More surveys, more birds

Well there you go. Final wader survey of the season today - a good thing when you've got to get up at 3.30 to be on site at the appropriate time! The Lapwing seem to be doing well - three pairs instead of the traditional one, with a thoroughly irritated Oystercatcher at the other end of the site. The influx of Painted Lady butterflies finally crossed my bows as well, with around 40 seen this morning. Made my way home via the singing Little Bittern over in Somerset, which was indeed singing in the reeds, yet not visible. Oh well - it's only a Little Bittern after all's said & done. More interesting than that was a female Scarce Chaser dragonfly hawking around just in front of the invisible bittern; another British tick, no less!

In the long period since previous blog (when was that? I've forgotten!), quite a lot has happened: we've begun planning our wedding and associated party - all going smoothly so far - we've been to the Isle of Man to visit friends and ring some Cormorants & Shags and I've learned a good selection of new plants. Always useful for work, that. I've also finally, finally - after 26 years of waiting - seen Red Kite in Devon. That made me quite happy too!

We also managed the most extraordinary weekend's ringing of Storm Petrels. Our usual tally has ranged from between 30 and 200 birds in a weekend; this year - with Nik away - we managed to get just shy of 500 new birds, with around 20 birds already ringed elsewhere: the jam, if you like. These ranged from British rings (the bulk of the jam; mixed fruit, to stretch the metaphor) to a Jersey-ringed bird (damson), a couple of French rings (strawberry), a Spanish ring (raspberry) and two Portuguese (home-made raspberry)... Topped off with a fine Basking Shark under the cliffs, it was a weekend worth having!

Some pictures from the various items of interest follow:

Dormouse extractions: lesson one. First take it's house off the tree - that'll fox it! By the way, a good way to tell if there's a Dormouse in a box is to check and see if it's left it's handkerchief hanging out of the door. They're always far too big.

Lesson two. Naomi extracts a Dormouse.

The resultant Dormouse. Bum view, though.

Cormorant on nest, Isle of Man

Cormoranettes in nest

Male Pied Flycatcher. This is one of the birds we ringed last year, back again for another season on Dartmoor's fringe. For some reason, they - and Naomi - seem to be media darlings this year, at least locally. She's been on the radio (twice), local papers and TV... Quite extraordinary!

Chaffinch - nest of. These were too big to ring, even had we had the necessary.

Basking Shark. No, really.

Storm Petrel. Well, Wild Carrot with Storm Petrel lurking behind it would be more accurate...

Piefls

http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/content/articles/2009/05/15/pied_flycatcher_feature.shtml

Our local scheme...

A Badgerlicious, Hobbytastic, Ottercamposity kinda day

Well, who'd have thought it? We started out at a quarter to five of the Saturday morning clock, and wound our way smoothly to Somerset, in order to run the second of three wader surveys. We arrived safely, sorted the paperwork, and set off in our separate directions...

A short while later I was staring down the muzzle of a loaded badger; primed and ready to strike. We faced each other. The tension was palpable. Gingerly, it reached forwards, snuffed delicately at my ankles, then turned and ran like hell. The danger passed, I heaved a sigh of relief and began my survey.

The badger, on it's approach run...

and again, just prior to ankle-sniffing activity

Anything after that would be an anticlimax, but having confirmed the presence of at least two and perhaps three pairs of Lapwing on site, and the wholly scientific 'shedload' of Yellow Wagtails (a bit more than a fair number, but fewer than a whack), we left with pleasure to explore the marvels of Shapwick Heath, part of the Avalon Marshes project. The weather was better than forecast, and the birds were carolling their usual abuse at each other; we rapidly picked off a selection of migrants, including some very smart Garden Warblers. The dragonflies were also emerging: Four-spotted Chaser, Hairy Hawker (not a street trader, though it should be), Large Red, Blue-tailed, Azure and Variable Damselfly, and Banded Demoiselle all on show, and in the background, the introduced green frogs - whatever they are, be it pool, edible or marsh frog - were doing their level best to deafen us. The show belonged to the Hobbies, however. Everywhere we looked, there was a Hobby. And another. Another beyond that... and so on - we finally cracked when we looked up and saw a flock of 39 Hobby hawking for insects above our heads, with another 6-10 easily visible in a quick scan of the surrounding countryside - it just couldn't get any better than that...

Yellow Wagtail. A male. Just part of the consignment.

Shapwick Heath. It's Hobbytastic.

