Horrid autumn- 31/10/17

Point: Rock Pipit 14, Goldcrest 3, Chiffchaff, Chaffinch 12, Brambling, Linnet 3, Reed Bunting 2

Viz mig: Meadow Pipit 3, Skylark 3, Redwing 8, Song Thrush 2, Chaffinch 10, Brambling 3.

Mound, viz mig: Sparrowhawk, Skylark 2, Meadow Pipit, Fieldfare 652, Redwing 6, Starling 388, Crow 21, Chaffinch 232, Goldfinch 63, Lesser Redpoll, Siskin 7. Looking towards Bloors, the Woodpigeon appear to be running out of food in the fields, taking more and more to short dispersal flights.

Horrid autumn- 6/10/17

06:30-09:10
Viz mig- Skylark 6, Jackdaw 3, Meadow Pipit 51, Pied Wagtail 10, Song Thrush 1, Chaffinch 81, Goldfinch 21, Greenfinch 3, Siskin 2, Linnet 23, Reed Bunting 5.

Point- Linnet 10, Chaffinch 9, Reed Bunting 6

Another tired Woodpigeon? Yup, but this one had an excuse. Not a migrant, but a recent fledgling, not long out of the nest. The texts point to a long breeding season, but with a peak in September. Historically gave a good chance to make the most of the autumn acorns and the fields of stubble. Thanks to the burgeoning population, have to take what they can, and like the fat adult a few days before, this was was near the privet berries. Lots will be dispersing around now.

Horrid autumn- 3/10/17

A short while after coming back from Sussex I gave up owning a car, and took to the pushbike, or walked. Actually, I gave up owning a 4x4 truck, the beast had been brilliant offroad over the farmland in the Brede Valley, but was a bit too OTT for the Rainham estates.

It wasn't all about saving the world, it was about saving money. Besides, from time to time I could borrow a car, so I wasn't that green to turn down the chance. Because, like every dear reader, I'm dying. Very slowly, since my twenties, just like you.

Back then I believed 'coughs and sneezes spread diseases' and didn't really appreciate what disease is; a disorder of structure or disfunction in the body. We bring some upon ourselves (if you don't know what 'The Western disease' is, look it up. I'm busy putting lots of people off Maccy D and the likes nowadays) others happen when we think our slowly reducing muscle mass can still operate as well as 30 years ago, and then things just pop out.. We're all diseased, we're all going to fall apart. Get out and bird now. Retirement won't be what you think for a lot of you. Long and the short of it, I'm walking with a stick until I have an operation to sort out some worn parts.

So, choosing Horrid seemed like a good idea for days when I could borrow transport. A tad worse on other days, which could find me walking in, then diverting to Twydall for a lift back at least. Some mornings, to get to Horrid for Dawn, I just had to grit my teeth for an hour's limp.

You can always tell the days I walk. There's a bloomin' big BHG number in the notebook. Today? 5,220 Black-headed Gulls, south to the Downs in the half-hour it took to walk the edge of the Park. These are counts that can be really messy, but more fun watching for odd behaviour- sometimes not many leaving that early (they know when the ground is frozen, covered), or big numbers arriving early (no guess, sometimes perhaps a movement, sometimes just really good early feeding or a lot of disturbance down on the farms?

I was really tempted by a tired Woodpigeon as I arrived at Horrid, one I could have picked up and stroked; migration? A man can dream.. (Answer- no. Just, well, no.)

So, what was there?

06:45-09:45
Viz mig: Brent Goose 47 (+89 offshore), Peregrine 2, Kestrel, Sparrowhawk, Sandwich Tern 13, Common Tern, Swallow 4, Sand Martin 2, Skylark 8, Meadow Pipit 104, Pied Wagtail 2, Lesser Redpoll, Linnet 27, Chaffinch 2, Goldfinch 2.

Point: Chiffchaff 4, Linnet 14, Reed Bunting 2.

Watched the Curlews for a bit. Last few days, flightline to roost were settled (red). Today? West basin birds behaving, but eastern lot having none of it around Friars (yellow). Gave it a wide berth and instead formed two large groups over on Oakham. Haven't heard anything of late on the ongoing ownership questions. WAGBI, Wildfowlers Association of GB and Ireland, long-term loaned it to the CEGB, Central Electricity Generating Board. Both gone through name changes, affiliations, both present regenerations having trouble locating their copies of the paperwork.

