The Lincolnshire Bird Club

As per my Waxwing notes last year, these amateurish jottings - which are making their appearance in this casual LBC Bird Chat section - make no claim whatsoever to any scientific content : they are not notes for a PhD thesis nor for inclusion in "British Birds" ot the "Ibis" for critical review, and I lay no claim to originality. They are merely the somewhat rambling observations and occasional personal recollections of an average birder - plus, you have been warned...some biographical notes - and doubtless the more professionally-minded birder will treat them and view them in that light anyway. The less patient reader can skip sections as wished and I suppose the really impatient reader can skip the whole lot.

Nevertheless, I hope that they will be of interest to some members, especially to those who understand the rambling tendencies of a nigh octogenarian birder, as they do contain, once the biographical bits are out of the way, the thoughts and experiences of a keen Spotted Flycatcher addict who spent considerable time on their trail last year and has also done, so far this year. As well as drawing on my own personal experiences, I have also invariably gleaned some interesting background information from various authoritative sources, rather than finding new ways of stating recognised facts, so as to make the post more comprehensive and more readable. Where particularly relevant, I have indicated their origin, but I have avoided constantly quoting sources in an effort to make the post less scholastic and hopefully, less hardgoing. These observations will also contain the occasional undeveloped and unpolished reference or comment. So be it.....and after that required disclaimer. let's begin.

My association with Spotted Flycatchers goes back many years.Looking at my teenage notes in my early "Diaries of a Birdwatcher" (1946-1949),there is an entry when I was still a 'stranded war evacuee' living with my family in a war-requisitioned stately home - Pembrey House in S.Wales - and attending Llanelly Boys Grammar School as a 13-year old schoolboy :

18th June 1946.

" I discovered a Tree Creeper's nest in a decaying beech tree only about 2 feet away from a Spotted Flycatcher's nest in the same tree."
"(1) TheTree Creeper's nest was behind a piece of loose bark and was constructed of pieces of beech twigs, grass and beech bark. It contained five young whose only adornement was a few fluffy black hairs on their backs."
"(2) The Spotted Flycatcher's nest was situated in a hole in the tree from where some bark had been taken out. The nest was composed of moss and lichens and contained four young and one egg - a white colour with red brown bars on it."
"LOCALITY - Pembrey House grounds, Pembrey, Carmarthenshire".

I have been asked several times by LBC members how I ended up in South Wales watching Tree Creepers and Spotted Flycatchers just after the War, and also what living through the War was like especially as an evacuee.......BUT please skip these biographical notes if it's Spotted Flycatcher info you are after : that WILL follow in due course....and as this is the Chat section anyway, here goes......

Our house in South London had been destroyed by a bomb in the London Blitz early on in the War.....with my father and mother just about safe in our Anderson air-raid shelter in the back garden a few yards away. When they eventually emerged from the shelter after dawn, having been dug out by rescue workers following the All Clear siren which had sounded, the ARP (Air Raid Precautions) Warden...as per Mr. Hodges in 'Dad's Army...was flabbergasted that they were still alive after the blast effect and seemingly uninjured, having already jotted them down as casualties. In fact, my resourceful father had lined the shelter, including the ceiling, with thick bed matresses specifically against blast. Unfortunately, a number of neighbours were not so fortunate and were killed, some of the 60.000 killed in the overall UK Blitzes, 87,000 seriously injured and 2 million homes destroyed, including ours.

I was particularly upset by the news (sent by letter to my 'evacuee family' in Otford, North Kent ) not so much - as a 7 year old boy - by the thought of the flattened house and dead neighbours, but more by the realisation that my precious makeshift vivarium of mainly frogs, collected on a previous visit home, would also have been blown to smithereens !

My main memories of visiting my parents from that evacuation home in Otford at the time of the Blitz are of watching the aerial dogfights usually very high up in the sky over South London as Spitfires and Hurricanes fought with Messerschmitts 109/110, with us boys then desperately combing the nearby streets looking for bits of souvenir metal.

