BIRDS SEEN AT "WILDLIFE FROM YOUR DOORSTEP" EVENTS, APRIL 2013

Below are checklists of birds that were seen during the recent "Wildlife From Your Doorstep" events at Consall Nature Park and Cecilly Brook/Hales Hall.

You will see that most species were seen at Cecilly Brook, which is a great urban birdwatching site. We were particularly pleased to see and hear both Chiff Chaffs and Willow Warblers, both summer migrants that had only recently arrived after their long journey from Africa. We stood and watched a small group of these extremely active little birds as they flitted about feeding on insects which they were finding in a hedge of large conifer and deciduous trees that bounded a private garden.

We were also pleased to see and hear a Reed Bunting proclaiming his territory in amongst the wetland vegetation at the northern end of Hales Hall pool. Other notable sightings were a Great Crested Grebe on the water, a Mallard with fifteen ducklings, a Lesser Redpoll taking advantage of garden feeders and a Siskin in the top of a tree.

Perhaps rather surprising was the low number of species seen during the visit to Consall Nature Park. This does not really reflect the wide range of species that is typically seen and heard in and around this park, but rather the fact that the weather was very gusty and because the birdwatching was mainly restricted to looking through a birding telescope from near the centre (so that I would be on hand to talk to visitors).

And, the other news of great interest is that the Pied Flycatchers are back in the Churnet Valley. Mr Burton, who manages East Wall Farm near Hawksmoor spotted them on Thursday 18th April. They have also arrived at the RSPB Coombes Valley Nature reserve.

Pied Flycatcher courtesy of Steve Garvie licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic from Wikimedia Commons.

Mr Burton has invited other "Wildlife From Your Doorstep" volunteers to go to see the birds on his farm. I will be arranging a visit and will let you know as soon as I have the full details.

	Consall Nature Park	Cecilly Brook	Hales Hall
	14/03/13	18/04/13	18/03/13
WEATHER CONDITIONS→	very windy, sunny periods, patchy cloud,showers.	windy, overcast, dry	windy, overcast, dry
Barn owl
Black-headed gull
Blackbird		1	1
Blackcap
Blue tit	1	1	1
Brambling
Bullfinch
Buzzard	1
Canada Goose	1	1	1
Carrion Crow	1	1	1
Chaffinch	1	1	1
Chiff Chaff	1	1	1
Coal Tit	1	1	1
Collared Dove
Common Gull
Common Sandpiper
Coot			1
Cormorant
Crossbill
Cuckoo
Curlew
Dipper
Dunlin
Dunnock		1	1
Fieldfare
Gadwall
Garden Warbler
Garganey
Goldcrest	1
Goldfinch		1	1
Goosander
Goshawk
Great black backed Gull
Great Crested Grebe			1
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Great Tit	1	1	1
Green Woodpecker
Greenfinch		1
Grey Heron
Grey Partridge
Grey Wagtail
Greylag Goose
Herring Gull
House Martin
House Sparrow		1	1
Jackdaw		1
Jay	1	1
Kestrel
Kingfisher
Lapwing
Lesser black backed Gull	1	1
Lesser Redpoll			1
Lesser Spotted Woodpecker
Lesser Whitethroat
Linnet
Little Grebe
Little Owl
Long-eared Owl
Long-tailed Tit
Magpie
Mallard	1	1	1
Mandarin Duck
Marsh Tit
Meadow Pipit
Merlin
Mistle thrush
Moorhen
Mute swan
Nuthatch	1
Oyster Catcher
Peregrine
Pheasant	1
Pied Flycatcher
Pied Wagtail		1
Pochard
Raven
Red Grouse
Red-legged Partridge
Redshank
Redstart
Redwing
Reed Bunting			1
Reed Warbler
Ringed Plover
Robin	1	1	1
Rock dove/feral pigeon
Rook		1
Sedge Warbler
Short-eared Owl
Shoveler
Siskin		1
Skylark
Snipe
Song Thrush		1
Sparrowhawk
Spotted Flycatcher
Starling		1
Stock Dove
Stonechat
Swallow	1		1
Swift
Tawny Owl
Teal
Tree Creeper
Tree Pipit
Tree Sparrow
Tufted Duck			1
Water Rail
Waxwing
Wheatear
Whitethroat
Wigeon
Willow Tit
Willow Warbler		1
Woodpigeon	1	1	1
Wood Warbler
Woodcock
Wren	1	1	1
Yellow Wagtail
Yellowhammer
TOTAL NUMBER OF SPECIES SEEN	18	24	20

LIST OF BIRD SPECIES SEEN BY "WILDLIFE FROM YOUR DOORSTEP" VOLUNTEERS DURING MARCH

black-headed gull

blackbird

blue tit

bullfinch

buzzard

carrion crow

chaffinch

coal tit

collared dove

coot

dunnock

fieldfare

goldcrest

goldfinch

great tit

greenfinch

house sparrow

jackdaw

long-tailed tit

magpie

mallard

mistle thrush

moorhen

nuthatch

pheasant

robin

rock dove/feral pigeon

rook

siskin

song thrush

sparrowhawk

tawny owl

teal

wodpigeon

wren

FIRST RESULTS - FROM BROUGH PARK, LEEK.

