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West Midland Bird Club Annual Report No. 73 2006 The Birds of Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands 2006 Annual Report 73 Editor D.W. Emley Published by West Midland Bird Club 2008 Published by West Midland Bird Club © West Midland Bird Club All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission of the copyright owners. The West Midland Bird Club is a registered charity No. 213311. Website: http://www.westmidlandbirdclub.com/ ISSN 1476-2862 Printed by Healeys Printers Ltd., Unit 10, The Sterling Complex, Farthing Road, Ipswich, Suffolk IP1 5AP. Price £9.00 The Birds of Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands 2006 Annual Report 73 Contents 4 Editorial 5 Submission of Records 6 Birds and Weather in 2006 13 Systematic List 215 Ringing in 2006 221 Franklin’s Gull at Blithfield; a first for Staffordshire 223 County Lists 230 Gazetteer 237 List of Contributors 241 Index to Species Front Cover Photograph: Goldfinch on Teasel, Dave Taylor 3 Editorial Global Warming is a phenomenon with which we are all familiar these days. It manifests itself in all aspects of the natural world; that of birds being no exception. Some of our residents are nesting earlier while many of our summer migrants are arriving earlier and staying longer, up to three weeks in some cases. It is not possible to show these relatively rapid changes using the average arrival and departure dates as they cover too long a period (over 70 years in some cases) so this year I have included the average dates over the previous eight years (not including the current year) – as used in New Birds of the West Midlands. With over 600 contributors to the Report this year it is inevitable that there are many with the same initials – indeed there are seven with CS alone! In order to make sure that those specifically mentioned in the species reports get their deserved recognition, we have decided to abandon the use of two-character initials and instead add subsequent letters of the surname until we get a unique set of initials. Hopefully this will avoid any ambiguity. British Birds has announced a number of changes to the scientific names of some of our gulls, for so long in the genus Larus! Black-headed and Bonaparte’s Gulls are now in Chroicocephalus while Sabine’s is in Xema and Little in Hydrocoloeus. The changes mean that the position of these species in the sequence used in the Report also changes. Thankfully, BBRC has now raised Caspian Gull to a full species – something most of us had done already! Modern technology came to the fore this year when a radio-tagged Honey-buzzard was recorded flying over Cannock Chase without anyone actually seeing it. The world of virtual birding is indeed upon us! Thanks are due to Andy Warr who retired as Recorder for Worcestershire at the end of 2007. His place has been taken by Brian Stretch and we wish him well in that post. Acknowledgements I would like to thank all those who helped with this year’s report. I am especially grateful to all those who contributed records, especially those sending in valuable census data; to Roger Broadbent for his article; to artists and photographers Phil Jones, Dave Kelsall, Steve Seal, Graham Soden, Dave Taylor, Steve Valentine and Andy Warr for making their work available; to Bert Coleman for his informative ringing report and above all to the County Recorders and their teams: Warwickshire: Jonathan Bowley Worcestershire: Andy Warr and Brian Stretch. Staffordshire: Nick Pomiankowski, Report Writers; NDP, Neil Carter, Martin Godfrey and Andy Lawrence, Rarities Committee; Eric Clare, Bernard Smith, Mark Sutton, Steve Turner and Steve Nuttall, Site Report Compilers; Mike Boote, Graham Evans, Steve Nuttall, Ray Perry, Brenda Scott; Data Input and proof reading; Mary Holley. West Midlands: Kevin Clements, Gareth Clements and John Oates. I would like to thank Mike Gaydon of Healeys and my wife Sue, for her support and help during the compilation of this report. David Emley 4 Submission of Records All contributors are asked to follow the guidelines set out in the booklet A Checklist of the Birds of the West Midlands and a Guide to Status and Record Submission (second edition 1989). A copy of these can be found on our website http://www.westmidlandbirdclub.com. All records should be sent to the relevant County Recorder as soon as possible after observation. Concise, though adequate, field descriptions (including how the species was identified, the circumstances of the sighting and the observer’s experience of the species) should accompany records of all species – marked as A in the Details column of the checklist. In addition, descriptions are required for all