Summary May 2012
Summary May 2012
Garden
The start of May saw a little improvement in the weather as some of the heavy rain stopped. On 3rd May we saw a newly fledged Dunnock pecking around trying out various things to see if they were edible. By the end of our holiday mid-month we saw our first – and by the end of the month – only fledgling Goldfinch on the feeders and young Starlings started to appear only to disappear later in the month. In fact this summer has been very poor for Starlings altogether. Blackbirds are frantically collecting worms and any other food they can find and seem to spend at least as much time squawking to deter predators such as Magpies and cats which root around in the trees looking for easy food. If they catch any eggs or young then there is not a great deal that the Blackbirds can do about it, though I have seen a Blackbird get the better of a threatening Squirrel in the past. Hopefully we will see fledged Blackbirds in the garden soon. On the 19th we saw a male and female Greenfich looking in good shape – they have been rare this year.
By the end of the month there were young Great Tits and Blue Tits but, so far, only the one fledgling Goldfinch. Robins remain scarce visitors and Starlings are nearly non-existent. A very strange spring so far.
Walks and Days Out
Our holiday to the Sussex / Norfolk region was affected by the bad weather and one of our proposed sites, WWT Welney, was inaccessible when we tried to get there, the only road leading there being under water as was most of the site itself. Many of the wetland sites are well designed for managing drought as they can pump water around their site to maintain levels from their stock of water but when the floods come they just wash over everything, cover all the scrapes and wash birds nests away. This is not only true in wetland areas as anything that lives in a burrow has been having a hard time of it and a newspaper report in the Guardian on 19th said that on the Farne Islands many of the Puffin nests had been flooded as well. For some birds there will be time to try to breed again but for others it will be a total disaster. Our holiday which became a bit ad hoc due to the weather took us to the following places:
5th May : Rutland Water
6th May : Lakenheath Fen RSPB
7th May : Weeting Heath NWT
9th May : Minsmere RSPB
11th May : Hickling Broad NWT
12th May : Cley Marshes NWT
12th May : Wiveton
13th May : Titchwell Marsh RSPB
13th May : Holmes Dunes NWT
15th May : Rutland Water
Over the period we saw around 100 species of birds and the top ones were Cuckoo, Hobby, Stone Curlew, Nightingale, Black Redstart, Barn Owl, Cetti’s Warbler, Grey Plover and possibly Golden Oriole though this last was controversial. All of these were life ticks and we added some 26 species to our year list which now stands at 134. Still a way to go yet but the year is young and our visit to Anglesey at the end of the month should give another seven or eight. Our total for last year was 155 so we have a way to go yet.
Birding Group
As a result of our being on holiday we missed a number of the birding group mornings including Macclesfield Forest and Staley Brushes. We should certainly try to get to the former soon as it was very good last year for Pied Flycatcher, Redstart and Willow Warbler as well as the GS Woodpecker feeding it’s chick in the nest hole visible from the car park. We did manage to get to the day at Old Moor RSPB on the 1st May, the highlights of which were first year ticks for Yellowhammer, Ringed Plover and Swift, this last being pretty spectacular as the flock of Swifts flew over the water and the reeds at a very low height often whistling past ones head. Another highlight of the day was a sighting of a Male Hen Harrier on the moors as we came over Woodhead Pass on our way from Manchester. We also went to Moore and Moss Side Nature Reserves on 22nd May and then our two-day visit to Angelsey took in the following sites :
28th May : RSPB Conwy
28th May : NWWT Spinnies Abergowen
28th May : RSPB Cemlyn Bay
29th May : The Fish Dock and Soldiers Point, Holyhead
29th May : RSPB South Stack
29th May : RSPB Cemlyn Bay
These sites added another four lifers for us with Red-breasted Merganser, Rock Pipit, Black Guillemot and Fulmar and over the couple of days we saw some 69 species ourselves and the group collectively saw 80 species.
Summary
The very wet weather during the first half of the month was the biggest event of the month with widespread hosepipe bans being immediately followed by record downpours particularly in the south of England. Our holiday was affected by this to a great degree although we managed to get plenty of birding in. With our trips to the south-west of England and to Anglesey combined this meant that during May we added 12 species to our life list and our year list increased by 25 species so that at the end of May our 2012 UK year list for 2012 stands at 149 and our UK life list stands at 183.
Garden-wise the month is very strange and last year we would have had many more Goldfinches than we have this year. Starlings have been nearly non-existent as well. We continue not to have a resident Robin which is a first for us.