The Naturalists' Notebook

I dissected the Owl Pellet that I found and showed to a few MNA members on our coach trip to Carsington Water. The pellet matched the description of a Barn Owl pellet in the RSPB leaflet “Owl Pellets – How To Study Their Contents” http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/Owlpellets_tcm9-133500.pdf

The first MNA coach trip of 2011 brought a return to snowy wintery conditions as we headed through the Derbyshire countryside to the Severn Trent Water Reservoir – Carsington Water.

A feeding station close to the coach was packed with over thirty hungry Tree Sparrows and a few Bullfinch. The group wandered along to the wildlife centre, a glass window hide giving great views across the reservoir and surrounding fields and spit. As we tucked into sandwiches and flasks of hot drinks we watched the gathered wildfowl of Tufties, Wigeon, Teal, Coot, Mallard and Great crested Grebe. Approaching 300 Lapwing were resting on the spit frequently taking off and wheeling around. Other waders included a few Oyks and a Redshank; a few Pied Wagtails were flitting along the water’s edge. A large gathering of 120+ Fieldfare were feeding in one field joined by a Mistle Thrush and a few Woodpigeons. The feeders had yet more Tree Sparrows, Chaffinches and the odd Dunnock and Great Tit.

Dave B mentioned that he had seen the Yellow Brain Fungus Tremella mesenterica close to the centre so I changed lens, zipped up my waterproofs and returned to photograph it.

A well marked trail used by walkers and cyclists runs around the reservoir and information posts are located at various stages along the route.

I found a pellet beside a fence post along the trail. I pointed it out to some other group members and we all assume it to be from an owl. I brought the pellet back with me and will dissect it in due course.

Despite the wintery conditions there were a few signs of spring with a mass of male Hazel catkins Corylus avellana and the bright red female flowers.

A few interesting lichen with the bushy clumps of a strap lichen Evernia prunastri more commonly called Oak Moss and the elephant trunk-like podentia of Cladonia coniocrea.

Scanning the reservoir through the mist we had our first distant views of one of the Great Northern Divers that had been on the reservoir all winter. We hot hoofed along to Lane End bird hide and parked our bums. After a few minutes we re-located the bird, its heavy horizontally held beak, steep crown and flat forehead clearly visible, even in the mist! As the bird slipped under the water without even a splash we timed a number of its dives which ranged from between 1min 5sec and 1min 12sec. We soon spotted another Diver further out on the water.

Some rather cute black and white spotty sheep that some people commented more resembled goats were found to be Jacobs Sheep. A number of the group that had reached the bird hides at Sheepwash added Goldeneye and Pintail to the wildfowl list. A few of us checked out the fungi with Velvet Shank Flammulina velutipes,  Hairy Stereum Stereum hirsutum, Phlebia tremellosa, Bleeding Broadleaf Crust Stereum rugosum. Also:-

Many-zoned Polypore Trametes versicolor 

Oysterling Crepidotus sp.

After listening to a melodious Song Thrush singing its heart out from the top of a tree and watching masses of Great Tits, the odd Bullfinch and a Reed Bunting at one of the feeding stations it was all too quickly time to head back to the coach.

With a fine sunny day forecast I decided to head up to Martin Mere WWT for a spot of Whooper Swan ring reading. Wandering along to the mere from New Lane station a few Corn Buntings were performing their jangly-keys song and skeins of Pink-footed Geese were flying overhead in ‘V’ formation and noisily honking away to each other. I had a quick wander around the captive area to begin with photographing the Hawaiian Geese that were enjoying a nice snooze in the sunshine and a Patagonian Crested Duck slurping water as though it was de-hydrated in the height of summer. A few nice specimens of fungi were dotted around on various trees.

Smoky Bracket Bjerkandera adusta with dense overlapping tiers that are quite leathery or rubbery.

Velvet Shank Flammulina velutipes a common fungi on broad-leaved trees during the winter months.

Silver Leaf Fungus Chondrostereum purpureum a common parasite on fruit trees especially Prunus sp. forming small dark purple brackets with a white edge. 