Horrid autumn- 18/9/17

Viz mig (west): Teal 26 southwest, Ringed Plover 10, Knot, Whimbrel south, Bar-tailed Godwit 2, Greenshank 3 south, Snipe 2 south, Sandwich Tern 5, Common Tern, Kingfisher 1, Sand Martin 3, Swallow 24 (+20 south), Meadow Pipit 22, Grey Wagtail 2 east (downsteam as per norm).

Point: Chiffchaff 2. Oh, and a Woodpigeon building a nest. What an optimist. Stupid Woodpigeon.

While new arrivals would be expected to be wary (and there were certainly new birds in) the already settled staging waders didn't want to roost on Nor/Friars, even though no wildfowling out on the latter today. They instead chose RSPB Motney Saltings to start with, but were pushed off this first choice by an overeager birder. Motney, to Friars, to Rainham Saltings then back to skirt Motney and round into Otterham.

Problem, much? Obviously the present fair weather and daylength gives time for refueling in optimum conditions. This routine type of disturbance during the winter months will hit fitness and local carrying capacity. It could still be doing so now. Many of these birds are trying to take every opportunity to reach optimal migratory state before striking out for south-west Europe, for Africa. Really difficult to work out if they can under constant disturbance.

Flighting up times

The last couple of session out have seen me mainly musing on disturbance- specifically, fireworks disturbance.

The tide on New Year's Eve had been covering just approaching midnight, which could have meant a fair number of birds close to shore. The traditional British approach of letting off fireworks from any time up to six hours before the stroke of midnight had already put paid to that. A check the following night (with fireworks still being let off around Gillingham), notched up fewer than expected territorial waders close in, and no sign of any moving flocks. Daytime checks along the urban stretches showed the species that follow the tide in, weren't. Just a few hundred Dunlin. It takes time for these birds to feel the area to be 'safe' again. Wildfowl have also been shaken up a bit; more urban stretches of estuary have seen drops in numbers of the 'loafing' daytime species- some 'feeders' (such as the mud-sifting Shoveler) are nearer normal count numbers. This, to me, is a main driver. Food. Go hungry competing for resources on the estuary, or risk starting to return to an area that had seemed totally alien just a night or so prior. If you have a safe secondary loafing/roosting site, you might stick with that for a while longer.

So numbers should rebuild slowly over the next few days, but how much effect does this disturbance have on the birds at the time? Details on a radar study just over the Channel showing just how many birds are caught up in such things can be found here. Dangers during the panic flights, competing for food resources elsewhere, cautious returns over a few days to territories, all add up.

Of course, it isn't just the estuary birds- as I described last year, other roosting species take fright and flight. One example- a typical December 31st  morning watching local flightlines will see a movement of Woodpigeons from safe urban roosts out into the countryside during the first 90 minutes or so, with a minimal commute in the opposite direction. After that time small numbers start drifting back in. A typical January 1st? Exact opposite. The flight back in, I'm beginning to suspect, might not be the commuters checking the roost site is still there, but more likely the urban Woodpigeon who feed primarily in Medway gardens, returning to their favoured feeding areas.

This would all be well and good if nocturnal mass flights did suffer fatalities (they do) and if having to desert favoured feeding areas didn't put strain on survival (it does, especially in hard weather).

Many birders only notice this through rares- "I hope X hangs on into the New year" (Birders of a certain age, hoping for a revisit for a millennium tick, will remember that Aldeburgh Ivory Gull, last seen December 31st 1999).

If you haven't bothered with the Dutch radar study linked above, I'll draw your attention to one thing- fireworks can only be sold to private consumers 29th-31st December. They can only be used for recreational purposes between 18:00 New Year's Eve and 02:00 New Year's Day. How different to the British approach of starting letting off fireworks days before and continuing well into the New Year (there were more last night here). The recovery period for their wildlife is thankfully short. We just keep banging on and on.

Better get back out and see if 'my' local flocks are back to their 2016 numbers yet.

The Circle of Strife

Tonight was an odd set of roost counts. The birds had clearly been disturbed of late. The Magpies pre-assembled all along the western edge of the chalk pit, avoiding the usual spots. The Woodpigeon had deserted in droves. Many of the passerines didn't show (shockingly, Chaffinch only just made double figures). I might have put it down to the warm weather, but the Magpie numbers were still clearly high. I did wonder if the seventeen youngsters congregated at the viewpoint might have been a regular disturbance of late? Sunset was nearly five- plenty of post-school loitering time now, at least they weren't glued to their computers.

Me being me, I stood my ground, nodded and smiled, and started counting. Then stopped smiling and asked them to stop kindly stop throwing their rubbish down the bank. Then to not throw branches down. After about ten minutes of staring me out and eff-ing and jeff-ing in my general direction, they drifted off, not without the odd taunt hurled from a distance.

