An Odd Week

Over the past 6 weeks I have had a bad back. Bad enough to merit full dose painkillers for a fortnight. This led to immobility and ultimately a blood clot in my left leg. After spending the Saturday before last getting checked out and then a scan on my leg on my birthday, the Monday, a DVT was confirmed and I was put on blood thinners. We have a family history of DVT so it wasnt a great shock but it was a much needed wakeup call. I am as fat and unfit as I have ever been. My change of jobs has led to a drop in my activity by a third. I need to look after myself better. I have 3 weeks of recovery from the clot and 3 months of blood thinners. In the first 3 weeks I am allowed gentle exercise (which I have taken to mean swimming and walking). I have upped my walking markedly and the swimming is being phased in with my first trip yesterday and another before work tomorrow. I am getting out early each morning for a walk before work if I'm not swimming. This is a long road but I am determined to make some strides. The end point? Not being as fat and being much, much fitter.

I combined my morning walk yesterday with a trip to Bempton to pay my annual respects to the Gannets and Puffins. All the usual suspects were present with Gannets and Kittiwakes on the updrafts and the three auk species darting about. A Whitethroat rattled as I left the reception and it didn't take long to spy the two Ring Ouzels messing about on the ploughed field. Views were distant and there was some heat haze so I moved on and concentrated on the seabirds. I felt a little uneasy by the number of people congregating at the watchpoints (it wasn't that bad tbh but I'm a bit soft) and upon heading back a Barn Owl was hunting the ploughed field giving some nice views as it tried to provide for the next generation. 

I tried to get better views of the Ouzels but the usual crowd were giving them no space and they spooked, flying east, behind the visitor centre. I managed to relocate them and watched over a cappuccino before they moved close to the car park. I again slipped round and watched from the gate, alone (I did tell the warden but he wasn't keen on getting folk crowded there). The birds started 50 metres away and moved closer and closer until they were within 20 metres. My hazy, blurry photos from across a field forgotten as I got my best ever views of this species. They continued to feed unabashed and I ran out of time. I'm pretty happy with the photos I got and am very grateful the camera was fixed!

Closer, closer, closer...

Easy (Lam)Prey

A twitter post by two of my former lecturers and colleagues at the University of Hull, discussing watching Brook Lamprey Lampetra planeri spawning in the headwaters of the River Hull, reminded me that I too live near the headwaters of the River Hull and I too could see this. A couple of tactical messages later and I was armed with the requisite information and away I trundled.

A chilly but bright April evening saw me watching no fewer than seven of these oddities, frantically trying to pass their genes on over the gravel redds that are present in what is effectively a ditch. Anyway, I put together a video documenting this with dodgy footage included.

Nocmig 2021 - March Part 2: Pic N Mix

 March is an excellent month for variety, especially of migrating waterfowl on NocMig and so it proved this year. My experiments of live listening last year yielded fine numbers of ducks and this time out I got no fewer than 29 species including three nocmig firsts for the garden, Whooper Swan, Shoveler and Common Gull. Early arrivals included a Chiffchaff and a Little Ringed Plover. 

Lets start at the beginning, Week 1, and I recorded five out of seven nights. The 3rd was slow but a flock of Teal not long after setting up and an early Coot, the first of 16 in March, was good value. Gulls aren't regular here on NocMig although there are a pair of Herring Gulls that breed nearby. Two different birds passing were unusual though, constituting the first passage records for the garden with a third on 6th. Oystercatchers were first recorded on 4th and were recorded as migrants on 11 nights but it was evident towards the end of the month that the resident birds had returned with regular display so it was hard to tease out which records referred to these. Blackbird migration picked up with 17 birds across the month from the 4th-31st, up from five in January and February combined. Not huge numbers but movement nonetheless. The first record of Mallard on 5th March heralded the decamping from the Mere to the local ditches for some hanky panky and they have become a regular occurrence and will remain so well into the autumn. I'm sure I get some Mallard passage but making head nor tail of it is impossible. A single Chiffchaff flight call on 5th was a first NocMig record for me and heralded the almost immediate return of this species to the village with two or three territories now audible from the house. A Moorhen on 5th was the first of 19 recorded in March. March 6th held a Shelduck, the fourth garden record and third in a fortnight. Two Wigeon flocks were recorded on 7th and the first Redwing of the month, the first of 51 for the month and similar to Blackbird it was up from 11 records in January and February combined.