Mind you, my Otford 'home' itself became close to the action as it was only a dozen miles or so from the fighter station at Biggin Hill, with more dogfights overhead and also at night the drone of German bombers on their way to/from London ....and of course if the German bombers hadn't unloaded all their bombs on London for whatever reason, they dropped them on the way back to the English coast. So the authorities (and my mother) arranged for me to move back, at that time, to our still standing house in S. London, before being moved on to my next host family in Plymouth ...which was then bombed a few times....so I was moved on again later to join up with my own family now in Pembrey, S.Wales.....where the local RAF Pembrey fighter station occasionally attracted the attention of the Luftwaffe....."happy childhood days".... but don't mention the Germans !! At least my growing interest in Natural History , and birds in particular, readily diverted my thoughts away from the real world and into another spellbinding one.

I still remember the Otford semi-detached evacuee 'home' where as a 6 year old I lived alone with a semi-sadistic spinster with ultra house-proud principles and habits......while my older brother's host family living nearby in the same village were kind, thoughtful and quite normal country folk. My hostess, on the other hand, hated having a 'scruffy London kid' foisted onto her by the authorities in her spotlessly clean house and she got her own back on them and on me in several ways : regular banishment to my freeziing cold bedroom because of too much sniffing; serving up to me (I always ate alone) appalling, meagre food consisting mainly of bread and dripping (a congealed animal fat scraped off oven baking trays), potatoes and turnips (as my older brother later recalled hearing from me). When I looked back in later years, I was positive that the woman was scoffing all my rightful ration book coupon monthly allowance of meat, bacon, sausage, fish, eggs, etc, for some nice kitchen smells used to drift up to my freezing bedroom some evenings. The 'Ah, Bisto' adverts can remind me of those days.

Further, as I was forever falling into ditches and ponds on my rambles and kicking stones along the street she took away my shoes and made me wear wellingtons all the time; finally, considering scruffly little London urchins looked even scruffier with their hands in their pockets, she sewed up all my pockets even though the harsh 1940/41 winter had arrived.

Eventually my brother, who had patiently been teaching me the names of birds, butterflies and plants in our rambles, relayed by letter to my mother my misery and one day she arrived to take me back to the joys of the Luftwaffe activity in South London but not before giving the spinster a good piece of her mind.

However, life in South Wales with my 'real' family wasn't exactly a bowl of cherries. The local children sometimes picked on us evacuees as we spoke differently or when we cheekily mimicked their Welsh accent..... and then ran off as fast as we could. Further, in 1943 I missed a whole year's schooling as I contracted two deadly diseases - Diphtheria, followed six months later by Scarlet Fever (most modern doctors will never have seen a case of either). Each disease meant a spell of about four months in an isolation hospital..... and isolation meant just that..... no visitors allowed for four months, followed by several weeks of convalescence. Diptheria was particularly deadly and I remember in about my second week in the isolation hospital another boy of much the same age as me (10), whom I had befriended, died in his bed one night next to me. Fortunately, the Grim Reaper passed me by on both occasions. Did I hear someone say, "To bore other people to death with reminiscences".

When I went back to my Welsh primary school in 1944, I soon had to take my 11+ or selection equivalent.... for the London County Council - LCC - examination board, as we knew we would be returning to London in due course. As I was the only pupil taking the LCC exam in my small Welsh primary school, it was arranged for me to attend to sit the papers on a Saturday morning under the supervision of my form teacher, Mr Dai Rees, with no-one in the school. God will have forgiven him by now for his duplicity but, to cut a long story short re the help I received that Saturday morning, I am sure it was Mr Dai Rees who passed that exam all those years ago rather than his Fred-bach. He must have seen some potential in me to do what he did, thank heavens.... and I think I repaid him in due course by eventual selection for Cambridge and proceeding to a BA and then an MA.

Finally, it may be of interest to know in these days of mega/over the top counselling, that after being bombed out and still suffering from extreme shock, my parents were then expected to walk to the local church hall..... which they duly did, each with a routinely previously prepared emergency suitcase, which they used to take with them into the shelter.... which now, in addition to the clothes they were wearing, became their sole worldly possessions. At the church hall the only counselling on offer for losing their home and almost their life was a "nice cup of tea with biscuits" and. as my mother later recalled, a poster on the wall "Stay Calm and Carry On", plus a previously planned emergency evacuation to South Wales for my mother to join my two sisters there, evacuated with their school from London. My father braved it out, stuck to his job and moved into temporary lodgings in London for a few months...... until his factory was destroyed by bombing and he then joined my mother and sisters in South Wales.