Ah, the youth of today.

Exactly the same as the youth of yesterday.

I didn't get into birding until post teens, but a general interest in nature had been stirred a few years earlier, mainly, as I recall, through some nicely illustrated AA books and a set of carefully cut out cardboard nature dioramas, care of the nice people at Weetabix. Which was how, as we trudged our way to Luton Recreation ground forty years ago, I had been able to bore my own local 'gang' by continually pointing out one of the few plants I'd learnt, a jolly patch of Lords-and-Ladies, proudly adding "also called arum maculatum" every time. Every single time until the day they'd been flattened. Smashed to bits. Ground into the ground. Even now I can still hear Magoo (our squinty goalpoacher) laughing "Yer won't be saying yer noncey-poncey Latin anymore now, will yer?".

Thank you for that lesson Mr. Magoo, I've never forgotten it.

I was the one now squinting, adding up the notebook ticks in the twilight. Cumulative numbers were down by about a third on last February but I'd broken the 250 mark for the Magpies again, that'd have to do. Time to go. Now if I could just find my way back out in the dark without landing in the little herberts' broken glass, fag butts and crisp wrappers, that'd be grand.

A Motney morning

The first chill morning for ages, with a cold wind to boot, was not enough to dampen my enthusiasm for getting out early on a morning without rain. I chose the eponymous hill of Motney as a viewpoint, as it had been a while since I'd enjoyed being buzz-bombed by Collared Doves there.

They roost somewhere on the 'mainland', but each morning race up the peninsula to check out one particular garden, where the owner has a very generous feeding regime; flighting past low, in groups of up to eight, I counted 120 through in the first fifteen minutes after sun up; an average morning.

Woodpigeon also come past in numbers, though thankfully a little higher. They usually cross the narrow Otterham Creek heading for the industrial-sized seed feeders dotted about the commercial shoot on Bayford Marsh. If for any reason the Motney garden cafe is shut, the Collared Doves head over to join them.

I appreciate that is not every birdwatcher's cup of tea, but it made for something to count. And I'd have missed the small flocks of Siskin going north as well.

For the hour I was stood there, I was serenaded continually by a Song Thrush, perched up and out against the wind. While I've been used to them singing these past few weeks during the mild weather I really thought the colder night might have dampened the hormones. Keen bird in a keen wind.

A Lower Halstow dawn

The tide was already on the make at dawn, and would cover the flats in just over the hour- not the best conditions for large wader counts. Most will have started feeding close to their nocturnal roosts and not travel far in the remaining time available- Grey Plover and Knot, which usually roost away from Twinney Saltings, were conspicuous by their low numbers. The Millfordhope roost Avocet and Curlew were present, as were the Twinney Dunlin. Still not sure where the Ringed Plover roost, but four dozen were close to the seawall at Twinney. The Greenshank and Spotted Redshank were by the fresher water of the creek head, and the Whimbrel still searched the rocks.

Wildfowl were 'as expected'- only Teal was down (presumably taking a last feed over the seawall before back to the Creeks to day-roost) while Brent Goose (intra-seasonal movements) and Shelduck (on their slow return passage from moulting grounds in the Waddenzee) both clearly had new arrivals among them.

Away in the distance, both Herring Gull and Lesser Black-backed Gull were beginning to get 'territorial' on the seawalls of Greenborough. That seemed much too early for my liking.

On the way back through to Rainham I took a little time out to watch the Woodpigeon on the Ivy. 16 on a clump two metres by three metres, and loathe to leave it when I came near.

The Berengrave roost

That Pheasant- a record shot to impress
the Berengrave rarities committee

A new high total of 282 Magpie in tonight, though I was rather more impressed by a Pheasant dropping in, low over my head- the first I've noted roosting here in the three winters I've been counting Berengrave. That's how counting can get you, even the most uber-mundane species can overexcite you just by showing up and doing not a lot a lot.

Redwing numbers were up, and some of them were not quite sure where exactly to go in, circling the chalk pit several times, one or two flying off to the west- recent arrivals from a local movement perhaps? Disturbingly the Chaffinch collapse continued, now less than fifty birds were seen arriving.

But perhaps most interesting to me were the Woodpigeon. Numbers slightly down, perhaps expected after the New Years' Eve fireworks, but more intriguingly the vast majority arrived not from the east and the open countryside, but south and west from the urban sprawl. Local fields lack quality feeding this year, and a switch to the gardens of Medway could be underway.

