Birding in black and white at Titchfield Haven

Over the course of the weekend I have made a couple of visits to the Haven, for no other reason than to enjoy the present spectacle of breeding gulls and waders. There is also the long-staying Greater Yellowlegs which is always worth a look if its showing, but I don't tend to seek it out if its not. As well as the breeding birds there are always plenty of other species on hand and this weekend there were Dunlin, Black-tailed Godwit, Oystercatcher, Redshank and a couple of marauding Lesser Black-backed Gulls. Single Curlew Sandpiper and Little Stint have also been seen this week and over the weekend, but I didn't manage to catch up with either.

Whilst walking around it was evident that the majority of the birds I was watching were mainly black and white, well at least it appeared like that, so I thought I would theme this post on them. My first species is Pied Avocet. This year is providing to be a good one for Avocets, with at least 14 nests on the south scrape. This species has to be a favourite of many a birder; they are elegant and very distinctive with their black and white markings. The upturned bill is perhaps the most distinctive feature, perfectly designed for sweeping from left to right as they feed. They are often feeding just in front of the hides giving excellent views and the first chicks of they year on the south scrape were a welcome sight, let's hope the evade the Lesser Black-backs.

Pied Avocet - There are at least 14 pairs on the scrape this year and truly black and white bird

Another Pied Avocet

The Black-headed Gull colony at the Haven is doing very well, I haven't bothered to count them but there are loads. Within the colony there are a couple of pairs of Mediterranean Gulls and it is this species that is my next black and white species. The hood on a Med gull is jet black and contrasts with the white neck and underparts, there is of course the light grey back/mantle, but I won't dwell on that. The image below clearly shows the brown hood of the Black-headed Gull in comparison with the black hood of the Med, somebody clearly got it wrong when they named Black-headed Gull.

Adult Mediterranean Gulls (one sitting on the nest behind the other). Its jet black hood contrasts with the white neck and underparts as opposed to the Black-headed Gulls with their brown hoods - who on earth came up with Black-headed for this species

A Northern Lapwing was feeding, whilst protecting its two chicks just in front of the hide on the north scrape. Another distinctive species with its dark olive green back but black bib, crown and face mask, so this is my next black and white species. Its crest is also black and curls up in the opposite direction to the Avocet and is longer on the male. 

Lapwing - ok not really black and white, but more dark olive green and white, but it does have black on it!

My next species was Greater Yellowlegs, not a black and white species at all really, more grey and white, but has showed so well this weekend that I just had to include some images. Now that it has come into some plumage there are some black centres to some of the feathers on the back, so I think I can just about get away with including it. The bird seems to have got into a bit of a pattern now, when the river is high it moves up to the Posbrook flood, but as more mud becomes exposed on the river it moves back down. Occasionally it visits the scrapes but those visits are more sporadic.

Greater Yellowlegs - Definitely not black and white, more grey and white, but is its summer plumage it does have black centres to feathers on the mantle

Greater Yellowlegs

As I left the reserve and headed back to my car I noticed the almost resident Black Swan in the harbour. An all black bird, except that is for the red bill, but when sat next to a Mute Swan there was a very black and white scene. There were two Black Swans when I was at the Haven the other day, I don't think anyone has any idea where they have come from but they are an interesting addition to the harbours avifauna.

Two Swans, one Black and one White (Black Swan and Mute Swan)

Lapwings and Skylarks

I was recently contacted by Barrie Roberts, a trainee bird ringer working towards his pulli (nestling) licence, about doing some Lapwing pulli ringing. Barrie has been doing plenty of other nestling birds with his trainer but had yet to ring many ground nesting birds. This morning I took him down to the site near Havant where I normally ring Lapwing chicks, to see what was happening there. It is always difficult to predict what stage the chicks will be at and I had seen that Lapwing chicks had hatched nearly a month ago on some sites, but he was keen to go. There are usually only low numbers of Lapwings at the site, despite the extensive amount of habitat and in recent years it has been increasingly difficult to find the birds that are there because the site is not grazed anymore and subsequently it is becoming dominated with rush. 

We arrived on site at 9am and almost immediately picked up two adult Lapwing on the edge of the rush pasture. At this point patience is required, because if the adults are spooked, they will alert the chicks, and they will sit tight. After a few minutes the first chick came into view and began feeding near one of the adults. I jumped the gate and edged my way along hedge keeping an eye on it. I was about 50m away when I picked up a second chick, but at the same time the adults saw me and began alarm calling. I kept a fix on the first bird whilst also occasionally glimpsing at the second bird; before long we had two Lapwing chicks for Barrie to ring.

The usual strategy of the chicks is to run for a bit of dense cover and then tuck themselves under it, although if there is no dense cover they will nestle down into a shallow depression. When settled down it is amazing how similar they look to a bit of horse dung and even though you have seen where they have gone down, it can take a few minutes to find them.