END OF PART ONE

Freddy

PART TWO to follow shortly.

PART TWO.

From the War years (1939-45) and from my Spotted Flycatcher's nest discovery in Pembrey, South Wales of 1946, we'll now fastforward 65 years to 2011. Last year, I was fortunate enough, and thankfully energetic enough, on a personal Spotted Flycatcher project, to track down and observe (presumed different) Muscicapa striata - singletons, pairs, groups on no fewer than 43 separate occasions, as well as a number of revisits, with each record being reported on the LBC website. The more or less equal number of dips -including 33 different Lincolnshire churchyards went unreported - each churchyard with its own resident 'teasing' Robin and Dunnock ever waiting to fly onto a gravestone flycatcher-style and momentarily lift one's flagging spirits. At one stage, I even thought of adopting my own personal Latin motto - "veni, vidi, dipi" .....I came, I looked, I dipped.

Although the main concentrations were in the Lincoln, Market Rasen and Woodhall Spa areas plus the Wolds, between early May and late September 2011, I crisscrossed Lincolnshire on numerous occasions searching for Spotted Flycatchers - from Messingham, North Kelsey and Tetney in the North, to the Alford area in the East, to the Gainsborough area in the West and to Dunsby (Bourne) in the South. My first record was in Dunsby on 25th May and my last at Whisby NR on 16th September. My 2011 trips around Lincolnshire in search of Muscicapa striata proved to be a thoroughly enjoyable and interesting project leading to personal contact with many Lincolnshire birders, involving dozens of emails, pms and telephone calls.

A number of local birders went out of their way and readily provided good-natured and much appreciated hospitality, showing me Spotted Flycatchers and/ or nests on or near their local 'patch' as with :

Hugh Dorrington (Dunsby)
- 2 memorable visits to Hugh and to be treated to a comprehensive tour of his delightful village to track down several pairs.

Mark Bibby (Fulletby)
- Accompanying him to see young in the nest in a garden wall cavity by his house.....virtually the same nesting place as for the previous 3 years.

Roy Harvey (North Kelsey)
- arranged for me to accompany him to see birds with young in the nest in a friend's garden in N.Kelsey....plu a guided visit later to see the Crane at Saxby All Saints.

- Brian Eke (RAF Waddington)
- to track down up to 5 pairs...plus a cracking male Common Redstart.
- with being issued with my personal Security Pass (incl. photo) and also enjoying a visit to the fine service environment on this RAF base : great for someone who had previously spent 25 years in the Army, occasionally liaising with the RAF.

So far this year (early July), I am particularly indebted for information sightings on more than one occasion to Russell Hayes (plus detailed site location maps and photos) and to David Morison, which have led to several successful trips;....plus another enjoyable trip to Dunsby where Hugh showed me 2 nests.

In plumage, the Spotted Flycatcher is essentially a grey-brown and white bird with a necklace of delicate streaks across the breast. It is not really 'spotted' at all except for a few unobtrusive crown spots, but the young are, showing the spots on the upperparts. The bright white underparts (I initially typed 'underpants....glad I spotted that !) of the adult can stand out against a background of trees and bushes surprisingly well and a number of times this feature has enabled me to pick out a bird motionless on a branch perhaps 30/40 yards away without binoculars.

The bird's scientific Latin name - Muscicapa striata- literally means streaked/lined flycatcher......musca - fly; capere - to seize, to catch; stria - line/streak. Interestingly, a number of European languages (incl. Dutch, German, French, Swedish and Spanish) refer to the bird as the 'Grey' Flycatcher. I particularly like the sound of the German name : Grauschnaepper.

The 2010 LBC Bird Report states that the Spotted Flycatcher was " formerly common, now a very local summer visitor and passage migrant". In fact, the UK population has been in sharp decline since the early 1960s. In the period 1967-2000 for example, 82% of the population was lost. Between 1968 and 1991 there was a population decline of 62% in woodland and 70% in farmland. Further up-to-date statistics inform us that there were six times as many Spotted Flycatchers in the British countryside just 30 years ago and in just the last 20 years the population has crashed by some 70%. It is no wonder that the bird is a Red List species. The reasons for the decline in Spotted Flycatchers are well documented in Freeman and Crick 2003.

