BTO Atlas arrives!!

Over the last few days I read a lot of tweets from people around the country telling everyone that the new BTO Bird Atlas 2007 -2011 has arrived. Today I got home from work to find my copy waiting for me on the table.

Bird Atlas (and my legs)

As the name suggest, this amazing book of over 700 pages and weighing in at over 3kg (according to one tweet I read, I haven't weighed it, honestly), is the result of 4 years of fieldwork by over 40,000 volunteers (myself included, see posts here), throughout the UK and Ireland, and provides an overview of the breeding and wintering status of all British birds. There are some good news stories, but unfortunately, also several worrying statistics, charting severe declines for many species.

I've just had a quick flick through, but I'm very pleased to see that my patch, Linacre Reservoirs, gets a special mention on p.190, in the section about Mandarin Ducks.

To take a look for yourself and to order a copy, follow this link.

Linacre 5th June 2011 - Empty nestboxes and a new breeding record.

I popped down to Linacre this afternoon to check the nestboxes for a last time. All the boxes, bar 2, were empty meaning all of this year's young have now successfully fledged!! The 2 remaining boxes, 1 Blue Tit and 1 Great Tit, had fully feathered young in them and they should fledge within the next few days. I'll post a full break down of the facts and figures of this year's breeding season later in the week.

As well as these birds I also managed to see 3 recently fledged Nuthatches- our first actual proof of breeding and another record for the Bird Atlas.

Nuthatch

Bird Atlas Walk - 21st May 2011

I popped out for a few hours this morning to carry out the 3rd walk for my Bird Atlas square, which is in Ashgate, Chesterfield. This was the first walk for this year's breeding season and the weather was perfect with nice sunshine and clear skies. 32 species of birds were seen including 7 new species for this square (Linnet, Whitethroat, Blackcap, Swallow, House Martin, Feral Pigeon and Chiffchaff).
As usual, one of the best parts of doing these surveys is the lovely countryside that I get to walk through, so here is a photo of one of the footpaths I walked down this morning.

Being quite late on in the breding season I was able to confirm breeding for some species with Jackdaw, Blackbird, Robin, Blue Tit and Magpie all seen carrying food. As well as this I also found recently fledged Great Tits and a family party of Long-tailed Tits. House Sparrows were "chirruping" from the eaves of several houses, both House Martins and Swallows were in potential breeding habitat and there was no sign of breeding Starlings this time, so there's still lots of good reasons me to come back for my next and final visit in June.

Bird Atlas Walk- 26th February 2011

As promised back in December, see here, I carried out the second winter visit for my Bird Atlas square this morning. Despite a few rain showers and a fall in the mud(!) I managed to see 27 species of birds including a great count of 23 Chaffinch, including many singing males. Other good news was the number of singing Song Thrushes, 20 in total, and a lovely flock of over 30 Redwing.

Chaffinch

New species seen this time were Stock Dove and Goldcrest. House Sparrows, Starlings, Collared Dove and Jackdaws were all singing and exploring potential nest holes.

House Sparrow

The most worrying record of this walk, however, was just 1 singing Wren. Possibly a result of the bad weather? Hopefully this will have changed  in time for the summer walk in April. I'll let you know.

Linacre WeBS Walk - 12th February 2011

What started out as a cool, windy, overcast walk with very few birds ended up with some nice warm sunshine and some good sightings including a new species for the "Linacre List" - namely Tree Sparrow!!

Arriving at 8.30am in the bottom car park, our group of 8 people set off around the reservoirs ticking all the usual woodland species, including Blue, Great, Coal and Long-tailed Tit as well as Nuthatch, Woodpigeon and Magpie. Robins and Dunnocks were singing, as was a single Song Thrush, our first this year.

Song Thrush

Arriving at the middle reservoir, we were greeted by..... very little!! A few Mallard were present and both Moorhen and Coot were noted, but only in small numbers. Walking along the southern edge of the water, however, we soon started to get excited when we all heard a new call that none of us could identify. Scanning the overhanging trees we soon located the mystery bird when a Little Grebe appeared and continued its more usual "laughing" call.

Little Grebe

 We carried on up to the top reservoir where again the water was, at first sight, very quiet. After a few minutes though, we soon noted 2 Great-crested Grebes, including one in summer plumage. Treecreper was also added to the list here and a few more Mallard, Coot and Moorhen were also spotted.

