Falcon assortment

Sunday, 11 October 2009

In late September I managed to take a few digiscoped pictures of a male Peregrine that was regularly appearing at Farlington Marshes:

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They are only record shots (taken on 23 September), but they serve to illustrate a couple of things about the bird. Firstly, and the reason my attention was initially drawn to it, was that it had a swollen left foot that was clearly quite painful to the bird. When I saw it almost lying down on one of the anthills in the fields I suspected something was wrong and unfortunately I was proved correct when it stood up and revealed its lameness. The other interesting aspect of the bird is its age and plumage. It is clearly a first-summer moulting to second winter (i.e. c.15 months post-fledging) as indicated by the contrast in old and worn brown (juvenile) feathers with new and fresh blue-grey (adult-type) feathers on the upper-parts and tail. The underparts are also a mixture of two different ages of feathers. Note that the cere is yellow – juveniles have blue-grey ceres until a few months old. This became important when I came to identify the same individual from images taken by photographer David Norton on 27 September:

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On a casual look this looks very like a juvenile would from below, but the yellow cere is the clincher for an older bird. Thanks to David for two great shots. You can see some of his other images at http://www.dnphotography.com/

Another day, and another falcon. This time it’s not a Peregrine, but I’m not sure what it is! Taken on 09 September it is large juvenile falcon for sure, with long legs, and sleek body. It had a coloured (perhaps inscribed) ring on its left leg. If you have any ideas please do let me know. Apologies for the dodgey-scoped images!

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Woodpecker and Teals

Sunday, 04 October 2009

After yesterday's change in the weather and the merest of drizzlings of rain today felt more autumnal at Farlington Marshes. The Bushes area held a light scattering of Blackcaps, a couple of Chiffchaffs and a House Sparrow, the latter a real scarcity on the reserve these days. A Lesser Whitethroat showed nicely, perhaps the last one of these I will see this year. I then came across a Great Spotted Woodpecker calling from one of the patches of mature hawthorns. It showed brilliantly as it thumped it's way around a few of the trunks. I took some digiscoped pictures and videos and they didn't turn out too bad considering I was looking into the sun:
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It was finding plenty of food too, as I could see it's long tongue extending out from it's bill and licking up all sorts of unidentified creepy crawlies and grubs from under the bits of bark it was flaking off.

The high tide roost of birds on the main Lake held the usual species. The best were the 13 Greenshanks tucked up at the back amongst the Redshanks. It was while scanning through these and noting the colour ring combinations of the six marked birds that I noticed a group of 17 Bearded Tits on the muddy edge at the base of the reedbed. I am presuming that they were eating fallen reed seed, as by this time I think they would have already undergone their twice-yearly change of digestive system, allowing them to eat invertebrates in the summer and reed seeds in the winter. It certainly looked like they were eating things rather than taking up liquid. It's possible that they were searching for tiny stones to ingest, which they collect in their winter gut (which develops hard plates) to help grind up the reed seeds that they eat at this season. If only they had been a bit closer I might be wiser...

The waders on the lake also included 470 Grey Plovers, 27 Knot and five Bar-tailed Godwits, the latter all golden and buffy-coloured juveniles. The 735 Black-tailed Godwits clearly included some new arrivals, as a group of 25 came over the marsh and circled the area for some time before eventually dropping onto the lake to join the rest. Some of the earlier birds had arrived from the west, almost certainly from Portsmouth Harbour, where they would have been flooded out from roost sites their by the very high spring tide. This is a regular movement by this species (Curlew also share the same flight lines and roosting behaviour) and a great example of the inter-relationships of feeding and roosting sites within the eastern Solent harbour. It highlights the importance of Langstone Harbour for roosting waders that feed in Portsmouth Harbour. Sadly it also indicates an acute lack of suitable high tide roost sites around the shores of Portsmouth Harbour these days as development has swallowed nearly all of them up.

Numbers of Dunlin are now increasing and over 300 were on the lake. These will now mostly be of the wintering population, the ones which breed in northern Scandinavia and western Russia, and a different race to the birds earlier in the autumn. Many of today's birds were noticeably longer-billed than those present during the last set of spring tides a fortnight ago. This is one of the features of this race, although there is some overlap on the biometrics and it all gets a bit complicated when dimorphism is considered...

Numbers of Pintails are also increasing, albeit more slowly, and today a total of 53 were asleep on the lake. This is such a great place for close views of this species and, in the autumn at least, unrivaled anywhere else in Hampshire. As I left the lake to continue an anti-clockwise circuit of the sea wall the regular Kingfisher perched nicely on the posts opposite the seating area, and the last of the fourteen Little Egrets now on the lake flew in to join the roost.

Small birds on the fields included twenty of so Skylarks and 50 Meadow Pipits, counted as they were variously put up by one of the resident Kestrels. Two Stonechats on the scrub at the southern tip of the reserve were the only ones I saw today. There was also a Wheatear and a Rock Pipit (my second "Rockit" of the day). Little Binness Island was completely under water and so the 1790 Oystercatchers were all roosting on Baker's Island where there was also 43 Ringed Plovers and a similar number of Dunlin. One of the feeding flocks of gulls offshore held four Common Terns, and there was a scattering of Sandwich Terns across the harbour. At least 150 Dark-bellied Brent Geese flew about a bit later (there were 222 in the harbour yesterday, a huge increase from earlier in the week).

The Deeps was hiding at least five Grey Herons and 15 Little Egrets but nothing else of note. From further north along the eastern seawall I could see the two Black-necked Grebes diving between the northern edges of Baker's and South Binness Islands.

Just before I left I took some pictures of some of the Teal feeding on the stream in front of the information building. These are always great value, and so close too. The drakes are coming out of eclipse plumage and are now showing their colours. See here:

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And, finally, I sneaked in another quick look at the main Lake which revealed a juvenile Curlew Sandpiper, perhaps another camio appearance by one elusive bird from September!