With regard to the latest BTO "Bird Trend Report" (June 2012), we are informed that there are 25 species which the best long-term trends provide high level alerts for, ...ie. to statistically significant population declines of greater than 50%.....including the Spotted Flycatcher. With reference to causes for change re this species, the Report states that " demographic modelling provides evidence that a decrease in the annual survival rates of birds in their first year may have driven the decline.The ecological causes of the decline are uncertain as good-quality, direct evidence is sparse." Further, the BTO 'Vision Statement' adds that " Spotted Flycatchers continue to decline steeply and the first Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) target to maintain the population index, has not yet been achieved. Though the main threats are assumed to relate to intensive agriculture and woodland degredation, the ecological reasons for the decline are still poorly understood and a research programme is consequently underway. The unpredictable effects of climate change and possible effects of changes on the wintering grounds will need to be carefully monitored."

For those birders with sharp hearing, the distinct song and call notes (unobtrusive vocalisations, as the song is a quiet sequence of high-pitched, or scratchy notes; the call note being a short, shrill 'zee'), will alert them to the presence of the bird in the vicinity. They may also pick up the audible snap of the beak as the bird captures an insect. Of course. for those of us with impaired hearing, such bonuses are denied.

Spotted Flycatchers are one of the last migrants to arrive in the UK, usually in early/mid May in Lincolnshire, but this year's especially wet, cold and windy weather in central and northern Europe and particularly in the UK will have impacted on both the arrival dates and the arrival numbers. In normal, fine weather years, more birds will breed earlier if temperatures are higher, and research has shown that clutch sizes are then larger if there is more sunshine, but this year, the bulk of the migrant birds will have arrived late in their Lincolnshire breeding areas; we may never know if numbers of returning birds died on their northern migration or were forced to move to areas other than traditional ones, or even remained in Iberia and France. A number did arrive on time but with further bad weather some either interrupted or delayed nest-building, in some instances until early June....clutch sizes could presumably be smaller.

We are now told in early July that the Met. Office have declared this year's April-June quarter the wettest in the last 100 years. Very few records of young in the nest were reported in Lincs until the last few days of June and I visited almost all of them at :
Normanby-le Wold, where the young actually fledged c.23rd June; Dunsby (fledged young being fed 24th June, plus 2 further nests); Fulbeck, with young being fed in the nest 24th June; Horncastle (26th June with young); and Woodhall Spa (2 nests with young 26th June)

Freddy.

END OF PART TWO

PART THREE to follow.

Comments on Part One and Part Two are welcome.

Freddy

PART THREE

Cold and damp conditions will make some insects less active. If these conditions continue , it will have had a major impact on limiting the breeding success of many insects....and the fate and breeding success of insect-eating birds such as the Spotted Flycatcher. In fact, this persistent cold and wet weather will mean that some young will inevitably perish in the nest, due to the parents' inability to provide enough food, or due to the weather itself or probably a combination of both. Hugh D. discovered in Dunsby in early July that all but one young bird of a brood had died in the nest. Hopefully, the parents will try again for another brood : fine weather would certainly encourage them.

When it is wetter and colder, and the abundance of flying prey is low, Spotted Flycatchers will often resort to two specific feeding strategies - either flying high up in the tree canopy, hovering by the leaves and moving about in the very tops of trees, or switching to ground feeding. They are, however, less successful in catching prey in these circumstances and tend to suffer badly in prolonged bad weather, so prevalent this spring and early summer.....and, of course, young in the nest will receive insufficient food.

The chances of connecting with Spotted Flycatchers are that birders will usually "come across" them when on a general birding trip or country walk. Going out looking for them in 'likely places' in villages or in the countryside will so often bring little success unless it is to a particular ongoing 'traditional' site. Even then, problems can occur as at the traditional Riseholme, Lincoln site this year. The birds only spent a few days there before moving on in the bad weather to a new site some 200/300 yards away in a more sheltered area. In 2011, as already mentioned in a previous Part, I targeted churchyards as seemingly ideal habitats but out of 34 Lincolnshire churchyards specifically visited, I found Spotted Flycatchers in only one.....where they had already been reported anyway.

