Yellow Wagtails breed locally & economy of effort

Well, hello again! I hope no-one was holding their breath for the next blog post. Gone blue you say? Yikes! Inhale and here I am with a short update and to let you know that for the time being I can be found on Twitter rather than Blogger (link over there, in the left sidebar).

For much of the summer, health issues have been severely limiting. However, nearly 3 weeks ago now, on a short little wander not far from home, I came upon what turned out to be 2 nesting pairs of Yellow Wagtails. After weeks of barely being able to walk 15 minutes around the block, I was greeted by life and chirps and flits and beaks full of insects. It was utterly delightful and completely transforming! I have been keeping an eye on them ever since and last weekend the first nestlings fledged.

On days when the clouds were low, the Swallows and House Martins would buzz past the perched Wagtails, skimming the tops of the crop. A pair of Dunnocks had also chosen to breed amongst the peas and the speckly youngsters joined the Wagtails forming a kind of bird crèche. In an adjacent pasture, there are freshly fledged Yellowhammer, Linnets and Goldfinches, all full of bluster and squabbles and swoops for food.

My health remains pretty restrictive but I’m hoping that the economy of effort required with Twitter will keep you and me connected.

Ma

Pa

Fledgling

Siskin passage, Wheatears & Yellow Wags

Hemel & Bovingdon (BMT): I can’t say that I have momentous, migrant news, but local birding has been pretty enjoyable this week. Birds have been vocal, varied and plentiful even if the majority have been common. Energy and expectation has filled the air as passage gathers momentum and preparations are made for the winter. The archetypal sight, on Wednesday, was a pair of Jays flying off from Harding’s Moor, each with an acorn in its bill. I couldn’t help but smile.

The two adults and two colour-ringed immature Little Egrets have remained faithful to their areas of the River Bulbourne. And, also on Wednesday, three Kingfishers whizzed past the end of my nose, up stream, each chasing the one in front, high-pitched calls flooding the moors. It’s a fantastic experience when these bolts of blue lightening strike and three in quick succession make the air positively crackle.

Mixed Tit flocks and Chiffchaffs (with even a few occasionally bursting into song) were numerous at both Roughdown and the Brickworks this week. One Roughdown group had even attracted the company of a beautiful Great Spotted Woodpecker. But, the most exciting avian action has been the small flocks of chattering Siskins flying over Trust land. I didn’t see or hear a single local Siskin last year so this is my first record of it on the estate, although I know others have beaten me to it. In spite of several tempting Alder trees on the Hemel moors, it’s not an easy species to see here...

So, there I was yesterday morning, walking amongst the scrub at Bovingdon Brickworks, when a flock of c20 Siskins decided to alight in the tree tops right next to me. I suspect they were drawn down by the noisy gathering of c120 Goldfinches which were nearby. Anyway, I couldn’t have been happier! It’s one thing hearing them fly over, it’s another when they perch up and give you a chance to take a proper look. They stayed just a few moments before, one by one, they fluttered back up into the air to continue south.

Sizzling Siskin

At the increasingly famous horse paddock (aka migrant magnet) on Nettleden Rd, just north of Hemel, regular checks turned up a couple of Wheatears, a handful of Yellow Wagtails and fly-through Swallows and House Martins this week. Surely, it’s only a matter of time before something a little more exotic touches down on the hallowed horse dung. Hope springs eternal.

The 2 Wheatears that dropped in at Nettleden Rd on 17th. Left & centre photos show the same bird; right, the other bird.

Yellow Wagtail, horse paddock, Nettleden Rd (on a very dull, dark day (13/9/2015)!)

More to autumn than bird migration?

What The Flicking-tail-of-a-Redstart has got into me?! OK, I’ll admit, as I wander the Hemel moors and Bovingdon scrub, my ears are pricked for that unusual call; eyes peeled for the leap of a Pied Flycatcher or the hint of grey of a skulking bruiser (aka Barred Warbler). During the last couple of weeks, it seemed like every birder in the county was finding a Wryneck, so, yes, I had hopes. But, how ever warm the welcome or suitable the habitat, the birds aren’t stopping. My piqued senses have to alight on something other than our feathered friends.

Instead of bird calls, it’s the crunch of acorns under foot. There’s a particular Oak at the Brickworks which really is a very fine specimen. I’ve spent many hours stood beneath its branches, hoping for Purple Hairstreaks. This autumn, it’s produced acorns to fit the palm of an angry Bruce Banner. Whoppers, they are!

