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Starling

Breached Lockdown for a Shag!

Ok, so I do not encourage anybody to breach lockdown for anything other than an emergency or work, as per government guidelines, but here’s the story of how I ended up having to travel a little further than expected, for a Shag. Of course, I mean the bird.

It all started with curiosity, as a member of public, Jo Norman, posted a picture online of what was thought to be a Cormorant at the time, upon posting the phone pictures, others started posting pics of the same bird and as soon as I saw it, I instantly noticed it was actually a juvenile ‘European Shag’, which is a rarer bird for inland waters, as they are true sea birds, found around our rocky coastline. This time of year birds are on the move to warmer climates, and when this is timed with adverse weather conditions, we do end up getting a few blown off-course and stuck inland, struggling to re-find the coast. Every year birders check through hundreds of Cormorant flocks on ponds and lakes in the hope that one of them might be a Shag, but it seldom ever is. So to have one on the Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal was very strange. Even stranger was that the bird was super tame, often walking up onto the bank and sitting right next to you. This rang a few alarm bells to me, as these are usually signs that there may be an underlying health problem, however it was fishing and catching fish really well, so I suspect, being a first year bird, it doesn’t really have any fear of humans yet. The only issue was it was being pestered by Dogs each time a Dog walker went past, which is quite often on the canal. It actually took us two days to eventually find it, but Craig Constance went on a morning mission to locate it, proper investigative style, and he eventually pinned it down in Newinn, about a half a mile up the canal from where it was last seen. Apparently it has been here for two weeks, which was also a worry as the weather hasn’t been too bad so it must be struggling to get strength back. We observed it for a while, and Lee Gregory also came over to see the bird. Lee has a lot of experience ringing these birds, so his observations were welcomed. Shortly after the bird had a very close call with another Dog, and we both thought in that moment that this was going to be the end for this poor bird as it will only get weaker. The fish it was catching were tiny, and just not enough to sustain it long term.

Craig and I got home and just couldn’t settle with the idea of leaving it there. A couple hours later we rang all the rescue centres around, and all of them agreed that it would stand a better chance if it was on the coastline in more suitable habitat, but they were all too busy to help. So we just went for it. I got an old fishing net from the attic and Craig got some blankets and we went straight back out there to re-locate it. This actually took WAY longer than I was expecting, and before I knew it, I was almost in Goytre before I found it and Craig went in the opposite direction back towards Pontypool. Thankfully it was swimming back towards Newinn, so I followed it back till it decided to rest on the bank again. By then Craig had caught up and the capture was fairly straight forward. Net straight over whilst it was resting on the bank, bill strapped up (as they can cause a bit of damage with that hook) and it was straight in a bag with blankets. The bird was putting up a good fight, very strong, which was a good sign. Usually when a bird is on its last legs, the struggle of capturing it can cause it to die from shock, but this bird was strong enough to put up a fight all the way to the coast! which is a great sign. It was underweight, but it could still fish, so he has a better chance now.

Upon release, we were a bit worried as he didn’t fly off like we expected. He could fly enough to jump up 6 foot high rocks and I watched him fly a fair distance after the dog attack, so I think he’s just lost a lot of muscle due to being underweight. There were no signs of injury, inside bill showed no fishing hooks or lures and he wasn’t otherwise showing signs of injuries. He eventually could see the tide was coming in, so climbed up the rocks and eventually settled in a perfect little hole in the cliff, where he should be safe enough. As soon as he heard the sea he seemed to have a lot more energy, so just hope it manages to get into a routine of fishing and resting for long enough to get fit again. Here’s for hoping. One things for sure, he looked a lot more at home on the coast and if we didn’t intervene, he would have been malled by a Dog or eventually starved to death. As an ecologist, this sort of thing happens quite often and I consider it now more of a responsibility and part of my Job. I do not encourage anybody to breach lockdown rules, the title was just a bit of a joke.

