Passage Vagrants - A Hawkesbury Reprise

I've never had even whiff of an osprey in fifty years and then two turn up in consecutive blog posts. Walking the dog down the canal I had the sudden urge to walk across the top of Leccy Mountain, the huge pile of dirt heaped upon the demolition site of the old Hawkesbury Power Station. Up top I was admiring the 'stunning' panorama of the entire horizon from Coventry to Rugby, Nuneaton and beyond when out of the blue a buzzard appeared soaring high above the hilltop. Blow me if it wasn't followed close behind by one of the those big gulls - an osprey...!

The one I saw at Seeswood was going in the the direction of here so I wonder if the power lines are a navigation aid? This one flew off following them towards Rugby.

I managed to get a shot at what seemed quite close range but looks far, far away, but it'll suffice ~

Ospreys eh? Common as muck...

Passage Vagrants - A Seeswood Surprise

Fishing at Seeswood Pool in Nuneaton with Steve Philips I was having a hard time of it. Steve was catching some of the pool's lovely roach - I wasn't. Just as I got about as frustrated as it is possible to be a very large 'gull' appeared from the direction of town and flew over the lake toward us and then this gull turned into a very odd-shaped 'buzzard' when it stopped flapping its curiously bent and pointed wings, stretched out its finger primaries and started to soar and wheel. I watched it for a while, not really concentrating upon it and then decided that I might get a picture if it came close enough and so I readied the camera.

The bird hovered over the centre of the lake for a few seconds and then suddenly folded its wings and dropped like a stone crashing onto the water in an attempt to take a fish off the top. It took a few seconds for the surprising maneuver to register for what it really was - I was still stuck in buzzard land - the hunting dive of an osprey!

Steve saw it too and was thinking the same thing, convinced that a buzzard had tried to take a grebe - but there had been no grebe to take. I found out later that I did get a picture, a very bad picture indeed though, of the moment it folded its wings and began its dive. Sometimes I think I'll have to get a better camera for such moments as point and shoot compact digitals are too slow and cannot focus easily upon distance birds in flight against sky and often just hazard a guess creating a blurred and useless shot.

The next shots were not much better and even when the bird was as close as it ever got to me the pictures were rubbish, but I did get one fair one that shows the bird's distinctive wing shape in near focus. Unfortunately it exposed for the sky and so the underside is shown in silhouette and the light underparts were lost in the dark.

On its way back to its winter grounds the bird had stopped off at Seeswood Services for a bite to eat. That it missed its target was too bad - wouldn't it have been nice to catch the classic osprey shot of the bird with a large roach in its talons? But it fished just as badly as I did and flew back up to try again, only it got bored and flew off a few minutes later, headed South to toward Coventry and the next patch of open water no doubt.

Like the Spanish Inquisition, no-one expects an osprey. That they are seen quite regularly over open freshwater all over the Midlands and South in Spring and Autumn came of a surprise to me - they are reported more often than I'd thought they'd be - but this was the first time I'd ever seen one and I don't expect to see one again for some time, though I'll always have an eye open in the future when fishing...

For very large gulls and odd shaped buzzards!

Suburban Raptors - Longford Buzzard Flight Shots

As I 'walkied' the dog past the canal side perch I heard the unmistakable plaintive mewing of buzzards somewhere over in the field. They were not in the usual oak and their calls seemed to be coming from the motorway so I'm surprised I could hear them with all that racket going on.

I decided to get the camera set up early on full zoom and went round the back of the hedgerow to investigate hoping to catch a few snaps. I spooked the bird out of one perch in the M6 embankment trees and it flew off to another at a safer distance. I got a shot but you'll have to click on the picture to enlarge it to be able to spot it ...

Then it flew off and came my way but I missed a flight shot by seconds so ran back through the hedgerow and just caught the bird on the other side as it soared into the clear sky above the trees...

Then I noticed its mate soaring a good thousand feet up, too far really to see it as anything more than a dot through the lens even with additional Photoshop zooming, however I kept snapping away and got a good enough unblurred soaring shot of the first bird...

And then a better one still as the bird came directly overhead. They both then flew off into the wind toward the second perch over by the Ricoh where they are, no doubt, as I type these words...

Should Have Gone Back To Iceland...

This pair of whooper swans have been on Wyken Slough all Summer long. Perhaps they have turned resident as they should have buggered back to whence they came by springtime. I wonder if they have decided to stay and even nest here next year? That'd be interesting as there's only a handful of these birds that have decided to do so and they are up in the North of England I believe.