A reassembly of Rooks

Dawn on New Year's Day, and a slow saunter looking for Woodpigeon flight lines (many returning to the Medway Towns after being bombed out of their roosts at midnight). I stop to watch the sunrise over Hawes Wood (a busy Woodpigeon roost itself at times, not today) close to the Brent Cottages rookery on the western edge of Upchurch. Veteran nesters have already been reasserting their ownership rights here for several weeks now. 

This 'early activity' is not down to global warming as some would have it; Rooks always stake their claims in the winter months. Perhaps such actions give time for further dispersal by the unsuccessful? Perhaps sorting rank and position in a colony takes time that they can ill-afford in the true breeding season? Whatever the reason, their return to the nests is another promise of Spring.

To start, the birds mainly just pay short visits at first light, but they then start to stay a little longer each day. For this particular gathering, the pasture between rookery and Lower Halstow provides excellent feeding so, even when away from their nests, they are usually very close by now. This morning they were happy to assemble on wires just over the hedge from the main road.

The complex of associated satellites of the Funton rookery are also just as busy now. Last year more of the low trees atop Raspberry Hill were removed. These clumps had only been adopted as satellites after surrounding orchards were grubbed out several years ago now. Suitable nestsites are at a premium. It will be interesting to see if 2016 brings the establishment of a new satellite slightly further out, or if breeding numbers contract. Again, good feeding habitat is plentiful, and the Funton Rooks are catholic feeders, often to be found out on the mudflats searching the algal mats.

Funton

Hopefully these birds will remain a fixture in the years to come.

(If anyone comes across it, there is a lovely old book, "The Life of the Rook", by G.K. Yeates. First published in 1934, it describes their nesting habits in great detail, based on observations made just down the road in East Kent. It carries a lovely dedication to 'The George and Dragon' at Fordwich and all its inmates.)

It all kicks off

Berengrave

23:59, New Year's Eve. I'm standing in Berengrave LNR at the viewpoint over the flooded chalkpit quarry. The odd Magpie and Woodpigeon are giving unsettled calls around me. Fireworks have been going off intermittently for the past five hours, and it is clear quite a few birds have already shifted out from their main roosts over the deeper water to the chalkpit edges. The annual  New Year's celebrations are something that causes a great deal of disturbance to birds, and the 250 or so Magpie and 550-odd Woodpigeon calling the LNR home were about to experience fireworks 'shock and awe'.

00:00. It all kicks off. Woodpigeon start to crash out of the trees around me, hurrying away. In contrast, the magpies go quiet as they pass low over me. Strangely, no sound of passerines. It might be many have moved on the earlier explosions. Their roost numbers have also dropped away in recent years, and so if they do not alarm, you may well miss them. Instead, Lapwing can now be heard overhead, moving inland from the estuary- the annual mass disturbance is now well underway. 

Lower Halstow wharf and church

I've had an interest in this event since the Millenium, when I was witness to a large disturbance over the mouth of the Medway, from Sheerness to Grain, as masses of winter thrushes fled the huge bombardment. Then my years at Rye had proved disturbance flights a given. The large organised display lights up the surrounding marshlands, and I used to record wildfowl fleeing Castle Water heading for the Tillingham valley, with big numbers of passerines, flighting in all directions.

Tonight's big rush was over. I moved down to Motney Hill to try to gauge events there. The flats were pretty much vacant. One or two Teal called, and several lost Dunlin alarmed overhead. A handful of Brent circled the Hill.

Twinney

The waders and wildfowl clearly hadn't enjoyed the experience. I had mused whether they simply head for the main channel where They might feel safer but, then again, several fireworks displays were still in full swing over the Hoo skyline With such a level of disturbance, where would these birds feel safe?

On to Lower Halstow. 01:15. Again, many fewer sounds of life than expected from the creeks, and for a while I was more focused on the squabbling Little Owl with birds on Great Barksore, in the Brickfields and along by Frog Farm all squabbling with each other. Then the call of Dunlin overhead reminded me why I was out. These birds were going inland, high. A distant Grey Heron called from the direction of Ham Green, continuing south and heading off towards Callum Hill.

By the time I reached Funton, the disturbance seemed to be all over. Though the tide was making, little could be picked out. I headed home for rest at 02:00.

Later that day I was pleased to receive a timely retweet linking to a Dutch paper on the subject of fireworks. Clearly there is a lot of real disturbance happening, and the paper hints at a clearly observable level of fatalities. As more birders become aware of this issue, will they start to make the noise? Only time will tell. I take some hope from seeing just nine Chinese lanterns sail over the estuary during my two hours in the field. The message on their dangers seems to be getting through.