Whinchat - Elton Common

 Another interesting day, I started off in the conifers along Flash Lane and was both surprised and pleased to hear the Turtle Dove purring. It's a month since I last heard it and this is the latest I've ever recorded it. Seems unlikely it will return next year, but that's what I thought last year, fingers crossed! 

Whilst on the edge of the wood I heard a Common Greenshank calling, it called for perhaps 30 seconds and I thought it may have been circling the flooded field by the sharp corner but there was no sign of it when I checked.

This afternoon I went to the Elton Common area to look at the gulls which are starting to increase in number. I saw several hundred Lesser Black-backed but wasn't able to get anywhere near them so will have to wait until they favour a field closer to the road.

Whilst cycling the lanes I saw several Redstart, a Stonechat and a single Whinchat. It looks like a moulting adult female and it's the first time I've seen one at Elton Common and my first of the autumn.

Whinchat - female

Grey Partridge - my first in over a decade

 Robin Elliot came across a pair of Grey Partridge yesterday by the Matlock Road/ Alicehead Road junction. Fortunately they were still in the area this morning in a field a little closer to Swinger Lane. Although there have been occasional reports; Alan Stewardson saw one on Harland Edge earlier this year and there was a report of a pair a couple of days ago in the Haddon Grove Farm area, they are my first since 2011!

I'd be interested to hear of any other local records in the last few years.

Grey Partridge

Most of the expected migrants are back now with good numbers of Common Whitethroat on the moors and several Garden Warbler around the plantations now. I also had a Lesser Whitethroat singing on 3rd May on Cullumbell Lane outside Uppertown.

Superb views of Grasshopper Warbler this morning with a pair together on Beeley Moor, there are at least four males with territories around the moors.

Grasshopper Warbler

I saw the Turtle Dove on the last day of April and again on the 1st May around Flash Lane. It was displaying to a Collared Dove on the 30th April with the chances of it finding a mate very slim although it persists with its lovely purring song.

Turtle Dove displaying to a Collared

I saw my first Common Swifts over Darley Dale on 2nd May and numbers are steadily increasing but there are not many House Martin about.

There was a Hobby over Flash Lane on 30th April and I've seen another today and the first Wood Warblers returned on 1st May. 

So just Spotted Flycatcher, Whinchat and Nightjar still to arrive.

Turtle Dove back for its 6th year

 The lone male Turtle Dove which has frequented Uppertown, Darwin Forest and the Matlock Farm Park area returned for its 6th summer on the 20th April and has been seen several times since. If only it could attract a mate! An amazing record and one of very few to be found in Derbyshire.

Turtle Dove

I heard my first Cuckoo by Beeley Triangle on the 22nd April and there are several birds now, around the moors and Matlock Forest. On the same day there was a group of 6 Ring Ouzel (a record count for me) on the edge of the moor which increased to 6 birds before they departed.

Three Common Sandpiper were present along the river at Chatsworth this morning but more surprising was a Dunlin flushed from the river bank, only the second time I have seen one locally. It circled round a couple of times before flying off north, giving me just about enough time to get a record shot.

Common Sandpiper

Dunlin

The Oystercatchers are still present at Chatsworth and making use of the props for the forthcoming horse trials!

Oystercatcher

Whilst many of our summer migrants have returned there are still several missing and I would usually have seen Garden Warbler, Wood Warbler and Common Whitethroat by now but I suspect the persistent cool temperatures are holding them back south of us somewhere.

Return of the Turtle Dove and first Whimbrel on Beeley Moor

After my last blog, in which I mentioned that Alan had heard a Turtle Dove on Flash Lane, Simon Moody contacted me to say that he had first seen the regularly returning bird on 11th April and had seen or heard it fairly regularly since then. This is the 5th year that Simon has seen this particular returning male.

I looked and listened for it several times without success until this morning when I came across it purring from the top of a conifer tree not too far from Matlock Forest. It was calling regular and several times did a display flight which is very similar to the Collared Dove.

Can it find a mate this year? It would be fantastic if it could be the chances are low given that the Turtle Dove seems to be almost lost from Derbyshire now.

Turtle Dove - display flight

A little later I was cycling across Beeley Moor and stopped to check a field which held several Curlew and found a smart Whimbrel. 

It was feeding quite happily much as birds have in prior years and this seems like a regular stopping off spot for birds heading to Scotland or perhaps Iceland or northern Scandinavia.

Whimbrel

Ring Ouzel at last

I was on Flash Lane this afternoon, looking for a Turtle Dove that Alan Stewardson had heard this morning. 

No sign of the dove but 2 female Ring Ouzel were ample compensation. I've struggled to see Ring Ouzel locally the last few years so I was very pleased to see these two birds and to manage a record photo.

Hopefully the Turtle Dove will be relocated.

Ring Ouzel - female

 

First Turtle Dove Survey

 I completed my first Turtle Dove Survey this morning and was rewarded with both hearing and seeing a single male. It is the same bird I heard on 29th April and that I first saw in 2018. 

