100,000 carling starlings!!!!

An interesting day to say the least! Drove over to Blackpool to visit the Solaris centre.
I though they were supposed to be hosting the 2007 Wildlife photographer of the year exhibition but I had my info wrong and it was last years photos on display. I thought this was quick, cos the winner of this years was only announced last week.
Anyway.... hadnt seen some of last years pics, so it was still a nice visit. I'll need to find the 2007 showing now.


We stopped of at Lytham on the way and I has a scan around the shore near fairhaven lake.
BH gulls, oystercatchers, redshank, jackdaws, curlew all in good numbers. Spotted a few winter arrivals by the way of Grey plovers (below with BH gull) , they are new for my uk years list.
I thought I had a flock of 25 Twite (next 2 pics below) but they turned out to be 1st winter linnet. Very hard to separate these two, I find.










































Anyway... on to the main event.
We planned to be at Marton mere before dusk to look for the Bittern, see if the Long eared owls were back to roost yet and marvel at the 100,000 starlings that come to roost at the reedbeds.
However, what with all this "daylight saving" nonsense and the clock going back on Sunday.....we were late and only caught the end of the Starling show.
Got enough footage for a wee video.
Carling lager used footage of flocking starlings to make an advert with this soundtrack, so I thought I'd make my own short ad just like theirs.

Enjoy, and I hope you like my doctored logo at the end.....I'll be visiting this spot again soon to see more of this great spectacle!

In search of the corn bunting

I stopped off at Newton marsh today during my deliveries. Just between Preston and Freckleton at BAE Warton is this floodpool on the farmland. You can park very close to the pool to take a look, and there is quite a lot of birdlife here.

(as usual, click on photos to enlarge)














The birds didnt seem at all fazed by the jet fighters thundering overhead, they must be used to it by now.














Plenty wigeon (below), teal (bottom right of photo 2), mallard, moorhen, coot and 1 shoveller.













Approx 10 black tailed godwits quite close to the viewing road, but I'm sure there were more further back.














Also at the far end of the pool, I found these 7 little egret.














Unfortunately, I didnt spot any corn buntings (Colin Bushell reported them here last week), but when scanning the skies for passerines I did see 10 Whooper swans flying over on migration.

I'll try again for the buntings on Monday - I'll be visiting nearby marton mere in Blackpool, hoping for the spectacular display of 100,000 starlings and a reported bittern too!

Mob rules

A very fresh sunny morning today, if a tit nippley, even the birdbath was frozen over!
I watched a woodmouse in the hedgerow that didnt seem to bothered that I was there. Saw all 5 thrush species today - blackbird, songthrush, mistle thrush, redwing, and fieldfare.

Siskin, goldfinch and bullfinch all feeding together in the same tree. A new roost for the tawny owls but they were getting badly mobbed and moved back to the larch. Also of note, lots of young rabbits around and 1 late red admiral butterfly.

Little owl box and ground feeder

I've made a little rack to keep our ground feeding tray off the floor and thus free of sludge and slugs when it rains. Magpies, the single rook (that tries to talk to me, I swear! He's like a parrot trying to talk), woodmice and hedgehogs all visit the ground feeder but the first customers today were 3 jays.








































3 bullfinch, a couple of siskin, and loads of winter thrushes mobile yesterday but of course no little owl - now that I've hastily built a home for it!





















Entrance hole is 3" diameter, then I've read that they like "baffles" to make a wee entrance lobby leading to the nesting chamber which is 6"x6" (the back left side of the box is redundant.)

Got another of those (orange) ratchet belts in Blackburn, 2 for £1, and they're ideal for securing the box to the tree.

































So here it is, about 9 feet up in one of the field corners. Hope something sets up home. I believe that little owls dont have as much trouble as Tawnies in finding suitable natural nest sites, because of their smaller size. Guess I'll just wait and see.

Little owl present for a forth day, so I'll start making a nest/roost box for him.