Out on the main reserve plenty of Buzzards were around, a Peregrine and a distant Marsh Harrier. Although I didn’t see it myself a female redhead Smew had been reported from Harrier Hide. Plenty of ducks amongst the Whoopers out on the Mere with Pintail pairs and a few feisty scrapping females plus plenty of cute Wigeon whistling ‘wheeoo’.

One of the annual Whooper Swan catches had been held a couple of days ago with 73 Swans captured. Although some birds were re-captures i.e. those who had already been fitted with rings, the remaining Swans were fitted with the new Red Darvic rings as the WWT have run out of alpha-numeric code combinations for the Yellow Darvics.

The Whoopers looked glorious in the sunshine with their white plumage contrasting against the dark blue of the water.

When it came to feeding time at 3pm at Raines Hide the Whoopers were much warier than normal swimming far out from the edge of the Mere when the warden walked along pushing the wheelbarrow full of grain. Gradually they walked out of the water in front of the hide allowing me to read a few more rings codes before I had to head off for my returning train.

John Clegg spotted some colour-ringed coots at Southport Marine Lake on Saturday 5th February 2011 and asked me to look them up and report them.

They are part of a project by the Loghan Hurst Ringing Group which is studying the movements of coots, mainly in Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and the Lake District.  It started in September 2009 and over 500 birds have been ringed at Southport alone.
The ringing pattern is
Right leg – 1 colour ring above a BTO metal ring
Left leg – two colour rings, one above the other (and you should note which colour is above the other).
The colours in use are white, black, red, yellow, orange, dark blue, light blue, green and purple.

Of the six ringed birds John saw, two appear to have lost a ring and so were unidentifiable. The third and fourth were ringed at Southport Marine Lake last November and December and seem to have stayed there. The fifth was an adult, ringed at Southport last November, and who made a trip to Martin Mere and back in January. The sixth was ringed as a juvenile at Southport at Christmas 2009, and may have spent last summer at Stanley Park, Blackpool (sighted there in February 2010, back at Southport in November 2010).

The picture above is the star bird of the study, who was photographed in Cornwall on 28th December 2010 just 26 days after being ringed at Southport Marine Lake!

If you see a colour-ringed coot report it at the Euring site or directly to the co-ordinator Kane Brides at kanebrides (at) gmail.com
More information is on Kane’s blog. It’s worth a look.

It was dull, overcast, freezing cold and the odd snowflake in the air as the crew boarded Liverpool University’s Research Vessel ‘Marisa’ (Latin for the sea). We headed out into the River Mersey through Langton Lock, one of the Smit Tugboats was behind us in the lock manoeuvring the 250 tonne capacity floating crane ‘Mersey Mammoth’.

Our first sampling ‘station’ or site was at Dukes buoy close to the Echo Arena. The guys winched the 2m wide beam trawl out of the gate at the back of the boat and trawled for 10mins.

This is a poor site with much scouring of the River Bed due to tidal action and the amount of boat traffic. We only found a few small fish and Brown Shrimps Crangon crangon.

After a few more trawls at this site produced nothing new the guys hauled the beam trawl back on board and the skipper wellied us along to our second station at Egg buoy out from Wallasey Town Hall. The beam trawl was dropped 40m down to the River bed and trawled again for 10mins. We hit the jackpot for Common Starfish Asterias rubens ranging in size from around 1cm to 10cm in diameter.

Our next few trawls brought up a number of large boulders in the main net. We caught many more starfish and also a number of female Common Shore Crabs Carcinus maenas in beri i.e. carrying their eggs underneath their abdomen – she can have up to 20,000 eggs!

A Common Blenny Lipophrys pholis a.k.a. Shanny that usually hide underneath rocks and have sharp teeth for biting barnacles off rocks was a nice find. 

There were a couple of male Edible Crabs Cancer pagurus one of which had lost its left claw at some point and was busy re-growing another.

A few rays of sunlight tried bravely to shine through the mass of clouds behind Wallasey Town Town as we waited for a lock back into the docks.