out-of-season migrants, unusual hybrids and scarce sub-species, including Scandinavian Rock Pipit, Blue-headed and other flava race wagtails, White Wagtail (autumn only), Black-bellied Dipper, Greenland Wheatear and Chiffchaff races. The lack of an acceptable description may lead to records being rejected. Records should be sent to the appropriate County Recorder: Warwickshire Jonathan Bowley 17 Meadow Way, Fenny Compton, Southam, Warwickshire CV47 2WD [email protected] Worcestershire Brian Stretch 13 Pitmaston Road, Worcester, WR2 4HY [email protected] Staffordshire Nick Pomiankowski 22 The Villas, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 5AQ [email protected] West Midlands Kevin Clements 26 Hambrook Close, Dunstall Park, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, WV6 0XA [email protected] Ringing Secretary All ringing recoveries and sightings of colour-marked birds should be sent to: A E Coleman, 67 Park Lane, Bonehill, Tamworth, Staffs, B78 3HZ. Records can be sent electronically as Excel, Word, CSV or RTF files or on record slips. These are available from the Club Secretary (address inside back cover) at indoor meetings or a copy can be downloaded from our web site: http://www.westmidlandbirdclub.com/. Another alternative that is proving very popular is the BTO’s BirdTrack website http://www.bto.org.uk/birdtrack/. Data entered here can be accessed, with permission, by the County Recorder, thus obviating the need to send in slips etc. David Emley, 23 Leacroft, Stone, Staffs, ST15 8GF [email protected] 5 Birds and Weather 2006 2006, the warmest year for 90 years, saw 239 species recorded in the Region compared to 242 in 2005 and 235 in 2004. There were no additions to the Regional list but Staffordshire had its first Franklin’s Gull and first acceptable Stone Curlew while Worcestershire recorded its first Lesser Scaup, of which there were three in the year. A number of species put in their first appearance for many years. They include Staffordshire’s first Red-backed Shrike since 1956, Warwickshire’s first Gull-billed Tern since 1899, Worcestershire’s second Long-billed Dowitcher and Staffordshire’s and the Region’s second Glossy Ibis – the first being in 1840. Wood Larks bred for the first time in Worcestershire, reflecting the increasing fortunes of this species. In Staffordshire Egyptian Goose bred for the first time and both Firecrest and Mediterranean Gull attempted to do so while Osprey summered for the first time in Warwickshire. On the other hand, Pied Flycatchers failed to be recorded on passage in Warwickshire for the first time since 1972. January was a rather dry month but it began rather changeable with some light rain and cloud but with temperatures dropping to zero overnight when clouds cleared. Long-staying birds remaining from 2005 included three Great Northern Divers at Draycote, Black- necked Grebe at Dosthill, Smew at Drayton Bassett and Chasewater, Yellow-browed Warbler at Baswich, Bearded Tit at Napton, Firecrest at Baggeridge CP and Farnborough Park, Great Grey Shrike at Walton-on-Trent and Hawfinches at a number of sites. The large roost of Common Ravens at Swallow Moss in 2005 peaked at 71 on the 4th. New birds included Red-crested Pochard at Branston and three Snow Buntings at Worcestershire Beacon. Two Hen Harriers were seen on most evenings on Swallow Moss being joined by a third bird on the 20th. A small passage of Pink-footed Geese began with 20 over Apedale on the 2nd to be followed by 300 over Baddeley Green on the 4th. A ridge of high pressure built from the 5th to give cloudy but dry weather for the next week. A Water Pipit was found at Doxey on the 5th while an Egyptian Goose on the 6th remained there into April. A flock of five Waxwings at Aldridge on the 7th increased to 21 on the 30th. A Bean Goose of the Taiga race fabalis was identified at Defford Airfield on the 8th. The weather became more unsettled from the 9th as a series of depressions spread in from the Atlantic bringing rain. Four Bean Geese of the Tundra race rossicus were found near Ingestre from 13th to 19th. White gulls were scarce with just an adult and first-winter Iceland Gull at Draycote on 12th and 13th while Smews were seen at Belvide and Croxall on the 14th and 15th. Warm south-westerlies coming in off the Atlantic on the 19th gave rise to the warmest temperatures of the month; Keele recording 10.7°C. However, high pressure then built and dominated to the end of the month producing a cold spell with some overnight frosts. On the 22nd 65 Pink-footed Geese passed over Tittesworth while three Smew were at Whitemoor Haye and a Water Pipit at Essington. Two Red-necked Grebes arrived at Alrewas on the 28th and were joined by a third on the 29th.