Akers Pit, Stockton Heath, there have been six Goosander (3m,3f) around for about two weeks now, record short of four and a very confiding tame Grey Heron.
On my garden feeders in Appleton yesterday M Blackcap and M Greenfinch. A female Blackcap has been around for a few weeks on and off but it was the first Greenfinch back on the feeders for me since last winter.
Edit (27/11/24) now had more time to go through data. 17th / 18th 18/7 Woodcock, corresponding with the 'Woodcock November Moon' how good are old Wives tails / almanacs as a source of data...they manged alright decades / centuries ago without EBird or Birdtrack to pick up seasonal trends... though I guess your life depended on it more when you lived on the land.
Still small amounts of Redwing, Song Thrush and Blackbirds recorded each night (5-10 most nights of each) generally going south apart from on 24th where quite a few birds were going N judging on the time difference between pairs of recorders.
Most interesting was three Bittern flight calls (not me snoring as per the previous Bitten log) around 4:19 am on 17th. All look and sound good when the sonograms are played. Going S.
Lots of Teal (76 reported calls) on 23rd/24th which corresponds with an influx seen at Moore and per comms that mention similar at Woolston.
Today, Ring-necked Parakeets coming out the roost at the Market Garden by Red Lane allotments.
-- Edited by Andy Slee on Tuesday 26th of November 2024 06:53:33 PM
Still small amounts of Redwing, Song Thrush and Blackbirds recorded each night (5-10 most nights of each) generally going south apart from on 24th where quite a few birds were going N judging on the time difference between pairs of recorders.
Most interesting was three Bittern flight calls (not me snoring as per the previous Bitten log) around 4:19 am on 17th. All look and sound good when the sonograms are played. Going S.
Lots of Teal (76 reported calls) on 23rd/24th which corresponds with an influx seen at Moore and per comms that mention similar at Woolston.
Today, Ring-necked Parakeets coming out the roost at the Market Garden by Red Lane allotments.
-- Edited by Andy Slee on Tuesday 26th of November 2024 06:53:33 PM
Redwing well down to between 60 - 20 per night. N-S for the 15 out the 300 calls I compared Sonogram timings for, not a single S-N.
Fieldfare absent. 10-11th Blackbird and Song Thrush popped up with 30-50 records p.n.
Still getting the 6-7 am Curlew movement every day...have moved the sound recorders about off a N/S line to extreme corners of the gardens but couldn't get any better guess than previous than this is a S-N morning movement.
12th Nov / 13th Nov (around 2am) lots of Whooper Swans - 14 detects which look good on Sonogram/Raven.
What is confusing me is we have Tawny Owls in the Garden and sometimes the Market Gardens nearby. They never pick up via BTO Acoustic Pipeline (I've sent the Q in) so perhaps they aren't one of the monitored species. Yet Barn Owl get picked up nightly so I assumed that Barn Owl calls were mistakes for Tawny actual calls. Until at 5:34 am Thursday (14/11) I was driving own my road for an early shift and over the allotment field was indeed a Barn Owl. I'd never appreciated they would venture into 'urban' areas (look on Google Maps, the bird flew from W of Red Lane onto the area by the allotment / Market Gardens. Tell me I'm not going mad and we don't have a leuclistic Tawny knocking about instead?
150 Redwing and a few fieldfare in the trees on bank park on the way home from work at 4pm I suspect they had been feeding at the vw garage up the road which had a lot of berry trees the other day.
16:10 in rapid succession flocks of 77, 95, 43 and 88 Pink-footed Geese over North Appleton (coming from the South). The flocks of 77 and 43 both turned west at the Ship Canal and headed NNE over Fiddlers Ferry (which is a direct bearing to Martin Mere) whilst the flocks of 95 and 88 turned again to line up with the Ship Canal and went WSW/SW to either Frodsham Score of the Dee Estuary.
1365 Redwing over on the 3rd/4th with 101 Song Thrush. Low 00s of detects on 4th/5th but dropping of to single figures the last two days.
Regular Curlew detects around 6-7am. From two Song Meters 30m apart at either end of the garden the Southerly meter picks up the call two seconds earlier than the Northern meter so I can assume these birds are going North - at a guess a rosst in Northern Cheshire (Witton Flashes) and going to the Mersey around Richmond Bank or Penketh Bar.
Each of the last three night Nocmig Rig has picked up over 200+ Redwing calls pretty much spread through the night.
20th to 24th Redwings dropped to less than 100 per night but still a steady stream with 8 Fieldfare on 24th and a Hawfinch which looks good also on Sonogram (0.98 match).
