Trandansen at Hornborgasjön

I'm looking forward to returning to Hornborgasjön in Sweden next week. Lake Hornborga is the staging site in Sweden for almost the entire population of Eurasian Cranes in Scandinavia. In 2009 the peak day count during the spring passage was 18500! I've hired a photography hide for two days/nights so I'm hoping the light is good and I get some misty sunrises this year - something I missed in 2008/09.
http://www.lansstyrelsen.se/vastragotaland/projektwebbar/hornborga/

Webcameras installed at the main visitor centre give good views of the Crane flocks: http://www.webbkameror.se/djurkameror/hornborgasjon/index.php

Further north, I've also booked a hide for the Whooper Swans at Tysslingen - the spring staging site for around 4000 birds! Some snowy conditions would nice here. See the website at: http://tysslingen.com/

The blog will be quiet until about mid-April as I head straight out to Andalucia after this trip for my usual undergrad field course to Zahara de los Atunes but I'll try to post something during this time. Meanwhile here are a few photographs from Sweden in 2008/09.

Cool new feature from xeno-canto!

xeno-canto (the community database of shared bird sounds from Europe) now you to embed recordings on a web page (complete with sonogram).

Visit the Europe site here: www.xeno-canto.org/europe/

Drawing of the exotic Mandarin in display

The drake Mandarin (Aix galericulata) really deserves to be illustrated in colour but even in monochrome its exuberant plumage is apparent. While this duck is native to the Far East, it has a self-sustaining breeding population in the British Isles (category C1E in the BOU's British List). It is closely related to the Wood Duck or Carolina Duck (Aix sponsa) from North America but I think the resplendent plumage of the Mandarin beats it with the crazy 'wing sails'.



This drawing took me a lot longer than usual as the whisker-like feathers of the cheeks were tricky to get right. Click it for a larger version.

Sounds of Spring

... from Trent Country Park, North London/Middlesex, 21 March.

Blackbird (song)

Mistle Thrush (song)

Treecreeper (song)

Long-tailed Tit (calls from a nest-building pair)

Redwing (calls from a departing flock - to roost ,or perhaps the start of the long flight north)

Turnstone in moult

This drawing of a Turnstone (Arenaria interpres) shows the bird in spring moult and is based on one I photographed in April at Irvine, Ayrshire a few years ago. You can click this for a larger version.

Note that any use, reproduction or re-blogging of this image is forbidden without written consent from myself. E-mail: webmaster@fssbirding.org.uk

Ayrshire Winter Bird Race 2010

This was my team's fifth Ayrshire Winter Bird Race, the point of which is to find as many species as possible between 0800h and 1630h within the county of Ayrshire in south-west Scotland. The Drift Migrants consists of: Lisa Ketchen, a partial migrant who had flown south from Aberdeen; Alistair Simpson, an Ayrshire resident; and myself, a drift migrant who had travelled north from London on a third-world bus service.

This year we were all in situ at 0750h on the old disused railway line at Springside waiting for the hour to chime. Several species were noted but the first officially logged was a Lesser Redpoll in the alder trees. Common farmland and woodland species were singing and the site again was successful in providing Bullfinch. Normally the race is held in early January but by early March many more species can be detected by song. Skylarks were singing and Tree Sparrows were uttering breeding vocalisations outside their nest holes in the beech trees. Six Yellowhammers were singing between the village and the metal bridge over the Garrier Burn to the west - one was still producing 'plastic' song while another was topping its 'cheese' with the more rarely heard high-pitched 'tseee' note rising to 9 kHz. After 53 minutes we had exhausted the green corridor and headed to a small wetland site nearby [28 species].

We met Bruce Kerr at Warwickdale who confirmed that the Green Sandpiper was still present but despite the time (52 mins) spent here and getting to the next site, just Green Sandpiper, Stock Dove and a displaying Lapwing were all we had to show for it. Capringstone was the next stop as it is one of the few sites in the county for Shoveler. A pair was present, though tucked into the corner, almost eluding us behind the small brick ruin. An expected run of water birds followed and a couple of Snipe flew in. As I 'scoped the area of grass on which they had settled I found two Jack Snipe tucked down and were so camouflaged that fellow team members failed to see them... until they got their eye in. The double yellow stripes on the scapulars were a perfect match for the dried grass in which they were hiding [45 species].

Heading east, we cut across the south side of Kilmarnock on A71, picking up the first of many 'roadside hawks' - a Common Buzzard. A brief stop was made at Shaws Mill Bridge on the Cessnock Water to check for Dipper. The sun came out and the warmth of the sun could be felt on our faces as we located Pheasant, Grey Heron, and Siskin. I expected a Peacock or Small Tortoiseshell to appear but we has no time to look for lepidoptera. Continuing south west on the A719 towards Tarbolton, we scanned every field for geese and wild swans but a brief look at Lochlea provided nothing new. The next location at Auchincruive, site of the Scottish Agricultural College, was visited to search for Grey Wagtail and Dipper along the River Ayr (both easy enough this year) and woodland species. Treecreeper, Goldcrest and Coal Tit were singing but otherwise it was quiet and we departed for Martnaham Loch at 1120h [55 species].