They are pretty large birds and quiet with it. The lakes huge population (for its size) of mute swans keep well away from them up in the northern part of the lake and the southern end is their sole territory. They never venture far from the footbridge and can be seen thereabouts every day with the mallards milling about them.

I have a body feather that must be from one of them as all the mute swan feathers that have parted company with the bird have blown into the margins at the other end. Hard to tell though...

Both birds are ringed I have noticed. It's great to see them so close up too as they are supposed to be wary of getting too near to us and most observations are made through binoculars. You could probably have these pair eat out of your hand

The Water Birds of Blenheim Palace Lake

We had a days fishing out on a punt on Blenheim Palace Lake and saw plenty of water loving birds there on our perambulations around in search of some very hard to find fish. A large contingent of resident cormorants was a spooky sight having all but stripped their chosen perch clean of leaf and twig.

There were plenty of them seen at range, perhaps fifty or more but they scare easily and when we got within shooting distance many had fled and by the time we were under the tree most were gone  leaving just the more ballsy individuals to eye us warily as we passed them by...

This single black swan was a highlight. An aggresive cob who strutted by feathers fluffed up in display giving out his weird singing warning and telling us interlopers in boats in no uncertain terms that this was his territory and beware!

There were no other swans of any species on the lake and I don't remember much in the way of ducks either, but then again the mind just ignores mallards as part of all watery scenery in britain. There were moorhens of course, no coots and quite a few herons - a much larger population than I'd have thought though I don't know if they nest in the area.

We witnessed a fast flying kingfisher buzz across the whole width of the lake in what seemed like just a few seconds but by far the most entertaining birds seen were the great crested grebes who were working ceaselessly to feed their young. Efficient anglers they are catching one after the other tiny perch and hardly ever coming up from a dive empty beaked.

As night fell a vast flock of large gulls flew in from the north and occupied at least an acre of water just under the cormorant roost. It was many hundreds strong if not the full thousand. When we eventually sculled back to the boathouse they all as one flew up into the sky and disappeared, presumably to return once the coast was all clear. They had been far too far away to identify unfortunately but whatever they were they were certainly not uncommon!

A Heron Fishing at Lucy's Mill

I was fishing for roach a few days ago at Lucy's Mill in Stratford-upon-Avon enjoying myself catching a few redfins and generally enjoying the day when this heron, the first I have even seen this far into town despite having fished here many, many times over he last few years, flew out of the wood on the island and took up position on the mill wall by the second weir...



...It stood awhile upright and dead still, then bent down when it spied a fish...

 ...seconds later it dropped into the water like a kingfisher and pounced upon its hapless prey...

 ...but so far as I could see at that distance - it was a good seventy yards away - missed its target.

Ah well, you can't win them all!

Luckily my camera, though not equipped with a lens that can actually make pictures in-camera like the ones above does a good enough job on full zoom for me to be able to zoom in much further in Photoshop than I would have thought and make a fist of a reasonable distance shot.

Lucky also that I kept shooting through the whole action and got the exit shot but the downside with compact digitals with any subject that moves suddenly and quickly is that the slow refresh rate for the cameras electronics meant that I missed the bird actually hitting the water which would have been a prize shot indeed.

Suburban Raptors - More from the Longford Buzzards

There's a home turf walk that I take Molly out on occasionally - she loves it as it takes us into open farmland which is natural spaniel territory, the very environment they were bred for. However this is farmland on the very edge of town - turn to the North or East and you're firmly set in the twenty first century landscape of the Ricoh Arena, the Gallagher Business park and the M6/Pheonix Way interchange with all its associated hurry but turn toward the Church of St Giles Exhall in the West and if it weren't for the relentless grind and rumble of gears and wheels you could fall effortless into the timeless landscape of the English Middle Ages.

I wanted to see if the local buzzards were using this tract of land as I had ideas that their territory would include it. I walked along the edges of some arable land and entered a horse pasture and there found the first feather fluttering below the scrubby bushes at the edge of the field, a tail feather that looked as if it might well be from the very same bird using the Hawkesbury oak as a perch as it seemed to match the ones found under that ancient tree.


Primary found under the oak

At the end of the meadow there was a large old oak and beneath it I found a finger primary too though ascertaining whether or not it once belonged to any particular bird would be impossible as the wing feathers seem to be quite indistinguishable from each other except perhaps in size which would denote either male or female, the female being a little larger on the whole.


A stark old stump

As we crossed into the next meadow I heard the unmistakable mewing of a buzzard some way to the North and went over to investigate. I saw the bird perched high in another oak and then the partner flew  past just twenty yards away heading for another oak on the opposite side of the field. I just caught a picture of the first bird before it flew off the perch to join its mate, the first half-decent picture I have managed to obtain of a Longford Buzzard.