At Roughdown Common, prompted by Steve Gale’s recent post, I went looking for Autumn Lady’s-Tresses (not that it’s ever been recorded here before). Instead, I found the very pretty Autumn Gentian (Gentianella amarella). Its tiny tubular flowers are just beginning to open. I don’t know much about it other than it’s late flowering and favours these dry calcareous grasslands or sand dunes. There's a detailed write up here by someone far more knowledgeable. It’s listed as one of the plants contributing to the SSSI status of Roughdown Common so it’s obviously not commonplace. And, it's clearly spread since the SSSI survey. There, it's listed as present on the slopes of the chalk dell (Lower Roughdown). However, I found an abundance of flowers all across the grassland of Further Roughdown, to the west.

It’s autumn amongst the butterflies too. The most abundant species at the Brickworks this week was the Speckled Wood. There are at least 9 of them around the site with a few remaining Common Blues, Small Whites and the odd Red Admiral and Comma. Four Southern Hawker dragonflies were also still around, which is a bonus.

At home, an autumn moth, an Orange Swift (Triodia sylvina), dropped in for supper one evening this week, landing on the outside of the kitchen window. I potted it up, photographed it and let it back out into the night air. It's a species of "waste ground, moorland and wild places". I'm not sure which of those best describes my postage stamp of a suburban back garden!? The larvae feed on a variety of plants.

And, finally, on Friday, I could resist the draw of the birds no longer. I returned to a stretch of land I used to watch fairly regularly, just north of Hemel, along the River Gade. It’s not Ivinghoe Beacon (a migration watch point) but I’ve had a few nice surprises here. Migrants have included a Spotted Flycatcher, Stonechat and Yellow Wagtails and, one winter, a male Pintail joined the Teal and Gadwall on the fishing pools.

Anyway, my luck was in on Friday and, along with a pair of peeping Kingfishers, I found a flock of 11 Yellow Wagtails amongst the cattle. It’s one of my favourite sights and sounds of migration. Little yellow birds scurrying around the feet of hoofing great cows, chirruping, posing, preening and fluttering together. And, such a lovely mix of colours and markings: from the bright yellow of the adult males to the almost pure white chests of the first winter birds. It was a shame the grass was so long as many of the birds were barely visible on the ground. I managed to photograph 5 of the 11, 3 of which seem to be admiring the big cow casting the long shadow. It is entirely deliberate that not one of them is in focus!

So, there we are. Trees, plants, butterflies, moths, birds and I didn't even mention the abundance of fungi everywhere, thanks to the wet August. Autumn spans the species...

Whinchats like buses!

The chances of finding or seeing good/rare/scarce migrant birds in Hemel Hempstead or, indeed, on the Box Moor Trust (BMT) land that I spend a lot of my time monitoring, are pretty slim, unfortunately. That’s not to say that it’s impossible, and there are a few hot-spots in the surrounding countryside which fuel my hopes for local surprises. When Wheatears can turn up on your suburban-housing-estate doorstep (as one did in Oct 2012), you can’t really rule anything out! And, never let us forget the Turtle Dove that spent a day at the BMT Brickworks in 2009. Anyway, it’s been a good 24 hours for birding within range of Hemel.

Water End/Nettleden Rd: Having recently remarked on the lack of passage Whinchats, it felt quite surreal to find 4 of them in a corn field, just north of Hemel, this morning. Add to that a Wheatear, 2 Yellow Wagtails, a well marked Lesser Whitethroat, more than a dozen Swallows, a couple of Yellowhammers and a sprinkling of Linnets, Meadow Pipits, Goldfinches, Starlings and Pied Wagtails, all without moving an inch, and you’ve got a mighty decent spot to plant your scope. The Lesser Whitethroat was a nice surprise and I was just about to check it wasn’t anything more interesting when a couple of walkers arrived, curious as to what I was doing. Of course, by the time I got back to the bird, it was nowhere to be seen.

Yellow Wagtail, horse paddock, Nettleden Rd

3 of the 4 Whinchats in the corn field adjacent to the horse paddock on Nettleden Rd

All this was on the back of seeing my first Hertfordshire Wryneck yesterday evening, in Wheathampstead. Wrynecks are extraordinary looking birds, a member of the woodpecker family, but I have yet to get a really good view of one. Still, I did manage a record shot this time, which is an improvement on the Ivinghoe bird I saw a couple of years ago.

Wryneck, Wheathampstead, skulking in the bushes!