WEEK 4

 

The week began as it had the week before, at WWT Washington. A couple of months ago our bird ringing group were invited to take part in a new project being run by the team at the Wetlands, a project that revolves around the rapidly declining Willow Tit. The numbers of this species have fallen dramatically in recent years but they can still be found at the Wetlands and the team are wanting to manage the site in a way that secures the long term future of these gorgeous little birds. They've been working hard on a site management plan that benefits the Tits, and are also currently knocking together a number of nestboxes that are specifically designed with Willow Tits in mind. The boxes will be put up in the coming weeks and monitored throughout the breeding season. They're fairly sure they have at least three breeding pairs on site but are hoping to boost their numbers by providing more nesting opportunities. They also want to have a better idea of how many individuals are on the property, which is where the ringing group come in. The project team applied to the BTO to start a colour ringing scheme onsite, led by the WWT but delivered by ourselves. The aim of course is to catch as many Willow Tits as we can in the coming weeks before the breeding season kicks in and then hopefully follow their dispersal and monitor the nesting habits. We've started at one of the smaller feeding stations but hope to move around the site to maximise our chances of catching as many birds as possible. The Wetlands team are hoping to turn this into a fun citizen science program and will be encouraging visitors to look out for the ringed birds as they wander around the grounds. The beauty of using colour rings is they stand out more than the metal rings and you don't have to recatch the bird to record the sighting! So far we have only caught one Willow Tit but it's still very early days and are hoping to get more in the coming weeks. And of course, being a Sunderland supporter, we had to begin with Red and White! 🔴⚪

The last few weeks I've been getting round my various sites to try and clean out all of the nestboxes before the breeding season begins in a couple of months. I think I've mentioned before that it's something I hate doing, and one of the reasons is because of what is sometimes found inside. When you open up that lid you genuinely never know what you're going to come face to face with! I mean most of the time it's nothing, just an empty box or the remains of last years nest. Unfortunately though you do find the occasional dead bird, or unhatched egg, but more often it'll be a Woodmouse or two that looks up at you with a sheepish expression. Or even worse, jumps up at you giving you the shock of your life! Trust me, I don't care WHO you are, when something leaps towards you unexpectedly you nearly cack your pants. I've been there many, many times. But there's more, something way more unnerving than the cutesy little Woodmouse. I have to admit I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with spiders. I do genuinely love them, I find them amazingly fascinating creatures. But I absolutely hate them anywhere near me. And that's a problem when it comes to nestboxes, because spiders absolutely love them. So for me personally, there's nothing worse than opening the lid and finding a huge Giant House Spider looking right at me! But unfortunately it does happen. And I have to be a brave little boy and help them on their way. Urgh. Thankfully I managed to do the boxes at Souter this week which means all of my sites are done and I can breathe a sigh of relief. And next year, my friend Neil is not getting out of it and is coming with me so HE can deal with the spiders!!!

So last week I mentioned that myself and John had started the long and arduous job of prepping the timber for our annual nestbox event. We've had another couple of days doing it this week and we're slowly getting through it, and if we get a chance next week I imagine we'll get the rest done. Incase anyone is wondering why it's so time taking I've broken it down into numbers. There are 300 boxes in total. Each box has 6 parts. That's 1800 parts to cut. On top of that, we pre-drill each box, which means 3900 individual holes. You have to admit, that's ridiculously tedious!

And finally, the Workplace Wildlife Challenge! In all honesty I've been so busy with other stuff it's almost not even worth talking about! There's just been one addition to the list, but I will keep emphasising that it's very early in the year and there's plenty of time to boost the numbers up.

SPECIES LIST 

064 Common Scoter - Melanitta nigra 

WEEKS 2 & 3

 