In former years, The Spotted Flycatcher would often return to the same nesting sites year after year and some still do but, with declining numbers, visits to traditional sites can be a big disappointment. Stow Churchyard, and Aubourn Hall gardens near Lincoln, can be quoted as classic examples. They were known as traditional sites and I regularly saw birds there up to a few years ago but sadly, none since.

Most keen Spotted Flycatcher watchers would probably agree that there are four phases to their Muscicapa striata year :
1. Hyper-Frustration.
Some birders consider the Spotted Flycatcher to be a very active species forever flying out from some vantage point to capture an insect and therefore quite easy to spot. Well.....think again ! Most birders who go looking for them even at already reported sites in the first few weeks after their arrival in May and June, and before the young are hatched, will tell you a quite different story. They will stress how difficult it can be to see one even in that reported area....reported 'yesterday', even 'this morning'. Protracted periods of an hour plus, waiting for the bird(s) to appear are not uncommon (and one can still dip out); half an hour can be the norm....even if the birds are nesting.....somewhere....in the area, but you don't where the nest is. The main reason for this must be that before the young are hatched, the male will spend long periods sat in the upper branches of trees without feeding or feeding out of sight....especially in this year's bad weather; the female will sit tight on the eggs, fly off for only short periods to feed or be fed by the male, perhaps some distance from the nest.

2.Super-Elation.
This clicks in once the young have hatched and the location of the nest is known, or can be found with relative ease. The adults are forever active catching insects near the nest and feeding the young in the nest up till late in the evening. In fact, when young are in the nest, I have seen the adult Spotted Flycatchers remain active much later in the day than other diurnal birds....even towards dusk when most other such species have long since gone to roost. Arrival at a nest site when there are young to be fed, or they have recently fledged, will mean a birder will have a sighting within a few minutes; hyper-frustration has now turned into super-elation with a guaranteed sighting, at least of the adults: as for me at Normanby le Wold on 23rd June this year. Interestingly, later on when the young have fledged one notices that, while the adults are forever taking up prominent positions on the outside of a bush or tree, the juveniles..... although they sometimes perch on open branches, gates, etc.... often tend to perch on the inner branches and occasionaly even retreat into the centre ones: actually watching them being fed can be difficult.

3.Mini-Congregation.
The rather solitary bird of the spring and early summer now becomes companionable and as observed in 2011, once the young have well and truly fledged, small groups of Spotted Flycatchers may be noted inland...... post-fledging groups of adults and juveniles prior to migration. They are probably local populations congregating to feed up before setting out on migration. These mini-congregations occur between late July/early August and mid-September; for example in 2011 with birds remaining in the same area for a few days and/or new ones arriving: at Linwood Warren (up to 10 birds), Woodhall Spa (up to 6) and Swanpool (up to 3)..... and these gatherings can be in traditional mini-congregation sites.

4.Autumn Migration.
Notable passage concentrations are regularly reported in September at coastal sites eg. Gibraltar Point (20 + on some days) and Donna Nook (10 + on some days), with just a few birds lingering on into early October. After some 5 months of Spotted Flycatcher activity in Lincolnshire, it's then necessary to wait about 7 months before we welcome back the next year's returning birds.

It is perhaps surprising how very close to people Spotted Flycatchers choose to nest. They are quite tolerant of human disturbance and recent habitat research has shown that over 40% of nests are in 'human sites': under a hotel rear porch entrance in Woodhall Spa 2012; in trellises in front gardens in Woodhall Spa and Brampton 2011; in top floor window eaves 25-30ft up in Woodhall Spa 2012; in holes in garden walls near the back door in Fulletby 2011; even in a cafe area, Fullbeck Craft Centre 2012, only some 6ft from unsuspecting customers having their teas and snacks, unaware of a pair of avian eyes watching them from closeby. 4-6 eggs are laid; the incubation period is 13-15 days, with fledging a similar further period. In years with bright, sunny weather a second brood could well be raised, but with this year's delayed breeding in some cases there will probably be fewer second broods than normal. Open-fronted nest boxes are also favourite sites: second nest in Brampton 2011, in the rear patio.