Delivering just outside Preston today, so I stopped at Newton marsh floodpool for a look.
3 blackwits, 1 dabchick, plenty of coot and moorhen. Mallard, teal, wigeon and a pair of gadwall representing the ducks.
However, I've just read Colin Bushells birding blog, he'd visited this spot the previous day and reported corn bunting perched on the overhead wires. So next Friday , if I'm delivering in that area, I'll take the scope for a bit more range.

Little owl and fieldfare

Little owl present for a 3rd day. If he is still here tomorrow I'll build a box for him. One pupil seems over-dilated in these photos, I hope thats just cos the sun was bright on one side of him.



































After digiscoping the owl, I looked for other subjects while the light was good.















Managed a couple of very distant shots of the first Fieldfare that I've seen this winter, couldnt get a shot of the redwings yet.....maybe tomorrow.

2 owl species in 100 yards

Whilst pillaging my own bonfire yesterday for suitable bits of timber (to make a new bird feeding table), I flushed a little owl from the woodpile! Never seen one this close to the house before, but I do see and hear them across the road towards the railway. Hope it doesnt get too comfortable cos we're having a bonfire on the 10th Nov!

Jill had more luck than me in sneeking up on it for a photo - this one. (Click on photo to enlarge)
















But I eventually got some shots by dodgyscoping, so as not to disturb it. Heres my shot -















Only 100m away from the little owl, the 2 tawny owls are still roosting very high up, cos of the lack of foliage, I suppose , but it does seem a bit windy for them.





















The magpies have been harrassing the young kestrels again today and a male sparrowhawk just flew low over me in the garden 10 mins ago, birds-of-prey everywhere!

Other stuff
I planted some garlic down at the new garden which will be ready next June/July. I needed some good topsoil, so I've been collecting molehills in the fields - perfect!
Still a few butterflies around - red admiral and small copper.
Cropped the sunflower heads off and put them on the bird tables to stop the squirrels from eating all the seeds.

Project bat box





















Managed to get my 3 bat boxes up last night. Got some cheap glue from the £1 shop in Blackburn to fill any gaps. So again the entire project cost £1 as all the timber is old offcuts. Plenty of pipistrelles about, so I hope they use them.
I was given a pre-made bat box from someone who didnt want it. The entry gap is 30mm (pips and other small bats like 15-20mm). A treecreeper nested in it last year but I'll put it up on the gable wall at our new house and see if we get any larger bats, Noctules etc.






















I've put the bat boxes up about 9 feet, in an area where I know they feed.
BTW thats Stoneyhurst college in the background of that photo.

Hadnt seen the owls since I put up their new owl box last week. Magpies, tits, blackbirds and even one of the juv kestrels were all mobbing them this morning, so they were quite easy to find. This is the highest I've seen them roosting (approx 30ft) , foliage cover is getting thin.


















Strangely, I found two dead voles within a 10cm area in the owl copse, both only partly eaten and then left. Dunno if the owls are the culprits, maybe theres so many prey species that they can afford to be choosy!

Saw a painted lady butterfly yesterday at the garden centre, quite late in the year for it, I thought.
Also, when I was bringing in the nest boxes for the winter cleaning I found a Svenssons copper underwing moth Amphipyra berbera hiding behind one of them. I could see the copper underwing showing ( I didnt see the underwing on the last one I found) and I knew to look at the palps (its face) to ID it from the copper underwing Amphipyra pyramidea.

Stragglers

8 swallows seen heading south today at noon

Owl box project complete

Finished the owl box yesterday by drilling 5 drainage holes in the bottom, gave the outer walls a lick of "cuprinol" and put some wood shavings inside.






























For mounting 15 ft up in the Larch tree, I used 2 ratchet belts. As you can see, the belts are orange! However, I got the 2 from a shop in Blackburn for £1!!!!! What a bargain! That means that the entire project comes to £1 as all other materials were reused off-cuts from our new house.






































The front of the box faces west over the sapling field, where I've seen the owls hunting for voles and shrews. This also makes it easy to observe the box with minimal disturbance to them.

I'll now be converting my "more basic" older owl box into a kestrel platform, in a different tree 1/2 mile away.