Interestingly I've found that my PC isn't very quick to process files via the BTO Acoustic pipeline (3hrs processing per nights data) but when I run a Windows Emulator App with BTO AP on my iPhone I could do five nights data in seven hrs!
28th - 30th around 60 Redwing per night in small groups of up to 10 close together.
Fieldfare 8 29th.
Hawficnh five calls captured between 04:L50 and 05:20 30th Oct.
Each of the last three night Nocmig Rig has picked up over 200+ Redwing calls pretty much spread through the night.
20th to 24th Redwings dropped to less than 100 per night but still a steady stream with 8 Fieldfare on 24th and a Hawfinch which looks good also on Sonogram (0.98 match).
Interestingly I've found that my PC isn't very quick to process files via the BTO Acoustic pipeline (3hrs processing per nights data) but when I run a Windows Emulator App with BTO AP on my iPhone I could do five nights data in seven hrs!
Interesting about the geese thanks as I had been watching them in the mornings around 8am (going SW) and evenings around 5/6pm a few times over the last week when I have been around and wondering where they were going between but hadn't got around to looking on a map (watching from Appleton, the most I estimated so far was around 1100 on Sunday in the evening going NE towards Liverpool direction.
A walk near the M56, starting from Arley Road, using the public right of way through fields towards Apple Jacks Adventure Farm on 19th October, over the motorway bridge and around the other side. Not the nicest walk due to the traffic noise at times and the ground conditions requiring vigilance but still Meadow Pipit, Skylarks, Redwing and then late afternoon Starlings starting to gather for murmuration (not huge numbers but already interesting to watch as they swirled around and then came down in the fields repeatedly).
-- Edited by Ruth Mott on Wednesday 23rd of October 2024 04:32:21 PM
460 Pink-footed Geese in three close skeins came from Stretton direction, over our house in North Appleton heading towards Fiddlers Ferry where they turned NNE just now (17:12). A NNE bearing from Fiddlers Ferry goes straight to Martin Mere area, so the birds seen feeding round Arley, Antrobus and Stretton the last few weeks are probably Lancashire roosting birds rather than the Dee Estuary flocks.
With our Garden Owls (we've started getting bats again the last few days after a summer of almost no sightings) I'd decided a couple of weeks ago to get a basic Nocmig rig going in North Appleton. Things I realise now I've processed via BTO Acoustic Pipeline and manually looked at Spectrographs at interesting times.
- The fifteen Bittern flight calls are not Bitterns they are me snoring! With the window only on trickle vent and the microphone 20 yards up the garden I'm impressed it picked me up so well! And depressed as it means anyone walking past the house on the footpath five yards away will also hear me snoring.
- "Dad, Dad, wake up I want a wee". Pesky kids.
- Other than younger loin spawn wanting the loo I can now count the number of other visits to the loo my dodgy Prostrate makes me do at night from the flush sound and then the water going down the outside pipes and drain under the patio - there is a unique sonogram I can see for that!.
Accepted manual checks vs. BTO AC Pipeline judgements and counts; Coot, Moorhen, Grey Heron (these come into our garden still expecting our now fishless pond to have Koi), Redwing, Ringed Plover, Oystercatcher, Pink-footed Geese (all between 11pm last night and 5am this morn), Song Thrush.
Can't verify: Whooper Swan, Brent Goose, Water Rail, Skylark.
Quite impressed for a first night but the computing time (3hrs to post process and an hour manual processing) is heavy. I think, until I learn a few more nuances of the technique this could be a nice qualitative process, hopefully I'll learn some tricks over time to make myself more happy it can be quantitative.
At least the Tawny Owls were quiet last night, think they were down the Market Garden near Red Lane Allotments last night away west of our house.
And for the second night in a row the two juv Tawny Owls and their parents are deciding to practice screeching in the tree outside my bedroom window in North Appleton. Lovely to watch but last night kept me awake from 2:15 to 5:00am! (Old listed house, none acoustic glazing).
(Parent owls are now familiarly known as Osheen and Rosheen, you juvs have been named Screech and Tounge if anyone gets the play on names from 1970s cartoon magazines).
Plenty of other passage going over as I was out doing garden tasks, four Pied Wagtail individually and four Meadow Pipits in a group (Garden tick!). Coal Tits have returned to the garden for the winter and a mixed Tit Flock (~30) held Long-tailed, Blue, Great Tits and two Goldcrest.