Vismig & Goldcliff

I’m still working along the Gwent Levels this winter, and I was looking forward to the day I started getting some autumn migration overhead. Till this day, the Vantage Point surveys had been fairly quiet, but all was about to change with the wind on the morning of the 21.09.20 where the schedule survey was lined up in accordance with high tide and an early morning. With all these factors and rolling fog coming in off the bristol channel, it must have spurred many birds to move. Before I knew it I was counting hundreds of birds, sometimes all at the same time, all heading East. The over-all count was incredible with a staggering;

X 2570 Meadow Pipit
X 287 Skylark
X 354 Siskin
X 180 Linnet

X 500 Goldfinch
X 193 Swallow
X 72 House Martin
X 33 Sand Martin

X 16 Tree Pipit
X 6 Yellow Wagtail
X 16 Grey Wagtail
X 316 Pied Wagtail

X 2 Yellowhammer
X 11 Reed Bunting
X 6 Golden Plover

Little Stint to the right

During the survey I also had 3 Little Stint drop on the last bit of mudflat with a few Dunlin and single Ringed Plover. Presumably the same birds present at Goldcliff Lagoons at the moment.

I went straight to Goldcliff afterwards, which was a good call! as Darryl Spittle found me my first Lesser Yellowlegs, which I landed on straight away from the first platform. Present also was 1 Glossy Ibis, 13 Grey Plover, 6 Ruff, 3 Greenshank, 4 Yellow Wag, 1 Whinchat, 4 Wheatear, 5 Pintail, 5 Bar-tailed Godwits amongst all the usual great birds.

The Lesser Yellowlegs was quite a distance away for my telephoto lens, so I’ve included a phone pic thru my scope, which shows much more features, even when surrounded by black-tailed Godwits.

Here's a few more from previous visits to Goldcliff and Magor, with plenty of Wheatear along the coastline, a hunting Hobby catching Dragonflies and a few special insects in the form of the beautiful Ivy Bee, Migrant Hawker and I stop at Llandegfedd on the way home found my first Ruby-tailed Wasp. There’s no wonder I haven’t seen one before, I didn’t realise how small they were. Most would mistake them for a fly! but those colours are truly incredible.

With so much luck the day before on visible migration, I arranged to meeting, socially distanced with Craig Constance and Daniel Webb at Goldcliff and were also later joined by Darryl Spittle. I really enjoy this sort of birding as it tests your ability to recognise calls on the fly and even the visual elements happen so fast, you really need to know what you’re looking for, and I couldn’t have been surrounded by better influences really as these guys have been doing it a long time and they’re quite the pro. That said, if there was anything I brought to the table, it was my parabolic dish, as it allowed us to pull out individuals in a flock that would have otherwise been too distant to hear. I’ve listed a few of the favourite birds in the recording and mashed them together.

Nocmig

It’s been a very mixed bag on Nocmig recordings lately, with some really bad nights with 0 score, but there has been a slow movement of Song Thrush, and last two nights have had my first movement of Redwing, yesterday also seeing my first on the canal whilst looking for the Shag. Last night though was a big score! With 2 Redwing, a BARN Owl! which is a new one for me and totally unexpected over Sebastopol, but for me a personal favourite, a Golden Plover! which I believe is a young bird if I read correctly, as it’s slightly higher pitch and a shorter, less formed call.. but I could be wrong. Either way, very happy with those results and it totally pays off.

I’ll end this very long blog with a picture of this beautiful Starling. Still on my wish list to get a decent recording of these guys.

Starling

Indian Summer

Anything can happen this time of year with the weather but September has become a month not to underestimate, as we have consistently had warm weather creeping in, just when we all had a taste of the autumn in august with wet, windy and cold. Migration has some-what come to a stand-still in the last week, with no waders moving on my nocmig, but it has been replaced with a large movement of Siskin, Meadow Pipit and the odd Chaffinch. Now my Nightjar have left for Africa, I usually turn my attention to the water. Llandegfedd has already produced a few Ospreys on passage, one of which stayed for a week but remained antisocial due to all the boat activity on the reservoir. We were lucky to witness it leaving the reservoir after one last circle of the water in search of a fish and literally the next day, the same bird was picked up at Chew Valley Lake.

