Surprisingly Rare Vagrants to the UK (1 Viewer)

I think I remember a Black Woodpecker being reported once that turned out to be a model of one on the side of a telegraph pole, can't remember when or where though.

Johann Sebastian Bach said:

Wasn't Black Woodpecker recorded last year in Ambridge?

Peter

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Yes, but doubt over the location of Ambridge led to the rejection of the record as uncertain :-O

Phil Andrews said:

Eagle Owl and Black Woodpecker are two examples of species that whilst arent necessarily common in mainland Europe are widespread but havent been recorded in Britain. Crested Lark is abundant right up to the Channel but with only handful of British records

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I wouldn't describe Crested Lark as 'abundant right up to the Channel' - the European bird atlas shows it as missing along much of the Channel coast (with only isolated sites in Bretagne & Basse-Normandie) with populations only along the the Haute-Normandie/Picardy/Nord-pas de Calais coast. However, here they seem to have been in decline for many years and in Nord-pas de Calais beyond a thin line along the coast (containing probably no more than 100 pairs) there's a gap of 50-60 km before they again appear and even then I wouldn't call them at all common (with many 10km squares having fewer than 10 pairs). The Black Woodpecker is certainly to be found breeding along the Channel coast (I've seen 'em) although I suspect the population isn't huge and Middle-spotted has also reached the Crecy Forest in recent years. In some ways the most revealing and interesting species here is Bluethroat which colonised the area in the 1960s & 70s - it's now not hard to find in suitable habitat (although it's possibly decreased in recent years). Yet it remains a rare bird in Kent and its expansion hasn't resulted in an increase in spring records as might be expected. A similar tale could be told of Serin, another relatively recent colonist to the Pas de Calais. In short the issue is a lot more complex than simple proximity!

Nutcracker said:

Missed this before. Not conclusively true; the evidence is difficult because of the difficulty (impossibility?) in distinguishing Snowy Owl bones from Eagle Owl bones. Also some of the subfossil evidence is strongly suggestive of human interference (i.e., Eagle Owls imported for falconry). Article about it in British Birds a few years ago.

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I'm completely ignorant on this and just asking: is there any historical evidence of using owls in falconry prior to what one might term "modern times"? With falconry being very much the sport of the chase and a hierarchical one at that, would anyone entitled to fly, say, Goshawk, Peregrine etc have bothered to own, let alone fly an Eagle Owl?

John

John Cantelo said:

I wouldn't describe Crested Lark as 'abundant right up to the Channel' - the European bird atlas shows it as missing along much of the Channel coast (with only isolated sites in Bretagne & Basse-Normandie) with populations only along the the Haute-Normandie/Picardy/Nord-pas de Calais coast. However, here they seem to have been in decline for many years and in Nord-pas de Calais beyond a thin line along the coast (containing probably no more than 100 pairs) there's a gap of 50-60 km before they again appear and even then I wouldn't call them at all common (with many 10km squares having fewer than 10 pairs).

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And close to extinct in Denmark, where they were widespread 40 years ago (compare green and yellow vs. red dots here).

John Cantelo said:

In some ways the most revealing and interesting species here is Bluethroat which colonised the area in the 1960s & 70s - it's now not hard to find in suitable habitat (although it's possibly decreased in recent years). Yet it remains a rare bird in Kent and its expansion hasn't resulted in an increase in spring records as might be expected.

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White-spotted Bluethroats have become commoner in Britain in recent years, unlike Red-spots, which have all but disappeared as spring passage migrants after their 1980s peak.

Farnboro John said:

I'm completely ignorant on this and just asking: is there any historical evidence of using owls in falconry prior to what one might term "modern times"? With falconry being very much the sport of the chase and a hierarchical one at that, would anyone entitled to fly, say, Goshawk, Peregrine etc have bothered to own, let alone fly an Eagle Owl?

John

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I'd need to dig out the BB paper - I can only remember the bare bones (fossil analogy intended3) of the article.

To repeat the earlier thread: Eagle Owls were used for centuries as a live bait for capturing or shooting other birds. This muddles the Rarities Committee policy of finding 'one certain wild record'. However, there is an undisputed bone find from just after the last Glacial, there is one bone find from modern times, but the bone was lost, there is historic knowledge of a very large owl and even local name in Britain.

I would look carefully at any Eagle Owls in England, because the wild population in France grows much and expanded to the farmland in the lowlands. It is possible that wild birds can fly across the Channel and join the feral English population.

One thing in predicting about vagrants/colonizers is the population trend abroad. Foreign populations which are in decline (like Crested Lark) produce few potential vagrants. Populations growing and expanding produce vagrants, quite independently of the situation in the UK.

jurek said:

To repeat the earlier thread: Eagle Owls were used for centuries as a live bait for capturing or shooting other birds. This muddles the Rarities Committee policy of finding 'one certain wild record'. However, there is an undisputed bone find from just after the last Glacial, there is one bone find from modern times, but the bone was lost, there is historic knowledge of a very large owl and even local name in Britain.

I would look carefully at any Eagle Owls in England, because the wild population in France grows much and expanded to the farmland in the lowlands. It is possible that wild birds can fly across the Channel and join the feral English population.

One thing in predicting about vagrants/colonizers is the population trend abroad. Foreign populations which are in decline (like Crested Lark) produce few potential vagrants. Populations growing and expanding produce vagrants, quite independently of the situation in the UK.

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Indeed. However, given (a) the proportion of vagrants normally discovered at coastal localities and (b) the habits of Eagle Owls e.g. roosting preferences, it is perhaps surprising that one hasn't yet settled at Dungeness B and started chopping Kittiwakes by night.

John

Maybe some bird ringed as nestling on the Continent turns up sometime?

jurek said:

Maybe some bird ringed as nestling on the Continent turns up sometime?

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I'll be there!

John

Given that it is a long-distance migrant, for which sea-crossings do not present a challenge, I'm surprised by the paucity of records of Eleonora's Falcon