strangely, this species doesn't turn up here often at all. Amongst the ducks were about 30 Tufted Duck, 10 Pochard, 150 Wigeon, 6 Teal, 50-60 Mallard, 2 Gadwall and 4 Goldeneye, including one male displaying which was the highlight until I noticed 3 large Gulls.

Two of these were adults, and appeared to be Herring Gulls, but perhaps slightly darker than normal. When they eventually flew, the black wing markings suggested argentatus, but I couldn't be sure as I was focussing my attention on the single first winter gull that was present. This bird immediately struck me as different to an immature Herring Gull, in fact I thought it was a Yellow-legged Gull straight away - not that frequently recorded up here. It was exceptionally white in appearance with just a little dark smudging around the eye. Its bill was noticeably longer than the other two birds' bills and heavier too. The bill was dark black with just a hint of pale colouration at the base. The bird's head was fairly long and sloping and its wings were pale grey with distinct dark markings - no smudginess at all. The tertials were completely dark, but I couldn't make out any pale edges. The primaries were long and black. In flight it had a clear white back with no flecking and a distinct black band at the end of the tail. The bird's chest and belly were very pale with some spotting. In flight the colouration of the wings confirmed that it was a first winter bird and the wing tips were contrastingly dark compared to the rest. More than that I didn't notice,

Since seeing this gull I have discovered that I missed a few key features. Unfortunately I'm not that good! However, I have seen plenty of Yellow-legged Gulls and the jizz of this bird seemed right.

If any gull experts want to comment on this fairly poor description, please feel free to.

On the way back 2 Tree Sparrows flew out of some bushes and 2 male Reed Buntings looked like they were in a dispute over a female.

Helping Birds

Most birdwatchers would like to help birds, but many people don't go beyond feeding them in their back garden. Garden bird feeding is great, by the way, but for serious bird lovers there are lots of things that can be done to help birds.

People who have gardens have a great resource that they can manage for birds and simple things like not using weed killers, slug pellets or any other chemicals will ensure that there is greater biodiversity in the garden and consequently more food, particularly when adults are feeding chicks.

Less obvious things we can do for birds are things which benefit the environment in general, like use the car less - do you really need to drive hundreds of miles to go twitching? My friend Simon Tonkin said that when he does occasionally go twitching he tries to ensure that he gives other s a lift so at least one car is used rather than two (or three or four).

I recently had a look at a copy of Laura Ericsson's 101 Ways to Help Birds

There are lots of nice ways that bird lovers can help birds here (101 ways in fact!), and althought this is aimed at an American market, virtually everything is true for anywhere in the world. Sometimes specific American organisations are referred to, but these can be replaced by your national or local equivelant.

This book encourages birdwatchers to do more than just watch birds, and the section on becoming an ambassador for birds gives an idea of the philosophy behind the book.

Bird Flu UK

Yesterday's news of a bird flu "outbreak" at a Turkey farm stimulated the normal hysteria that surrounds this subject, with at least one "expert" proclaiming on TV that this was most likely the result of wild birds introducing the virus into the farm. I guess nobody has to take the blame for wild birds, whereas workers, farmers and politicians are responsible for "dodgy" practices in the poultry industry.

This morning I received an e-mail from Wetlands International about this latest bird flu outbreak; they are far better informed on the subject than I am so here is what they have to say.

Role of wild birds in UK Avian Influenza outbreak unlikely.
The outbreak of Avian Influenza (H5N1 hp) in Suffolk is unlikely to have
been caused by wild birds. This is the opinion of the global NGO
Wetlands International . This kind of farm is
too secure to make contact with any wild animals a real possibility.
Moreover, this is not the time of the year when many wild birds migrate,
making it also quite unlikely to be caused by wild birds.

Despite intensive monitoring programmes, no infected wild birds have
been found in Europe since the summer of 2006. On this occasion it seems
more likely that the source of the outbreak was within the poultry
industry, and it will be important to fully investigate possible links
with the outbreak in Hungary in January.

Measures to minimise all contacts with wild birds, such as the strong
measures in the Netherlands to keep free range chickens indoors, always
reduce the (small) chance of infection between wild birds and poultry.
An outbreak in a secure farm where poultry have no contact with wild
birds is no reason to impose these measures. It seems likely that the
outbreak in the UK has been successfully contained. If, however, an HPAI
outbreak spreads more widely, this will be the time to consider measures
to prevent poultry being kept outdoors.

I hope they e-mailed all the so-called experts that make commentary in the newspapers and on TV with this too.

I was hot! I actually got hot!

What a strange day. It must have been very cold overnight because even at eleven o'clock on a very sunny day, the water covering Swinemoor common was still frozen. At this time though my jacket, sweatshirt and t-shirt meant that I was overdressed for the sunny weather and it wasn't long before I was hot! I'd forgotten that it was possible to actually be hot in this country, but yes, at the beginning of February I was hot. Wow!

Swinemoor in the sun

A few interesting birds about: around 60 Lapwings, 3 Golden Plover, 1 Snipe, 4 Teal, about 150 Black-headed Gulls, 24 Common Gulls and 2 Herring Gulls were loafing around on the wet grassland. Also 17 immature Pied Wagtails were feeding on top of the ice.

Further along a group of feeding birds included 6 Long-tailed Tits, 2 Great Tits, 2 Blue Tits and 2 Tree Sparrows. A flock of about 30 Redwings flew out of some trees as I walked along and a lone Grey Heron was hunting in a ditch - strangely enough this is a species I rarely see here.

Plenty more common birds around with a couple of Mallard, loads of Moorhens and a Little Grebe in the Beverley-Barmston drain - what a glamourous address!

Neglected blog and British birding.

So, having created this blog I've rather neglected it over the past week or so. The thing is that every time I go out, I just see the same birds. Not only does this become a little tedious, but I'm sure it doesn't make good reading. I have actually been out over the last week, but forgot to write the trips up.

Last monday (29th January) I walked up to Eske again, and in fact saw quite a few interesting birds. A number of Goldeneye were in the river Hull and on the lake, a total of about 8-10 birds, two of which were males. Bags of ducks on the lake with one of the male Pintails having made a return. Larger number of Tufted Duck than usual with probably about 50 birds, with a couple of Pochard and loads of Wigeon and Mallard, a few Gadwall and Teal but no Shoveler. The best birds were beyond the lake; 7 Whooper Swans in a field with 36 Mute Swans. Whilst watching these a Barn Owl came along the river and shortly after another flew out of some rough grass; a different bird as it was much darker than the first. In addition there were plenty of finches, tits and thrushes, with probably the most notable passerines being a small flock of 9 Yellowhammers and 2 Reed Buntings.

7 Whoopers & 3 Mute Swans

Not such a bad trip but I have found myself spending most of my time developing my birdwatching in Thailand website: thaibirding.com instead of looking for British birds. Today I was reading Joe Cockram's blog where his latest posting is titled "British Birding Sucks", a bit harsh maybe, but he's just returned from a seven month trip to Australia and Thailand. Both of these countries have high levels of biodiversity and birds are just everywhere - loads of species too! The sentiments he expresses pretty much sum up how I sometimes feel about birding in Britain. Still, I find it possible to get enthusiastic about my own "patches" and hopefully I will be able to write plenty here about the species migrating along the Hull valley over the next few months - I have to do a college assignment on Swinemoor common, so that should get me out there and give me something to wite about.