Where are all the hirundines?

This year there seems to be a real shortage of swallows, house martins and swifts across the county (and maybe Country?). Here at Feathers we used to have dozens of pairs of house martins nesting between the old vicarage and the farm house, whereas now we are lucky if we see any at all. Swallows have bred on the farm in years gone by, but again we now only see them occasionally. Fortunately, the swifts that call the church home still seem to be stable, with about 8 birds back again this year. Other birders in the area and plenty of customers have noted the lack of hirundines this year and it would be interesting to know whether this has been a trend for the whole of the UK.

Swift at Feathers, 25/05/19

On a more positive note, we have had a firecrest present for at least a month now. Throughout the day I can hear it singing somewhere just over the road. For the most part, owing to their protected status (Schedule 1 species), we haven't been even trying to look for it, but just knowing it is here and potentially breeding is great news for us. However, we were afforded wonderful, albeit very brief, views of it earlier in the month.

Firecrest at Feathers, 02/05/19

It seems to have been favourable weather for the breeding season, if anything perhaps a bit too dry! Hopefully it will mean great success for many species. So far we have seen young starlings (although the boxes weren't used this year), sparrows, great tits and blue tits. No doubt the blackbirds, robins and dunnocks have fledged but we haven't been introduced by the parents yet. The great spotted woodpecker parents have almost been a fixture for the last couple of weeks, taking food away but back within minutes. Perhaps there is more than one pair. No sign of the juveniles yet but I hope it won't be long.

Male great spotted woodpecker

Juvenile and adult starling

Adult and juvenile blue tit

Early breeding season signs

Springwatch started this week which gives us a great idea of how the breeding season is going, not just from their location (NT Sherborne, Gloucestershire) but from across the country as the public send in their reports. Of our summer visitors, especially hirundines, many are arriving later and in lower numbers than previous years. 'Our' house martins are in reasonable numbers this year (around 12 birds is the most I've counted), possibly better than 2017, but still much lower than when we started here at Feathers in 2010. I think there are also 5 pairs of swifts back in the church, although they arrived at least two weeks later than last year. We see a pair of swallows regularly so presume they are nesting nearby but once again they aren't any nesting on the farm.

Of our resident breeding birds, the starlings in our nest box were earlier than last year, fledging on the 14th May, although our first juvenile birds visiting the nature area were on the 11th. One of the earliest breeding species is the mistle thrush and we saw fledglings in the car park on the 20th April. Of other species nesting on the farm, we've seen juvenile sparrows, goldfinches, greenfinches, great tits and the first of the baby blue tits today, all of which seem roughly on time, although certainly not in good numbers.

Unfortunately, the timing of fledging the nest has coincided with stormy weather with many spells of heavy rain and thunder this week across the country. This will certainly have a negative impact on the survival rate of many young birds. We would expect the feeders to be busier than they are too, with suet balls and blocks unsurprisingly proving the most popular at the minute (high energy content) but sunflower hearts and peanut consumption is very slow. I hope for many species that second broods will be more successful.

Breeding success

It's very hard to tell this early on how successful this breeding season may have been, but indications are it's been a good one. Though only one of our 10 nest boxes has been occupied (the Starling box), it seems there are plenty of other nest sites available. Once again, the Church has provided a home for a pair of Kestrels (who have raised a brood of four) as well as a good few families of Swifts.

The Pied Wagtails are a yearly nester and though we don't know where they settled this year, we have recently seen a few fledglings being fed by mum and dad. A new nesting bird for us here is the Grey Wagtails. With the river Rother close by, it's likely they have bred there in recent years, but this May they began nest building under the eaves of the workshop by the kitchen, about 50 yards from the shop door.

Also very close by were a pair of Robins and a pair of Blackbirds, who both chose the storage room to nest. A safe choice as both nests saw young fledge successfully. We've seen baby Blue Tits, Great Tits, Chaffinches and Goldfinches on the feeders, along with of course they 20/30 young Starlings, but the highlight so far has to be our Great Spotted Woodpeckers. The male first brought his two youngsters to the feeders in early June and spent much of his time between the suet balls and peanuts, breaking them up in to bite size pieces to feed to the fledglings. On the 7th, one of the babies flew in the shop window with quite a thump - fortunately no injuries sustained apart from one hell of a headache, as it took a couple of hours under my care before flying off. The day after it was back with its sibling and dad, being fed again, but didn't leave when they did. It was only then did I believe it was the same bird as it allowed me to come very close. Our very friendly woodpecker promptly became a tourist attraction, with customers coming to enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime experience of getting face to face with a wild GSW. We were cautious to not let it become to familiar with human contact and the good news is we have seen what we can only assume to be the same two juveniles back with its parents, now feeding independently.

These past few days have been unbelievably hot, with temperatures above 30°C, so the feeders have been particularly quiet. From mid May until now, however, activity was very high, particularly the suet balls which were going down twice a day. The heat is due to drop now so we may see the feeders pick up again this week.