It’s now a great time to search for any late summer insects. Wasp Spider females are now at their largest size so they are easier to find and there are plenty of Caterpillar’s around that are fattening up, ready to pupate. In terms of resident birds, the local Raptor population seem to be turning to insects for their main source of food, including Red Kites, that I’ve observed feeding on what looked like large Beetles. This field was full of sheep so it’s likely that the beetles are a variety of dung beetle species that are draw to the fields by the sheep droppings. The coast-line is filling up with waders, with large flocks of Turnstone, Ringed Plover, Sanderling, Dunlin, Oystercatchers and Knot. It’s been a great year so far with waders, mostly around the coastline, with an abundance of Curlew Sandpiper, Pectoral Sandpiper and Little Stint in the country, all of which have been seen at Goldcliff Lagoons in the last two months. I have a group of friends that regularly bird Goldcliff Lagoons, and if you want to see regular updates on the birds seen there. I highly recommend looking at Blair Jones’s blog - https://www.thewildlifeoculus.com/ where he has a very well written, running documentary of Goldcliff Lagoons that’s also packed full of images that paint a vivid picture of the often, action packed lagoons. I also recommend subscribing to John Lawton’ youtube channel - https://www.youtube.com/c/johnluk/videos as John also spends a lot of time on the Gwent Levels and puts a lot of time and effort putting together video clips. Video is another ball-game, you really have to be dedicated as not only does it take up a lot of space on the hard drive, it’s pain-staking to edit footage and cut it up into a presentable form.

I have a lot of images below, some of which have been taken very recently on short trips to the beach at Ogmore-by-sea. All others have been taken in Gwent, with a Great White Egret showing well at Blaenavon Garn Lakes. Wasp Spiders at Marshfield on the Gwent Levels, Osprey at Llandegfedd and the rest, pretty much in my tiny little Garden.

I’ve also been continuing to search for natural textures. I’m planning on using these images as part of a task at In Our Nature CIC. For anybody suffering with mental health issues, it can be an important exercise to make your world smaller. You might find yourself stuck in a closed environment all the time, whether it’s office work or you might be house-bound for health reason, so open spaces can feel a little overwhelming. Focusing less on over-all landscapes, and more on the little details right in-front of you can be a good way to over-come what can otherwise be a sensory overload. The same technique also works for people who take in too much information, in that they’re constantly exposed to open landscapes, where they’re always having to interpret large quantities of information. People who drive long distances tend to suffer from this and it’s often subconsciously so you aren’t even aware of how much information the brain is actually taking in.
We’re subjected to information every single day and we can’t control everything, but we can chose to concentrate on the little things.

Sound

The end of august was quite a windy one so I didn’t do much in terms of sound recording, other than of course this recording below from the comfort of my doorstep. Here you can really hear the depth of the wind storm at was upon us that day.

Since then it’s returned to our Indian Summer, and the water coming thru the inlet at Llandegfedd sounds beautiful.

The bird soundtrack is still very much so Robin dominated now but with the hot weather I have started to hear the odd Dunnock, Blue Tit and Great Tit singing. Next on my list is to get some nice recordings at the beach, the sound of Waves are magic, but I’m saving this for those cold winter days where there won’t be any birds singing.

Nocmig

I haven’t had much on the wader front, as there’s been a low pressure over Scottish seas for a few weeks now, holding those wader flocks back. I have had large numbers of Siskin, Meadow Pit and Grey Wagtails over the house early morning though, with the off Yellow Wagtail in the mix. I’ve just started to get Chaffinch in the morning also but Siskin seem to be dominating the morning migration, with numbers reaching in the hundreds. I’ve had that many recordings I haven’t uploaded any of them yet but here’s one of the closer Yellow Wagtail calls to end this lengthy blog.

Feed The Birds

Wasn't long ago I was talking about Spring! With spring flowers in full bloom and lots of birds singing. Some pretty cold temperatures have been replaced with that however, followed by a Red Warning for wind and snow. Gusty cold conditions like this make it really tough for birds to survive. While some are extremely good at surviving in harsh conditions, others aren't, and they do perish as a result. Small birds like Coal Tits need to consume at-least 30% of their body weight per day in order to survive, some may need up to 100%!. Theres no better time to put high fat seeds, fat balls and meal worms out for your Garden Birds, as without it, they may struggle. 
The images below were taken yesterday at Ian Howell's Woodland Bird Hide. A fabulous hide with a great selection of species. The cold snap even brought in a Greenfinch which was a new species for the feeders. I wish I had a setup like this at home but I'll still continue to feed the birds, even if it's only Jackdaws and Black-headed Gulls that make the most of it.