This is a well known site close to the cheshire / Shropshire border that I've passed on numerous occasions when working in Telford on a project a few years ago but never got round to stopping. Once I'd left the Telford site all I wanted to do was get home and get some food and a shower.
Part of the Heath is managed as a reserve by the Butterfly Conservation Trust primarily for the Silver-studded Blue butterfly and this site is probably the only site it can now be found in the Midlands.
With reports of good numbers being seen this year and a sunny afternoon forecast I decided to make the short drive down the A41to see if I could find any to photograph.
Amazingly the first one I saw found me first and landed on my camera strap before fluttering on to my finger tip:
There were plenty of Common Blues on site as well but the Silver-studded are smaller with a more distinct black and white margin around the edge of the vivid blue wings. They get their name from the electric slivery blue spots in the centre of the spots at the edge of the lower wing.
After a good search and seeing a lot of scruffy looking individuals I managed to find a pristine looking male with a nice looking female for comparison.
Male Silver-studded Blue
Female Silver-studded Blue
What a great place to wile away a few hours enjoying butterflies in the sunshine. It wasn't only the star attraction as the place was teeming with Common Blue, Small Skipper, Tortoiseshell, Meadow Brown, Small Copper and Small Heath butterflies.
Avian attractions included Hobby, Yellowhammer and Yellow Wagtail. A great site and one I've been very remiss at not visiting.
The recent spell of good weather had left the island looking parched. The dead flower stems off Thrift, blowing lazily in the wind, are in stark contrast to the vivid purple of the newly opened flowers of Rock Sea Lavender. Contrasting patches of yellow are provided by flowering Ladies Bedstraw (so called as it was once used as a sedative for ladies in labour) whilst the edible leaves of Sea Purslane form small oasis of green among the parched grass. Meanwhile the small blue flower bells of Harebell can be seen poking through the grass in the Obs garden.
Sea Purslane
Dead Thrift
Rock Sea Lavender and a patch of green Sea Purslane
Ladies Bedstraw
Harebell
Flowering Ragwort has attracted day flying Cinnibar Moths and their tiger striped caterpillars are on almost every plant. The birds leave them alone as they are distasteful as they absorb the toxins from the plant into their bodies. Cinnibar Moths got their name form the red mineral cinnibar that is a toxic mercury ore. Funny how a moth named after a red toxic ore is itself toxic.
Two pairs of Swallows seem to have bred on the island this year with these un-ringed birds being seen on the cliffs in Niffy Bay. One nest of pullus was ringed so these are a different brood.
Meadow Pipits also seem to be doing well and young Linnets were everywhere with four being ringed during the morning.
Adult Meadow Pipit
The only signs of migration was when a Woodpigeon dropped briefly into the Canoe Club garden before heading off towards the mainland.
All in all a very pleasant way to spend a Wednesday morning and I was back home in time for lunch after washing the salt and sand off the Landrover.
Elegant tern is one of those birds that have had a chequered history in the UK,. They breed on the western seaboard of the USA so aren't really expected to get here. There have been a number of records over the years - including one I saw in July 2002 that ended up in Black Rock Sands, N Wales. This one did the rounds having also been seen in Norfolk, Devon & Cornwall. Until recently none of the UK records were accepted onto the British list because of the uncertainty surrounding the possibility of hybrids or back-crosses with Sandwich Terns.
Several pairs have now been proven to breed in the Banc d'Arguin, Gironde, France. See here for a 'Birdguides' article explaining how DNA analysis proved the existence of 'pure' Elegant Terns rather than hybrids or crosses. Since that discovery a number of British records, including the Black Rock Sands bird, have been accepted onto category A off the British list. One of the French ringed birds turned up in Pagham Harbour, Sussex in 2017 before subsequently moving to Dorset. They're still a rare bird in the UK with only 4 accepted records up until 2019.
When Mark Sutton saw a yellow / orange billed tern in the Sandwich Tern colony briefly at Cemlyn first thoughts were either Lesser -crested or even Royal but Mark got better photos and it turned (terrible pun) out he'd potentially found the UK's 5th record of Elegant Tern.
A planned trip to the Skerries last Thursday afternoon, to ring Arctic Tern chicks, provided me with the opportunity to spend a few hours looking for the Elegant Tern as well as trying to get a few colour ring / flag combinations from the Sandwich Terns and hopefully pick up one of the chicks we flagged a few years ago now returning as an adult. See blog post from 2019 here.