Finally, Otters. Shapwick is now well known as a site to see otters, so there's reference aplenty to otter-watching in the logbooks in the hides. This, however, deserves special mention...:

Oh yes...

Top notch, whoever you are...!

Bank holiday birds and bits

A quick roundup and some photos for the weekend of the May bank holiday.

Saturday. Up early to go ringing at Na's site on the moor-edge with Judith; caught some of the usual suspects for the site - Tree Pipit, Willow Warbler, Whitethroat, Yellowhammer and so on, but better was a pair of Song Thrushes, recaptured just over a year after they were first ringed. One had been ringed on-site, the other at Na's winter site, about a kilometer away. Nice to see some interchange between sites like that, even if it's pretty small-scale.

Adult Whitethroat

Sunday. Up early for a wander at Challacombe in the morning - partly to nose round a barn for our polterabend, and partly for some birding. The former was successful, provided we shovel some, erm, manure first. That'll be a fun task for those concerned! The strong NW wind argued against too much birding, so we took a hike and met friends for a picnic instead. That was fine, as we found up a pair of Dipper, a smart male Grey Wagtail wagging his way along the riverbank and a male Cuckoo singing away from the treetops. We then watched him fly across the valley to a clump of gorse, and emerge milliseconds later with a small bird in hot pursuit! Most entertaining...

Monday. Up early (notice a pattern here, folks?), we returned to Challacombe for a ringing session. We struck gold in a number of respects, with singing Redstarts, Garden Warblers and Cuckoos everywhere (maybe that's a minor exaggeration, but still...). Ringing turned up the goods as well - recapturing a female Redstart which was ringed as an adult there last year and no less than five Willow Warblers, two from last year and three from the year before last - not bad going for wee birds like that.

Adult male Redstart in my grubby mitt; photo by Na.

Bird of the day had to go to a cracking male Redstart who turned up in the nets, but sighting of the day came as follows:

We knew of a Dippers nest under a footbridge over the brook, so headed down there to check on the state of it - there were four eggs the week before, apparently. Judith and Na lowered themselves into the water to crawl under the bridge, when I noticed this, climbing the wall about a metre away from them:


...which then disappeared into a small hole in the bank, like so (memo to self: remember that, and don't go poking around in Dartmoor walls!)...

Adder, courtesy of Na's mobile phone - good thing one of us had a camera handy, eh?!

...and when we got to the nest, it was empty. Circumstantial evidence, I know, but it ain't half suggestive!

I'll sign off with another rather fine early-morning view from the house.

Spring's over - summer's here. It's official.

Bit of recent birding - went down to Cornwall over the Easter weekend (I know, a long time back, but I've been nose-to-the-grindstone ever since). Ringed at a friend's site, catching a good number of these:

Chiffchaff

and these:

Willow Warbler

as well as a few Blackcaps and standard local bits & bobs. Nice way to spend Easter, though perhaps camping wasn't the best idea in the world - a sharp frost on Easter morning left us feeling a wee bit sleep-deprived. C'est la vie. Afternoons were spent wandering the clifftops in glorious sunshine, on one occasion being surrounded by a crowd of curious locals:

Miniature highland cattle, no less, looking as if they're about to release a new album (moosic! Ha! couldn't resist that - sorry...)

Anyway, the weather and the views were fantastic - this is Cape Cornwall from Kenidjack valley:



This a more zoomed-out view of the same bit. The perceptive amongst you will have noticed the air ambulance lurking at the bottom of the cliffs, where they carefully dropped in to rescue a rather luckless woman who appeared to have broken her leg. Was a very impressive bit of helicoptering to get in and out again safely.

Back to the scenery - this is Land's End from the cliffs at Porthgwarra, looking absolutely stunning. The gorse seemed overloaded with flower this year, which made the air seem sticky with the scent of coconut when we were traipsing past banks of the stuff in the valleys.

Since then, I've been out on breeding bird atlas duty, finding a rather satisfying 47 species on the one square, including a couple of Woodlark, Little Owl and Bullfinch doing some rather intimate courtship, as well as a singing Redwing - assume that's a bird that can't be arsed going back north yet. Never know though - I'll be keeping an eye on that one!

Yesterday was a breeding wader survey on my standard Somerset site, producing the trad. pair of Lapwing, a couple of Snipe and a small pack of Whimbrel feeding up on their way to the tundra. I also had a couple of singing Lesser Whitethroat, with several fields liberally spattered with Yellow Wagtails. Always amazes me how they glow when they are in fresh spring plumage - something like the way adult Gannets always appear to have just come out of a washing-powder advert, they're so crisp and clean-looking. Anyway... The first Swift of the year was a welcome sight as well.