Here (below) is a checklist of bird species that have been seen at Brough Park in Leek during March 2013. The site was visited four times during the month. The numbers in the white column on the right hand side of the species name indicate the maximum number of individual birds seen on any of the four visits that month. Where there are no numbers that species was not seen.

For people who don't know Brough Park, it is an urban park on the outskirts of the market town of Leek. It a sloping site with large areas of mown grass, a lake, mature trees and shrubs, tarmacked paths and a bandstand; and, of course it is usually busy with people.  
Judging by these results the lake was an important resource for water-dependent birds during March 2013. As we all know, March was unseasonably cold. According to my weather records we had twenty days which started with frost, and on many of these days pools and lakes were frozen completely or partly for most of the day. The volunteer who recorded these observations said that the lake at Brough Park retained areas of open water - at least on the days he visited. This, plus the inclination of the public to feed ducks etc. in parks, probably resulted in Brough Park being an attractive site for Mallards and Black-Headed Gulls during the inclement weather. You will see from this table that on one day 50 gulls were at Brough Park and on another day 41 Mallards were present (on the two other survey days there 16 and 20 Black-Headed Gulls and 36 and 40 Mallards - the first survey day only species were ticked as present, numbers were not counted).

The lake in Brough park.

The next most frequent species was Wood Pigeon at a maximum of 13 individuals counted on one day. And, if we add to the Wood Pigeons the (maximum count of) 7 for the closely related Feral Pigeon/Rock Dove, we have 20 pigeons in total. No one will be surprised that there are a lot of pigeons in an urban park. Wood and Feral Pigeons, along  with the previously mentioned Black-Headed Gulls, will eat pretty much anything, and they are especially adept at scavenging for scraps left behind by humans.

Just for the record, in a recent paper published in British Birds journal, Wood Pigeon is the fourth most abundant bird species during the breeding season in the UK. There are estimated to be 5,400,000 Wood Pigeons resident in the UK at any one time. There are about 231 breeding bird species in the UK. The most abundant species is thought to be the Wren at 8,6000,000.

Look at the table below and you will see that there was a total of 23 species recorded in March in Brough Park.

Barn owl		Magpie	3
Black-headed gull	50	Mallard	41
Blackbird	8	Mandarin Duck
Blackcap		Marsh Tit
Blue tit		Meadow Pipit
Brambling		Merlin
Bullfinch		Mistle thrush	1
Buzzard		Moorhen	1
Canada Goose		Mute swan
Carrion Crow	4	Nuthatch	5
Chaffinch	7	Oyster Catcher
Chiff Chaff		Peregrine
Coal Tit	1	Pheasant
Collared Dove		Pied Flycatcher
Common Gull		Pied Wagtail
Common Sandpiper		Pochard
Coot	1	Raven
Cormorant		Red Grouse
Crossbill		Red-legged Partridge
Cuckoo		Redshank
Curlew		Redstart
Dipper		Redwing
Dunlin		Reed Bunting
Dunnock		Reed Warbler
Fieldfare		Ringed Plover
Gadwall		Robin	3
Garden Warbler		Rock dove/feral pigeon	7
Garganey		Rook	4
Goldcrest	1	Sedge Warbler
Goldfinch		Short-eared Owl
Goosander		Shoveler
Goshawk		Siskin	4
Great black backed Gull		Skylark
Great Crested Grebe		Snipe
Great Spotted Woodpecker	1	Song Thrush	1
Great Tit	8	Sparrowhawk	1
Green Woodpecker		Spotted Flycatcher
Greenfinch		Starling
Grey Heron		Stock Dove
Grey Partridge		Stonechat
Grey Wagtail		Swallow
Greylag Goose		Swift
Herring Gull		Tawny Owl
House Martin		Teal
House Sparrow		Tree Creeper
Jackdaw	8	Tree Pipit
Jay		Tree Sparrow
Kestrel		Tufted Duck
Kingfisher		Water Rail
Lapwing		Waxwing
Lesser black backed Gull		Wheatear
Lesser Redpoll		Whitethroat
Lesser Spotted Woodpecker		Wigeon
Lesser Whitethroat		Willow Tit
Linnet		Willow Warbler
Little Grebe		Woodpigeon	13
Little Owl		Wood Warbler
Long-eared Owl		Woodcock
Long-tailed Tit	2	Wren	1
Magpie	3	Yellow Wagtail
		Yellowhammer
TOTAL NUMBER OF SPECIES SEEN AT BOUGH PARK DURING MARCH →			23