Arriving just after 9 am I found a few people standing on the shingle bank talking as the Elegant Tern had flown out to sea about 30 minutes earlier. Busying myself looking for colour rings whilst I waited for it to return I didn't see it sneak in. Nor did anyone as it suddenly appeared displaying with a fish to a Sandwich Tern! For the next hour or so it played hide and seek in the vegetation, occasionally showing well but often hidden.
I did manage to find one of our orange flagged Sandwich Terns from 2019 - ANP! This bird is, so far, the only one thats been seen back at the colony and has ben previously recorded on 12th & 13th of June. I'm still waiting on the information from two more darvic ringed Sandwich Terns I also found.
With time pressing I walked back along the shingle to the Landrover before grabbing something to eat and heading to Holyhead to meet up with Rachel & Steve before getting our high speed RIB ride to the Skerries where wardens Laura and Anna were waiting to help us.
We couldn't go over to the island last year due to Covid restrictions and there were no wardens on either. It seems a peregrine disrupted the colony and all the terns deserted. This year they're back and the colony is its usual noisy tumultuous self!
Arctic Terns are really spectacular little birds but highly aggressive and noisy. Wearing a hat is definitely recommended when ringing the chicks as the adults have no hesitation in trying to tattoo your head with their stiletto like bill. Even with a hat you can feel the strikes. A number of adults have again been flagged this year but this trip was all about the youngsters and we had a window where we needed to ring a sample of 500 as part of an ongoing project. Most chicks were well grown but the were a few unhatched eggs and a few chicks only just hatching. Another week and we would probably have missed the majority of the birds as a lot had already started flying short distances.
Newly hatched Arctic Tern chick with egg tooth visible
A pair of well grown Arctic Tern chicks
An amazing variety of colours in these tern eggs.
With time pressing there was just time to photograph a few adults before heading back on the RIB to Holyhead and the slow drive home for a shower and some dinner. Access to the Skerries is very restricted and I'm lucky to be able to help Steve & Rachel with their ringing project.
These birds will soon be heading south to spend our winter in the antarctic. A truly spectacular migration for a spectacular little bird.
It was great to get back to some semblance of normality with the first Puffin island trip of the year albeit with a very small team! The target was to ring as many Razorbill chicks as we could find along with any adults we could catch and as many Shag chicks as we could find. Puffin Island has been the focus of long term studies in seabird ecology for a number of years and the ringing and monitoring of adult and chick survival rates, brood sizes and foraging behaviour is all part of this ongoing research.
It was distressing to find a Greater black-backed Gull entangled in fishing line with a hook stuck down its throat and one that had passed through the muscle of its wing. Rachel managed to cut the barb off the hook that had got imbedded in the muscle and pull it right through. We then cut the line as close to the beak as we could and the bird flew off strongly so hopefully it'll be able to feed and the hook will eventually pass through its gullet or be regurgitated out. It appeared to have two well grown chicks nearby and must have been struggling to feed them. The only thing we can think of is that it dived on a fisherman's bait as he cast his line and then swallowed the hook so the line was cut leaving the bird to suffer a painful death if we hadn't managed to free it.
There was at least10 m of line wrapped around vegetation and rocks and you can see it trailing over the rocks to the left of Rachels feet. I brought the line home and cut it into short lengths before putting it in the bin. As with my recent trip around the Gannet colony on Noss (Shetland - see here ) I was dismayed to see the amount of discarded plastic these birds are using on their nests. These Shag chicks, for example, had green nylon rope incorporated into their nest with the vegetation.
A lot of the Razorbill chicks were well grown and would soon be leaving their natal sites to join their parents on the sea before they can fly. This chick was about ready to leave and looked very similar to an adult.
Juvenile Razorbill
Adult Razorbill
Although not the prime focus of the trip we also managed to catch and ring a few Guillemots including this adult 'bridled' bird.
Bridled Guillemot
Bridled Guillemots are quite rare in southern colonies the percentage of bridled birds gets higher the further north you get with up to 40% some colonies comprising this form.
Puffin Island does have a few Puffins and these do seem to be increasing in number. They're always good to ring and we don't get them every trip but Ros managed to catch this adult.
Many of the gulls had well grown chicks but many eggs were still hatching like this Herring Gulls nest where one of the eggs was just beginning to 'chip' with an already hatched youngster on the edge of the nest.
We rarely catch adult gulls but a pair of squabbling Lesser black-backed gulls provided a perfect opportunity for me to practice my gull wrangling skills and catch one of them!
