West Midland Bird Club West 20092009 Annual Report No. 76 2009 7676 The Birds of Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands 2009 Annual Report 76 Editor D.W. Emley Published by West Midland Bird Club 2011 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 2009 Annual Report 76 Contents 4 Editorial 5 Submission of Records 6 Birds and Weather in 2009 15 Systematic List 236 Ringing in 2009 244 The status of Caspian Gull Larus cachinnans in the West Midlands region 250 County Lists 257 Gazetteer 266 List of Contributors 271 Index of Species Front cover photograph: Pochard at Westport Lake, Steve Seal 3 Editorial Publication of this Report comes hot on the heels of the recently published Checklist of the Birds of Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands. In essence this Checklist is a distillation of all the information gathered in the Annual Reports going back to the 1940s. Guidance is given in it on how to submit records of rare or unusual birds to this Report as well as showing the likelihood of seeing each species at various times during the year and providing checklists for each county. Recent and growing interest in sub-species and races has prompted me to add several more to the list of species in the back of this Report. Following British Birds (BB 104:p53 2011), we have adopted several changes to English names: Sky Lark to Skylark, Wood Lark to Woodlark, Greater Canada Goose to Canada Goose and Lesser Canada Goose to Cackling Goose. Producing a report like this one is a team effort involving not just the County Recorders, photographers and article writers but also the printers. This is my 10th Annual Report and, during all that time, I have benefitted enormously from the help given by Mike Gaydon of Healeys. So much so, that the time taken from him receiving my text to it reaching the press is just over a week. Mike retires this year after over 40 years in the business. On behalf of the Club I wish him well in his retirement. Since 1983 the Ringing Report has been produced by Bert Coleman; the Club’s Ringing Secretary. This year he has decided that he wishes to pass on the baton. His reports have always made for fascinating reading, as have his articles based on that data. I personally have benefited greatly from his counsel and on behalf of myself and the Club, I thank him for his enormous contributions and wish him well in the future. Finally, records that used to be assigned to Drayton Bassett Pits are now assigned to Middleton Lakes following the opening of the RSPB reserve on the Warks/Staffs border. 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 Alan Dean for his article; to Andy Lawrence for helping with the Ringing Report and to artists and photographers Dave Burns, Bob Duckhouse, Steve Gibson, Bill Goldstraw, Phil Jones, Dave Kelsall, John Robinson, Steve Seal, Steve Valentine, Dave Taylor and Andy Warr, for making their work available; and above all to the County Recorders and their teams: Warwickshire: Jonathan Bowley Worcestershire: Steve Payne, Report Writers & Compilers Steven Payne and Andy Warr; Rarities Committee; Gavin Peplow, Rob Prudden, Brian Stretch, Dave Walker and Andy Warr 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. 4 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 Submission of Records All contributors are asked to follow the guidelines set out in the A Checklist of the Birds of Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands and Guide to Status and Record Submission (third edition 2011). 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 Steve Payne 6 Norbury Close, Redditch, B98 8RP [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] 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. D W Emley, 23 Leacroft, Stone, Staffs, ST15 8GF [email protected] 5 Birds and Weather 2008 A total of 238 species was recorded in the Region, cf. 234 in 2008 and 228 in 2007. Of this total, there were no additions to the Regional list but Worcestershire and Warwickshire both had their first Glossy Ibises following a national influx. Warwickshire had its first Woodchat Shrike and second Little Bunting (first in 1902). It also had its first breeding record of Goosander. January was mostly dry but very cold with some severe frosts to start with. Thereafter, it became much more unsettled with rain at times and remaining generally cold, but with some brief milder interludes. The month began with high pressure covering the region and with variable amounts of cloud but also clear sunny periods. Winds were light and this led to frosts and rime covering the trees. A number of interesting birds remained in the area from 2008 including 38 White-fronted Geese at Doxey, a Red-necked Grebe, four Great Northern Divers and Red-throated Diver at Draycote, three Bewick’s and two Whooper Swans at Whitemoor Haye, three Hen Harriers on Swallow Moss, one at Hinton-on-the- Green and the radio-tagged bird at Dosthill. New birds included a Bar-tailed Godwit at Belvide, 16 Waxwings at Heathcote and a Long-eared Owl at Kingsbury. The 2nd saw a Brent Goose at Uttoxeter Quarry, five Hawfinches at Croome Park and 15 Waxwings at Wolverley. More, probably Continental, Hawfinches appeared with two at Trentham Gardens and four at Madeley church, which increased to eight on the 4th; remaining there to the 16th. A Black-necked Grebe arrived at Coton on the 5th and 60 Pink-footed Geese passed over Hanchurch. Nine Whooper Swans were at Chasewater on the 9th, a Common Redpoll at Sandwell and 80 Corn Buntings at Whitemoor Haye on the 10th. High pressure then moved south-eastwards allow - ing milder air from the south-west and its consequent periods of rain and strong winds. A record flock of 161 Mandarins at Brookleys Lake during the month may have been the birds from Bradley Dam in Derbyshire. On the 11th a Firecrest was found at Upton-on-Severn, a Siberian Chiffchaff at Endon STW and Waxwings at Bewdley, Avoncroft and Redditch. Another Hawfinch was found on the 13th, this time on the Westlands and Siberian Chiffchaff, Phil Jones another 60 Waxwings at Rugeley on the 15th. A Hen Harrier remained at Grandborough from the 15th into March. A deep area of low pressure moved north on the 17th bringing very unsettled weather with strong, gale-force winds and squally showers with hail before giving way to colder westerlies bringing sunny spells and scattered wintry showers. A Great White Egret arrived at Middleton Lakes on the 17th while up to three Iceland Gulls were in the roost at Draycote on the 19th. The 21st saw more Waxwings with 70 on Cannock Chase and 70 in Longton. From the 22nd areas of low pressure moved eastwards bringing heavy rain with localised flooding. Between the rain we had sunny spells and scattered showers. On the 22nd at Firecrest was found at Hams 6 Hall while 110 Waxwings were seen at Basford on 23rd.