Starlings

I don't get many Starlings in my garden but had the opportunity to see a few in the hand whilst doing some ringing permit assessments with Jane in her garden. The adults were swarming around catching St Marks flys on the bushes in her garden and several found themselves in a mist net.

During the breeding season adult Starlings are easily sexed as, with real stereotyping, females have pink bases to the bill and males have blue.  With really good views it can be seen that the females also have pale ring surrounding the iris whilst the males have a completely dark eye.

Above and below: female Starling with pink base to bill and pale ring surrounding pupil

Male Starling with blue base to bill and solidly dark eye

Many thanks to Jane for her hospitality once again.

A weekend in the Lakes!

With grandkids in tow we recently set off for Centr Parcs in Whinfell Forest, Cumbria. Obviously with four youngsters in tow the emphasis was  enjoying all the activities on site but I'd hoped to show my Australian grandson a Red Squirrel. His older sister has seen them them before, albeit she was only three so can barely recall it. The other two youngsters had been to Whinfell Forest before so were familiar with our native squirrel.

Luckily we had a feeding station outside our lodge and a Red Squirrel duly obliged.....

I was surprised find a pair of Red-legged Partridges on site as I normally consider them a bird of open agricultural fields rather than coniferous woodland. They were frequently seen early morning just outside our lodge.

Less surprising were the pair of Stock Doves that frequented the area. Beautiful birds and probably the prettiest of columbids apart from Turtle Doves.

The woods were full of Siskins feeding in the tops of the conifers and the site is famous for its Creeping Ladies Tress's orchids - see here  but we were to early for them.

My 1st summer migrants on Hilbre

A beautiful spring morning saw me heading up the Wirral to pick up Steve and drive the short trip across the sand and rocks to Hilbre Bird Observatory. It really was a stunning morning.

My 2nd trip to Hilbre in the space of 3 days was rewarded when Steve spotted my 1st Northern Wheatear of the spring on the top of the west side cliffs.  This was soon followed by catching my 1st Chiffchaff (on Hilbre) of the year as we walked the heligoland traps. We also caught a couple of Robins showing that spring passage for this species is also underway.

Meadow Ppits were a feature of the day with hundreds flying in off the sea and heading off over Hilbre and down the Dee Estuary. We caught one in a heligoland trap but most flew straight over. Other signs of passage included several Goldfinches and a single female Chaffinch that hung around for a short time.

Deploying walk in traps for Turnstone as part of our colour flagging project was successful with a 2nd calendar year bird caught and duly ringed by Steve. AC will join AA that was trapped last year and subsequently seen again on Hilbre earlier this year after making a return journey to the Arctic to breed.

Although no Rock Pipits were caught the spring traps proved their worth when we caught the Wheatear we'd seen earlier - our 1st ringed of the year but the 2nd to be seen on Hilbre. 

 

Hilbre spring.

I've managed to get over to Hilbre recently.  I've not been for a while - mainly as I didn't fully trust my Landrover after it experienced a clutch issue after its engine rebuild. Thankfully that seems to have resolved itself and with the tides being at the right time of day for me to stay over thats what I've did. 

Hoping for an early summer migrant my first trip on Monday was disappointing. The day was cold and dull with a biting wind. I'd resolved to try and catch some more Rock Pipits for our ongoing project as they're just beginning to pair up. Theres still a couple of unringed birds about but I only managed to catch two birds that had already been fitted with an engraved blue darvic and a red 'marker' colour ring. That in itself was interesting as it gave an opportunity to see how darvic rings were faring as the oldest bird, CAK was ringed in August 2023 as an adult at the north end. As can be seen from the photo below the ring is still in good condition.

The other bird, CBB, was ringed in 2024 as a juvenile and was caught in Niffy Bay.

Again, this darvic  ring has held up well. Interestingly both birds were caught less than a metre apart and on wing length it appears that CB could be a male. It's possible that these two will now be a breeding pair and we'll continue to monitor them.

I also tried, unsuccessfully, to catch Turnstone for the flagging project we have registered for them so consoled myself by getting down low to photograph bot the wintering Turnstone and some very photogenic Purple Sandpipers.

We need to refine our catching techniques for Turnstone but thats in hand.  We've managed to ring one Turnstone so far but that has proved to be extremely successful with bird AA ringed in march last year being seen and photographed on Hilbre again this winter. It's hard to comprehend that its probably made a 6,000 mile round trip to the Arctic nd back to breed in the intervening year.

Black Scoter - 1st for Cheshire and Wirral.