Martnaham Loch is Ayrshire's premier inland wetland site and would hopefully provide several additions on arrival. Great Crested Grebe is a rare breeding bird in the country (though more easily found on the coast at this time of year) and this was our most wanted at this site... along with, perhaps for some birders, the least wanted - Canada Goose. Still, on a bird race all species are equal (except for Wood Duck). Fine views of displaying Goldeneye and fishing Goosanders in glorious sunshine were a real highlight, until we headed back towards the car and a young male Peregrine appeared overhead, later settling on a post just a hundred metres away. This individual was quite noticeably small, and just marginally larger than a big female Kestrel [61 species].

Rozelle was the next port of call, mainly to tick Nuthatch which can almost be expected coming to the top of a waste doggy bin topped with seed. Just as we arrived I saw Angus Hogg and his team departing but we caught up to exchange news of successes and misses so far. Angus had provided some fresh seed but the Nuthatch had not appeared, yet we heard a singing Song Thrush which briefly uttered a small phrase of Nuthatch mimicry! Later it soon became clear why all the passerines had cleared off when several high-pitched 'hawk' alarm calls were heard. Moments later a female kamikaze Sparrowhawk was zipping around after everything that moved and at one point almost defied belief as it somehow disappeared into an almost impenetrable shrub and emerged less than a second later. You have to admire these birds and this sort of encounter is so much more rewarding than hanging around waiting for a small brown warbler to appear. We waited no longer, but my dad and Lisa heard a drumming Great Spotted Woodpecker nearby. I eventually heard it and its selected tree provided a particularly beautiful resonance (unlike one I'd heard last week drumming on a flag pole!) [63 species].

The remainder of the day was spent on the coast where we hoped to clean up with a good diversity of species as we worked our way north from Doonfoot to Irvine, via Barassie and Troon. On arrival at Doonfoot, it soon became clear that the flat calm conditions earlier in the day had dissipated by the time we saw the sea at 1319h. The amount of dog walkers also meant that some key species had been disturbed including the Greenshank and Bar-tailed Godwits. On the sea we still managed to locate Gannet, Red-throated Diver, Shag, Eider, Red-breasted Merganser and Razorbill and the shore provided Dunlin, Redshank, Turnstone, Ringed Plover and Great Black-backed Gull. A single Stonechat was eventually located in the Marram grass of the dunes and we suspected that this species may have suffered badly over the winter [76 species].

By now, we realised that despite the perfect conditions we were not going to make the ton - fewer species were around than expected and some in very low numbers! A brief stop at Loans failed to produce Pink-footed Goose but Barassie provided a single Bar-tailed Godwit though the hoped for Mediterranean Gulls were elsewhere. Heading round to the south side of Troon harbour at Ballast Bank, Purple Sandpiper and Rock Pipit were faithful to their habitat and offshore we 'scoped Common and Black Guillemots [81 species].

After a fruitless scurry up to Drybridge to try and locate Whooper Swan, the Shewalton Sandpit at Meadowhead was checked for the only guaranteed Gadwall (a pair) of the day and a much needed Little Grebe. A single male Pochard was also found with the Tufted Ducks and Goldeneye - just what has happened to wintering Pochard in Ayrshire? Five Mistle Thrushes were the only other addition before we headed to our final destination at Bogside and Irvine harbour close to the Ship Inn, location of the post-race meet-up. Finally Kestrel was added and despite repeated scoping the final tick was Shelduck as we finished on 87 species. Angus and his team still needed Peregrine and just five minutes after they headed indoors, one flew right overhead along the harbour wall!

The Drift Migrants finished second with Angus, Dick and Don's team, winning on 90. The cumulative total for all teams was 106 species. We have already tightened up our itinerary for 2011, eliminating areas and sites yielding low numbers in relation to time and effort. Several glaring omissions included Meadow Pipit and Reed Bunting which may have been hit badly by the severe winter, and both Fieldfare and Redwing were nowhere to be found. The day was also notable for the lack of scarce birds too. Despite seeing around 15 Buzzards, Kestrel was surprisingly difficult and it was not logged until 1605h at our last site - what a change around in the status of these raptors from 20 years ago in Ayrshire! Well done to Lisa, who bravely carried on despite a painful back. The things we do for birds...