Great-crested Grebe

After walking around the top reservoir we took a short detour away from the reservoirs to locate a small flock of Tree Sparrows that had been reported earlier in the week at a farm just above Priestfield Wood. John, the finder of the birds, had kindly come along today (thanks John, good to see you again!) and, after a short walk, we soon located 2 birds perching in a hedgerow along with some House Sparrows and a small flock of Yellowhammer. Overhead a Buzzard was seen and a Great-spotted Woodpecker, was also spotted feeding on  some fat balls provided by the farm. Although not strictly within our recording area, we can note them down and keep an eye on this very interesting record. Another one for the BTO's Bird Atlas!

Tree Sparrow

Returning to the water we walked down to the bottom reservoir, where the sun came out and so did the birds!! The first sight was a lovely flock of  approximately 24 Mandarin Duck, followed quickly by 4 Goosander, 3 males and a female, another Little Grebe, 2 roosting Grey Herons, 1 fishing Cormorant and a good count of  24 Tufted Duck to finish off the walk.

All in all the final WeBS count for this month were: 2 Black-headed Gulls, 24 Tufted Duck, 43 Mallard, 24 Mandarin Duck, 10 Moorhen, 9 Coot, 1 Little Grebe, 2 Great-crested Grebe, 4 Goosander, 2 Grey Heron and 1 Cormorant

As always, thanks alot to all the people who turned up again this month and fingers crossed for the first Chiffchaffs at next month's walk!! See you all on 12th March.

Garden news - 23rd January 2011

One of the best things about birdwatching is that you can do it "anytime, anyplace, anywhere". The garden therefore, is always a great spot  for a bit of "birding therapy".

As I've mentioned before, I've been actively recording the birds in my garden as part of the BTO's Garden Birdwatch Scheme since 1999. As such it was that this morning I was watching the antics of the local Woodpigeons, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Dunnocks, Robin (back down to single figures, now the cold weather has gone), Chaffinches, Collared Doves etc when I spotted an old friend, the white Blackbird first seen back in September and written about in this blog on 27th December. After a period of about 2 weeks with no sign of him, he's suddenly reappeared in the garden, as bossy and argumentative as ever!

This sighting, however, was totally overshadowed, when I looked up into the trees to see a gorgeous male BRAMBLING. This species is usually recorded once or twice a year in the garden, but more often than not in late March/early April when birds are presumably on the move back north. As such, this record is very early, but nevertheless, very pleasing and will find its way into both the Garden Birdwatch archives as well as the Bird Atlas. Note the white rump which can just be seen between the wings and the orange "shoulder", which help seperate it from the much more common Chaffinch. Just managed to grab a quick, pretty awful, photo before it disappeared.

                                               Male Brambling, just before he flew away!


As evidence that Spring is just around the corner, a pair of Magpies, are busy rebuilding last year's nest in the tree at the bottom of the garden. I know they're not everyone's favourite, but I say "live and let live".

Bird Atlas Walk- 29th December 2010

Another day, another entry!! Don't worry it won't last. As soon as I get back to work the birding will stop, or at least become alot less frequent, and the blogging will go the same way. So let's make the most of it while it lasts.

This morning was grey and misty, not exactly the greatest incentive to get out of bed, but as I'd volunteered to carry out 4 walks for the BTO's Bird Atlas, and the first had top be completed by the end of December, I thought I'd better get out and get it done. I'm so glad I did, because, as it came light the mist started to clear and although I wouldn't go as far as to say it was sunny, it was definately a very pleasant walk and a good way to pass 2 hours of the holiday.

This year's walk took place in a1km square located around Old Brampton, Chesterfield. I started off walking past Ashgate Hospice and got my first birds of the day, a small flock of 6 Redwing. These were soon joined on the list by 4 Fieldfare and the first singing bird, a Robin. As I left the main road bird numbers increased and I soon recorded my first Nuthatch, Great-spotted Woodpecker and Dunnock. Rooks and Jackdaws were numerous, both species prospecting for nest sites, the former in the tops of the mature trees by the bridle path and the latter around the many chimney pots on the houses. The walk continued over countryside, through several fields, including some that had only recently been spread with slurry- very smelly!! The smelly field were good for birds though with a group of 20 Black-headed Gulls and 3 Lapwings busy feeding on them. After a short time on Chatsworth Road which provided me with my first Collared Doves of the day, I walked back down Storrs Road and Old Road to rejoin the car. The last new bird of the walk was a gorgeous Jay, which flew out of the woodlands just in front of me. Lovely!!

As mentioned above, this walk was the first of 4 for this particular square. I will be doing another in February 2011 and then 2 during the breeding season to see which other species use this part of the countryside. The results will be added to the BTO website and will feed into the new Breeding and Wintering Atlas that covers the whole of Great Britain. If you fancy having a go at this type of bird survey work give the website a look. I can really recommend it.