This morning saw me looking for overhead passage of diurnally migrating birds from the top of Broadmarsh at the north end of the harbour. In the past this has been a good place to see the annual spectacle of Woodpigeon migration where a five-figure count would have been expected given the date. I was actually rather disappointed as things never really got going this morning and what did petered out quite early. Nevertheless the total of 2960 was still worth getting up early for (I have a long walk to get to the site and the Woodies are early risers!). Other interest was minimal with virtually none of the normal finches moving over and just a handful of Jackdaws, Stock Doves, Starlings, finches and thrushes.
Woodpigeons are one of our commonest resident birds but the ones on the move at the moment don’t fall into that category. But here the explanations get a bit messy with contradictory statements being made by other commentators and evidence to back it all up rather thin on the ground! It is likely, perhaps, that many of these birds are from Scandinavia moving through Britain on their annual migration to areas much further south, probably the cork oak forests of Spain. Certainly many thousands depart from the UK via headlands in Dorset every autumn. But I can’t help but think that maybe some of these birds are British nesters moving southwards to winter in warmer climes (like the Scandinavian birds certainly do – whether they regularly migrate through Britain in any number is still a bit contentious in my opinion). Why can’t our nesters be comprised of both truly resident birds AND partial migrants, numbers of the latter varying each year due to the abundance of natural food like beech mast. Food for thought…
Moving swiftly on…. and back to one of my favourite British birds….the Dark-bellied Brent Goose. Once the pigeon migration had stopped I started making counts of the number of young birds in the flocks now feeding in the harbour. Young geese stay with their parents throughout the first winter and are marked slightly differently to the adults (more of this at a later date). This enables “age counts” to be undertaken each winter by a dedicated band of recorders throughout our land (well throughout the range of the DBBG). On the basis of what I have seen so far this autumn the geese have clearly had another poor breeding season with very few juveniles present. I will report back with some figures later in the winter but at the moment things don’t look good. Luckily they are long-lived birds so many have still returned to spend the winter with us. Overall peak numbers, though, will undoubtedly be less than last winter as annual mortality is estimated at about fifteen percent and there are certainly fewer juveniles than that around.
The seawall along the east side of Broadmarsh, near the slipway, provides a good vantage point for much of the northeastern quarter of Langstone Harbour and is especially good for counting grebes at this time of year. With additions from a count made in another part of the harbour a bit later I saw a total of 99 Great Crested Grebes this morning, plus a group of seven Black-necked Grebes. Red-breasted Mergansers were quite numerous, with 68, and a single Goldeneye was also present. I have often regarded the latter species as an indicator of local climate change. Throughout the 1990s I would have expected double-figure counts of this species by this stage in the autumn but milder autumns in the current decade has led to them arriving back increasingly later and in ever smaller numbers as they stay further north and east and inland.
There were lots of birds at Farlington, as usual. The best was a female Marsh Harrier quartering the reedbed during the early afternoon giving quite fantastic views. She was also present yesterday afternoon, and may be the same bird which roosted on the reserve last Saturday. At one stage, while watching her, a group of three Swallows flew through, which for November is quite notable and really made the day; it really was summer meets winter as the Swallows flew over a lake full of hundreds of honking Brent Geese. There were also lots of roosting waders here including a nice group of 11 Avocets (which started to arrive to winter last week) and almost 400 Black-tailed Godwits. Redshank (580) made up the bulk of the rest of the numbers, but there were also some Grey Plover and Dunlin and a single Greenshank and Ruff. Common Snipe were gathered on the cut reed areas in some numbers – I could see 65 – but I couldn’t find a Jack Snipe today. But, in traditional “and here’s one I prepared earlier” style, the video below was taken on 08 October in the same area. It shows two things. Firstly, how camouflaged these birds are against their chosen habitat. Secondly, their strange feeding movements – slow-motion spring-in-your-step bobbing! Comments welcome from anyone who knows why they do this (but no comments about the shakiness of the video please)!
The high spring tide had covered all but the top of Little Binness Island (the island of salt marsh to the south of the lake seawall) which made for a good concentration of birds. The majority were Dunlin, all of about 6000 of them, vying for space with everything else which included Grey Plovers, Shelducks, Oystercatchers and a bunch of 21 Little Egrets and 6 Grey Herons. This must be the most important high tide bird roost within Langstone Harbour that isn’t part of a nature reserve!
Since it has rained recently (although not much) many of the ducks have shifted their distribution across the reserve as they find new places to feed and roost on and near water. The stream was the poor relation to the deeps today, the latter now alive with ducks especially Wigeon (about 250 now grazing around the edges, mostly on our mown areas – see earlier post Wigeon-tastic). We still need a lot more rain to fill the deeps and other water bodies, as unlike the stream and lake which are fed by springs and drainage water from further north and have a large catchment area, virtually all other water bodies on Farlington are reliant on direct rain and run-off from the fields to fill them up. The scrape – that half-hidden pool in the middle of the reserve - is still virtually bird-less, whereas normally this too would be full of Wigeon and other wildfowl by now.