The Worcestershire Spotted Flycatcher project (J. Clarke 2003/05) installed dozens of nest boxes, in a number of villages in a limited area, consisting basically of a half-coconut shell mounted on a backplate, sheltered by a flat roof overhanging the shell. The boxes were sited on houses, garages or garden walls at or near known traditional Spotted Flycatcher nest sites..... and they certainly increased the recorded number of breeding birds in the area.

Spotted Flycatchers will sometimes nest in clusters, eg. in one limited area such as a village, so where there is 1 pair you may well find another/others. This happened in Brampton last year where I checked out 2 nearby nests of the species - one in a front gardern trellis, the other in a rear porch area of the house opposite across a narrow village road. Dunsby will have had at least 3 nesting pairs this year. RAF Waddington admittedly covers a large area but in 2011 it had its own cluster of at least 5 or 6 breeding pairs, with even more in former years.

With their liking for nesting in the close vicinity of human habitations, there would appear to be plenty of scope for active conservation measures to encourage nesting in that habitat so as to try to assist this species, and to attract it back to now/recently abandoned areas. Measures such as those taken in Worcestershire under the leadership of John Clarke are most laudable and most promising.

Away from the close proximity of human habitations, Spotted Flycatchers will often choose to nest in tree crevices as at Pembrey House, South Wales 1946 and Market Stainton Village Green 2011; behind the creeper in Ivy covered trees as at Welbourn 2011 and Fulletby 2012; in small trees against garden walls as at North Kelsey 2011; on the tops of flat branches or broken trunks as at Horncastle 2012 and Doddington 2011; where branches have come away from the main trunk as at MSQ 2011.

Of course, nesting in close proximity to humans inevitably means that cats are a main predator.
Spotted Flycatchers, however, are persistent birds and most will try twice, even three times, to produce young during a 'normal' summer. Individual Spotted Flycatchers are bold in defending their nests: last year at Welbourn I saw one subjecting a Grey Squirrel to persistent attacks in an Ivy-covered Pine tree near its nest until the Squirrel moved on to another tree. They have even been known to attack large birds such as Jays when their nests are threatened.

Once feeding young in the nest is underway it is so much easier to connect with Spotted Flycatchers as the adult birds often flycatch in the vicinity of the nest, usually within 25yds or so. This may be due to the fact that they sometimes only take one item of food at a time back to their chicks; a nearby feeding perch minimises the time taken and also conserves energy expenditure.

Nearly all of Lincolnshire's Spotted Flycatchers will have gone by late September except for a few lingering at some coastal locations on passage South. Most of the migration will take place at night. This endearing small bird, no longer that 5.5 inches, is a long distance migrant travelling to sub-Sahara Africa south of the Equator during October and November, reaching even as far down as South Africa, where ringed northern European birds have been recovered.

Freddy

END OF PART THREE (final part)....... Comments welcome.

Thanks for a good read Freddy, I will keep you posted of any new sightings.

Russell

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http://birdmanbirds.blogspot.com/

Great, Russell, and thanks for christening my Comments section.

Freddy

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Regards
Dean Eades



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An entertaining amble through your formative years, Freddy and some interesting educational notes on Spotted Flycatchers. Perhaps we could look forward to Part Four!

Regards..........Richard.

Thanks, Dean and Richard, for your comments - most encouraging.

A Part 4 could appear later this year, Richard, after any new observations are forthcoming from members or gleaned from my own trips this summer.

Freddy

Part 4 for the LBC Report please....

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

Andrew,

Delighted to oblige! As I understand it, the LBC Report 2011 will include my 2011 LBC Waxwing 'article' condensed to c.2,000 words as already submitted (and, who knows, to be published around March 2013 to coincide by chance, with my 80th birthday month...DV/GW. ) The LBC Report 2012 could now include a 2012 LBC Spotted Flycatcher 'article' - a "Part 4"......minus Part 1, of course, but in effect a condensed Part 2 and Part 3, plus incorporating certain additional observations and member comments arising in the next two to three months......before Spotted Flycatchers head south and, hopefully, then not long to wait until we get another "Waxwing Winter".

Freddy