Black Scoter is the American equivalent of our Common Scoter. The 1st UK record as late as 1987. Up until 2022 there had been 16 UK records including the long staying bird at Llanfairfechan that I saw in 2003 and 2004. 

Roll on 21 years and I was just about to go on holiday in Tenerife with Sean O'Hara posted a photo of a Black Scoter he'd found off the north Wirral coast at Hoylake. It was quite obviously a male Black Scoter and was associating with the large number of Common Scoter present in the area over the winter.

All week I  saw reports coming out on the bird news services and local WhatsApp groups of the Black Scoter being seen and was hopeful it would still be there on my return. Unfortunately the day after we returned I had to wait in at home for an engineer to come and fit full fibre broadband so had to wait yet another day.

Meeting up with Al we parked up and walked across to the RNLI station where we saw a few other birders forlornly looking out to sea not realising as the tide was dropping they could follow it out. We set off like a pair of Pied Pipers with the others following behind. Out at the tides edge we gradually moved further forward as the sea continued to recede. 

With a stiff breeze blowing the sea was quite choppy but we soon picked up the Black Scoter - especially when the sun shone and reflected off its huge yellow conk! It stuck out like a beacon. For the next couple of hours there followed a game of hide and seek as we advanced to the edge of the tide and the bird disappeared temporarily in the waves before popping up again. 

A great bird to see in our area following Surf Scoter a few years ago. As well as the Black Scoter we had the added bonus of 2 Long-tailed Ducks and 4 Scope. 

Black Scoter twitch

With the wind numbing our fingers (despite gloves) we decided to call it a day and walk the long way back to the shore and warmth. Another superb find by Sean O'Hara on his local patch. From Seans photo the orange tinge to the base of the upper mandible can clearly be seen. Interestingly the Black Scoter always seems to be in the closet group of Scoter just beyond the surf line and the late Martin Garner, in his Frontiers in Birding book (published 2008, ISBN 978-1-898110-47-7) notes that Black Scoter, in N America, quite often feed in the surf.

Black Redstart, Fort Perch, New Brighton, Wirral

Black Redstarts only started colonising the UK after the 2nd World War and favoured bombed out buildings and derelict sites in the south of the country. Although widespread and common in Europe they're still a scarce breeder here and are very slowly moving north with breeding attempts being made in Liverpool and Manchester.

I saw my 1st around 1976 when I was taken to see a breeding pair at a typical derelict site on the Essex coast.  They're still a scarce bird in Cheshire and Wirral and generally a coastal migrant, although they have bred, and a description species inland. I've see na few in the spring on Hilbre with the last being in spring 2023 - see here.

News that there was an apparently over wintering male at Fort Perch, New Brighton was vaguely interesting but my attention was really piqued when someone posted  photo of one of our colour ringed Hilbre Rock Pipits nearby!. When Jan suggested I might want to come along with her and our youngest daughter to an indoor soft play area, also in New Brighton, I jumped at the opportunity as long as I could check the Fort out for both birds. 

When I first arrived it was wet and there was no sign of the Black Redstart. A couple of hours later I returned in sunshine and found the bird immediately on show and at one pont came close enough for some really nice photos.

No sign of the Rock Pipit though which was a shame as although the photo clearly showed the blue darvic ring the code couldn't be read. A real shame as this represents the furthest movement for a Hilbre colour ringed Rock Pipit to date - I subsequently found out the Rock Pipit was actually seen nearer Egremont which is even further away. Thats another trip sorted.

Oystercatchers

My 1st SCAN canon netting trip of the year took place a couple of weeks ago in Bangor harbour where we set a net to catch roosting Oystercatchers at dawn.

A combination of bad luck and flighty birds (a Peregrine chasing Knot didn't help the situation) meant we didn't catch as many as we'd hoped. With a big team having a small catch was certainly more relaxed and gave time for the newcomers to discuss the ageing and sexing characteristics as will as looking at some odd moult.

The oldest bird caught was ringed in October 2005 making it nearly 20 years old. It was aged on eye colour as Euring 8 meaning we know it was definitely hatched 3 or more years ago.

An adult Oystercatcher would have been expected to have completed its post breeding moult last autumn but this bird still had unmoulted outer primaries and inner secondaries on both wings. Maybe a sign of advancing age (the bird was later found to be ringed as an adult 19 years ago) or maybe an unexplained arrested moult.

Another ageing feature for Oystercatcher is leg colour with older birds having pinker legs whilst young birds are much duller.

Euring 5 birds (born last year) are identifiable by their dull brown eye and may have some retained brown juvenile feathers as in the photos below: