Oare to Uplees

Dunlin, Golden Plover, Redshank, Curlew, Oystercatcher, Grey Herons, Little Egrets, Black-headed Gulls, Herring Gulls, Little Grebes, Shelduck, Shoveller, Teal,

Knot in breeding plumage at Oare Marshes

A nice adult (I think) Knot (Calidris canutus) just coming out of breeding plumage, (perhaps the back is quite blackish?) hidden in among the Black-tailed Godwits, Limosa limosa. A Knot in winter plumage then gradually joins it, making a nice comparison. 

Oare Marshes thinking of Golden Plover again

The Golden Plover at Oare 

Eurasian Golden Plover, Pluvialis apricaria (Gravenhorst, 1820), (Desvignes, 1856). An interesting bird that seems to have declined in its UK breeding population steadily over the last few decades, perhaps due to changes including reductions in keepering on upland moorland, consequent increased carrion crow predation, reduction in moorland burning, possibly increased raptor numbers, or many other factors.

The much larger overwintering Golden Plover population from northern Europe, Russia and Iceland does also seem to have shifted its wintering distribution in the UK away from pastures in the West towards (particularly) arable land on the eastern side of the country since the 1980s. The Kent birds might seem to prefer grassland still but I well remember seeing birds on ploughed fields in Yorkshire on one journey up to see or pick up Simon.

In the early part of the winter in Kent, large numbers can be seen in the Swale and specifically at Oare Marshes. Today there must have been getting on for a thousand birds here at Oare today.  It is one of the twenty two sites listed in the non-breeding SPA for this species, each site being a multispecies SPA.

The plumages of the birds are quite variable in detail. This might be a juvenile or first winter bird on the left - underside more speckled further down the flanks and belly, and ONLY IN MY PERSONAL VIEW, a little warmer in the face and the supercilium thereby a bit less contrasty.

I checked for slender (long-legged?) birds with somewhat clearer supercilia and long wings projecting beyond their tails - but no possible American Golden Plovers as far as I could see!

The overall ecology of the bird is very interesting:

Moorland Breeding

In the small and declining UK population the birds nest on moorland, although during the incubation period the adults really like to feed on neighbouring farmland pastures on worms and cranefly larvae, etc, while their partners are incubating the eggs. During the day the males incubate and the females feed, and during the night the females incubate and the males feed. Tipulids are a key feature of both the later adult and the chick diet. Pearce-Higgins and Yalden showed in one of their South Pennines studies (2003) that the particular arable, improved and pasture fields chosen by the off-duty birds for foraging in were those with appropriate pasture sward heights, appropriate moisture levels and good numbers of earthworms and particularly cranefly (Tipulid) larvae. Over time, sheep stocking density has increased in UK uplands, which might be helpful, but is also associated with agricultural intensification such as drainage, which would probably reduce Tipulid numbers.

According to Whittingham et al., working on moorland in Northern England in 2001, chicks on the moorland tend to use mosaics of dwarf shrubs such as willow, crowberry and bilberry, and more open areas of cotton-grass and bare peat. Again Tipulids and Beetle larvae do tend to be very important in the diet. Rotational strip-burning or careful manipulation of grazing management systems could be used to help maintain these mosaics.

Later in 2011 Pearce-Higgins did some very interesting theoretical modelling on the extent of the impact of expected climate change on this population on the southern edge of its range, and suggested that the impacts would greatly reduce Tipulid numbers, and chick survivability, and proposed equivalent increased management activity to help maintain the population, either environmental management to increase Tipulid food sources by 80%, or by reducing nest and egg predation by 35%.

There are birds in Sweden that also breed in the uplands, like the UK breeding population, although the habitat there is referred to as Fennoscandian arctic tundra. Machin et al in 2017 showed that the chicks in this habitat in Sweden feed on a more diverse diet of beetle larvae, cranefly larvae and St Marks Fly (Bibionids) larvae, and breeding success appears to be at least in part linked to Bibionid population fluctuations from year to year. The Bibionids are found more in willow scrub, and the chicks may move into this habitat as they grow in part according to prey availability, but also in part in order to gain increased protection from predator attack.

