The Last Flurries of Winter

ese past couple of days, still in Lancaster and without any pressing deadlines (how wonderful it feels to be free of pressing deadlines,) I was rather hopeful of getting some good wildlife spotting in. It’d been nearly a week since I last went birding, when incidentally I was able to add Bittern to my Lancashire list, one flying through the evening sunshine over the still brown reed beds at the RSPB’s stunning Leighton Moss.  I was enthusiastic to get out there and find some wildlife, see something I’d not seen before, perhaps.  On my way to drop off my essay, it did occur to me there may have been a fall of migrants, with what I am  I handed in my essay on Friday afternoon, and, no sooner had I done so, than the wind began to pick up, and Lancaster was, not for the first time that day, raked by horizontal, and some might say unseasonal snow.

Unseasonal. With Pheasant tracks.

I cursed climate change for its increasing tendencies toward extremes of weather, and spent the day indoors watching films instead. When I did manage to face up to the unseasonably big freeze, I got in the car and headed up, away from the sea this time, and into the Forest of Bowland, an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty which lies to the East of Lancaster. It took only a few minutes on delightfully names roads (Bay Horse Road! Procter Moss Lane!) to reach the car park in Abbeystead, a small town in Bowland. I wandered into the woods toward Abbeystead Lake. Bird life seemed a little scarce, the woods were quiet, and the footprints in the snow, enchanting to look at though they were almost exclusively those of grey squirrels and pheasants.  However the great tits with their two syllable song, were really going for it, the harbingers of early spring appeared unperturbed by the snow, which was thick on the ground in places. There were a few blue and coal tits about in the branches, but bird life seemed sparse.

Upland stream  in the Forest of Bowland

Upon reaching the lake, which was all pleasantly dramatic, lying in a steep-sided, wooded valley, with the snow white Bowland fells climbing up behind it, I startled up a few nervous mallards. Some teal, too, rested on the dark green water and a couple of Jackdaws passed overhead cawing. I continued round the lake, which was held by an impressive dam, and down into the woods. Robins and chaffinches occasionally flew across the path in front of me. As I walked back up toward the lake I became aware of a few Goosander, unfamiliar before my move up North but near ubiquitous round here it seems, floating about on the water surface, but I wondered where all the birds had gone. It occurred to me they may well have cleared out of these upland woods and headed somewhere at lower altitude, somewhere more sheltered, perhaps.  Walking across a bit of farmland on the way back to the car park revealed not just pheasants but also good numbers of Lapwing and Snipe in the fields, so the true upland waders at least were still on their spring habitat. Some of the lapwings were displaying, whooping and tumbling, using their broad wings to aerobatic advantage. Spring, it seemed, was in the air still somewhere, alongside the wind chill.  I drove home dodging pheasants and snowdrifts. One poor pheasant must have had the fright of his life, caught between a snowdrift, an oncoming vehicle and a Buzzard. Of course I waited until he had disappeared into the hedge beyond the snowdrift before I proceeded. 

Abbeystead Lake, Bowland, Lancs.

Today I headed down to a place near Scorton, on the river Wyre where it is still fast and narrow. I parked up at a picnic site with some bird feeders in it, which clearly hadn’t been filled for some time. A few blue and great tits hopped about in the trees above them, looking awkward and expectant. I walked past and onto the banks of the Wyre, where the tree canopy opened, The sky was blue, but a few flakes of snow fell from it inexplicably. A dipper shot up and down the river and paused on a rock for a moment, allowing me to take a (poor) photograph before returning to a cluster of branches by the waters edge. As it did so a second bird appeared and flew upstream. A pair of dippers, and a lovely new addition to my Lancashire list. These lovely birds are very scarce indeed down South, they are birds of the west and the midlands it seems, specialists of fast flowing streams, dipping under the water to hunt invertebrates and emerging still perfectly dry, smart and distinctive in their smart brown plumage and white breast.

Cinculus cinculus

   

Rounding the corner into the wood what struck me was the snowdrops. The wood was covered in them, and among them daffodils too were springing out of the ground. In stark contrast to the upland wood in Bowland, this wood down near the Wyre was a different matter. The snow had all cleared, as if it had never been there (of course, it might never have been there) and the snowdrops and daffodils still stood proud. March snowfall has been part of these plants evolution, of course. When the channel first separated Britain from the continent, about 12 thousand years ago,  isolating its impoverished fauna, anything which could not tolerate March snow would not have been able to survive. Colder winters abound through our history, the mini ice age of the 18^th century, the cold snap of the 1970s, and spring flowers have made it through. Here they formed a glorious white carpet splashed with yellow. Somewhere among the singing great tits I thought I heard a chiffchaff.  Cormorants flew overhead through a blue sky, and a buzzard was patrolling somewhere. Spring wasn’t cancelled, it had just had a minor setback, and it will be interesting to see what effect this late flurry of winter has had on wildlife phenology as the year progresses. 

Snowdrops near Scorton, Lancs.

The Hala Starling Experience

The last few evenings, on the way home from uni, assuming I’ve coincided my arrival with the fading light, I have had the honour of what I can only describe as the Hala Green Starling Experience.  Hundreds, or thousands, of the birds have taken to roosting in the bushes which separate our gardens from those of the houses which back on to us, and, morning and evening, their flocks arrive and depart. When I was a kid I clearly remember walking with my dad and watching murmurations of starlings blackening the sky in Romford. The birds would roost in the trees which grew out of the roundabout, the junction of underpasses outside the library.  This must have been the late 1980s or very early 1990s, and birds change their distributions, and now, as far as I’m aware, spectacular murmurations in Metropolitan Essex are pretty much unknown. The Starling has declined in numbers by something like 70% since then, and murmurations do not happen over metropolitan Essex any more. 