One of the pair at distance

We walked around this set of meadows for an hour or more until I came across the next set of feathers, three secondaries and all within yards of each other, one out in the field a little and two by the hedge, as usual. Just around the corner from these I then came across a spot around a fallen hawthorn where there were numerous feathers including a couple more primaries.


Buzzard secondary in amongst the horse dung


By the time we'd completed a first search of most of the field edges available I had nine feathers in my hand including a second tail feather from a different bird than the first found earlier in the session. We then crossed over into the arable fields to see what we could see.

The stench of death halted us at a certain point and the source was soon found dead in the hedgerow, a fox who'd been there a little while and fast decaying ~


Fox's end...

A little further along I came across the remains of a meal. This was a grey wagtail and had been reduced to a spread of feathers without any trace of bones - I'd guess the bird was pulled apart by either a buzzard or more likely the sparrowhawk I saw fly past just a little later in the day. It couldn't have been a fox who would have certainly eaten such a tiny bird fluff, feathers and all.


Feast site - the remains of a grey wagtail

As we completed a circuit of the field edges of the arable land without anything else to show for it I finally came across more buzzard feathers and all within 100 yards of each other and as usual all in the field edge and ditch area. The first was a primary covert and the second yet another finger primary...


Another primary at the edge of an arable field


I took a picture of the days haul and then found a third tail feather, the match for the second bird tail found earlier. I also realised then that I'd managed to drop a secondary somewhere out in the fields and we went back to find it. We never did...


The haul minus the lost secondary and a tail yet to come

So, a total of twelve of the larger feathers found in a couple of hours and a few breast and flank. I'd suppose many of them had been out in the field for some time for there to be so many around to find. I don't expect the second trip in a week or so to produce nearly as much material for study.

One of the many wood pigeon meals seen out in the arable fields

As you might expect there were numerous feast sites of the ubiquitous wood pigeon dotted here and there and especially in the arable fields. The work of the Longford Buzzards perhaps?

Suburban Raptors - The Longford Buzzards and other Stories

The first time I saw the Longford Buzzards was a couple or three years ago now. There's a particular oak tree gracing an ancient meadow that abuts the M6 (to the South) where I spotted a large bird perching atop a dead branch. When it flew off, as I have found they always will whenever you get within 100 yards of them, I saw it was a buzzard.

I've seen that solitary bird many times since perching in the same place at various times through the year though there are long periods when it is absent, or seems so. I once saw a pair soaring high above the same area above the motorway and over the nearby Coventry Canal but never ever saw a pair in that meadow. I'd guessed the bird I'd seen there was a loner. It never occurred to me to go find its feathers but this year I took a look and found a couple of tails feathers - one centre feather under the tree and one outside feather under another large oak 50 yards away. They were from the same bird. A perfect match...

I then met the landowner who wanted to know why I was trawling about on his land. I explained and offered him one of the tail feathers and he then gave me permission to trawl at will seeing as he was interested in the bird himself, had a theory that it nested in the trees by the M6, and was chuffed to now have a feather from it. I made a mistake by giving him the centre feather, which in a lapse of judgement I'd failed to photograph with its sister, as it struck me then that I'd hit upon a theory - that buzzards can be fingerprinted and traced by the tail feathers which do seem unique in pattern bird by bird unlike the wing feathers which seem standard in pattern to all buzzards.

I've returned a number of times to those oaks and found one of the minor coverts among many flank and breast feathers and the remains of a number meals directly beneath them both including two black and red/brown wing feathers from I can only guess was a domestic fowl of some sort, a long thin dark brown primary that I cannot easily pin down but looks just like a overgrown swift (if it is a swift then it's from an alpine swift which is a proper rarity in England) a skeletal song thrush identified by its feathers, an immature kestrel who's various feathers were scattered about in the ditch but no bodily remains were seen and the centre lining of a nest of some species or another presumably plucked out of a bush complete with eggs, or even along with the chick...who knows?


A young kestrel's feathers and the lining of a nest in the ditch below the perch

I'd guess the bird took it off to another safe site to finish the yougster off when a dog walker passed by - these suburban buzzards might be venturing ever closer to city life but they are still extremely cagey when it comes to close proximity to visible humans. I've tried for a photo of the bird on its perch many times but only ever have caught empty air above that stark grey stick as they bird spooks and swoops down and away to the safety of the dense dark birch wood along the motorway embankment...


