The weather has been so changeable this week with it feeling rather balmy and spring like on Tuesday to the snowy infused wind gusts of Thursday. The wildlife doesn’t know whether to sing for territory or fight over scraps of frozen food!
When it has felt more Spring like, the impact on the birds is quite obvious with singing from the mistle thrushes and song thrushes around the car park. Plus the grey herons in their heronry becoming more active, establishing their nests, croaking to prospective mates and going into villa wood to pick up sticks. It looks like they will nest later in comparison to last year. 2014 saw the first sitting female on the 3rd February – which is pretty early for grey herons. Although grey herons are one of our earliest nesters, the BTO, who monitor trends in bird populations and dynamics, suggest the start of the main heron nesting season is the 13th February. Check out the excellent BTO blog to see a list of other early nesters:- http://btoringing.blogspot.co.uk/
The sightings are pretty much the same as last week at Middleton. The 4 tree sparrows are in residence by the farm, mingled in with the house sparrows. If ever there was a time to do the big garden birdwatch, it should have been on Thursday afternoon when the snow was falling. I ventured down to the feeders and counted, 40 blue tits, 36 great tits, 1 coal tit, 17 chaffinches, 8 goldfinches, 12 house sparrows, 6 blackbirds, 1 reed bunting, 3 great-spotted woodpeckers, 2 water rail, 2 mallard, 1 moorhen , 1 pheasant and a jay! If ever there was an advert for please feed your birds, that was it. The activity concentrated into that one area was amazing – it was hard to count the birds as they were constantly coming and going, grabbing any morsal of food they could get before another bird barged them off a feeder!
Staying in the area of the heronry/feeders/farm, the little egret roost has beaten it’s record by 1, increasing the maxiumum to 31. Rather than count them into roost, this time I counted them flying out. All heading in a south to easterly direction. There certainly isn’t 31 little egrets that are obvious on Middleto so they must spread themselves out in the valley a bit.
Out on the wetlands, the peregrine and barn owls (x2) have been hunting. The first returning oystercatcher is back after spending a bit of time over the river on the water ski lake. A lucky visitor also had a skein of pink-footed geese fly over on Wednesday afternoon. Not that common a sight flying over Middleton, Jan/Feb are a good time to look for flocks returning north. One of our regular birders photographed a cormorant with a colour ring, which he enquired about. He found out the following:- the cormorant was rung as a nestling in June 2013 at the Attenborough nature reserve in Nottinghamsire. Although it hasn’t come too far from it’s birth place, sightings of ringed birds help to piece together movements of species and provide valuable information.
Cormorant by Steve Pick.
We will endeavor to keep this blog updated on a weekly basis, but to keep your finger on the Middleton Lakes pulse check out our RSPB Birmingham, Black Country and Warwickshire facebook page and follow us on Twitter @RSPBMiddleton. If you enjoy taking photos, we would love for you to add them to our Community page.