Hooded Crow - new Derbyshire Tick

Hot on the heels of this morning's Iceland Gull, I was out again this afternoon to try and catch up with a Hooded Crow that had been reported on Birdguides website (see here). The bird was reported near Beeley Moor, and I dropped lucky again, seeing the bird within 5 minutes of our arrival. It was perched up distantly in a Hawthorn hedge. Here's my very best shot!!

Hooded Crow

As the post title indicates, this is my first record of this species in Derbyshire, so I was very happy to see it. Looking in the Derbyshire Ornithological Society's  The Birds of Derbyshire, it's interesting to note that this species was much more common here in the 1920s, when it was described as "numerous", and then again in the 1960s and 1970s, with up to 24 records in the latter period. Between 2000 and 2010 there was just 1 record in Derbyshire, a single bird at Carsington Reservoir on 21st October 2007, making this bird only the second record of the millennium.

Year List update:

105 – Lesser Redpoll (3 on the garden feeders on 1st March)

106 – Hooded Crow

Derbyshire Damselflies and Moths

After the ringing session on Saturday I spent a short time at Cupola Pond and Wragg's Quarry on Beeley Moor with Jayne, looking for some dragonflies and damselflies.

The first species we saw when we arrived at Cupola Pond was Large Red Damselfly. There were at least a dozen individuals flying around the site, including 3 pairs ovipositing (egg laying).

Large Red Damselfly

We also saw 1 male Blue-tailed Damselfly and several Azure Damselflies, both male and female.

Azure Damselfly (female)

Azure Damselfly (male)

Whilst watching the damselflies, Jayne spotted a dragonfly exuvia on grass approximately 2m from the pond. This is the skin that a dragonfly nymph  sheds when it leaves the water to become an adult. I think it's a Four-spotted Chaser dragonfly. 

Four-spotted Chaser?

After visiting Cupola Pond, we drove about 2 miles to Wragg's Quarry, were we saw another 4 Large Red Damselflies along with single Common Heath  and Latticed Heath moths.

Common Heath

Latticed Heath

Common Hawker and Friends

Every summer I like to visit Wragg's Quarry on Beeley Moor to look for the Dragon and Damselflies that live and breed there (see here for details of my last visit) There is a small pond in the bottom of the quarry, which is home to several species.

Pond in Wragg's Quarry

I popped up on Wednesday, and recorded 4 species: Large Red Damselfly, Common Blue Damselfly, Azure Damselfly and Common Hawker.

The Large Red Damselflies were all males, and were seen basking on the stones around the pond.

Large Red Damselfly

The Common Blue Damselflies were also flying around the pond, but several were also "in tandem" and ovipositing (egg laying) into the water. I didn't manage to get a photo of this, but I got one of the males sitting on a stone by the water,

Common Blue Damselfly

The Emerald and Azure Damselflies were also busy mating and egg laying. There were quite distant, but I managed to get photos of each species.

Azure Damselflies ovipositing

Emerald Damselfly "in tandem"

The final dragonfly seen was the Common Hawker. This dragonfly is a lot less common than the other species, being more restricted in the type of habitats it likes to inhabit. It prefers acidic waters, so the pool on the moors is perfect. There were 2 females present during my visit, both of which were "ovipositing" for the whole time I was there (nearly 2 hours). A male made a brief appearance, but unfortunately he didn't land, so no photo this time. Here are a few photos of one of the females.

Common Hawker (female)

The British Dragonfly Society has lots more  information about all these species. Here's a link.

Great Grey Shrike - Beeley Moor

Great Grey Shrikes appear in Derbyshire most winters, and one has been reported on the Birdguides website since December, so I decided to go up to Beeley Moor this afternoon with Jayne to see if we could catch up with it.

As you can most likely tell from the blog title, we dropped lucky and managed to watch the bird hunting around fields by Sitches Plantation. It was a little too distant for any great photos, but I did manage to get a half decent record shot.

Great Grey Shrike

Whilst in the area I also managed to add another 2 species to the "year list"; Lapwing and Golden Plover, both of which were present in the area in good numbers (approx.200+).

