26 Sep 19

Priorslee Lake and The Flash

Priorslee Lake:  05:50 –09:10
The Flash:  09:15 – 09:55

14.0°C > 13.0°C:  Heavy rain cleared after 06:15: then sunny for while before heavy showers threatened. Moderate SW wind. Very good visibility, moderate in rain.

Sunrise: 07:01 BST

Priorslee Lake:  05:50 – 09:10

(231st visit of the year)

Bird notes from today:
An 07:00 ‘football’ field count gave me >120 Black-headed Gulls, 13 Wood Pigeons again, 18 Magpies and 44 Pied Wagtails. The Black-headed Gulls were flushed off by the first arriving dogs as I was part-way through my count. Unusually some of the gulls returned later with 23 here at 09:00.

Other notes:
- After yesterday’s taxiing efforts from the Mute Swan cygnets there was plenty of wing waving this morning but no serious attempt at flight.
- A pair of Gadwall to add to yesterday’s drake.
- Three Mallard flew off when too dark to sex.
- One of the four juvenile Great Crested Grebes from the pair in the NE area was not seen, though its three siblings were tucked up against the reeds and it could easily have been just out of sight. There seemed to be an extra full-grown juvenile today.
- A Moorhen seen with two small juveniles – a rather late brood. Most of the other juveniles are virtually indistinguishable from adults except at close range.
- A substantial arrival of large gulls started at 06:15 – much too dark to identify. Most seemed like immatures with one adult Herring Gull standing out like a beacon.
- At least 60 Wood Pigeons put up from fields / trees to N: not included in the fly-over counts.

Bird totals:

Birds noted flying over or flying near the lake:
- 2 Canada Geese (1 group outbound)
- 26 unidentified geese
- 2 Cormorants
- 2 Sparrowhawks (same bird twice?)
- 1 Feral Pigeon
- 74 Wood Pigeons
- 68 Jackdaws
- 147 Rooks

Hirundines etc. noted
- 1 House Martin seen over 07:10: same as heard earlier?

Warblers noted (singing birds):
- 7 (2) Chiffchaffs
- 1 (0) Blackcap again

Counts from the lake area:
- 2 + 6 (1 brood) Mute Swans
- 3 (2♂) Gadwall
- 9 (>4♂) Mallard
- 5 (0♂) Tufted Ducks
- 1 Cormorant
- 2 Grey Herons
- 2 Little Grebes
- 8 adult + 3 immatures + 8 juvenile (3 broods) Great Crested Grebes
- 7 + 2 (1 brood) Moorhens
- 126 Coots
- >120 Black-headed Gulls
- 11 Lesser Black-backed Gulls: eight of these first-winter birds
- 6 Herring Gulls: five of these first-winter birds
- >200 unidentified large gulls: too dark to ID

Lamp poles not checked pre-dawn in the pouring rain!

Later sightings:
- 1 Grey Squirrel
- first seeds of the Spindle-tree (Euonymus europaea) this year

An unusual catch with the camera this morning. This Little Grebe flew to land in front of me as I stood along the N side. I had just enough time to get the camera in to action as the bird took off and pattered away across the surface. We see the marks the feet make on the water as well as the difficult to see wing pattern – the wings are usually whirring too fast to get more than a blur.

The upperwing in more detail.

The typical belly-first landing – the feet are too far back to act as brakes.

And as it slides along on its belly we again see the upper and underwing pattern.

An illustration on how the angle of the light can affect identification. Here is what is quite obviously a first-winter Lesser Black-backed Gull settling on the water next to a first-winter Herring Gull. The Lesser shows no pale to the inner primaries and the secondary coverts are as dark as the secondaries themselves.

One frame later and the tone looks quite different, showing somewhat paler inner primaries and with the secondary coverts not looking especially dark. However the tone of the paler inner primaries is still rather too dark for a first-winter Herring Gull but it does not make life easy.

Not my best shot ever but Coal Tits are hard to find let alone photograph – Spring when they are singing from tall tree tops is not ideal either and this is not Spring. Many bird guides tell you that Coal Tits can be recognised by their white nape without telling you that many Great Tits show this feature too – never as cleanly as shown on this typical Coal Tit.

Recently all the Chiffchaffs have been calling from cover or energetically working their way through the canopy feeding up ahead of moving south for the winter (it will mostly be different birds that we see a few of during the winter months). This bird behaved only slightly better. The all-dark bill and lack of any real supercilium immediately rule out Willow Warbler even though the feet do not look dark on this individual. One other way to separate these species is that the Chiffchaff always moves its tail up and down as it works through the vegetation – this photo at a slow shutter speed in shade illustrates the tail movement.

Here the seeds cases and a single orange seed are visible on this Spindle-tree (Euonymus europaea). The seeds are a violent purgative to us humans but a favourite of and harmless to Blackbirds.

(Ed Wilson)

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The Flash:  09:15 – 09:55

(219th visit of the year)

Notes from here:.
- Tufted Duck numbers somewhat recovered. As I was about to leave 15 birds (2♂) appeared in front of me. Were these new arrivals or birds flown down from the top end?
- No Goosanders.
- A Grey Wagtails on the sluice exit for a while.
- The two Meadow Pipits were unusually low as if they had been flushed from very close by the Sparrowhawk that had just passed over. Nowhere obvious that they might have been though.
and
- 2 Dicranopalpus ramosus harvestman on the usual lamp pole with ...

Birds noted flying over / near The Flash:
- 1 Sparrowhawk
- 1 Feral Pigeon again
- 2 Wood Pigeons
- 3 Jackdaws yet again
- 1 Pied Wagtail
- 2 Meadow Pipits

Hirundines etc. noted.
None

Warblers noted.
None

Counts from the water:
- 3 Mute Swans as ever
- 13 Greylag Geese
- 1 Feral Goose
- 59 Canada Geese
- 43 (22♂) Mallard
- 30 (8♂) Tufted Duck: possibly 45 (10♂) see notes
- 2 Great Crested Grebes
- 1 + 2 (2 broods) Moorhens
- 19 Coots
- 8 Black-headed Gulls: one of these a first-winter bird

One of the harvestmen on their usual lamp pole was so well-camouflaged against the moss and lichen that I could not see enough features with my eye to identify it. So ‘take a photo, enlarge it and change the contrast’. Here is a close-up of the diagnostic shape of the long palps of Dicranopalpus ramosus. Look closely and two legs have been ‘unplugged’!

(Ed Wilson)

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On this day..........

2018
Priorslee Lake
Today's Sightings Here

2017
Priorslee Lake
Today's Sightings Here

2015
Priorslee Lake
Today's Sightings Here

2011
Priorslee Lake
115 Greylag Geese
420+ Canada Geese
Shoveler
Common Sandpiper
Kingfisher
3 Blackcaps
12 Chiffchaffs
(Ed Wilson)