House Martin Nest Study 2016

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My favourite summer migrants have returned – the swallows, house martins, sand martins and swifts. I’m fortunate that three of these species (not sand martins) breed in the area where I live and I can usually see them flying in the sky above my house. I’m even more fortunate that there’s usually a house martin nest on under my eaves; I say usually but in fact there has been at least one nest for the past 15 summers than I have lived here. I thought the unbroken record was going to come to an end last summer when the house martins failed to return around their usual time. There was no sign of them for most of the spring and summer until I retuned home from work in late August to find droppings on the driveway beneath the nest, which was still up there from the previous year. That seemed very late for a first brood particularly compared to the usual May or June in previous year.

The chicks fledged in late September and it wasn’t clear if this was by accident or design. I worked from home one day and in the afternoon there seemed to be lots of comings and goings from the nest. It was only when I left the house later on that I noticed the nest on the driveway and the fledgelings flying up to the point when it used to cling to the eaves. The next day they were all gone and I didn’t see any more house martins around my home again last year.

Over the years I have sporadically kept a record of when the house martins first arrived back at the nest and most records show it was around mid to late April. When the month changed into May, I started to suspect there would be another late return this year. However, when I was cooking my evening meal yesterday I had a spare moment and popped my head out of the kitchen and popped my head round the corner of my house and looked upwards. Up at the apex of the eaves was the ring of mud, all that remained of the nest, but there was something else up there too. At first it looked like a bit of black plastic blown up there by the wind but after I shaded by eyes from the evening sun, the shape was clearly a house martin and there was another flying around just above the roof.

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House martins are ‘amber listed’ in the Birds of Conservation Concern listings and numbers have been in rapid decline.  I’m sure that when first moved into my house, another pair nested under next door’s eaves and there were other nests in the area.  Now there is mine and very few others.  However, the pattern of decline isn’t uniform.  Ramsey Island for example (the RSPB reserve where I volunteer for a couple of weeks each year), didn’t have any house martins before a first nest in 2014 and it had eight nests last year (extra emergency artificial nests had to be shipped across!). Something is certainly happening to house martins but fortunately it’s been noticed and hopefully before it’s too late to reverse the overall declines.

Last year I took part in the British Trust for Ornithology’s (BTO) House Martin Nest Survey. I was given an Ordnance Survey grid square, luckily for me the one immediately nest to the one in which I live, and I made several visits to record the number of nests on buildings and the amount of activity. This year there’s another house martin survey for the BTO. The House Martin Nest Study 2016 requires surveyors to choose a nest/nests and record the activity over the course of the spring and summer. The survey can be done with varying levels of detail and I hope to do as much monitoring as I can, doing daily records of activity whenever possible (holidays allowing). Now that house martins have returned to my home, I’m going to have a very convenient nest to monitor!

The chortling house martin chicks wafting in through my landing window on warm summer evenings as I lie in bed really is one of my favourite things about the season and I’m hopeful that it won’t be long until I hear those sounds once again. By doing the survey this year, I hope that I can make a small contribution to helping to ensure this will always be a sound of summer.

Mr Angry disturbs bird survey

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This morning was perfect for my first Breeding Bird Survey of the spring for Cheshire Wildlife Trust (CWT).  With a milky sun peeping through the cloud, a light breeze and (relatively) warm air, I set out to count the birds at the Trust’s Bagmere reserve.

After two years of doing both Winter Bird Surveys and Breeding Bird Surveys for CWT, there’s a bit of a change this spring. The Trust has been developing an amended methodology, so things are a little delayed this year.  Instead of having one transect at Bagmere (and the Blakenhall Moss site that I also survey), it is divided into compartments of different habitats.  Bagmere is divided into several grassland, woodland and fenland compartments, in which the birds are recorded separately to show what birdlife the different habitats support.  This morning was my first outing with the new methodology and it worked well and clearly showed some differences between the various areas.

As I’ve written before, a bird survey on a spring morning is an idyllic way to spend a bit of time, wandering through the fields and woodlands, listening to the birds singing in their breeding prime.  Today was as good a morning as there has been when I’ve done a survey and Bagmere was lovely with the flowers starting to show and the leaves beginning to unfurl on the trees.

All was peaceful…apart from this whitethroat who called out in alarm as I passed on the way out and the way back.  He seemed to see me as a great threat and flew from bush to bush berating and scolding me until I was outside of his territory.

Common Whitethroat

 

Another day, another song bird…

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I dropped into Whisby Nature Park on the way home from Lincoln today.  I last visited when I had a long weekend in the county back in the autumn and one of the local Wildlife Trust’s volunteers told me that nightingales bred there. So after working in the city today I took the opportunity on a warm and sunny afternoon to see if I could find one; I wasn’t disappointed…

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A warbler hour

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With a spare couple of hours, I popped out to a good birdwatching spot not far away – Sandwich Flashes – and it was certainly worth it.  The arrival of summer migrants is in full swing and warblers in particular were of note as I went between several of the pools and lakes.

There were the usual warblers I see (or more normally just hear) including chiff chaff, willow warbler, blackcap and sedge warbler but also a couple of more notable ones.  Below is a shot I took of a Cetti’s warbler. Its loud and distinctive call immediately caught my attention as I stepped out of my car and it flew right in front of me, giving just enough time to get my camera ready and fire off a few shots.

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Even more special though was my first ever sighting of a wood warbler but unfortunately I just couldn’t get my camera trained on it for even a record shot.