Year List update:

57 – Great Grey Shrike

58 – Lapwing

59 – Golden Plover

Avenue Ringing and Year List update

I managed to get out for a few hours this morning with the ringing group to The Avenue, Derbyshire Wildlife Trust's reserve on the outskirts of Chesterfield. We spent 4 hours and managed a very respectable 35 birds of 10 different species (Blackbird, Chaffinch, Bullfinch, Yellowhammer, Bullfinch, Reed Bunting, Willow, Great, Blue and Long-tailed Tit).

My personal totals were (new.retrap): Long-tailed Tit 1/1, Blue Tit 1/0, Great Tit 1/1, Robin 0/1, Blackbird 1/0, Reed Bunting 1/0, Yellowhammer 1/0, and Dunnock 1/1.

In between net rounds we recorded other birds including three ,"year ticks"; Skylark, Yellowhammer and Green Woodpecker.

After the session I went out for a spot of lunch with my family and then dropped into Wraggs Quarry on Beeley Moor to have a look for the over-wintering Great Grey Shrike. Luckily it was sat up on the fence posts when we arrived and we managed to get brilliant views at it flew around hunting. Another Year tick!

Year List:
80 - Skylark
81 - Yellowhammer
82 - Green Woodpecker
83 - Great Grey Shrike

New Year's Day 2013

Hello and welcome to 2013!

My birding year started at about 6.30am this morning when I was woken by a Carrion Crow "cawing" in the garden. This was followed closley by a singing Robin and an alarm calling Blackbird. The following few hours watching the garden added the usual suspects (see list below, numbers 1 - 16) and an unusual record of an over flying Mistle Thrush and a female Bullfinch.

After breakfast I managed to convince the ever-suffering Jayne to have a walk around Linacre where we added a few more "year ticks" to the list (numbers 17 to 32 in the list). Wildfowl numbers were low and there wasn't any sign of any Mandarins or Tufted Ducks! The only exception being the 26 Goosanders (13 males and 13 redheads) that were present on the middle reservoir - my highest ever count and the 2 over-flying Lesser Black-backed Gulls. On the way out we stopped by the main entrance to watch a flock of approximately 50 winter thrushes, which were feeding in the ploughed field. A quick scan show that at least 95% were Redwing, with a few Fieldfare thrown in too. Very nice.

The final part of the day invovled a quick drive across to Screetham Lane near Beeley Moor where we saw 3 more ticks (numbers 33 to 35), the Brambling being the best sighting of the day!

Year List:
1 – Carrion Crow
2 - Robin
3 - Blackbird
4 - Dunnock
5 - Chaffinch
6 - Goldfinch
7 - Greenfinch
8 – House Sparrow
9 – Collared Dove
10 - Magpie
11 - Woodpigeon
12 - Starling
13 – Blue Tit
14 - Bullfinch
15 - Wren
16 – Mistle Thrush
17 – Great Tit
18 - Nuthatch
19 - Mallard
20 - Goosander
21 – Black-headed Gull
22 – Lesser Black-backed Gull
23 – Little Grebe
24 -  Coot
25 - Moorhen
26 – Jackdaw
27 - Redwing
28 – Fieldfare
29 – Great-spotted Woodpecker
30 – Long-tailed Tit
31 – Goldcrest
32 – Grey Wagtail
33 - Pheasant
34 - Rook
35 - Brambling

Year List update - 3rd January 2012

I know I said I wouldn't get obsessed with "year listing" this year, but having had a couple of hours out at Wragg's Quarry, Beeley Moor yesterday trying to find a Great Grey Shrike (without sucess!), I thought I'd add some new species that I saw whilst up there and a few seen in my own garden. Here goes:

37 – Starling
38 – Rook
39 – Redwing
40 – Fieldfare
41 – Brambling
42 – Common Buzzard
43 – Collared Dove
44 – Greenfinch
45 – Chaffinch
46 – House Sparrow
47 – Mistle Thrush
48 - Sparrowhawk