The kestrel chick's underdeveloped primary hung up on twig - I'd suppose this is evidence that the bird was eaten above the ground?

Talking about kestrels I should mention that the very next day Judy plucked a mature kestrel's right wing primary out of the long grass in the very next meadow, a meadow that runs along the cut and the next morning while walking Molly in that same place I saw the bird itself flushed off its canal side perch by the dog . It looked to be minus too many tail feathers for its own good though I haven't found one yet. I have found another matching left primary since, from a field a quarter of a mile distant and right by the M6, but don't think it is from the same bird as the two are different in colour saturation unless one is older and the other fresher? Possibly they are both from a mating pair who ply their trade on the motorway embankments?


Two primaries from the local kestrels and the secondary of one from Harvington

In the same field I have also come across numerous uncleared platters including a blackbird (a set of tail feathers only) and a domestic chicken evidenced by a puff of yellow breast feathers and two feral pigeons. These meals are always taken at the side of the field but I cannot say for sure whether or not they are the meals of an identifiable species though the picture below is likely to be that of a buzzard if it's not that of a fox (no buzzard feathers found nearby) as it's a feral pigeon found one week in the field corner right by the M6 and the leg of a rabbit overlain on the same spot the next...


Feral pigeon and rabbit meals by the motorway - obviously this is its usual table at the restaurant!

I then located another perch in a big old oak (what else!) in the middle of another set of horse meadows near to Wiken Slough. I suspected there would another favoured perch in the vicinity somewhere and went looking under every sizeable oak I could find around the Slough but without luck until I spotted what I thought might just be a feather fluttering in the distance beneath an oak in a fenced off horse field. I hopped over the gate and went to investigate.



I was a buzzard secondary and a second smaller secondary lay nearby....

There was also a trampled minor primary and lots of breast and flank feathers beneath that oak and out in the field a way, but no evidence whatsoever of meals, and then caught sight of the bird as it soared above the motorway a quarter of a mile away.

I tried for a photo but got only a speck in the sky on full zoom...



This is a site just a half a mile from the first and another perch near to the motorway which runs a couple of hundred yards to the North. I'm wondering if this (or these?) buzzard has taken to the motorway as its source of fresh carrion? It would make sense as every sighting and find has come from within spitting distance of it.

As for raptors apart from those mentioned I've also seen - though glimpses of a streak of blue-grey passing right by my head shooting through the dense towpath bushes at full velocity and crossing the canal only to vanish is more properly described as 'experienced' - one or perhaps two individual sparrowhawks. The first was carrying a blackbird in its talons! I have never found a feather though...

... but I live in hope!

Then there was the passing bird I witnessed soaring eastward on the wind a good half mile above my head as I sat in the front garden sunning myself. This was no buzzard but it was so far up I couldn't say what else it could have been. Flying in regular circles it faced the wind and stopped and then soared quickly a good two or three hundred yards or more along the wind before turning and repeating the cycle. It passed by and out of sight in no time but never flapped a wing...

Now that's travelling!

Rural Raptors - Buzzard Heaven & other Discoveries

Out on a late evening foray with Judy and Molly around the conifer plantations of Corley Moor for cock pheasant primaries last night. Short on an order I had to find at least twenty (and more to keep the listing running sweetly) to make up the deficit but in country full of cocks all I could get were hen. Last time I was here a month ago I bagged up but last night I found a measly three cock primaries to probably a hundred hen - the cock moult is obviously well and truly over. I hope the client will accept hen - the listing didn't specify either hen or cock just 'pheasant' but they are different enough for a problem to arise...


Birmingham in the distance taken from the high ground at Corley Moor

 It was a roaring success in other ways though. First item of real interest was a wet and bedraggled small 'buzzard' that I bagged for later. Later, when it had dried out sufficiently and I'd teased it back to shape it turned out to be a tawny owl secondary - the fourth specimen I've found this year of the species and the first secondary, so that was pleasing. Last time out in this neck of the woods I turned up a glorious fresh primary. Owl feathers are such gorgeous things...

Tawny owl primary and secondary wing feathers


Tawny owl close up showing the unmistakable velvet texture of an owl feather

The next surprise was the sight of three guinea fowl escapees running hard for cover as Molly disturbs them, birds who've taken up residence in the six inch stubble of a newly harvested field of oilseed rape  - the evidence of which soon came in the form of three of their polka dot flank feathers found underneath a great old oak by the side of the field. None were found anywhere else in the locality that evening so they are a small population indeed.