Week 2 of 2023 began with one of my absolute favourite events of the year, the annual South Tyneside Bird Race. This event has been going on for years, probably just under 30 I think, and I've been taking part for about 15 years. For anyone unfamiliar with the event, it sees teams of upto 4 or 5 people racing around the whole of South Tyneside to try and spot as many different species of birds in an 8 hour period. It starts and ends at the lighthouse, but in between teams are free to go wherever they want as long as they remain within the borders. There are actually two versions of the race, a driving one and a walking one. The obvious advantage of using a vehicle is you can get to more places and travel further than if you are on foot, but there's such a good feeling about doing it the old fashioned way. I've been doing the walking race for the last 5 or 6 years and I absolutely love it. This year my long-time team mate, Dougie, couldn't make it so myself and Neil were joined by Annelise, Chappers and newcomer Daniel. The route we take doesn't deviate too much year on year as we take in places like Cleadon Hills, Boldon Flats, the Academy of Light and of course the Coastal path and we usually cover between 12 and 16 miles depending on the exact route. This year was around 14 miles, and let me tell you, after barely getting over the festive illness it almost destroyed me 😄. By the time I got to the final stretch, from Whitburn Steel back to the lighthouse, my knee was in a mess and I only just about managed to hobble to the finish line. It was clearly a huge shock for my body going from 3 weeks on the couch to immediately hiking 14 miles without easing myself in! But anyway, my team ended up seeing 61 species which is a little bit down on previous years, and the winning driving team saw 83 species. The combined total of species from all the teams that took part was 89, which for a relatively small region is not too bad at all. And more importantly everyone that took part had a cracking day.

There was a nice little write up about the day in the local Gazette (albeit with the usual couple of errors but it's not the end of the world 😁) 

https://www.shieldsgazette.com/news/environment/budding-bird-watchers-based-at-souter-lighthouse-enjoy-race-to-register-feathered-friends-but-survey-reveals-worrying-trends-397867

At this time of year I try to get round all of my nestbox sites to give all of the boxes a good clean out and make any necessary repairs in preparation for the upcoming breeding season. It's a rubbish job, pun very much intended, and I never look forward to doing it if I'm honest but it's an important part of monitoring the boxes. So in the past fortnight I've managed to get to the Academy of Light, Sharpley Fish Ponds & Golf Course, Down at the Farm, Moorhouse Wood and of course Whitelea Farm & Hawthorn Dene. I've also relocated a number of boxes from a private site to Hawthorn to boost the numbers in there. Thankfully most of the boxes were in very good shape and very little maintenance was needed, just a good old clean out. The only boxes I haven't had a chance to clean out yet are the ones at Souter. Hopefully I'll get to them in the coming weeks.

Speaking of nestboxes, this week saw us make a start on prepping the timber for our annual nestbox making event we have at the lighthouse every February. It's a long and arduous process as we cut all the various pieces and then pre-drill the holes so that all the kids have to do is put them together, but it's by far one of our most popular events so it's all worth it in the end. This year we're actually prepping the most boxes we've ever tried, 300 in total, but there's no problem if they don't all go because if we have any left I've got lots of places I can put them so they absolutely will not go to waste! 

WORKPLACE WILDLIFE CHALLENGE 

Once again its been slow going adding new species to the list since the last update. Since returning to work I've been in lots of various meetings meaning more time indoors than I'd like, but obviously it's an important part of the job so I'm not going to complain. When I have managed to get out its been to do things like Coastal Path surveys at Souter and tree felling in Hawthorn Dene so I've only been picking up the odd species while doing other jobs. As usual they were mostly birds but I managed to record the first spider of the year, a giant House Spider that had taken up residence in one of our nestboxes! The undoubted highlight however was a very unexpected Merlin that swooped along the coast at Whitelea Farm putting all the other birds in a panic. I was expecting it to be a Peregrine but was pleasantly surprised to see the smaller Falcon whizz past. You just never know what you're going to get 😊

SPECIES LIST

056. Curlew - Numenius arquata

057. Merlin - Falco columbarius

058. Collared Dove - Streptopelia decaocto

059. Dunnock - Prunella modularis

060. Golden Plover - Pluvialis apricaria

061. Lapwing - Vanellus vanellus

062. Brown Hare - Lepus europaeus

063. Giant House Spider - Eratigena species

 

WORKPLACE WILDLIFE CHALLENGE - WEEK 1

 

