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DOTTEREL TIME ON PENDLE

Eurasian Dotterel (female), Pendle Hill, 7 May 2021 CLICK ON IMAGES FOR LIGHTBOX

IT’S DOTTEREL TIME AGAIN ON PENDLE! The female first seen on Wednesday was reported again by Ribchester birding pal Phil Larkin early this morning by the path to the trig point and happily it was still present when I got there. The dark feathers in the white breast band clearly match those in Mark Carter’s photo of the 5 May bird on the Lancashire Birding Facebook page. Thanks a lot to Phil who kept tabs on it and waited for me. I owe him a beer! I’ve been saying this for a while that dotties continue to become scarcer and this is only the second on Pendle this spring, an unthinkable state of affairs by 7 May when I first moved to East Lancs in 2005. Like many birds that breed in marginal climatic zones, like on mountain tops in the case of dotterel, its future is not bright, so birders would do well to see them while they still can. This one was bomb-proof and approached me within the minimum focusing distance (5m) several times. Lone birds are often much tamer than groups or ‘trips’ as they are known and it was fabulous to be the only person watching it from time to time. Several passers-by enjoyed it too (after all it is on the interpretive sign by the main gate to the hill at Pendleside) including a group of ‘Public Services’ students from Blackburn College. I have no idea what that course entails but watching a dotterel seems like worthwhile subject matter. I left it where Phil had found it, as a hail shower piled in from the north but was amazed to learn later that birders that I passed on my way down couldn’t refind it. Happily it was still there later in the evening sunshine so presumably it had just hunkered down for a while during the bad weather?

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RIB '21 OSPREY NO.#3

Ribchester Osprey, 5 May CLICK IMAGES FOR LIGHTBOX

MORE SKY-GAZING IN RIBCHESTER WAS REWARDED BY ANOTHER OSPREY TODAY, our third of the spring from the benches and by far the best view so far! Sat by the school at 4.55PM, Phil and I were scanning a beautiful blue sky dotted with cotton wool cumulus clouds, blown in by the northwest wind. Meanwhile, Alexander was telling Liz how he preferred her boxer dogs to birding, when it glided in from the east over Gary Paul’s field. It drifted over the allotments and had a look at the river before heading quickly over the village, mobbed by a couple of Black-headed and Lesser Black-backed Gulls, not far above the roof tops! I am guessing someone else must have seen it pass by? It looks like an adult and it will be interesting if it has been seen anywhere else in East Lancs recently. Although it doesn’t have any rings visible, hopefully these photos can be compared with any others taken?

Stopping to take a look at RADAC property

Gulls hate Ospreys, purely because they look like eagles and have a 1.5m wingspan, they prefer to eat fish of course!

There were some happy faces on the riverbank today but you have to be a little lucky to be in the right place at the right time!

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BLUE-HEADED WAGTAIL AT ALSTON

Blue-headed Wagtail, Alston Reservoirs, 4 May

ANOTHER GREAT FIND BY GAVIN THOMAS, A MALE BLUE-HEADED WAGTAIL was the culmination of a nice selection of grounded passerines at Alston Reservoirs. The April rain showers and northerlies had come around a month late but served to stop some northbound migrants in their tracks. At the weekend a lovely gathering of four wheatears and three male Whinchats was near the northwest corner of No.#1 reservoir, the Whinchats hanging around the tiny marshy patch in the sheep field there. More rain followed over the next couple of days and on 4 May Gavin found the wagtail in more or less the same place. It was super shy and I could hardly get within 50m of it by the time I had finished work etc. I was surprised it stayed so long but needless to say it was gone by the next day. It is a big rarity in East Lancashire but there has been quite a good movement of flava wagtails recently, in fact it’s the third I’e seen within 5km of home this year!

The whimbrel roost continues but numbers have dwindled, maybe dragged away to the new roosting spot near Chipping? The heavy rain also brought a Dunlin and five Common Ringed Plovers to the wetland, which lingered until 5 May. Luckily they survived a bombing run by a Peregrine that blasted low across the pools yesterday evening. Summer migrants are nearly all back now, both whitethroats are singing in the hedgerows along the lane and swifts are now a common sight over the reservoirs. The next few days are historically the best for shorebird passage in East Lancs and the water levels at Alston look great. Fingers crossed!

A wheatear forages on the weedy stone banks of no.#1

A few pixels of Whinchat, Alston Reservoirs

A whimbrel zooms in to roost at Alston Wetland

Common Whitethroat singing at Alston

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TWO WAGTAILS

White Wagtail, Pendle Hill CLICK ON IMAGES FOR LIGHTBOX

WHITE WAGTAIL, PENDLE HILL, 1 MAY 2021 

Looking closely at the White Wagtails (that is both subspecies White Wagtail (nominate alba) and Pied Wagtail (yarrellii)) that occur in East Lancashire quickly shows that they vary quite a lot. While the bird on the short turf just above the gate to Pendle Hill (Phil Larkin tells me ‘Pen-dle Hill’ literally means ‘Hill-hill Hill’!) on 1 May looked to have a pale mantle, pale flanks and a fairly sharply demarcated black cap so therefore a White Wagtail right? Yes, of course but I was interested to rule out an intergrade alba/yarrelli and I also remembered there can be some overlapping features, so, without being able to recall all the details, I took some photos and checked them later to Adriaens, Bosman & Els’s paper ‘White Wagtail and Pied Wagtail: a new look’ published in Dutch Birding in 2010, which is the current standard reference. It shows there is more to them than a glance at the identification features mentioned in such as the Collins Bird Guide. Here’s what I think of this bird.