Why we protect nests…

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The brightness doesn’t look set to remain as I turn onto the quiet Sunday morning roads. The clouds are building in compliance with the forecast, spreading beneath the blue sky, pushed on by the strengthening breeze. In the countryside spring is still battling to win through; after a week of four season confusion, there’s still no sign of the much longed for warmth. The trees and hedges are doing their bit, leaves breaking out and blossom starting to form but the sense that summer may not be far away is dulled and diminished. Turning from main road to country lane, there are signs that work in the fields is bringing forward the time for growth; fields ploughed, muck spread and seeds drilled. The pastures are also starting to build their crop; grass growing stronger and brighter, helped by the rain and occasional sun. The short drive doesn’t give me much time to ponder the scenes I pass but time enough to observe more of the constant changing patterns in the countryside. There’s also time to start considering the purpose of my journey and it’s continued need…

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This morning I was out in the countryside again but this time to do my second shift protecting a nesting pair of peregrine falcons.

As I arrived it was thankfully less chilly than my first shift and there is now a heater to keep the volunteers warm. I also arrived later in the day as I wasn’t on the dawn shift, which would have meant getting up well before 5:00am and the need for even more layers. All was quiet as I took over the watch, with the male stood above the nest and the female, unseen, incubating the eggs below. There was soon activity however, as both falcons took to the air to drive off a buzzard that came far too close to the nest for their comfort. I later saw the buzzard doing its rollercoaster display but much further away from the nest.

This is the first year I’ve volunteered with the peregrine team, after a number of seasons doing shifts protecting the osprey nest at Glaslyn. I’m still volunteering at Glaslyn but thought I would help out somewhere closer to home.

The Glaslyn osprey nest has thankfully so far managed to avoid the fate of many other raptor nests; being raided for its eggs. After so long with no successful attempt to harm the nest, it’s easy to think that the threat isn’t there and doing a Glaslyn protection shift is simply a bit of fun and an opportunity to spend some time close to nature. Any sense of complacency that may have started to creep in has quickly been knocked out of me by volunteering at the peregrine site.

It’s only three weeks since my first shift at the beginning of the ‘protection season’ but already there have been a number of incidents at the peregrine site involving people more than likely trying to take the eggs or destroy the nest. I’ve also learnt of at least one other clutch of peregrine eggs in the area that has already been taken.

Having got used to the relative safety of the Glaslyn nest, it’s quite shocking to know that other nests are under what appears to be constant threat of attack. Raiding raptor nests seems like something from the past; it’s ridiculous that in our ‘modern’ world there are still people who think it is their right to harm wildlife for their own benefit. Whether it be for sporting gratification or protecting sporting interests, satisfying a need to collect rare objects or purely for financial gain through serving a demand for wildlife trade, there are still many people who will act with ill intent towards raptors and their nests.

This shows quite starkly that at Glaslyn we can’t lower our guard and that there are those out there who may wish harm to the nest. Whilst I wouldn’t want to scale the Glaslyn nest tree myself, there are some who would and could. Compared to Glaslyn, the peregrine nest is in a no less awkward, inaccessible or dangerous location to attack yet people appear to regularly try to get to it. Furthermore, whilst the peregrine nest may be targeted by a wide range of interests (egg collectors, falconers, pigeon-racers, etc), the range of interests that threaten the osprey nest isn’t much narrower.

As long as there are people who will prey on raptor nests, there need to be others who are willing to spend time trying to ensure they don’t succeed. Just because no one has successfully targeted the Glaslyn nest to date doesn’t mean there are aren’t people willing to take significant risks to get at it. I’m no longer open to even the slightest sense of complacency.

A spring survey at the end of a wintry week

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This morning I went out to the middle of the Cheshire countryside to undertake my first of two visits to my grid square for the British Trust for Ornithology’s (BTO) Breeding Bird Survey.  It’s the third year I’ve done this survey and it’s always a pleasure to spend a couple of hours out in the green fields and wooded hillsides observing nature and listening to the calls and songs of the birds.

It’s certainly been a strange spring week with the temperatures dropping and snow appearing on a couple of days.  However, the season is still progressing towards summer with the daffodils on the roadside verges having lost their flowers, the bluebells starting to bloom and the grass growing brighter shade of green. The leaves are coming out on the trees but could they be a little late this year? Some trees are barely showing any signs of leaves at all – it’s May tomorrow!

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The day started cold but bright and as we set off on the first of two one kilometre transects I had to check exactly what I had to do – the long winter has obviously dulled my memory. However, I soon got into the swing of it, for once aided by my assist (thanks Dad – he did the map reading), and started to get the sightings down on the record sheets.

The first transect went without a hitch and the second went well until the penultimate section when winter intervened; the heavens opened and down came a heavy spell of hailstones.  We waited under the shelter of the woodland and halted the survey until the downpour had completely finished, leaving it a little while longer for the birds to re-emerge from wherever they had been sheltering.  It wasn’t long until the birds were singing their spring songs once more and we completed the remaining section of the survey in the dry.

Nothing particularly notable popped up during the survey but all the usual summer migrants were present including the first swallows and house martins I’ve seen this year.  I’m hoping the house martins that nest on my own house return soon – or at least at lot earlier than the did last year – as I’ve got the BTO’s nest survey to do this year.

North Uist: Post-Dusk Chorus

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Standing on the doorstep, the moon shining down and lighting up the nocturnal world, it is my hearing that draws attention not my sight; silence but for the birds.

Sheltered from the strong wind but it has ceased and I walk out, crunching on gravel, to the edge of the plot. Overlooking the low, shallow bays, I listen to the post-dusk chorus.

There’s a nervous lapwing out in the dark, wary around its nest and the skittish redshank piping alarm at some movement on the shore.

Further from the water, a harsh growl is let out by the short-eared owl and the snipe drums its wing feathers as it floats to the ground. Back to the sea and the oystercatchers join the lapwing and redshank in calling at an unseen peril.

The sounds of the wild are completed by the mournful curlew as it lifts and glides off into the distance, its crying echoing around the bays.

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