So week 1 of my Wildlife Challenge is over, and its been a nice gentle start to the year. As I'm still officially on my festive break I obviously haven't been on property every day but I've still managed a couple of outings through the week to get the challenge up and running. On Sunday I had a couple of hours in Moorhouse Wood (see previous post), Monday walked the length of  The Leas, Wednesday had a quick visit to Penshaw Monument and then Friday an hour in Whitburn Coastal Park. Wildlife wise, Penshaw was almost a complete wash out until, that is, on the way back to the car I completely fluked a Long Eared Owl coming out of the hedgerow and flying over my path! This was a cracking find and a complete bonus bird as it wasn't on my list of targets because we don't have a site that definitely have them. So I was very happy to see it! The other two outings were much better. The first saw me walking from the lighthouse, along The Leas to Trow Quarry and then back again. A lovely couple of hours in the winter sunshine along a gorgeous stretch of coast - what could be better! I managed to pick up a number of expected bird species like Skylarks and Pipits etc but the highlights were a lovely pair of Stonechats and a cracking Mediterranean Gull in amongst the more regular gulls. But the best species of the day wasn't a bird, it was a pair of Harbour Porpoise slowly heading south not too far out at sea. Always a delight to see. The last outing was an hour around the Coastal Park. It wasn't particularly planned, I'd had to take the car to the garage on the morning and as I had to pass on the way home I thought it'd be rude not to pop in! Again, it was a very relaxed stroll which saw me pick up more expected bird species, including the first Finches of the year. Best of the bunch though was a big bulky female Sparrowhawk gliding low overhead disturbing the various Pigeons from the nearby copse. The week closed with me reaching the first mini milestone of 50 different species. Hopefully there are a LOT more to come!

SPECIES LIST 

26. Feral Pigeon - Columba livia

27. Kestrel - Falco tinnunculus

28. Fulmar - Fulmarus glacialis

29. Great Black Backed Gull - Larus marinus

30. Black Headed Gull - Chroicocephalus ridibundus

31. Starling - Sturnus vulgaris

32. Common Gull - Larus canus

33. Oystercatcher - Haematopus ostralegus

34. Skylark - Alauda arvensis

35. Turnstone - Arenaria interpres

36. Meadow Pipit - Anthus pratensis

37. Rock Pipit - Anthus petrosus

38. Red Throated Diver - Gavia stellata

39. Redshank - Tringa totanus

40. Stonechat - Saxicola rubicola

41. Mediterranean Gull - Larus melanocephalus

42. Cormorant - Phalacrocorax carbo

43. Common Eider - Somateria mollissima

44. Great Tit - Parus major

45. Long Eared Owl - Asio otus

46. Bullfinch - Pyrrhula pyrrhula

47. Chaffinch - Fringilla coelebs

48. Goldfinch - Carduelis carduelis

49. Greenfinch - Chloris chloris

50. House Sparrow - Passer domesticus

51. Redwing - Turdus iliacus

52. Sanderling - Calidris alba

53. Sparrowhawk - Accipiter nisus

54. Tree Sparrow - Passer montanus

55. Harbour Porpoise - Phocoena phocoena

AND WE'RE OFF

 AND WE'RE OFF

So my 2023 challenge began today! The first day of a whole year of looking for wildlife on my combined workplaces. I love nothing better than exploring (except Maria of course, incase she reads this!) so I've been really excited about this since I came up with the idea a few months back. Obviously I had a couple of options on where to start the quest on day one, but realistically there was only really one place I was going to start. Much like so many people this winter, I've been struck down by the horrible nasty flu for the past few weeks and it hit me hard! So much so I've barely left the comfort of the couch for three weeks, so I was in no fit state to go on an epic all day adventure. So I decided to head to Moorhouse Wood and have a gentle stroll and take things easy. I love this site, its so incredibly quiet and peaceful and most of my visits are done without seeing a single person. It's actually two woods split by the A1, but for ease I always combine the two under a single name. So Moorhouse Wood was where the challenge began.

Species wise it was a very quiet start. In total I saw 25 different things, 24 of them were birds and 1 was a mammal. I didn't even attempt to look for any insects, there's plenty of time for that! I saw most of what I would expect to find in the woods bar a couple of glaring misses (eg Great Tit!) but I really struggled along the River Wear. To be honest the water was incredibly high and very fast flowing so hardly anything was on it. Again, there's plenty of time to catch up with those species throughout the year.

