Out and about in May

The birds don't seem to have been much affected by the late spring although the siskins were here until mid May, when they presumably left for the forests to think about nesting.  The starlings were well ahead of them and their chicks fledged on the 16th.  These photos were taken the day before.

Oystercatchers are nesting on a rooftop across the road and come to the golf course to feed.  They seem to be getting juicy grubs rather than worms and are unfazed by the golfers.

May sees the first counts for the BTO Breeding Bird Survey on my 1km squares near Wark Forest and in Harwood Forest.  The first of these was strange this year with only four species recorded (including one pheasant).  The commonest bird was meadow pipit and I stumbled across a nest so I took a quick photo before moving on.  Despite its name the BBS doesn't look for evidence of breeding, just presence in the breeding season.  I'll do another two counts in June.

At Banks Pond the Canada geese have six goslings

and the swans have five cygnets.  There is a lot of conflict between the male swan and the adult geese.

Red mason bees first appeared in the garden in April but then disappeared in the cold weather.  They have been active again in the past week or so.  Two females are building in my observation bee house.

This poor bee tried to fly through the spray from my watering can.  I picked her up and sat her on my finger while she got herself warmed up and dried off a bit, although she lost much of her pollen load.  I think she is a chocolate mining bee (Andrena scotica).

My meadow is in its second year and is already looking better than last year (when there was a drought in spring).  It was satisfying to see a female orange tip butterfly on lady's smock.

Damselflies were out and about by mid May and I have seen large red,

common blue,

azure,

and blue-tailed damselflies.

It was only on the last day of the month that I saw my first dragonflies of the year, four-spotted chasers.  Their emergence is a couple of weeks later than last year - I expect they have been waiting for some decent weather.  The first sign was an exuvia, the discarded exoskeleton of the larva.

Close by was a brand new dragonfly about to make its maiden flight.

This one was still resting on its exuvia, with a damselfly exuvia close by.

As I watched, most of these dragonflies few into the nearby trees where they will stay for a few days until returning to the pond.

It feels as if the calendar has slipped a month.  We had March weather in April and have now had April weather in May. Apart from the last three or four days May was cold and wet, so the spring is late for some things, especially plants and insects.

A lucky capture on trail camera

Most often the recordings on my trail cameras are carefully targeted but every now and then it is down to luck.  These two cameras were set up near the water, fairly close to a large starling roost.  The sparrowhawk triggered the first camera right at the water's edge.  Unfortunately it was a bit too close so we can't see its feet and can't tell whether it was squeezing its prey to death or drowning it.  It then jumped up the bank just as the camera was taking a brief break between consecutive 20s recordings and moved out of view.

It was then picked up by a second camera but a bit too far away for a good clear view.

All this happened 25 minutes after sunset, so it was fairly dark.  Ian Newton says in his book The Sparrowhawk that juvenile birds are more likely to hunt later in the day, presumably because they are still hungry, being less efficient hunters than adult birds.  As far as I can tell in this black and white video, this one could be a juvenile of either sex or an adult female.  Judging by it size relative to the prey I think it is likely to be a female.  When I saw on the camera's replay screen what had happened I went to look for feathers and found lots of starling feathers on the ground.

Sparrowhawks kill small birds easily but they are also  known to drown larger prey, although the behaviour is not common.  You can read mention of it here and here and even watch a video of it here.  It is not something I have witnessed in my garden but I have seen a sparrowhawk washing its feet in the pond after eating a chaffinch.

Garden birds in April

This blog has been rather overrun by mammals recently but I haven't given up on bird photography.  April was a good month for birds in the garden, including the arrival of chiffchaffs and blackcaps from Africa.

I saw the male kestrel again very early one morning.  Twice he dived down to the lawn to catch something which I think was probably a worm.  Although their main prey is small mammals, kestrels eat other things including small birds, insects and worms.

A pair of jays are in the garden every day.  They are the prettiest crows and are great opportunists.  This one was standing under the peanut feeder while a woodpecker was feeding, waiting to catch the bits as they fell.

Jackdaws also come down to the feeders and stand underneath.

Jackdaws are more agile than jays and can get onto the feeders themselves.

I also have a woodpecker feeder which has holes filled with suet.

It also attracts other birds.

And you-know-who is still around, keeping them all on their toes.

There were lots of other birds I didn't take photos of - all the usual suspects plus reed bunting and green woodpecker. The only disappointment is that my camera nest box is unoccupied for the first time since it was put up in 2009.  I have modified it slightly to move the camera so that it can see the whole floor and the entrance hole so it would have given good pictures.  Maybe next year.

Starling murmuration

The starling murmuration has returned to my local nature reserve this autumn and I have been to watch four times in the last three weeks.  Each time I tried to pick a bright evening without much wind but, even then, their behaviour is a bit different from last year and the whole show is a bit less well coordinated this time.  The early arrivals do well and put on a good show.

The next groups are even larger and they all blend into one.

When they fly closer to or over the hide they fill the sky.

The starlings go down into the reed beds after displaying when only half of them have arrived.  They seem to pour out of the sky.

All the later arrivals then go straight down with further display.

The experts' assessment is that there are probably about 20,000 birds, a little fewer than last year and with less extravagant shapes.  If they waited until they had all arrived before diving into the reed bed the show would be completely spectacular but even so it is well worth watching.  They are harassed every time by a pair of sparrowhawks, as they were last year, so this may have modified their behaviour.

Last year the numbers built up over several weeks but then they moved on - probably because their weight had done so much damage to the reeds that there was no longer room for them all to roost.  I expect the same will happen this year and they will move on to somewhere else soon.