Just to convince you that I do still look at small birds in bushes, I saw two male Bullfinches in the education area north of the A27, and quite a few Reed Buntings which seem especially numerous on the reserve at the moment. A party of nine Lesser Redpolls very almost landed on top of some bushes along the eastern seawall but thought better of it. Rain stopped play later in the afternoon and I returned home and back to work...
Woodpigeons are one of our commonest resident birds but the ones on the move at the moment don’t fall into that category. But here the explanations get a bit messy with contradictory statements being made by other commentators and evidence to back it all up rather thin on the ground! It is likely, perhaps, that many of these birds are from Scandinavia moving through Britain on their annual migration to areas much further south, probably the cork oak forests of Spain. Certainly many thousands depart from the UK via headlands in Dorset every autumn. But I can’t help but think that maybe some of these birds are British nesters moving southwards to winter in warmer climes (like the Scandinavian birds certainly do – whether they regularly migrate through Britain in any number is still a bit contentious in my opinion). Why can’t our nesters be comprised of both truly resident birds AND partial migrants, numbers of the latter varying each year due to the abundance of natural food like beech mast. Food for thought…
Moving swiftly on…. and back to one of my favourite British birds….the Dark-bellied Brent Goose. Once the pigeon migration had stopped I started making counts of the number of young birds in the flocks now feeding in the harbour. Young geese stay with their parents throughout the first winter and are marked slightly differently to the adults (more of this at a later date). This enables “age counts” to be undertaken each winter by a dedicated band of recorders throughout our land (well throughout the range of the DBBG). On the basis of what I have seen so far this autumn the geese have clearly had another poor breeding season with very few juveniles present. I will report back with some figures later in the winter but at the moment things don’t look good. Luckily they are long-lived birds so many have still returned to spend the winter with us. Overall peak numbers, though, will undoubtedly be less than last winter as annual mortality is estimated at about fifteen percent and there are certainly fewer juveniles than that around.
The seawall along the east side of Broadmarsh, near the slipway, provides a good vantage point for much of the northeastern quarter of Langstone Harbour and is especially good for counting grebes at this time of year. With additions from a count made in another part of the harbour a bit later I saw a total of 99 Great Crested Grebes this morning, plus a group of seven Black-necked Grebes. Red-breasted Mergansers were quite numerous, with 68, and a single Goldeneye was also present. I have often regarded the latter species as an indicator of local climate change. Throughout the 1990s I would have expected double-figure counts of this species by this stage in the autumn but milder autumns in the current decade has led to them arriving back increasingly later and in ever smaller numbers as they stay further north and east and inland.
There were lots of birds at Farlington, as usual. The best was a female Marsh Harrier quartering the reedbed during the early afternoon giving quite fantastic views. She was also present yesterday afternoon, and may be the same bird which roosted on the reserve last Saturday. At one stage, while watching her, a group of three Swallows flew through, which for November is quite notable and really made the day; it really was summer meets winter as the Swallows flew over a lake full of hundreds of honking Brent Geese. There were also lots of roosting waders here including a nice group of 11 Avocets (which started to arrive to winter last week) and almost 400 Black-tailed Godwits. Redshank (580) made up the bulk of the rest of the numbers, but there were also some Grey Plover and Dunlin and a single Greenshank and Ruff. Common Snipe were gathered on the cut reed areas in some numbers – I could see 65 – but I couldn’t find a Jack Snipe today. But, in traditional “and here’s one I prepared earlier” style, the video below was taken on 08 October in the same area. It shows two things. Firstly, how camouflaged these birds are against their chosen habitat. Secondly, their strange feeding movements – slow-motion spring-in-your-step bobbing! Comments welcome from anyone who knows why they do this (but no comments about the shakiness of the video please)!
The high spring tide had covered all but the top of Little Binness Island (the island of salt marsh to the south of the lake seawall) which made for a good concentration of birds. The majority were Dunlin, all of about 6000 of them, vying for space with everything else which included Grey Plovers, Shelducks, Oystercatchers and a bunch of 21 Little Egrets and 6 Grey Herons. This must be the most important high tide bird roost within Langstone Harbour that isn’t part of a nature reserve!
Since it has rained recently (although not much) many of the ducks have shifted their distribution across the reserve as they find new places to feed and roost on and near water. The stream was the poor relation to the deeps today, the latter now alive with ducks especially Wigeon (about 250 now grazing around the edges, mostly on our mown areas – see earlier post Wigeon-tastic). We still need a lot more rain to fill the deeps and other water bodies, as unlike the stream and lake which are fed by springs and drainage water from further north and have a large catchment area, virtually all other water bodies on Farlington are reliant on direct rain and run-off from the fields to fill them up. The scrape – that half-hidden pool in the middle of the reserve - is still virtually bird-less, whereas normally this too would be full of Wigeon and other wildfowl by now.
Just to convince you that I do still look at small birds in bushes, I saw two male Bullfinches in the education area north of the A27, and quite a few Reed Buntings which seem especially numerous on the reserve at the moment. A party of nine Lesser Redpolls very almost landed on top of some bushes along the eastern seawall but thought better of it. Rain stopped play later in the afternoon and I returned home and back to work...
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