SPECIES LIST 

001. Robin - Erithacus rubecula

002. Woodpigeon - Columba palumbus

003. Wren - Troglodytes troglodytes

004. Blue Tit - Cyanistes caeruleus

005. Carrion Crow - Corvus corone

006. Long Tailed Tit - Aegithalos caudatus

007. Coal Tit - Periparus ater

008. Great Spotted Woodpecker - Dendrocopos major

009. Treecreeper - Certhia familiaris

010. Nuthatch - Sitta europaea

011. Jay - Garrulus glandarius

012. Herring Gull - Larus argentatus

013. Grey Heron - Ardea cinerea

014. Moorhen - Gallinula chloropus

015. Goosander - Mergus merganser

016. Buzzard - Buteo buteo

017. Jackdaw - Corvus monedula

018. Pink Footed Goose - Anser brachyrhynchus

019. Fieldfare - Turdus pilaris

020. Mistle Thrush - Turdus viscivorus

021. Blackbird - Turdus merula

022. Pheasant - Phasianus colchicus

023. Pied Wagtail - Motacilla alba

024. Magpie - Pica pica

025. Grey Squirrel - Sciurus carolinensis

2023 WORKPLACE WILDLIFE CHALLENGE

 2023 WORKPLACE WILDLIFE CHALLENGE

As 2022 comes to an end, thoughts turn to the New Year and the exciting little challenge I've set myself. As I've mentioned previously in earlier blogposts my role with the Trust changed this year, in particular the area I covered. Having been mainly based at Souter Lighthouse in the past I now found myself working the whole of our Portfolio (region), from South Tyneside to Durham and all the way to North Yorkshire. It was something I thoroughly loved, mainly because of the diversity it brought. One day I could be working on the coast, the next day I'd be in the moors. We had woodlands, farmlands and wildflower meadows. All kinds of different environments, and of course, different wildlife! It was a nature lovers dream. And it was this diversity that led me to think about the challenge that I've set myself for next year. Because of all the different sites I was covering I started to wonder how many different types of wildlife I could see in a year. I bet it would easily be in the hundreds. I mean, an expert would probably get into the thousands, but an enthusiastic amateur like myself would have to set the bar a little lower. So that's what my challenge is going to be next year, to see exactly how many different types of wildlife I can find in our region. And by wildlife, I mean animal, which is pretty much anything that moves, whether its mammals, birds, insects, reptiles etc etc, as long as its in the animal kingdom I'm recording it. I'm mainly doing that because I'm absolutely rubbish at plants! So, animals it is. BUT, even though the challenge hasn't even started yet there has already been a change to the plan, and its quite a considerable change! In the last couple of months the Trust has been going through another of its post-Covid reshuffles. (this is one of the main reasons I've been so quiet on the blog). The latest reshuffle see's a change of properties geographically, and honestly, it makes absolute sense in every way. Without going into minute details, in a nutshell my region has lost sites and gained sites. The sites lost are all of the sites in Yorkshire. They have all gone to other regions in Yorkshire. Obviously on a personal level this is hugely disappointing, as I absolutely loved going to those sites. But I definitely think it makes sense and is the right thing to do. On the flipside we have gained a couple of new sites, including Gibside and Penshaw Monument. So its not all bad. But obviously it means I've had to tweak the plans, only slightly mind, but enough to make a difference to the species I might see. But it is what it is. So, the properties I now cover are as follows; 

Souter Lighthouse and the Leas

Whitelea Farm and the Durham Coast

Moorhouse and Mallygill Wood

Crook Hall and Gardens

Penshaw Monument

Washington Old Hall

Gibside

There's still enough diversity there to give me hope of a respectable total. On that, I'm not setting myself a particular target, after all its just a bit of fun, but I must admit I'd be disappointed if I didn't get to at least 500. So maybe I am setting a target!!! If anyone is interested in following along with how I'm doing I'll be putting everything down in the blog with a running total. Also, if anyone is wondering if there are any rules, then there are. If anyone is familiar with the birding patch challenge, its pretty much the same as that. I can count anything that is seen (or heard) in or from our properties. So that includes anything flying overhead, or maybe swimming past our land. Basically as long as it happens while I am on property I am recording it. So that's it, that's my little challenge for 2023. I genuinely can't wait to get started, and I'm absolutely fascinated to see what we have in our combined sites. You never know, I might find something we never knew we had!