Katherine ringing the adult Lesser black-backed Gull
All in all a great day but very tiring with almost 10 hours continuous activity. At the end of the day I was aching all over and bleeding form numerous scratches inflicted by Shags and Razorbills. Tired and hungry I got home about 20.30 after leaving the house at 07.00. As usual my 'seabird' ringing clothes were tied up in a bin bag and went straight in a hot wash before I got in the shower and attempted to get rid of the engrained guano and dust. After that it was dinner and a well deserved cold beer.
Once upon a time a Black-browed Albatross in British waters was a mythical creature. Prior to 1972 there were only a handful of records and only one long staying bird - one that frequented the Gannet colony on Bass Rock between 1967 & 1969 around the time the Gannets were breeding. It was not very accessible but when one turned up on Unst in 1972 it became a regular feature of trips north for generations of birders until it was last seen in 1995! Affectionally known as Albert (as in Albert Ross) I saw this bird in 1976.
More recently a bird has been seen regularly off Bempton cliffs. Some times its not stayed long before heading off somewhere else but this year it had been seen on two consecutive days. After catching up with Snowy Owl on Shetland after 45 years last Tuesday I decided to go for the double as I did in 1976. Snowy Owl and Black-browed Albatross in the same week. I didn't make the decision until 10.30 pm so didn't bother going to bed.
Setting off at 01.00 I arrived at Bempton in the dark to find the car park already quite busy. Unlike the previous day the weather was wet and windy and I shivered waiting for it to get light enough to scan the cliff face where the Albatross was last reported at 21.45 the previous night. Nothing! It soon became apparent the bird wasn't there and people started meandering away to other view points. Meeting up with Chris Griffin we wandered down the footpath to a couple of other viewpoints before heading back to where we started. By now I was getting hungry, thirsty and seriously cold so I decided to head back to the carpark for a comfort break, some food and a hot drink. No sooner had I turned the engine on and poured myself a mug of tea the message came through it was back and had flown along the cliff edge!
Abandoning both my tea and a half finished breakfast of a packet of Walkers finest prawn cocktail crisps I set off down the footpath to the clifftop where there was confusion as to where the bird had disappeared to. Luckily I was stood next to someone who found it sitting distantly on the sea and I saw it through his telescope before it flew off round a headland out of sight.
For the next few hours it played hide and seek with the assembled birders - suddenly appearing and then being lost to view as it hugged the cliff. Several times it landed among the Gannets before moving off again until eventually it settled for an extended period and showed well if distantly.
An incredible bird that evoked memories of going on a Pelagic from Simons Town, S Africa in June 2009. See here for trip report. Although I wasn't lucky enough to have it fly really close I got a few photos and a short video of it sat on the cliff.
Eventually I'd had enough. The cold, wet, hunger, thirst and lack of sleep were getting to me. Saying my goodbyes I headed back to the car for a second time with the thought of a nice warm mug of tea.....only there wasn't any. I'd stuffed the flask into a pair of waterproof socks in attempt to keep the tea hotter for longer but must have accidentally left the lid loose as my socks were now full of tea. It could have been worse. Without the socks I'd have had a very soggy bottom that was nothing to do with the Great British Bake Off.
Patch list (walking distance from house): 136. Garganey
What this blogs about.
This is my blog about birding on the Wirral, in Cheshire and beyond. Its basically an online diary of my sightings and trips. It'll be updated regularly to include photographs of birds (and other wildlife) I've photographed both in the UK and abroad. Why a blog? It's a way of keeping memories of good birds. good trips and interesting ringing sessions for me to look back on when I get to old to be bothered going out in the cold and wet anymore!!#
All photo's are taken by me unless specified and I retain the copyright. Photos shall not be used for any other purpose without express permission.
Moved to Cheshire in 1983 and settled there after marrying in 1986. I've been birding since I was 7 or 8 - it was that long ago I can't remember!
My formative years were spent in Suffolk and birds became a passion in my teens. Started twitching when still at school but began seriously whilst at University in the late 70's and early 80's. I am old enough to remember Nancy's cafe!
Took a bit of a break due to other committment but now able enjoy getting out birding both locally and for long distance twitches and trips.
Married to my beautiful wife Janet since 1986 and have two grown-up children and 4 gorgeous grandchildren.
Trained as a ringer firstly in the 1970's but let it lapse after leaving University in 1982. Re-trained again a few years ago and now a regular with Hilbre Bird observatory and SCAN ringing group.
I first became interested in photography whilst still at school and used an old Zenith SLR with a Tamron 300 mm lens. I've rediscovered my earlier interest and have graduated to digital - much easier to use for an amateur like me!