Week 2 was relatively unremarkable but Common Scoter passage commenced on 12th. I only recorded on two nights and my first Gadwall of the year on 12-13th was decent along with the first Curlew. A bit worrying is that there local birds I heard nightly last year dont seem to have returned although the second village pair, a bit further away are back. Week three took a while to get going with just the usuals (Redwing and Moorhen plus the resident corvids, owls and Mallards) plus a Grey Heron on 18th, the only record of the year so far, and a flock of Golden Plover on 19th which started a string of 11 records over the subsequent week. The final day of the week, the night of the 20-21st March was the first 'big' night of the year, with two flocks of Wigeon, four flocks of Teal (of 13 in the month), a flock of Common Scoter, three Moorhens, two Coots, two flocks of Oystercatchers, a flock of Curlew and two records each of Redwing and Blackbird. And to think this was just the warm up!

The final decade of the month was electric and whilst we have touched upon the Scoter in the previous post it was incredible for this species. 19 flocks of Common Scoter went over on 21st-22nd plus four Moorhens, five Coots, Oystercatchers, two flocks of Golden Plover, two flocks of Curlew, three Black-headed Gulls and my first NocMig Common Gull. A busy night! Scoters were replaced by my first garden Whooper Swans on 22-23rd when two herds flew over. A third group followed the next night. More of the commoner migrants on 22nd were supplemented by my first Little Ringed Plover of the year just after 8pm. The first Water Rail of the year flew over on 24th, one of three in the last few days of the month. I only missed a single night, 28-29th March in the final 13 nights and each night was brim full of interest. One of just two Song Thrush passed on 24th and on 24-25th there was another big movement of Scoter in addition to the first Greylag Geese of the year. There are a pair breeding about 1km from home and I think these must be the birds I have picked up on occasion since then. A minimum of two Shoveler went over the same night and these are my first NocMig record, and an odd sounding duck for sure. Oddly I have a late spring visual record from the garden and I have seen them in flight during the day down the road at Wansford so perhaps they are passing over silently more often? Needless to say each night had Golden Plovers and Oystercatchers and Redwing and Scoter(!) plus a selection of rallids. A Little Grebe flying over giving the rarer 'scream' call as opposed to the Whimbrel impersonation was the first of the year on 27th March. It was a species it took until May to pick up last year so perhaps isnt too common in early spring round here. I'm going to gloss over the last three nights of the month but they too were full of birds moving, just nothing new or in outstanding numbers. So there we have it, lockdown birding at its best and while I slept. It was exceptional and exceptional fun each day working through it.

Nocmig 2021 - March Part 1: It's all Scoter

March has been exceptional for Nocmig and until this latest coldsnap I had been recording lots of birds most nights. The big headline has been the sheer number of Common Scoter recorded. Last year I ordered my recorder off the back of the movement and got a few flocks but I don't have a comparison. I think my local geography might be really good for concentrating birds as I am literally at the foot of the Yorkshire Wolds so birds will be funneled along the escarpment and from the top of the wolds, the coast at Barmston, which is 6 miles due east of here, is visible. Add in the passage of a main road and a railway both leading past the village towards the coast and it is well set up to receive bountiful birds which move west to east. 

In total 42 flocks and 881 calls were recorded between 12-31st March. I recorded on 21 nights so this may be incomplete (although most of the missed nights were early in the month). Generally birds reached me ~2-3 hours post sunset after birds had been heard at stations from Lancashire, Cheshire and Derbyshire into the Pennines and onto Leeds and York. It is impossible at this stage to estimate how many birds are involved but hopefully analysis with nightvision will allow some estimates to be made. 

There were two nights of particularly heavy scoter passage, 21st and 24th March which had 19 flocks and 14 flocks respectively. Passage was particularly concentrated on 21st when all birds occurred within an 85 minute window (21:27 - 22:52) and 409 calls were recorded. This, at the time, represented the 10th highest count by number of calls in the world, according to data on Trektellen (I am aware there are higher nocmig counts on eBird but that data is not searchable). Just three days later, on 24th March a further 14 flocks and 340 calls were recorded but this was less concentrated, between 20:58 - 23:52. What does this mean? That the birds originated from different sources perhaps? Or conditions weren't as favourable so there was a staggered exit from Liverpool Bay? It is interesting to speculate and perhaps tagging data will reveal the answer in due course.

I got a few recordings but this is perhaps the best. I didn't get that many direct hits, where you can hear the steam train-like wing noise or the female calls. In part 2 I cover the other species recorded in an excellent month.