NATURE EVENTS

 NATURE EVENTS

Despite my new role keeping me incredibly busy (hence the complete lack of blog posts lately 😖) and giving me a whole host of new tasks, I've thankfully still been able to do all of my usual nature events that I've been doing at the lighthouse for years. In fact I'm actually doing more as I'm now doing events at Whitelea Farm as well. I'm not going to lie I absolutely love doing them, not just because I'm getting paid to look for wildlife (literally the dream!) but I genuinely love bringing people closer to nature and giving them a chance to see things close up that they might not usually get the chance to see. And that's particularly the case with kids. I love kids coming to the events, it's the perfect chance to get them interested in not just wildlife but the outdoors in general. And honestly, there's no better feeling than seeing that look of amazement when you show them something that blows their mind!!!

Some of the recent events we've done.......

BUTTERFLY WALKS

For the past few weeks I've been leading a butterfly walk on Fridays at the Farm. I mean, I say butterfly walks but to be honest we look for anything wildlifey! For the first two walks we were joined by Dave Wainwright from the Butterfly Conservation Trust, and apart from general butterfly sightings he put together a little list of target species that he would like us to look for when we're out. Two were day flying moths, the Least Minor and the Cistus Forester. The Minor was found in the first week, and the second week a Forester species was seen very briefly but as there are more than one type of Forester we couldn't officially say it was the target, despite it being highly likely. We also got a bit of a bonus species, a Chalk Carpet moth. This is another scarce, declining species in our region, and a species that Dave has surveyed for in the past, so he was delighted with the find. As for butterflies, he had four targets. Three of them, Northern Brown (Durham) Argus, Dingy Skipper and Dark Green Fritillary were again found in the first two weeks. The only one we have yet to find is the Grayling. It's really really scarce in County Durham, but there's still a chance as it's on the wing for another couple of weeks so we'll certainly give it a go! We've also had 15 commoner species of butterflies so they've certainly been quite a success.

Durham Argus 

Chalk Carpet 

Least Minor 

Souter Events 

Storm Petrel ringing 

Last weekend we had a bumper weekend of nature events at the lighthouse. We started on the Saturday with a dual event of Storm Petrel ringing and Moth trapping. We got off to a cracking start as a pod of dolphins ambled past as we were putting up the mist nets. Then, just as the night was getting dark the bats started to emerge. Pipistrelles are quite a common sight when we are Stormying, and we even occasionally get one in the nets, but they're not around for too long as they eventually head off to feed in the Coastal Park. As for the birds, thankfully we didn't have too long to wait to get the first one in the net. Its always a nervous night when we are doing these events, as sometimes we have a really long wait before we start to catch, and some nights we don't catch at all, which is a nightmare when you've got an expectant audience waiting patiently. So any time you get an early bird it's a huge collective sigh of relief. In total we only got three birds before the rain came in, but that was absolutely fine because everyone that came to see a Petrel saw a Petrel, and all went home happy. 

Moth Night 

It was a particularly busy night for me, as not only was I at the Storm Petrel event I was also in the Nature Reserve running a moth night. I'll do a full blog post another time about our very active moth team but for now I'll just stick to this event. We had two moth traps running simultaneously in the Reserve, one that we manned permanently and another we left until the end of the event, checking only occasionally. From the moment we turned the lights on we knew it would be a good night, as we were instantly swamped with moths. There were literally hundreds and hundreds of moths everywhere, all night, and the extremely large crowd were amazed at the spectacle. I love these events, as its a perfect opportunity to show people the huge variety of species there are, and more importantly, moths are not always boring brown jobbies. We had moths of all shapes, sizes and colours and it was truly fantastic to show them all off. I had a great night!

Elephant Hawkmoth 

Checking the trap 

Poplar Hawkmoth 

Young Toad

Rockpool Ramble 

The next morning we were up bright and early getting ready for our last event of the weekend. Rockpooling has always been our most popular event at the lighthouse and we usually do quite a lot throughout the year. This day was our fourth, and again was extremely well attended. The species we find doesn't tend to change much throughout the year, only the amounts we catch, so we usually have a good idea of what we're going to find. We always start the event by checking the lobster pots that we put out the day before. We pretty much always catch at least one lobster, and they're always the species that people are most excited to see. We always average around five different types of crab, Edible, Shore and Velvet Swimming crabs being the most common. We also catch a few species of fish, but the other most sought after critters are Starfish. This year for some reason Starfish have been very hard to come by though, and have only been found on one of our events. But rockpooling is always an absolute treat to do, and I never tire of doing them, they will always be a highlight of my year. 