Over-wintering

After the young have fledged, the adults and young migrate to lowland farmland and coastal habitats for the autumn and the winter. According to Gillings et al., in 2007, in recent decades winter populations of both Golden Plover and Lapwings appear to have switched from using pastures in the west of the country to using arable land for much of the winter - October - February (harrowed fields for winter cereal initially, then sugar beet and then other crops). Large open fields which had been manured were particularly favoured, and it is perhaps to be hoped that both manuring and sugar beet growing will continue into the future for these large numbers of birds over-wintering in the UK. However the reasons underlying the move and whether the pastures have become less attractive, or the arable more attractive, or both or neither remains a bit of a mystery. Could climate change have impacted on the relative attractiveness of these two types of habitats? In France research reported in 2007 indicated that cereal fields were the preferred wintering habitat in that country.

As for field size, Leitão and Peris working in Portugal in the late 90s concluded that Golden Plovers avoided fields less than 10 Ha, and preferred fields larger than 20 Ha, and preferred pastures in this particular environment.

Birds migrating from further North and East in Europe and Russia use arable fields in southern Sweden as autumn staging posts, where Lindstrm et al. showed in 2010 that numbers tend to be quite high and they are able to both moult and then also (critically) put on weight after their moult for the next stages of their journey, perhaps to the UK. The adults and young follow more or less the same pattern although the young do follow the adults after a little delay. The length of stay on these fields is about three months, August to November, indicating the importance of this habitat to this population of migrating birds.

Research reported by Piersma et al in 2003 into birds over-wintering in the Netherlands showed some fascinating patterns. The birds put on weight in the autumn (September - November) and their weights peak in late November and December as they (presumably) put on fat to sustain themselves in bad times. They then lose weight again - I imagine as they use up their reserves, perhaps with somewhat poorer food availability. Then in the spring they start to put on weight again, perhaps as food becomes more available again, in preparation for their spring migration and the breeding season to come.

However between the 80s and 90s, the December peak mass decreased as the weight gain stopped earlier, although the rate of increase during the shorter period of weight gain remained the same. As weather conditions remained similar, this was interpreted as a response to increased raptor numbers, such as Peregrines and Goshawks - possibly leading to slimmer fitter birds more adapted to raptor evasion. However this seems to me to be a rather over-optimistic view of the ability of these birds to plan ahead, and to control their weight!

Machin et al reported in 2015 on individual winter movements of birds from a breeding population in Swedish Lapland, showing that some started their winters in NW Europe in areas such as northern France, and shifted south to Spain or Africa in cold spells, giving a degree of flexibility to their over-wintering, while others sometimes didn't move further and stuck out the cold spells where they were. Cold weather movements were noticeably long and fast, real escape movements.

High Tide at Oare

The light wasn't very good, but the company was very pleasant!

This particular Ruff, Philomachus now within Calidris pugnax, was very neatly coloured, and with somewhat yellowish-green legs:

This bird shows a very scaly back, one of the characteristic features of the species. It is quite a warm peachy colour (still?). I wonder if it has been breeding up on the High Siberian Arctic.

Oare again

Still lots of twitchers, most of them looking at the Wilson's Phalarope and the Long-billed Dowitcher.

Wilson's Phalarope at Oare Marshes

Rather a lovely bird!

Little Ringed Plover Oare Marshes

Today turned out warm and briefly calm for a while in the afternoon when I arrived at Oare Marshes. It was lovely to see a few of the usual birds on the East Flood, and a kind couple kindly pointed out a Peregrine Falcon on top of one of the electricity pylons inland of the West Flood hide.

Shortly after that I picked out a Little Ringed Plover, Charadrius dubius, (Scopoli, 1786), on the little mud spit on this side of the East Flood, from its yellow eye-ring, and then its noticeably black bill. I rather missed the pattern of white above the eye narrowing to the rear, but continuing and widening centrally over the front of the black forehead, but was reminded of this by the wonderful BTO video ID guide. This was my first ever definite sighting of this species, so it was very exciting indeed! It really did seem to have superficially pretty much the same black and white head pattern as a Ringed Plover. It bounced or "bobbed" up and down a little, and did seem a bit more slender and fragile generally. Some photos did seem to suggest a thinner beak than the commoner Ringed Plover.

There are about 1200 - 1400 breeding pairs in the UK, and the first known breeding was apparently in 1938, and it has been greatly encouraged by various gravel pit constructions over the latter half of the 20th Century. It is a summer visitor, over-wintering in West and possibly also Central Africa. The UK breeding population is about 1% of the European population, and the birds that come to the UK and western Europe are of the subspecies curonicus. In the photo below the dark eye-stripe clearly dips well down behind the eye, almost into a point.

The birds rely on fairly bare ground, only partly vegetated, so require newly disturbed habitat on a fairly regular basis. Predator control by placing cages over the nests seems to have something of a positive effect, together with habitat management, improving productivity and gradually increasing numbers. From the breadth of the breast band in the photo below I would guess that this bird is a male.

A fly got into the background of the photo below.

Uplees Marshes

Very briefly at the East Flood, two Greenshank flew in, one of which I got a good view of.

There were thousands of Golden Plover on Horse Sands, in among many other waders and gulls.

Scanning the edges of the Swale, I found Redshank, Dunlin, Lapwing, Shelduck, Curlew and a few Grey Plover on the shoreline mud.

I walked as far as the Fieldfares in the copse beyond the old dock. On the sheds there were Stock Doves, Rooks, Crows and one Green Woodpecker. There were several Grey Herons and Little Egrets. I saw two Buzzards, one of which came to rest on a gatepost.

Looking over towards Mocketts I thought I could (just) see a Ringtail Hen Harrier - just a guess really, quite orange/warm brown on its chest.

Murky Oare

The day started off very well with an amazing Goldcrest in the beech hedge outside Elgar HE8a. It was having a good old attack on its reflection in the window. It was absolutely gorgeous in close-up, with its crest clearly displayed, Eventually I closed the blind in the hope that it would calm down.

At Oare the BTGs were looking very grey in contrast to the winter splendour of the Teal, Shoveller and Pintails. What looked like a very late Curlew Sandpiper flew in to one of the mudbanks.

Redshank, Dunlin, Curlew, Grey Plover, Herring and BH Gulls,

Many seals, wrecked on the just emerging Horse Sands.

Long Billed Dowitcher at Oare Marshes

This Dowitcher presumably flew in from across the Atlantic at some stage this autumn and arrived on this East Coast Marsh, perhaps via some intermediate stopping points. It is recognizable by its brownish snipe-like appearance, fairly clear pale eye stripe, and also by its "sewing-machine" like feeding motion. The details of its plumage are very similar to the closely-related Short Billed Dowitcher. It is fairly regularly found in Western Europe on a few occasions each year.

Here the uniform grey of the centre of the tertials is quite clear. At least on the juvenile the books indicate that this is a good sign that this is indeed a Long Billed rather than a Short Billed.

The white slightly spotted rump is visible in the picture below. The brownish scapulars(?) indicate a likely juvenile.

On several occasions the bird vigorously scratched at its bill.

Pallid Harrier at Oare

I tried to time my arrival at Oare to fit in between the heavy rain showers whilst still in time for the high tide. It seemed to work with BTGs, Ringed Plovers, Lapwings, Golden Plover, Dunlin, and a few Curlew Sandpipers and Little Stints. One Yellow Wagtail.

Popped over to park by the ramp, and after waiting in the car until another cloudburst passed over, had a look for Harriers. As I found and slowly confirmed my first Marsh harrier, a couple of experts turned up and they soon found the juvenile Pallid Harrier. I could just see the orange underside, and the narrow white rump, but no other detail, with perhaps an impression of the barred underwings.

I was personally much happier to pick out my own Bar-Tailed Godwit on the mud as I walked Monty along the seawall. Much streakier, bar tail, no wingbar, more of a clear supercilium. 

Migrant waders at Oare

This is a juvenile Ringed Plover - white not buff above the eye, no sharp dip in the dark below the eye, a relatively thick bill and possibly a little orange on the legs, and a fairly clear primary projection.

This is a juvenile Curlew Sandpiper, with neat anchor-marked scapulars with clearly outlined white edges. Pale and pastel, longer-legged in comparison to Dunlin.

Oare Marshes

Nice view of the Little Ringed Plover, the first one that I have definitely seen.