57 Pink-footed Geese REALLY low over North Appleton now heading NNW towards Warrington Town centre. They were so low as I heard them coming over the garden I wondered if they were coming to land in my pond!!!!!
3 Cetti's Warblers on the North Bank of the Mersey (2 heard on South Bank towards #4 bed at Woolston also).
2 Jay, one Raven, Blackbird, lots of Magpies (24+), two Chiffchaff, Long-tailed, Blue Great and Coal Tits. Wrens, Robins, Reed Bunting all in sub/song.
Great Black-backed and Lesser Black-backed (6+) Gulls over and Cormorant and 4 Black-headed Gulls.
1 Kestrel and one Marsh Harrier soaring over #4 bed.
Two Oystercatcher over in flight and a Kingfisher on the river near the info boards.
2 Mute Swan, Mallard, Gadwall, Pochard (flight), Coot, Moorhen, Little Grebe, Grey Heron, flyover Little Egret.
House Sparrows, Dunnock, Goldfinch and Green finch at the allotments at Kingsway Bridge with the dreaded Ring-necked Parakeets (5) having a good time on the fruit bushes.
Starlings (~50-55) on the electric pipes at the rowing club with a couple of House Martins and a few Swallows (5-7).
22 Ring-necked Parakeets into the roost at the Market Garden by Red Lane Allotments tonight. They are taking lots of fruit off the allotment at the moment our cherries, berries and apples are decimated.
5+4+6 flocks of Ring-necked Parakeets flew west past the House tonight at dusk, presume to roost at either the Red Lane Allotments / Market Gardens or Walton Hall area.
Edit: I will put in the none bird forum but neither ourselves or a few neighbours have seen any bats around here this year (bottom end Stockton Heath / Bridgewater Canal / Appleton up to the Reservoir) which is a worrisome deveopment.
-- Edited by Andy Slee on Thursday 15th of August 2024 11:14:10 PM
-- Edited by Andy Slee on Thursday 15th of August 2024 11:18:24 PM
Blue and White Budgerigar past our house in Appleton near the Bridgewater Canal about 35 minutes ago if anyone hears of one lost. Looks like it was going to where the Parakeets roost at the old market garden near Red Lane Allotments.
Funny, I used to keep Budgerigars as part of my cage birds (98-2010s) and blue Budgerigar (Buggerigars) were always the escapists. Wonder if it was the RAF colours in them made them 'reach for the sky'!.
Since a month ago looking through my notes an absolute dearth of garden birds.
Not one tit species.
Blackbird one male occasionally and that is it.
No Dunnocks, House Sparrows, Wrens, Greenfinch, Goldfinch or Thrush.
Apart of course, from those bloody Ring-Necked Parakeets in our neighbours orchard and by Red Lane allotments 200yards away and seeming to use the Bridgewater Canal opposite as a flyway to screech up and down early morns.
South Warrington round Red Lane Allotments / Market garden along Bridgewater Canal up to 17 Ring-necked Parakeets roosting since last Sunday inc at least 6 juv. Tonight nice to see 11 Swift (only second sighting from house this year) in the local.
Juv Wren flew in through my kitchen window today, perched on the draining rack at the sink, looked at me confused and flew out again. Never had that before.
Mixed year for breeding in the garden, two successful Blackbird Broods, one Long Tailed Tit brood, two House Sparrow broods and three Dunnock broods from two pairs (I think). Juv Chiffchaff was around the other day in the trees on the lane next to the garden and adult again singing from there. Neither Blue Tit brood made it though cold spells killing them off leaving the sad task of clearing the next boxes.
Last couple nights 12, then 14 Ring-necked Parakeets have roosted in a tree to the South of Kingsway Bridge over the Mersey, only a few hundred yards from Woolston #4 bed!!!
And either the art class at school were having a joke or there was the ghostly dusty image of a Tawny Owl having hit a window at Bridgewater Higher School (upper site); no sign of an injured bird. Two pairs Herring Gulls appear to be nesting on the roof also!
First fledged young Long Tailed Tit just gone through the garden unfortunately 2 flew into windows which knocked them out butlittle chance of recovery .
Nice to find a pair of Ringed and a pair of Little Ringed plover on a soon to be Housing site near central Warrington yesterday and this morning ,hopefully both will get young off before they start the building this summer .
-- Edited by JOHN TYMON on Thursday 7th of March 2024 01:29:30 PM
North Appleton - garden list since lockdown. First Song Thrush for many years yesterday and then this morning three Curlew directly flew over NNW-SE taking the post March 2000 list for the Garden to a nice round half century.