Mike Crawley
Emeritus President at Burnage Rugby Club
A few singing at Carsington Water yesterday afternoon in the sunshine
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Early Chiff Chaffs...? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter KenM
- Start date
lazza
Well-known member
Garden chiffchaff right on cue at the weekend, heard singing for the first time yesterday (19th March). Although I have heard/seen earlier chiffchaffs in Northumberland, the garden bird arrives (or starts singing) on the 18th or 19th every year (except one) since records began (which is all of 7 years!!)
Richard Prior
Halfway up an Alp
Personally Ken I'd guess that the bird you saw 10 days ago was an overwinterer rather than a fresh in migrant with a sore throat 
KenM
Well-known member
Personally Ken I'd guess that the bird you saw 10 days ago was an overwinterer rather than a fresh in migrant with a sore throat
Richard, I've never had an overwintering bird in what is a breeding habitat behind the house. If I drop 50m to the Lee Valley...2 miles away, I can guarantee overwintering birds. There is not sufficient available cover to support, indeed from my experience in the Lee Valley....reeds, sedges and mature willows appear to be requisite cover for the species, none of which is present at site.
MTem
Well-known member
Richard, I've never had an overwintering bird in what is a breeding habitat behind the house. If I drop 50m to the Lee Valley...2 miles away, I can guarantee overwintering birds. There is not sufficient available cover to support, indeed from my experience in the Lee Valley....reeds, sedges and mature willows appear to be requisite cover for the species, none of which is present at site.
This is my experience as well. The annual breeding territory behind my house is definitely unoccupied in winter, but I can find over-wintering birds within a few miles where there is 'water-edge' vegetation and habitat.
Richard Prior
Halfway up an Alp
Ah OK chaps.......................... It must have been a female then :t:
dantheman
Bah humbug
Well ... it could easily have been a UK wintering bird starting its wanders ... it may have been a male equally as song seems a bit intermittent and partly weather-dependant too ...
I was under the impression that there can also be a scattering (thinly spread) of wintering birds throughout - probably ranging widely or in random woods/garden/farm hedge habitat.
I was under the impression that there can also be a scattering (thinly spread) of wintering birds throughout - probably ranging widely or in random woods/garden/farm hedge habitat.
KenM
Well-known member
You may be correct Dan....as along the same brook (300-400m.North of and in a more open habitat, I (once only, encountered a very dark Nov.bird) which disappeared into a mature willow, surrounded by dense Blackthorn. However habitat quite different from the former...and it was very much a case of separating the "Chaff from the drain".
Ian Lewis
aka Gryllo
We have been looking in some detail at Chiffchaffs at a ringing site in Dorset where we have ringed 120 already this year. Wintering birds are still being retrapped although most have departed after putting on some degree of fat.
It will be interesting to see if any wintering birds remain to breed as this is contrary to our belief that wintering and breeding birds are two entirely separate populations.
In past years we have noted wintering birds that are absent throughout the spring and summer returning to the site in subsequent winters.
One of our wintering birds was ringed in north Dorset at the start of October 2016, obviously we don't know where it was hatched. We have a number of other 'controls' outstanding but these are likely to have been ringed in summer/autumn 2016 and are returning north after wintering to the south.
New Chiffs were being ringed in early March but it isn't clear whether these were migrants from the south or wintering birds from elsewhere moving through the site. However the first definite influx of migrants from the south (as evidenced by a matt of feathers on the fore-crown caused by pollen picked up at migration stop overs) occurred on 12th and 13th March when 50 new birds were trapped.
No large influx has been noted since then.
It will be interesting to see if any wintering birds remain to breed as this is contrary to our belief that wintering and breeding birds are two entirely separate populations.
In past years we have noted wintering birds that are absent throughout the spring and summer returning to the site in subsequent winters.