Yellow legs (despite the mud) and slight yellow eye-ring. Buff supercilium. Sleek shape. 

Bony's Gull at Oare

Bonaparte's Gull, Chroicocephalus philadelphia, a rare wanderer from America, the gull on the right of course! I wonder where this bird spends its summers, and who with!

Reed Bunting and Hobby at Oare Marshes

A quiet lunchtime at Oare Marshes. I actually arrived at 11.30 and ate my chicken salad sandwiches early!

I got a very cropped shot of a Reed Bunting with a metal ring on its leg.

I hadn't really noticed the amount of grey on the rump and scapulars(?), picked up also on the underparts, and contrasting with the white pattern around the neck. The undertail coverts and belly are also whiter than the rest of the undersides. In some pictures on the internet the grey on the rump is complete (a male characteristic), but here it is streaked with brown - it might possibly go more completely grey later in the breeding season with further plumage wear? I think the same might be said of the black head, it also still looks a little streaked with brown, not truly jet-black yet.

This picture suggests that the upper bill may be quite dark, and the lower bill a little lighter - horn-coloured as in BWP. Also a bit of a suggestion of the convex culmen, supposedly seen in the species.

Interesting how the wings are dropped, and the rump exposed - also seen in some other photos on the web! I wonder if this is a sort of display? BWP suggests the song display involves rump and head "fluffing", but this doesn't seem exactly comparable.

The annual survival rate is about 45%. The UK population dropped considerably around 1975 - 83 from an original figure of around 600,000 pairs, allegedly because of harsh winters and has now apparently stabilised at around 400,000. Habitat is normally the tall vegetation generally associated with wetter land. May also be found, on chalk scrub, and perhaps increasingly, in drier farmland, and young conifer plantations. Now, about half the UK population is found in "farmland", as opposed to "wetland" although boundaries are likely to be permeable and indistinct.

Chiefly sedentary in the UK, although some move a little, and there is a bit of movement towards the southwest. The UK gets a few winter visitors, mainly from NW Europe and Scandinavia. In contrast, West Scandinavian birds are almost entirely migratory, to here or countries in Western Europe such as France and Spain, and East Scandinavian birds are entirely migratory, to countries in Southern Europe such as Italy. Autumn movement chiefly mid-September to mid-November, spring mid-February to April.

Mainly feeds on seeds and other plant material, but primarily invertebrates in breeding season. May feed on ground or low or high in vegetation, for example taking grass seed. Can take insects from the air, for example when seen from perch. Will visit garden feeders and farms in winter.

May flock in winter, perhaps with other buntings and finches. Can roost communally to reduce weight loss, for example in warmer, moister reedbeds. Largest flocks on migration. In spring the males may start to visit their prospective breeding territories in the mornings, returning to the flocks after 9 am. Age of first breeding is one year. Generally monogamous, but extra-pair paternity rife. Polygyny may be increasingly common in older male birds. There is no evidence as yet as to any clear genetic benefit from increased immuno-competence (contrary to previous experimentation in Bluethroats) or increased heterozygosity.

Only the females build the nest and incubate, but both sexes feed the nestlings and young. Territory size is very variable. Territories are used for pair formation, maintenance of pair-bond and nesting. The birds collect food from a wider area, seemingly with little conflict with neighbours. Birds may also continue to roost communally until the eggs are laid, when they start to roost on their territories.

Females visit a number of territories, with males responding by stopping singing and approaching her, perhaps with bits of grass, while she avoids them giving "see" calls. She gradually focuses on one territory (and thus one male) in particular. At pair-formation stage, males start to use "fluffed run" in more open spaces as a courtship display, and increasingly attempts to copulate. He accompanies her closely, making increasing approaches, including physical, rejected at first. Once she is esconced however, he spends a lot of time "teaching" her the territory by following her around its boundaries, in effect gradually confining her to it. When female ready to mate, she begins to attack other trespassing females. Then mating starts, continuing until egg-laying. Female adopts soliciting posture, then male flies directly over to female, and either hovers or lands on her back. Female chooses nest site, accompanied by male, and she then builds the nest itself.

Sings much of the summer, but regarded as not very musical. "Tweek, tweek, tweek, tititick" seems to be a common pattern. Repertoire more complex when carefully analysed, complexities tending to be shared between neighbours, and there may be something of a factor of local dialects. Nestlings and young birds have a range of begging calls.