As far as I can tell it has been unable to attract a mate, although there is still time this year, so fingers crossed.

Turtle Dove

First Common Swift over Darley Dale

 Although Common Swifts were first seen at Carsington Water on Monday I saw my first today flying directly over the garden in Darley Dale. Traditionally I would look out for swifts from the first week of May and often it would be into the second week before I saw one here but, in common with many other species, migrants are arriving earlier now.

I also added Garden Warbler and Turtle Dove to my April list today. 

Common Swift

I'm taking part in the National Turtle Dove survey this year organised by the RSPB and BTO so I was particular pleased to hear a bird calling today and will be visiting several sites where they have occurred in the past in the coming weeks. I'd also be very interested to hear of any other local records this year.

I've previously mentioned the plight of the Turtle Dove and their rapid decline in Europe, so I was saddened to hear in the last few days that the Italian Government has sanctioned further shooting of these beautiful birds this autumn. With 500,000 licensed hunters allowed to shoot 15 birds each the total birds killed could run in to the millions.

Here's a photo I took in Croatia in spring 2019.

Turtle Dove in Croatia

Lockdown day 35 - tonne up and an unexpected migrant

Back on the bike I cycled up to Matlock Forest on Sunday morning, only a few kilometres but all up hill! 
After about an hour I was amazed to hear the lovely purring of a Turtle Dove. Now almost lost as a breeding species in Derbyshire and suffering a massive population decline over the whole of its range it was a real treat to sit and listen to the song. I made a recording but I put one on the blog in 2018 so rather than post another here's the link to that post with a more detailed write up on their occurrence.
I was thinking that this was a very early date to record one but on consulting Roy Frost's Birds of Derbyshire he records the 26th April as the average first date for the period 1978 - 2011 so this date was spot on.
I enjoyed nice views of a female Sparrowhawk sat in the pine trees which is a fairly rare sight for me, I'm seeing them daily in the air but seldom landed.

Eurasian Sparrowhawk -female

On the edge of the moor I encountered a pair of Tree Sparrow. They have a very peculiar distribution locally with small groups often occupying a tiny area, sometimes no more than a few hundred metres square and often around housing where food is put out. If anyone has any locally in the Matlock - Bakewell area I would be interested to hear about them and may do a distribution map for the area (you can e-mail me at andysbutler@aol.com).
During the ride I heard seven Common Whitethroat, one Lesser Whitethroat, 2 Cuckoo and at least a dozen Swallows so the number of returning migrants has increased rapidly with the fine weather during the past week.
Returning home I had a message from Ken to say he had seen a Swift flying up the valley, a little later both Simon and Alan also reported Swifts so I spent a couple of hours watching the sky and finally just as it started to rain a single bird flew close past heading steadily north, a fantastic sight and my 100th species, seen locally by foot or bike, since we started lockdown!

Another local Turtle Dove record

I was contacted by Simon Moody in the second week of June to say that he had seen a Turtle Dove in Uppertown around the time I photographed the bird in Matlock Forest, could it be the same bird? 
Well since then Simon has had further sightings of the bird in Uppertown and it is clearly another individual. Apparently this bird, another male, has been courting the local Collared Doves and was still in the area earlier this week when he took this superb photo.

Turtle Dove (© Simon Moody)

Turtle Dove - Matlock Forest

I saw my first Turtle Dove locally in almost twenty years today in the Matlock Forest area.

Turtle Dove - male, in the lower photo it is giving its distinctive purring call

I moved to Derbyshire from Yorkshire in 1997 and at that time the Turtle Dove could be regularly heard calling from the pine trees on Flash Lane. A few years later they had gone locally and since then have gone from much of the UK. The BTO estimated the population decline since 1994 as a scary 93% by 2016 in the UK with a 78% decline across Europe between 1980 and 2013.
It's not surprising therefore that scientists have talked about possible global extinction for the species, suggesting it could go the way of the North American Passenger Pigeon, with a population in the millions in the middle of the 19th Century by around September 1, 1914, the last known Passenger Pigeon, a female named Martha, died at the Cincinnati Zoo.
Experts have put forward four main factors associated with the decline of Turtle Doves. These include the loss of suitable habitat in both the breeding and non-breeding range, unsustainable levels of hunting on migration and disease.
In Derbyshire, according to Frost & Shaw in The Birds of Derbyshire the county population was estimated as probably in the region of 50 to 100 pairs in the late 1990's but is now no more than 2 or 3 pairs. The book also notes;

'..a small outlier [population] existed at around 300m in the pine plantations of the Matlock Forest area, where up to nine territories were occupied during the 1990's, but these are now believed to have gone'

They are secretive birds nesting in tall trees and apart from the distinctive song are very unobtrusive could one or more pairs have continued to breed unnoticed in the area or have birds returned?

I made a sound recording of the lovely purring song. This doesn't seem to work if you use Safari as your internet browser but is fine with Google.