Guinea fowl body feathers


Then we got hopelessly misrouted and found ourselves in the wrong place only getting back on track an hour later when we'd negotiated some difficult field margins looking for a way out and got ourselves yards from the desired place but separated from it by dense hedges and no gateways, stiles or convenient gaps to pass through. On the way we found loads of the ubiquitous wood pigeon, the more strongly barred tails of which are popular with buyers so I always need them and a single jay primary - they are not exactly common round the Coventry area are these secretive birds. I eventually located a disused gate hidden by high weeds and we pushed through, crossed a field of curious bullocks, crossed a stream and got back on track.

We were now at the find spot of that wonderful owl primary I told you about. There weren't any more on this occasion but a known find spot of any raptor or owl is always worth a second or third careful  look around as they all have their regular perches. We turned through into the next field and stumbled onto a pair of fresh buzzard feathers sitting next to each other at the edge of the field (where else?) and what a pair they were. Both pristine and barb perfect. One was a tail, and from a different bird than the tail I found last time here just thirty yards away. The other was that hard to find buzzard and a first for me, the 'finger' primary, one of those distinctive eagle type feathers that stick out like outspread digits on the end of the wing and that the bird uses to control its high soaring flight in the rising thermal air currents.


The evening's total haul of buzzard

Now the light was fading fast and our progress had to be back to the car or end up in the woods in the dark without a headlamp - not a problem for me but Judy would not have liked it overmuch. The walk was uphill and tight along the fringe of a large area of woodland on top of a ridge and passing through four large fields en route. Molly was beside herself with boundless excitement because the whole walk had been punctuated by flushed birds and now in the dusk any movement in the woods had to be investigated by her inbred spaniel curiosity. What surprised me was the quantity of fresh buzzard feathers we found...

A poult had been newly killed and eaten, or died and eaten if you'd prefer. Obviously the work of a buzzard as the entire breast meat and guts had been carefully removed leaving an empty rib cage with intact tail and wings but no head. Nearby I located another buzzard primary. A hundred yards further along was another smaller primary, and a quarter of a mile farther still, a third. Then a primary covert and another tail but one that did not match either of the previously found tails so a third bird in the territory is likely.


The four different tails from four separate individuals. I think the two at left are female, the two at right, male as they are slightly smaller.



And all the wing feathers found in two forays. Just one secondary and none of the minor secondaries or any tertiaries as yet.


Then we finally made our way into the lane where I came across another surprise.  Two groups of massive boletus mushrooms sprouting out the side of the bank. I thought they were lurid boletes at the time but couldn't be sure so took one home for investigation. They were bitter boletes, a blue staining fungi that re-whitens some time after cutting. As with virtually all boletes it is perfectly edible but tastes ghastly. Then, I looked up from the last group of mushrooms and sitting there was another buzzard tail, and from yet another bird, so four at least living cheek by jowl in this carrion rich environment.

PS, the client was fine about 'the problem' so no tears, or refunds!

Suburban Songbirds - Meadow Pipit Tail from Hawkesbury

To launch this new blog I've chosen the smallest identifiable feather I've yet come across since I started this mad habit of looking for, identifying, collecting and selling feathers. I found this specimen this in the same way as I usually do: scanning the ground for fresh moult feathers whilst out and about on the twice daily walks around the local area with Molly our English Springer Spaniel.

This diminutive tail feather (just 55 mm long) was located along a path that runs through some scrubby woodland by the M6 before opening out into fresh air and running a further couple of hundred yards alongside a meadow filled with many small hawthorns and the like and used occasionally as a horse paddock. It was just a little way inside the cover of the woods...

 

The feather is one of the more distinctive of the song bird feathers with its slim profile and light ochre coloured tip and in this country it really can't be confused with much else. It is the feather second or third from last on the left of the tail depending upon maturity - the adult outside feather having a much larger diagonal area of light ochre extending from the tip to half way up. All the middle tail feathers are just a plain very dark slate grey - if I'd found one of those then I would have been none the wiser as many small birds have such indistinctive tail feathers and it could have been taken for a number of them - but of course now, any feathers of the same size and the same dark grey found round these parts will be more easily attributed to this particular pipit.

 Meadow pipits are not that common in Warwickshire and I've certainly never seen one, nevertheless this is proof positive that they live around the local area. I'll keep an eye out for them in the next few weeks. Interestingly the same meadow has a large old oak slap in the middle of it and this tree is used by one of the the local buzzards as a perch. I have never seen the bird in the meadow but a few of her feathers are usually there below the oak as evidence of her presence. These are mostly breast and flank but I have found three secondaries in the last few weeks, one of which had been there some time and had been trodden into the mud by the horses.