The full species list can be found here:
www.fssbirding.org.uk/birdrace.htm

Illustrating the Grey Heron with pencil and paper

No sooner is the Ayrshire Bird Report out and it is time to start on the next one. To ease myself back into drawing again I began with another Grey Heron (while listening to Anjunadeep02). I’ve uploaded a larger version on the main website here: www.fssbirding.org.uk/sketches.htm

Sounds I once heard...

From Bialowieza Forest in Poland, a Lesser Spotted Eagle (Aquila pomarina) in Krynica alder swamp: recorded early afternoon on 29 June 2009, calls of a perched bird, possibly a male close to the nest site.


At midnight in Finland in early July 2003, a whipping Spotted Crake (Porzana porzana) in the marshlands around Lake Siikalahti, Parikkala.


The huge spring staging site for Eurasian Cranes (Grus grus) at Hornborgasjön in Västergötland, Sweden attacted 18000 birds at the peak period in 2009. Listen to a sample of the 'Trandansen' below.


A more tropical sound follows with a pair of Coraya Wrens (Thryothorus coraya) engaging in antiphonal duetting where both sexes contribute alternative phrases in quick, coordinated succession to produce a ‘final’ song. Can you tell which part is being produced by which sex? I recorded this near Tarapoto in northern Peru during September 2009.


Finally closer to home, the nocturnal cacophony of roosting Whooper Swans (Cygnus cygnus) on the Folly Pond at Caerlaverock WWT reserve on the Solway Firth in Scotland. These birds were recorded late at night from one of the guest rooms in the farmhouse - a great sound to drift off to sleep to in late December.

Dusky Warbler - Walthamstow Reservoirs

London's first Dusky Warbler (Phylloscopus fuscatus) was found at Lockwood Reservoir last weekend by Lol Bodini. This little leaf warbler should be spending the winter in SE Asia after being being reared or having bred in C/E Siberia or N Asia. I managed to see it briefly before work on Wednesday and returned today for longer views. Still distant and hyperactive, I made some poor sound recordings. London is probably the most problematic place to make sound recordings with a plane overhead every minute of the day and numberous trains...ok, maybe not so many trains. The sonogram shows six broadband calls uttered while feeding/vertical flycatching along a bramble-strewn fenceline. It sounds softer than a typical Sylvia call and lower pitched than Wren. Robin and Blue Tit are also vocalising during the recording.

Fulmar calls from a ruined fortress

Last weekend I visited Lisa in Aberdeen and although Sunday and Monday were rained out, we did make a nice trip to Dunnottar Castle on Saturday afternoon - I was virtually back on the bus south again to Stonehaven after 12 hours overnight from London! Dunnottar Castle is probably best described on the castle's website (www.dunnottarcastle.co.uk) as "a dramatic and evocative ruined cliff top fortress in a truly stunning setting". Seabirds have started returning to nest on the cliffs and I made some sound recordings of duetting Fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis). Below is small excerpt to listen to (with breeding calls from a distant Herring Gull in the background).











Photos: Dunnottar Castle, Stonehaven War Memorial, Stonehaven harbour at night.

Walthamstow islands of noise

Walthamstow Reservoirs are famous for their tree-nesting colonies of two large fish-eating species: Great Cormorant and Grey Heron. Here a couple of edits of some sound recordings I made there last weekend.

Great Tit song variation

Several species are starting to advertise by song as February progresses. Around Totteridge in north London today I heard both Chaffinch and Song Thrush uttering some less familiar plastic song. The young Chaffinch was essentially practising and all song deliveries lacked the terminal flourish. What was unusual was that it was sharing a branch with another male from which there was no response at all. Song Thrushes typically sing from an exposed vantage point at some height but the young male I recorded today was hidden in dense blackthorn scrub.

Great Tits have been singing full songs for a few weeks now but many birds are still roving around in winter feeding flocks. I recorded one individual with three song types as follows:

Song #1: single strophe (5-8 double elements) repeated at a rate of 16/min



Song #2: single strophe (4-11 double elements) repeated at a rate of 11/min



Song #3: single strophe (7-20 double elements) repeated at a rate of 11/min

Breeding Herons in the Heart of London

Grey Herons in London are returning to their nests; building, repairing and stealing small branches from neighbouring nests while the occupants are away. General activity and courtship behaviour at the moment does seem to be less compared with previous years though the recent severe weather resulted in most birds deserting the frozen lakes. The males are looking superb as usual with striking pink-orange bills and sky blue lores. The second image below captures a ferocious territorial interaction between two males. A female is just visible in the nest behind them and when her mate returned to find a rival male on the nest, there was trouble. Brief copulation soon followed before he departed again for more twigs and branches. The males appear to do most of the gathering while the females do more of the actual arranging, at least on established nests that are being used year after year.