Before I end the post, I just want to say a huge thank you to my friends who are always there to help me run my many events. Whether it's Rockpooling, Moth Trapping, Bird Ringing or all of the above, I couldn't do it without the assistance of these people. So John, Andrew, Nick, Neil and Chappers (and anyone else that tags along), THANK YOU 

NEST MONITORING

 

NEST MONITORING

One of my absolute favourite things in the world to do is to monitor nests. Its an incredibly exciting, rewarding and addictive thing to be involved in and I look forward to it every year, even though at times it can be exhausting. I've been doing it for around 10 years now as part of the BTO's Nest Record Scheme (NRS) but also consider it a really important part of the Ringing Scheme and I try to ring as many chicks as I can. 

I got involved quite unexpectedly really, after we had put our first batch of nestboxes up in the Coastal Park. When we put them up we never really had plans to monitor them in any real way, we were just happy providing the opportunity for whatever birds wanted to use them! But then after a year or so somebody asked how many boxes were being used, and we honestly didn't know! So that's when myself and Dougie started to check the boxes each season. From there the natural progression was to then start to monitor natural nests. Obviously that was a whole different ball game as natural nests have to be actually looked for, a skill at the time I was completely oblivious to. Thankfully it was something that Dougie was incredibly good at and had vast experience in and he quickly became my nesting mentor. He taught me the two main methods of finding natural nests, cold searching and watching back. Cold searching is literally a case of searching a likely looking area in the hope of coming across a nest you didn't know was there. Watching back is when you see an adult bird with either nesting material or food in its mouth and you try to watch it go back to its nest (or watching a bird showing some kind of breeding behaviour). Both methods are incredibly rewarding, but the second method is the one I prefer as it requires a bit more field skills. But however you find a nest, the feeling is always the same - joy! 

At first we only really concentrated on nest recording the Coastal Park and the Leas, because that's where we were based, but eventually I started to branch out on my own and go to other sites. I've put up nestboxes in various other places, from farms and woodlands to the Academy of Light and over time the boxes started to number into the hundreds. And the type of boxes put up have grown as well, from normal Tit style boxes, to open fronters and bigger boxes targeting Owls and Raptors. There's absolutely no doubt it will continue to increase!  I've definitely gotten better at finding nests on my own, don't get me wrong I'm in no way an expert and there are many other people out there who are far better than I am, but I'm not too bad at it. By the way, I always refer to myself as a Nest Recorder rather than a Nest Finder. The simple reason is because I don't just find a nest then move on. Once I find a nest I try my absolute hardest to follow the nest all the way through to its completion, whatever the outcome is. The BTO get far more data the more information you can give them, so I always try to monitor til the end. Admittedly that can become incredibly tying but its a small price. 

When finding/monitoring nests I don't limit myself to any particular species, I will literally monitor anything that's available! Obviously nestboxes DOES have a limit but natural nests could be anything. What does limit me is the time I have and the sites I visit. There's no point trying to find a species that simply isn't there, so I have to stick to the available species. 

2022 SEASON

I absolutely love my new role with the Trust, I really do, but there's one thing that's happened since I started it. It's completely screwed up my nesting routine!!! In previous years I had a really good schedule going on, with different sites being visited on different days, either before or after work, and having more than enough time to not just check the boxes but casually search for natural nests at my own leisure. It was great. Now, because I'm no longer based at just the one site, and because I'm travelling all across the region, I have to visit all of my regular sites in one day. And because of all the nestboxes I have it means I have very little time to look for natural nests. I mean, I'm still finding some but nowhere near as much as I have in previous years. It's pretty disappointing, but I'm hoping that once I settle into the new role I can get a new kind of routine in place. Also, because of the different areas I'm covering I'm hoping I start to find completely new species that I didn't record before. For example one of the woods in Bransdale have nesting Redstarts and Pied Flycatchers, two species I've not monitored before. And as I'm spending more time in the North York Moors I'm sure there'll be opportunities to find a whole load of species I never had at the Coastal Park, whether its Wheatears and Ring Ouzels or Curlews and Plovers. So different might not necessarily be a bad thing!