Today was a chance to spend some time birding for the sake of it again, so headed up to Yarner with a friend to scout out some migrants. We did nicely in the end, with Blackcap, Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff all singing their heads off (messy), a Garden Warbler providing a bit of cool melody, Wood Warblers spinning coins incessantly in the trees, a handful of Pied Flycatchers, a cuckooing Cuckoo, Swallows, House Martins and the odd Tree Pipit here and there. Birds of the day (for one of us, anyhow!) were probably a trio of Mandarin that hurtled north over us at the Trendlebeare carpark, shortly followed by a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker headed in the other direction! Again, a single Swift rounded the day off quite pleasurably... That's two, so summer's official now (sorry Mark!)

Anyway, the final bit of news for the time being is that the spring weather at Easter quite turned my head, to the point of offering to make an honest woman of the mysterious 'N', who was daft enough to accept my offer. Not sure if it's yet sunk in, but I'm quite looking forward to a new chapter in life now...

Finally, before I forget, my friend Nik's off to 'work' in Australia for a year: apparently no shackles are involved, so this seems like a good place to wish you the best of luck whilst you're out there... Will keep you posted here on Devon happenings. Occasionally.

Spring rolls on - boaring.

A neat blog posting, emphasising the risks of either releasing non-native species, or perhaps taking things too literally (check the date):

Dartmoor National Park ranger blog

Recent events haven't been kept up to date, but the first swallows arrived back at the neighbouring farm on Sunday 30th March, and were hotly pursued by the first House Martin of the year, yesterday. Spring is building nicely into summer, with our recent ringing in the garden showing the local Blackbirds, Dunnocks and Long-tailed Tits are there or thereabouts, with Blue and Great Tit not far behind. All looking rather pleasant, really...

Spring (it's all about sex, innit?)

Here we are again. Well. The Willow Tit survey is proving to be quite interesting: three positives so far from the 5 woodlands surveyed, with another two sets of woods to be searched this weekend: seems like the elusive little blighters aren't yet gone from the moors (OK, with perhaps the honourable exception of the Fernworthy birds). Good stuff.

Started surveys for woodlands for Devon's contribution to the national Bechstein's Bat survey as well - my two 10km squares being up near Crediton (they'm funny up there) and proving to have little in the way of woodland, let alone interesting old woodland with water, old oak/ash canopy and abundant ground flora with plenty of hazel in it. Oh well. Did what I could, and we'll just have to see what happens come the actual nights out!

So, on to the sex... We managed to have a bit of a wander up at Steps Bridge recently, to see the wild daffodils in their glory: they were looking pretty dashing, I have to say. The wild daffs are able to reproduce by seed, so have to pimp themselves to bees and flies, whilst the average garden gank doesn't (I assume the ability has been bred out of them). So, what with the abundance of daffs and other wild flowers out there at the weekend and the longer days stimulating the local birds into some sort of sexual frenzy, the woods were a bit of a seething mass of reproduction...

Daffodils pimping themselves in the woods: always looking for a passing bee...

Na, ignoring the tide of floral filth swamping the woods

Our geeky challenge of identifying every plant we possibly can has become more rewarding, as the annuals come out to play again. We're going to have to get serious at identifying grasses, ferns and mosses this year though. That'll be a bit more of a challenge!

Other signs of spring that we've seen: Ravens carrying food to nests, Blackbirds ditto; the local Peregrines are on eggs too, by the look of it. More sex. Stacks of flowers out there now, from Lesser Celandine and Annual Dog's-mercury through to Climbing Corydalis and even the first Bluebell at Slapton a couple of weekends back! Everywhere you look... Mary Whitehouse, eat your heart out.

Cosmic snot is out and about: always nice to see...

In case you don't know, it's also relevant: this is (I'm reliably informed) actually unfertilised frogspawn, presumably dumped by a female frog who couldn't hold it.

We also managed a walk along the less fashionable end of Lustleigh Cleave, where again, the woods were a bit steamy. I couldn't be bothered taking any more pics beyond what you can see below though.

The river Bovey tripping through the booulders near the head of the woods. No, I don't know what the moss is (but there's loads of Rhytidiadelphus on the woodland floor nearby - try that name with your teeth out!)

Best thing since sliced bread, apparently. Surely there's a better thing than sliced bread as a baseline?