One of our wintering birds was ringed in north Dorset at the start of October 2016, obviously we don't know where it was hatched. We have a number of other 'controls' outstanding but these are likely to have been ringed in summer/autumn 2016 and are returning north after wintering to the south.
New Chiffs were being ringed in early March but it isn't clear whether these were migrants from the south or wintering birds from elsewhere moving through the site. However the first definite influx of migrants from the south (as evidenced by a matt of feathers on the fore-crown caused by pollen picked up at migration stop overs) occurred on 12th and 13th March when 50 new birds were trapped.
No large influx has been noted since then.
Grahame Walbridge
Well-known member
As noted earlier (post 17) our first major arrival on Portland was on the 12th when they were likely all immigrants.
http://portlandbirdobs.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/12th-march.html
Another major arrival took place on the 16th when 200+ were logged at the Bill alone along with our earliest ever Willow Warbler to be trapped and singles of Ring Ouzel and Yellow Wagtail. Since then numbers have be somewhat lower, usually <50 birds per day.
Grahame
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Had my own earliest Willow Warbler singing at Fleet Pond on 18/3 - whereas even probable migrant Chiffchaffs have been hitting mid-March for years, that was a great record for me if not the area.
John
It's interesting comparing St Agnes records with Portland etc. We've had very few (less than ten a day) Chiffs until the past seventy-two hours when a distinct influx has taken place. One small sheltered bush has had no less than 25 birds in it for the past two days, representing almost half the total on the island. One might think that these arrivals in spring might be uniform and widespread across the south coast but it's clearly not the case.
Also - having just checked the Portland website - interesting to note that whilst Portland's numbers of Wheatear, Meadow Pipit and Chiffchaff have consistently massacred my own numbers on St Agnes this past fortnight (a total of 4 Wheatear and 5 Meadow Pipits to date!) I can boast double figures of Black Reds on at least 3 dates compared to the former site's best of 2-5/day. None of these were wintering birds.
dantheman
Bah humbug
It's going to come down to differing migration strategies at a lower level than just all birds moving on broad fronts. (eg the Chiffchaffs coming up through France but still perhaps more easterly in their attempt to reach the UK?
Wonder where the blackreds came from, and where they are headed? Is the UK breeding population quite large these days?
Wonder where the blackreds came from, and where they are headed? Is the UK breeding population quite large these days?
Could you expand on your first sentence, Dan? I'm not quite sure what you mean by different strategies at lower levels. I think perhaps the Chiffs (and Wheatears) DO migrate on a broad front (since we have had falls of 200 of both species at this time of year in previous springs - many more if you include St Mary's) but that the crucial factor is cloud cover (coupled with wind direction, of course.) I do wonder, however, whether Meadow Pipits and Tree Pipits, for example, have well-defined linear routes for entering the UK, since we never get more than a handful of the former in spring, and numbers of Tree Pipits last autumn were miniscule compared to Portland's tallies. Ditto Yellow Wagtail.
Black Redstarts, however, typically reach double figures on at least a couple of dates each spring. In 2009 I had 40-odd for a few days and have had close to twenty on other occasions. This is the first year (of ten on St Agnes) I've been comparing sightings with Portland, so I'm not sure what the previous spring numbers are for that locality. I heard anecdotally last autumn that Scilly seemed to attract more Pied Flycatchers on average in autumn than Portland, and this did seemed to be borne out by my own observations.
I haven't seen a Rare Breeding Birds paper since the start of the century, but I don't recall Black Redstart numbers being any more or less than around 50 pairs? My assumption is they are heading to Germany?
Grahame Walbridge
Well-known member
According to 'Rare breeding birds in the UK in 2014' the Black Redstart population was 25-68 pairs, with a 5-yr mean of 59bp; it seems pretty stable. It has been a below average spring at Portland thus far, but in good years I normally associate them with easterlies and, like Graham, I have assumed they are displaced birds that should be heading to Germany/Low Countries.
Grahame
Not heard them in my patch just yet.
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