Unfortunately in late April/early May we made the difficult decision to close the hide and nature area. With the adjacent oast house falling down, it posed a genuine health and safety risk for visitors. Within the space of a few days we had created a mini nature area outside the shop, with comfortable seating space providing a perfect spot for customers to sit and watch or photograph the birds in comfort with refreshments on hand. This small area has turned out to be a bigger success than we expected, and though it's not as established as our old area, many species are already using it happily and we hope many more will join us soon!

Summer roundup!

It's fair to say I haven't kept up with the blog this summer, for some reason it has been pushed to the back of the queue, even though I told myself I wanted to keep better records of our sightings at Feathers.

It seems this breeding season was fairly successful for most species locally, although there was certainly a shortage of House Martins and Swallows attempting to breed here. There were no sightings of Spotted Flycatchers in Spring/Summer, which have at least attempted breeding in the past 5 years. None of our Tit/Robin nest boxes were occupied this year, though once again they found other cracks and crevices around the farm to nest. The Kestrels successfully raised another brood in Salehurst Church (which also houses the Swifts), although one juvenile was taken in to care with a broken wing and another was found dead shortly after. We're not sure whether there were more than 2 juveniles, let's hope at least one made it. Juvenile Great Spotted Woodpeckers once again provided great entertainment outside the shop, allowing for close photographs. Mixed flocks fed in the oak trees over the road, with a family of Treecreepers present in late July. The feeders on the whole remained fairly active throughout June and in to July, but the warmer weather which graced us late in to the month and is still going strong now (29° here yesterday!) caused a huge decrease in activity. As lovely as it is, we are looking forward to cooler weather returning and the feeders become busy once more.

Juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker

Juvenile Kestrel

Juvenile Goldfinch

Juvenile Treecreeper

As we entered early Autumn, signs of migration increased. The Swifts were first to go, whereas many others are feeding up in preperation for their long journey ahead. Good numbers of House Martins have been feeding in the blue skies, joined by young Swallows. Our first sighting of a Spotted Flycatcher was on the 6th September, the same day a pair of Wheatears made a surprise visit to Parsonage Farm. This was only our second record here and our first 'from the shop'. Chiffchaffs have been singing and feeding in the sycamore tree, also enjoying the flurry of insects the warmer weather is providing. All, I'm sure, will be heading south as soon as the cold arrives.

Wheatear

Spotted Flycatcher

Chiffchaff

Robins have changed from their summer 'look at me' to their winter 'stay well clear' song. Lots of territory battles taking place outside the shop and in the Nature Area.

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Signs of Spring

The general trend in recent years is for the mean egg laying date of most birds getting earlier and earlier. This trend is believed to be caused by climate change, with warmer weather allowing for better food availability earlier in the season. Last year's warm, wet winter provided almost no frosts at all in Sussex, leading to a particularly early breeding season, an anomaly that was opposite to the breeding season of 2013, where a cold winter which held on until April led to very late broods. To give you an example; according to data from the BTO's Nest Record Scheme, the 2013 average laying date for Blue Tits was 12.3 days late (relative to the average from the previous five years) whereas it was 5.9 days early in 2014. It will certainly be interesting to see how 2015 sits in the table, with what has been a typical British winter, laced with cold snaps and warmer periods alike.

The Bullfinches, which had been resident for so long here recently, have moved on, as well as the Treecreeper which hasn't been spotted for a while either. The Goldcrests however are frequent visitors, often spending a long time searching for food in and around the yew tree over the road.

Still the Siskins remain a 'no-show', with just one male turning up on my feeders at home (Staplecross) on a few occassions between late Feb and early March.

On the 27th February we had our highest count ever of Buzzards as 8 graced the blue skies together. The pair of Kestrels have been bonding and inspecting the nesting site in the Church where they have nested in previous years, though we're not sure what stage they are currently at. It's most likely they haven't laid any eggs yet. One Blackbird was spotted this morning collecting nesting material, they are one of the earliest 'garden birds' to breed. We haven't heard them singing yet, though I'm sure they may well have started in the warmer climes of towns and cities. The Chaffinches have certainly started singing, their colours becoming increasing bold too as they attempt to lure a female. As the temperature progressively increases, the feeders begin to quieten down, though there is still a fair amount of activity, especially with the good size charm of Goldfinches. Here's a composite photograph put together with a few snaps of the same feeder in use in our Nature Area.

Just to follow up on the Blue Tit with a deformed beak (see post) spotted on the 27th January, the same bird was back again yesterday afternoon in the Nature Area unfortunately looking a little worse for wear.

Allan had a rather amazing Blue Tit in his garden on the 17th Feb, with a curved lower mandible and highly elongated, decurved upper mandible crossing over. This particular bird looked in pretty good nick given its condition but how it continued to feed one can only imagine!