Can you see the Lapwing chick

A closer view of the second chick hiding from us

Juvenile Lapwing - one of two ringed

Once we had finished ringing the chicks we continued on with a circuit of the field, regularly scanning for more birds, but it appears that there was just the one pair this year, and only the two chicks. As well as Lapwings there are also fantastic numbers of Skylarks and Meadow Pipits on the site. I have never ringed these species here, but this morning we decided to spend a bit of time looking for nests. There were so many Skylarks that it was difficult to assess the number of breeding territories, but none of the birds we watched seemed to be carrying prey. We did eventually find a nest, but that was more by luck than judgement; we were stood watching a bird on the ground when one flew off the nest just in front of us. The patience and skill required to find a nest is very evident when you look at the image below. A clutch of four eggs were in the nest, so we recorded it for the BTO nest Recording Scheme and quickly moved on.

Skylark nest is located centrally in the image

Cutch of Skylark eggs

We spent a good hour or so wandering around the site with the notable species recorded being Mistle Thrush (3), Stonechat (3), Yellowhammer (1 pair), Red Kite (1), Buzzard (2), Kestrel (2), Whitethroat (1), Linnet (several pairs) and Tawny Owl (1). A Dingy Skipper was the butterfly highlight.

A Handful of Nuthatches - May 2014

I was hoping to spend the weekend of 10/11th May trying to catch more Common Nightingales before heading off on a well earned break. Unfortunately near gale force winds over the course of the whole weekend made it impossible to use mist nets. Instead I decided to check a few nest boxes for a spot of pullus ringing which is something neither Chris or Rob, two of my trainees, had done before. On the first day I took Chris off in search of Northern Lapwing chicks and then on to check nest boxes.The first stop was my usual site just north of Portsmouth where there are regularly two or three lapwing territories. It was two weeks earlier than last year, but I had seen on the various forms of social media that chicks had hatched in many places, so it was worth a punt. 

When we arrived on site it was immediately apparent that the task of finding chicks was going to be much harder this year. Grazing at the site appeared to have virtually stopped and subsequently large areas of rush pasture had become dominant. Undeterred we pressed on and almost immediately I picked up our first chick wandering amongst the rushes. I was getting brief glimpses as it walked through the vegetation, but despite my best efforts I was unable to locate it. But they say that patience is a virtue and with some subtle positioning and stealthy movements (so as not to alert the parents) we had soon caught two chicks.

Northern Lapwing Chick, the first of two caught

Finding lapwing chicks can be challenging, even when you think that you know where they went down. If you alert the parents they utter an alarm call that makes the chicks take cover, usually in tufts of vegetation or small depressions, which makes things even harder. Fortunately I have an eye for them now and as long as they don’t run too far it is usually not too much trouble to catch them.

Northern Lapwing chick hiding in the tall vegetation

The first chick was a good size, weighing in at 95grams. It’s wing feathers were just starting to pop out of their sheaths so I suspect it was around ten days old. At this age they don’t seem to be phased by the whole experience and when being weighed they stand tall and stick their head out of the weighing pot to see what is going on.

Northern Lapwing chick being weighed

The second chick was considerably smaller, in fact half the weight of the first and was probably around a week old. Given the size difference between these two birds I suspect they were from two different broods, which would suggest there were more chicks out there for the taking, unfortunately we didn’t find any. There were five adult birds at the site, so one may have been still incubating, so it will certainly be worth another visit.

The smaller of the two Northern Lapwing chicks

Our next stop was a site in Gosport, where Chris has a load of nest boxes up. There were approximately 15 boxes to check, assuming they hadn’t been destroyed by the resident Grey Squirrel population. We had mixed success, the first two boxes were full of Blue Tits, with broods of 12 and 11, several other broods were either too small or were yet to hatch. A couple of treecreeper boxes had eggs in, but they didn’t look like this years, and more Blue Tits and a broods of Great Tits were in a couple of others. One box had a female Nuthatch on eggs which was a shame, as they may well have fledged by the time I get back from my break. Whilst walking around the site we stumbled across a young Roe Deer fawn that had been left at the base of the trunk of a tree. I stayed dead still in the hope that we wouldn’t see it….but we did!

Young Roe Deer 

Rob joined me on the next session. This time we started at Manor farm Country Park before moving on to the Hampshire and Isle Wight Wildlife Trusts Swanwick Lakes reserve. There were two boxes at Manor Farm, both with Great Tits and an incomplete clutch of eggs in a Blackbird nest. At Swanwick our first port of call was a box where Rob had seen some Nuthatch’s previously. This time we were in luck and a brood of seven were at an ideal size for ringing.

Brood of Seven Nuthatches in Nestbox

I always think that Nuthatch’s are hard core, since the don’t bother with all the most and feathers the Blue and Great Tits use when building a nest, a few leaves in the bottom of the box seems to suffice. These images clearly show the the strong bill, grey upper parts and pinkish underparts, no mistaking what they are going to grow up to be. 

