Glaucous Gull - Poolsbrook CP

No ringing today, due to snow, wind and family commitments, so when I heard about a juvenile Glaucous Gull at Poolsbrook Country Park, I thought I'd have a drive across to try and see it. I was in luck, with the bird present on the main lake and "showing well". I managed some decent photos, and a little bit of video footage (see here).

Glaucous Gull

As well as the Glaucous Gull, there were also Black-headed, Common, Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls, so I managed a couple of "year ticks".

Year List update:

63 – Great Black-backed Gull

64 – Glaucous Gull

Linacre birding and ringing

I managed a couple of visits to Linacre this weekend, one for birding and one for ringing.

Saturday's visit was just a quick walk around the reservoirs with the following waterbirds counted: Mallard (121, the highest count of 2015 so far), Moorhen (7), Coot (6), Mandarin Duck (13, also the highest count of 2015), Tufted Duck (24, the highest count of the year), Black-headed Gull (42), Cormorant (1) and Goosander (1 male). The weather was quite sunny too, and Great and Blue Tits were singing. Here's a picture of the field above the top reservoir with just a little bit of this week's snow remaining.

The second visit of the weekend, on Sunday, was the first ringing  session of 2015. There were just 3 of us there, but we still managed to ring 57 birds of 7 species: Dunnock, Nuthatch; 2 new birds, a male and a female, Robin, Goldcrest (2 males), and Blue, Great and Coal Tits.

My personal totals were new/retrap: Blue Tit 8/7, Great Tit 5/5, Coal Tit 0/1, Robin 2/0, Goldcrest 1/0, Nuthatch 1/0.

As always, we managed a bit of bird watching in between net rounds. Today the Mistle Thrushes were very vocal around the ringing site, with 4 different birds seen, including at least one bird singing (first record of the year). A small flock of 5 Redwings flew over, a Kestrel was also seen hunting over the ringing site too and David heard the first "drumming" of the year from a Great-spotted Woodpecker. On the way in at 7.30am I saw a Little Owl in its favourite tree, a  nice "year tick"

Year List update:

62: Little Owl

Big Garden Birdwatch

Every week I take part in the BTO's Garden Birdwatch Scheme, and record all the wildlife that uses our garden. This weekend, in addition to this, I've also completed the annual RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch.

The following birds were counted: Blackbird (9), Blue Tit (2), Coal Tit (1), Great Tit (1), Dunnock (2), Starling (9), Collared Dove (1), Woodpigeon (2), Robin (1), Goldfinch (8), Greenfinch (3), Chaffinch (9), Magpie (1), Carrion Crow (1) and Lesser Redpoll (3).

All but one of these species are present every week. The exception being the Lesser Redpolls which were my first record in the garden this year and therefore also  a "year tick". Here's a photo of one feeding with a couple of Goldfinches, just a few feet from the back window. I think this is a female bird, nicely showing its "redpoll".

Goldfinch and Lesser Redpoll

Here's  close up of the same bird.

Lesser Redpoll

Year List update:

61 - Lesser Redpoll

500th Post - a spot of ringing and year ticking

Last night we had a bit of a surprise when it started to snow. Luckily, it didn't snow for too long, but there was still a covering on the roads and fields when we set off this morning to do some garden ringing at one of our sites in Wingerworth, Chesterfield. As always, we had a very busy few hours ringing a total of 111 birds of 10 different species; Blackbird, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Nuthatch, Bullfinch, Dunnock, Robin, Blue, Great and Coal Tit.

My personal totals were new/retrap:
Great Tit 7/2, Blue Tit 8/4, Coal Tit 1/0, Blackbird 2/1, Robin 1/1, Bullfinch 1/0, Dunnock 3/0.

As well as the ringing, we also spotted a few other species, including a "year tick" in the form of a calling Tawny Owl that lives in the surrounding area, and sometimes breeds in the nestbox.

Year List update:

60 - Tawny Owl

According to my blog account, this post is the 500th I've written since I started back in December 2010. Many thanks if you've stayed with me this long, and if you've just joined me, hopefully you like what you see, and will stay a while longer!

Linacre WeBS - January 2015

The first WeBS count of 2015 took place this weekend. Mandy from the Chesterfield RSPB Group carried out the count on Saturday. and Jayne and I added a few sightings on the Sunday. The weather on both days  was near perfect conditions of cols (2 degrees), dry, bright, sunny weather, with a covering of snow on the Sunday.

This month's count (a combination of both visits) was as follows: Mallard (105), Coot (5), Moorhen (12), Little Grebe (1), Mandarin Duck (11), Black-headed Gull (42), Tufted Duck (20), Goosander (1m), Grey Heron (2) and Cormorant (2, including one in breeding plumage).

The Little Grebe is particularly good, as this is the first record at Linacre in 2015 (thanks Mandy). This species didn't breed at Linacre last year, so hopefully, this returning bird is a sign of good things to come.

The woodland was quite quiet, but all the usual suspects were recorded with the exception of Siskin. Siskins are normally present at Linacre throughout the winter period, but so far this year, there haven't been any records. I haven't had any in the garden this winter either, which again is unusual.

One bird that was reported at Linacre via the DOS Website last week was Brambling. Again, this isn't a common bird here, and this was our first record of 2015.

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

Linacre -11th January 2015

The weather this weekend was pretty useless for ringing, so I had a couple of hours down at Linacre this afternoon to see what was about. It was quiet, except for three Grey Herons that were down on the bottom reservoir, my highest count since December 2013. This species is a former breeder at Linacre, 2010 being the last successful year that breeding was confirmed, so hopefully, they might hang around and breed again this year.

Grey Herons

Apart from the herons, I also spotted 115 Mallards, 130+ Black-headed Gulls, 2 male Goosanders, 2 Lesser Black-backed Gulls (flying over),  8 Moorhen, 6 Coot, 7 Mandarin Ducks, 13 Tufted Ducks, 2 Grey Wagtails (Year Tick), 1 Pied Wagtail, 1 Fieldfare, Redwings (heard flying over) and a Common Buzzard that was perched up in the woodlands by the bottom reservoir.

On the drive out I spotted a Brown Hare in the field, my first record of 2015.

Year List update:

54 – Song Thrush (on 5th)

55 – Grey Wagtail

56 – Pied Wagtail