Bird Recording in Ayrshire

The Ayrshire Bird Report 2008 is now available from the usual outlets including:

·The SOC, The Scottish Birdwatching Resource Centre, Waterston House, Aberlady, East Lothian, EH32 0PY, Scotland
·RSPB Lochwinnoch Shop, Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire
·SOC Ayrshire meetings
·RSPB Central Ayrshire meetings
·Bookshops in Ayr/Troon TBA
·Ayr Tourist Board office
·By post from · Dick Vernon (priced £4 - cheques made payable to Ayrshire Bird Report with an additional 80p to cover postage) Contact: rgv_mcv@tiscali.co.uk



Now for ABR 2009:

Records
Thanks to everyone who has promptly submitted their 2009 records. Please send remaining records to recorder@ayrshire-birding.org.uk by the end of February. Any species on the ABRC list should be accompanied by a description on the form available from the Ayrshire Birding website. SBRC description species should be submitted via myself. Most observers are submitting records direct to me in MS Excel which is ideal and the following layout of columns from l-r is recommended:

Species*, Date*, Count*, Location*, Notes, Observer*, Grid Reference, E-mail (*information being essential in these fields).

For those without Excel or compatible spreadsheet software, I've created a secure online Google Excel document where observers can enter their 2009 records via an online form. Each record has to be entered individually but should be fairly quick and is immediately sent to a secure spreadsheet where I can copy the records. I would encourage observers who do not formally submit records but casually post sightings on this group, to add your sightings using this form throughout the year. Use of the form would save me time formatting and compiling records from all sorts of sources. Even if you don't use a traditional notebook in the field, you could bookmark the following links on your mobile phone and enter sightings just as you see them!

The form for entering 2009 records can be found here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHNseDZ2Q3I2b1BoTXlhbElJNXVXd2c6MA

The form for entering 2010 records can be found here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dFVpQVlzRHBuYy1kVk9PRDdCYTNGdlE6MA

Articles
I'm looking for at least two articles. Feel free to e-mail me with any ideas you may have. The deadline for completed articles will be the end of April.

Artwork & Images
Digital images of Ayrshire rarities and scarcities in 2009, or even interesting photos of common birds are welcome. A colour centre page of photographs may be a possibility this year in addition to b&w images throughout the text. Drawings or sketches of topical species are welcome and I like to see a range of drawings in the next Report, rather than just mine. Scans of your artwork at 600 dpi are preferred but all originals will be returned if you need to send them to me for scanning.

Butterfly Records
I don't have many butterfly records in yet so all remaining records are welcome. Please let any non-birding naturalist friends/colleagues know that they can send records to butterfly@ayrshire-birding.org.uk for inclusion in the 2009 Ayrshire Butterfly Report. The 2009 Report will consist of a bumper issue of both 2008 and 2009 records.

Finally, your thoughts and ideas on the ABR in general are welcome.
Fraser Simpson (ABR Editor/County Recorder)
recorder@ayrshire-birding.org.uk

Ballast Bank

I was back briefly in Ayrshire last weekend and had a search for Tree Sparrows as well as the recent Barnacle Geese following the Pink-foot/Greylag flock. Fail Mill near Tarbolton had at least 17 Tree Sparrows and 33 Yellowhammers. Checking for waders and wildfowl at Pow Burn and Barassie didn't turn up much but 55 Knot were later located at Troon - a good count for Ayrshire at this time of year. The Ballast Bank held a nice collection of waders where I later made these long exposures below: Purple Sandpiper (12), Knot (22), Golden Plover (32), Turnstone (21), Ringed Plover (4) and Dunlin (3).

The thaw is on

The thaw is on but London water bodies are still largely frozen. In Kensington Gardens this morning, a few Skylarks were heading north and both Great Tit and Mistle Thrush were singing, a sign now that the winter is rapidly progressing and some species at least are once again pairing and preparing to breed. At least two pairs of Mute Swans were displaying beautifully in patches in the ice.

London – Ice Bound

A few photographs from the Round Pond at the weekend...

Caerlaverock on the Solway Firth

In a Christmas holiday dominated by Woodcock and Jack Snipe and fruitless searches for Tree Sparrows in the snow, the main birding focused around a four day stay in the farmhouse at Caerlaverock WWT reserve in Dumfriesshire photographing and watching Icelandic Whooper Swan. On the merse we saw Hen Harrier, Merlin, Peregrine and various waders and wildfowl. Flocks of Barnacle Geese were sparse and in low numbers due to the pasture being frozen hard. Most geese were feeding way out from the observation towers. The highlights must have been the Badgers coming to feeding just inches from the window at night and the Woodock that flew in under the floodlight, settled for 10 seconds and then vanished into the night. Last year was Winter of the Waxwings. This year must surely be Winter of the Woodcocks.