The Lincolnshire Bird Club

A Chance to win a pair of Opticron Binoculars

Dear All

The Bird Race is only 2 weeks away - can I encourage you all to take part as this is the opportunity to add Breeding Records to The Atlas. The main areas that records are required are TA 10 and TF09 so any help would be appreciated - and you may win!

Summer Bird Race

There will be a North Lincs Summer Race – to record the number of breeding birds in a square during a 24 hour period between 29th April and 2nd May inclusive.

To take part –

• email donandchris@hotmail.co.uk to register the square of your choice
• go out for the day and record as many breeding birds as possible
• enter your visit as Roving Records by Saturday 14th May
• Available squares: SE70, SE80, SE81, SE90, SE91, SK89, SK99, TA00, TA01, TA10. TA11, TA20, TA21, TA30, TA40, TF09, TF19, TF29, TF30, TF39, TF40

Do have a go and Good Luck

Breeding Records

H – in suitable nesting habitat
S – singing male
T – permanent territory (over 1 week)
D – courtship and display
N – visiting nest site
A – agitated behaviour
B – nest building
DD – distraction display
UN – used nest
FL – fledged young
ON – on nest
FF – carrying faecal sac or food
NE – nest containing eggs
NY – nest with young (seen or heard)

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Andrew Chick
Website: http://www.forktail.co.uk/

Hi Andy,
Just a query - what is meant by North Lincs in terms of the Breeding Atlas? It certainly seems an anomoly: for example TF19 is in West Lincs and TF29 is primarily in East Lincs!
Stuart

Hi Stuart

For BTO purposes North Lincs is a straight horizontal line across the top of the county and includes TF09,19,29,39 and 49 and above

But it is a bit more complicated than that around county boundaries because the Regional Reps (RRs)operate by 10km grid squares, reasonable because so many surveys now, like the Atlas, are based on these squares.

Most of the squares adjoining the Humber, including SE82, SE92, TA02, TA12 (in which Barton Pits and so on lie), are organised by the Yorkshire Hull RR, and SE71 which includes Crowle Moor is in Yorkshire South-east. Conversely, TA21 is organised by the Lincolnshire North RR but includes a bit of east Yorkshire. These squares all span the Humber or land boundary with Yorks. Similar divisions exist along boundaries further south.

Andrew

We had an excellent day taking part in the BTO North Lincs Race on the 30th April.

We chose square SE91 which covers Messingham Sand Quarries Nature Reserve ( MSQ) along with Twigmoor Woods, Scawby area and part of Broughton Woods.

We started out at 02.30 at MSQ to try for some night birds but due to the strong cold easterly winds blowing the trees and rustling the leaves made hearing anything call almost impossble. A Tawny did finally give up teasing us and called out a couple of times but everything else kept their beaks tightly closed. We moved on to Twigmoor Woods to try our luck there but had the same result, it was just too cold and windy for the birds never mind us.

The first Blackbirds and Robins started singing by 04.00 shortly followed by an explosion of song with birds added thick and fast to the list. We were now at a dilemma with where to go at this crucial time of day. It's that time of day when you need to be every where at the same time. Where should we go first? We opted for a return to MSQ which paid dividends with many of the difficult resident species seen along with a few migrants such as 2 Whimbrel and 2 Arctic terns.

Later in the day we paid a visit to Kirton Quarries which proved a big mistake as we coincided our visit with a massive 4 x 4 rally with hundreds of vehicles scrambling over the area. We made a return visit to MSQ adding further species such as Wood Sandpiper, the long staying Garganey and an elusive Little Grebe that gave us the run about.

Before we knew where we were it was 19.00 and fatigue had set in but there were still birds to be seen but little daylight left. The night before I had checked Google Earth for suitable habitat within the square for a few difficult species such as Grasshopper Warbler. This proved fruitful because on visiting this field at 20.30 (which I may add I have never visited before) a bird was quickly located reeling away from a clump of nettles and reeds. This proved to be the last bird of the day and shortly after we called it a day.

We ended the day on a grand total of 94 species of which 87 were breeding or probably breeding. Although this was good and was enough to secure a win for us we could have done better. A combination of cold windy weather on the day and a cold winter prevented us reaching the magic 100 mark. Species such as Barn Owls, Kingfishers and Green Woodpeckers to name a few (although we did manage to see one of the latter) were hit badly by the cold winter locally as well as further afield.

What did save us was the excellent MSQ reserve which produced 92% of all the species seen on the day making it a little oasis. This is largely due to the diverse range of habitats on this small reserve and the hard work undertaken by the reserve managers and the Lincs Trust.

regards

Wayne

Congratulations! I also did mine mainly on the 30th (though starting my '24 hr period' on the 29th evening, which enabled me to get tawny owl & woodcock in slightly calmer conditions). I went back to TA00, which I'd been to in the winter, and managed a total of 70 breeding species plus a few others, notably the Grasby Top dotterels. As usual with these things, there were some ridiculous omissions, most notably reed bunting, and some cold weather influenced ones as you said - I recorded no barn owl, kingfisher or green woodpecker.

A useful exercise for the BTO Atlas but there's still lots to be done including much confirmation of breeding ... including in SE91!

Andrew

PS but I now realise that you covered SE90 not 91!

Yes my mistake, it was SE 90 that we covered.

Thanks for that

regards

Wayne