As I parked up, Cetti's Warblers singing welcomed me to the car park. I walked along towards the East Flood, and watched the 210+ Black-tailed Godwits resting up on the bank on the North side of the East Flood, seen from my favourite spot.  With them were 2 Oystercatchers (2 more on the grassy marsh a bit further to the north). Eventually I noticed three Knot, which took me quite a while to recognise - I tried to think of various migrant sandpipers first, as seen on the other side of The Swale the day before. There were two or more Lapwings around, probably more at the peak of high tide.

I think there were about 8 Avocets, several with brownish tinges to their wings.

Just as i walked back to the car park I noticed first one, and then two, birds in a small tree on the West Flood. They seemed to be perhaps a little large to be starlings, but that was still my best bet. Once I focused the telescope however, I realised that they were a small falcon and a Woodpigeon. Surprised to find both birds in the same tree, I saw a peregrine-like dark hood and moustache, a dark back and a heavily streaked underside, with a rich red-brown tinge around the legs. My first Hobby for several years. It took off, and I followed it with the telescope, eventually noting, both through the telescope and by eye, its rapidly flashing scythe-shaped wings, as it flew towards me, over the Flood, and then back towards the seawall to the west.

Wonderful Whimbrel at Oare

I think all the birds on the salt marsh seaward of the West Flood at Oare Marshes seemed to me to be Whimbrel, and certainly the pictures I took seemed to confirm this.

Here is a clear indication of the central white line along the middle of the crown.

This severe crop of the single bird on the sheep pasture does show a reasonable head stripe and typical Whimbrel beak shape. The overall bird shape is fairly in proportion.

I heard Cuckoos and a Water Rail squealing. Particularly interesting were the "Blehh" mating calls of Common Pochard flying in a group of four over the West Flood. Also very pleasant were the bubbling calls of Little Grebes, and the songs of Reed Bunting, together with multiple Reed Warblers and Sedge Warblers. I was very pleased to get a good view of a Reed Warbler in the sallow seaward of the car park.

Glossy Ibis

Glossy Ibis on West Flood, flew close-by over the road and on to the ditch towards the seawall on the East Flood.

Black-tailed Godwits at Oare Marshes

Most individual birds are now moulting into their breeding plumages, and beginning to look absolutely stunning.

This bird was just changing into some breeding feathers, but is very slow.

This individual was noticeably still very grey indeed and I wondered whether it might be a young non-breeder? It seemed to me to be superficially quite "scaly" on its wings and coverts, but most importantly fairly well worn, so possibly still retaining its juvenile feathers. Its bill was incidentally also clearly still over-wintering pink as opposed to the breeding yellow.

Stratospheric warming makes Oare too cold for me!

A stiff cold breeze from the North East was whipping up the waves on The Swale, where dozens of Black-headed Gulls and at least two Mediterranean Gulls in summer plumage were bouncing about on the chop. There were hundreds of dark-bellied Brent Geeese on the far side of Horse Sands. About three dozen Common Redshanks were making the most of the foreshore mud, with one Curlew and one Shelduck down at the waters edge. They seemed to me to be in loose flocks with fairly even spacing between the individuals, moving quite fast, but I wasn't clear on overall patterns.

I tried to find birds out on The Swale, but my eyes kept on tearing up, and I could only find one Great Crested Grebe, in breeding plumage. So I copped out and went and explored the route to Conyer for future reference.

A windy Oare Marshes

Excellent to be seeing fair numbers of Pintail on the East Flood,

There were reasonable numbers of Pintail all around, often giving good views as they upended or just ducked their heads down feeding, or just rested on the bank.



and here is a closer  view of the same photo, showing the beautiful grey vermiculations on the flank and back



There were four or five Common Gulls, Larus canus, close to the road, some with really dark head blotching,

The Black-headed Gulls are quite rapidly developing their breeding plumage now.

There was a Great Crested Grebe on the Swale off the mouth of Faversham Creek, and Wigeon flighted in the distance. No other birds were braving the off-shore winds perhaps?

There were dozens of Black-tailed Godwits on the East Flood, some feeding and some asleep.