A Handful of Nuthatches

There were over 20 boxes at Swanwick and the boxes had good numbers of Blue and Great Tit clutches, some too small to ring and some still on eggs, but by the end of the weekend we had ringed 100 chicks, 61 Blue Tits, 30 Great Tits, seven Nuthatches and two Lapwing. I am hoping that when I get back there will still be some birds in boxes plus it will be time to check the Barn Owls, Kestrels and Swallows.

In search of Lapwing Chicks on a rare almost Summers Evening

I had a couple of hours free last night and so nipped down to one of my local sites in search of Lapwing chicks. I have been visiting this site for about five years now and usually manage to catch two or three chicks, but this year I was a bit later and feared that they may already be too big. Arriving at the site it was evident that it had not been grazed for a while, and large parts had become dominated with a dense growth of rush. However, not to be deterred I worked my way to a suitable vantage point and began to scan.

Success was almost immediate as a good sized chick sat preening in an area of shorter vegetation. The chicks seem to prefer the shorter areas, which is odd since this site has large numbers of corvids present, and to be so obvious would presumably leave them susceptible to predation. 

Lapwing Vanellus vanellus chick

This chick was very on-the-ball though and the second the adult uttered an alarm call it settled down into the nearby vegetation and waited for the all clear. Luckily I had a good fix!

Lapwing Chick Camouflaged in the Grass

It was a good sized chick and when settled in the grass was very well camouflaged and weighed a very healthy 70.2 grams. For comparison adult birds weigh between 192 and 310 grams, according to BTO data.  When being weighed this bird seemed to be quite unperturbed and was content to watch what I was doing from the ringing pot!

Lapwing Chick enjoying the view from the Ringing Pot
(with free advertising for Swarovski)

There appeared to be three pairs present at the site and given that the average clutch size for this species is four, there had to be more chicks around. The problem was that once the adults alarm call the chick tend to site still for quite a while, so I wasn't hopeful of finding more. I moved location and began to scan from the other end of the field and immediately picked up a second bird. This bird was much smaller and probably still a little naive, but fortunately its legs were large enough to take a ring.

Tiny Lapwing Chick .... Just big enough to ring

This bird weighed only 19.3 grams, so considerably smaller, and clearly from a different clutch to the first bird, and I still suspect there will be more to find.

Lapwing Chicks and Brown Long-eared Bats

It has been a while since my last post due to two reasons, firstly I have been away guiding an Ornitholidays bird watching trip to Turkey, and secondly, since I have been back I have been snowed under with work. But this weekend I finally got the chance to get out and do some of the things that I like to do.

My weekend began with a visit to a local site that supports a few pairs of breeding Lapwing. I have seen a few good sized Lapwing chicks during the course of my work recently, and so armed with my ringing kit, binoculars and a very enthusiastic trainee we set off. On arriving at the site it was obvious that things might be a bit harder than usual, since there were very few livestock grazing, and subsequently the vegetation was much higher than usual. Nonetheless, we persevered and soon found three pairs of Lapwing, widely spread out across the field. They say that patience is a virtue, and it was certainly required for this task, as we settled ourselves down to watch the field. The first chick we saw was right at the back of the field and as I walked towards it, it vanished over the hill from view.

The second chick though was much easier. As I walked towards it the parents uttered a short sharp alarm call and it sat tight, but I had a fix on its location. As I stealthily approached I could see it sat tight in the grass and just walked up and picked it up.

Juvenile Lapwing

This chick was a good size, weighing in at a healthy 145 grams.......

Juvenile Lapwing

                                                                         

                                                                         ........and looking at the length of its primary feathers, and the extent of feather protruding from the sheath, it won't be long before this bird is on the wing. There must have been at least 30 corvids feeding in the same field, so you have to give credit to the parents for managing to raise a young bird in a field with so many potential predators.

Juvenile Lapwing

After processing this bird we carried on searching for a while, but were on a bit of a tight deadline so unfortunately had to leave. Our next site was Hook Barn, to check up on the Brown Long-eared Bat colony. As many will be aware, this spring has been an odd one weather wise, so we were intrigued to see what the bats were doing. As we entered the barn and looked up, four bats were immediately visible, and after a few minutes looking around we had found 10 Brown Long-eared Bats.

Brown Long-eared Bat

But interestingly we also found four Common Pipistrelles, and a bat of the Myotis genus, which was tucked away right up in the apex. The pipistrelle bats have usually left the barn by now and returned to their maternity roosts, guess the weather must be affecting them. It was difficult to get a view of the Myotis bat, but one thing we could see was its large and hairy feet, suggesting that it was a Daubenton's Bat. We have not recorded this species previously in the barn, so we will have to try and either get a better view or leave a remote bat detector in the barn for a while and record its calls, lets hope it stays around.