Over suburban Lancaster, however, the situation seems to be rather different. There have been some huge flocks these past few days, I cannot hazard a guess as to how many birds were involved, but it must have been in the thousands, cloud-like flocks twisting and changing shape, the birds moving in close formation, coming in through the darkening sky, making several passes of the roosting bushes, a few individuals dropping out and perching there. A sparrowhawk at one point landed on one of the bushes into which they’d been flying and put some of the starlings up. Those deeper in the branches, presumably feeling protected by their enclosed position. The hawk went after those in flight, which swiftly joined the murmuration.  It went in for an attack and the birds avoided it, in a coordinated formation, a burst of speed moving like a wave through the flock. The predator seemed to manage to grab one, and was off pretty quickly.

Despite the paintwork on my car appearing to pay the price of these spectacular murmurations, it feels like something of an honour to watch such a wildlife spectacle over my home of an evening.  They continue chattering in their roost sites well into the night, especially if disturbed. Starlings generally behave like this only in winter, and the flock may have included birds which bred over a wide area, perhaps many of them breeding beyond these shores. Their murmurations are unpredictable, they may use one site for several nights in a row, and then, perhaps in response to weather or feeding conditions, they are not seen there for some time. Certainly, come the spring they will disperse again to their breeding habitats, and will perhaps disperse or move elsewhere long before that, but for the past few days the Hala Green Starling Experience has been a wonderful, and nostalgic, suburban wildlife spectacle!

Species Involved: European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) Eurasian Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus)

Introducing Lancaster

On Friday afternoon I took the opportunity to do a bit of exploring along the Canal and beside the River Lune in Lancaster, to see what was about. Although the walk did not turn up anything especially unusual, it was an excellent opportunity to explore my new ‘Local Patch.’ The canal is a green corridor not just for wildlife but also for students travelling between the Universities and the City Centre.  It flows through sheep-infested hills into the heart of the city, and onward into the Lune.  Mallards graze on its banks and Jackdaws squawk in the ancient oaks which dot its pastured banks.    While I was cycling along it I saw a Sparrowhawk,  pursuing small birds unidentified at hedgerow height and over the water.  A pair of Ravens, unfamiliar birds I tend to associate with places far more remote and weather beaten than this, could also be seen in the distance. Ravens! A ten minute ride from my new home!

The River Lune runs through Lancaster, and separates it from its seaside neighbour Morecambe.  Negotiating the awkward Lancaster one way system on my bike, I eventually made it to the Lune near the large metal supports of the pedestrian Millenium Bridge, and turned left, following the riverside path past construction sites, and some of Lancaster’s decaying industrial heritage, the river front lined for the first half mile or so with derelict factories. As I pass under an arched railway bridge, the city passed behind me and I was in the wild. A fence separated me from fields in which cows and horses grazed.  The sky was grey and drizzle fell intermittently, which negated any possibility of seeing any butterflies or dragonflies about, but there were plenty of gulls on the bank of the Lune, as well as the occasional handsome Cormorant drying his wings, or a fishing Grey Heron.

I followed the path beside the muddy tidal river to Freemans’ Pools, a patch of land managed by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust for the benefit of wildlife, and took the opportunity to sit by the river for a while.  There were cormorants fishing, curlews probing in the mud, and Black-headed and Lesser Black Backed Gulls, fishing actively in the water or roosting beside it. A couple of noisy skeins of geese flew over my head, presumably transiting between some farmers field in which they graze, or mudflats lost under rising tide, and their roosting site. Their harsh calls suggested they were probably Greylags. They flew in loose V formations at height and circled about above me before flying on in the direction of Lancaster and the Universities.   At the time it was being used apparently by no more than a few gulls and a pair of Mute Swans. Access directly onto the reserve was not possible but I was able to get a good view from the fence. With winter approaching it seemed likely that these ponds would soon be well used by wintering wildfowl.  The footpath continued toward Aldcliffe and I followed it, passing a few arable fields, before entering a patch of farmland, which the path crossed. Many of the fields had been flooded and the sheep stood on islands they shared with Lapwings, Curlew and Black Headed Gulls, while Mallards swam about between them.  The floodwaters had also taken over the main bridleway, but fortunately a raised path on top of a muddy bank ran parallel to it, and I did not have to face the awkward choice between turning back and riding my bike through deep water.

I saw a couple of swallows, surely among the last of the year here, and a charm of Goldfinch flew over, chirping. Eventually I reached the main road at the Village of Aldcliffe, up a steep slope. I looked around at the tree-lined hills. The sun was beginning to set and had found a gap between the clouds, the evening light illuminating the hillsides, and the leaves which, around here, are already beginning to turn gold, brown and red, and I thought that I could get into local birding here.

The same evening I headed down to Bolton to listen to a couple of Punk bands in a bar down there, before going on to Manchester and visiting Martin Mere- more on that to follow- but on the way I had another moment. Driving in the near-darkness along one of the small B-roads, I was lucky enough to see a handsome, attractively mottled and downy-looking Tawny Owl fly through my view.

Yes. This place will be good for birding.