Age/Sex

First of all, it is still in pre-breeding moult so it is scruffy and that ruffled black-centred (adult) greater covert means I can’t see if the outer ones are really brownish or not. The primaries are covered in all photos too. So, it could be an adult or a first summer. I’d be interested to hear from someone who looks at them regularly if there’s anything you can see here that clinches the age. The black cap looks to have a sharp border with the grey mantle, which suggests it is a male.

Subspecific Identification

Here’s an assessment using Adriaens, Bosman & Els’s eight characters. So, a White Wagtail, Motacilla alba alba, and the scores for characters A, F & G lean towards a western i.e. Icelandic bird, as expected. After all it was in good company with lots of other Iceland-bound birds in East Lancs this weekend like wheatears and whimbrels so this wouldn’t be a surprise.

Character A: Kodak grey value of rump (measured in palest parts only)

10 (between the second pair of tertials), putting it comfortably within the range of alba (western 9-14 and eastern 8-13) and outside yarrellii (13+) with some margin for error both in the lightness and artefacts in the image [The area between the third pair of tertials is the darker uppertail coverts]. This area of the rump is typically darker than the rest of the mantle/scapulars in White Wagtail (alba).

Character B: Kodak grey value of scapulars

7, within the range of alba (7-11) and outside that of yarrellii (10-18).

Character C: Kodak grey value of mantle

7, within the range of alba (7-12) and outside that of yarrellii (10-18).

Character D: Estimated amount (%) of black on mantle and scapulars

<5%. However, difficult to assess from these images, the dark-looking feathers on the mantle are sometimes ignored as artefacts but there look to be at least 3 feathers with some dark markings on the LHS of the mantle.

Characters E & F: Kodak grey value of and extent of dark wash on flanks

Kodak grey value: 7, within the range of alba (1-10) and outside that of yarrellii (9-16).

Extent of dark wash on flanks: 1 (eastern alba 17%, western alba 44%, yarrellii 37%). This is a three point scale only (0,1 & 2).

Character G: Number of dark spots on belly

Zero. As in 96% of alba. ‘The presence of several (>1) distinct, isolated dark spots on the belly seems to be a fairly good indication of yarrellii, and it is therefore surprising that this character is apparently not described anywhere in literature.’

Character H: Length of white wedge on inner web of t5

Not visible on any photos.

White Wagtail, Pendle Hill (difficult to say if the, mostly concealed, outer greater coverts or the primaries are brownish)

White Wagtail, Pendle Hill (the darker grey rump is just visible between the middle tertials)

PIED WAGTAIL, ALSTON RESERVOIRS, 1 MAY 2021

Applying the same set of criteria to a Pied-looking bird at Alston later in the morning, maybe associated with a mini fall of Greenland-type wheatears and Whinchats, it was interesting to have a closer look at it too.

Pied Wagtail, Alston Reservoirs (the brownish primaries and outer greater coverts show this is a first summer but the mantle and scapular base colour is still just within the range for alba!)

Age/Sex

The photos I managed of this one, also in pre-breeding moult, showed a definite first summer bird, with brownish primaries and outer greater coverts contrasting very clearly with the black centred new inner greater coverts. It is not possible to separate males and females with certainty in spring. Interestingly its tertial moult is asymmetric with only two new feathers, the outer ones and both in the left wing, the rest are worn and brown. I had no idea they did this, I would have guessed moult would be symmetric.

Subspecific Identification

Another patchy bird that I find difficult to assign a Kodak grey value to areas like the mantle and it’s interesting to see that White Wagtails (alba) can have quite dark mantle, scapulars and flanks, as well as the extent of the grey on the flanks. However, the most heavily pro-yarrellii features, outside the range for alba, are A&D (the almost jet-black rump, not just the uppertail coverts, plus the extent of black spotting on the mantle) and there are no features outside the range of yarrellii, so it is a Pied Wagtail. Probably wasting time looking at it as deeply as this but it was interesting to read that a very few alba and yarrellii can look more similar than you might think in spring and that’s even before we get to intergrades, that for instance can have a light mantle outside the range of pure yarrellii but a jet-black rump that rules out pure alba!

Character A: Kodak grey value of rump (measured in palest parts only)

18 (between the second pair of tertials (the first pair would usually be longer of course)), at the extreme end of the range for yarrellii and miles out of range of alba. Jet-black at the end of the scale is 19.

Character B: Kodak grey value of scapulars

11, just within the range of yarrellii (10-18) but also within that of alba (7-11).

Character C: Kodak grey value of mantle

11, just within the range of yarrelli (10-18) but also within that of alba (7-11). Adriaens, Bosman & Els’s write ‘The results may suggest a broad area of overlap around Kodak 10- 11 between yarrellii (53%) and western alba (70%)’.

Character D: Estimated amount (%) of black on mantle and scapulars

c.30%. Majority of black markings on the upper mantle decreasing towards the lower mantle. Well outside the maximum for alba (10%).

Characters E & F: Kodak grey value of and extent of dark wash on flanks

Kodak grey value: 11, just outside the range of alba (1-10) but within that of yarrellii (9-16).

Extent of dark wash on flanks: 2 (eastern alba 0% western alba 20%(!) yarrellii 60%)

Character G: Number of dark spots on belly & Character H: Length of white wedge on inner web of t5

Not visible on any photos.

Pied Wagtail, Alston Reservoirs (the dark markings in the mantle are not within range for alba. It has two new black-centred tertials in the left wing and the moult contrast in the greater coverts is very obvious with the black centred new inner feathers and the brownish outer older generation feathers. It also has less white on the forehead than typical alba)

Pied Wagtail, Alston Reservoirs (an almost jet-black rump is visible ruling out alba. The dark grey wash on the flanks is probably just outside the range of alba but the extent of it is still just within)

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