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West Midland Bird Club Annual Report No. 71 2004 The Birds of Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands 2004 Annual Report 71 Editor D.W. Emley Published by West Midland Bird Club 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 2004 Annual Report 71 Contents 4Editorial 6 Submission of Records 7 Birds and Weather in 2004 14 Systematic List 194 Ringing in 2004 201 Black-headed Bunting in Nuneaton – a first for the Region 202 Broad-billed Sandpiper at Drayton Bassett Pits – a first for Staffordshire 204 Dartford Warbler on Cannock Chase – first record for 100 years 206 Observations and Migration in the Apedale area 216 County Lists 223 Gazetteer 229 List of Contributors 233 Index to Species Front Cover Photograph: Little Egret at Branston, Steve Valentine 3 Editorial What to do about escapes, or suspected escapes! This has always been a problem for the County Recorders. A number of species that have only occurred in our Region as escapes have figured in the main species list at the back of the Annual Reports – usually in square brackets – mainly because they have occurred in the wild in Great Britain. The recent decision by BOURC to split Canada Goose has left us with the problem of where to place Lesser Canada Goose; after Canada Goose or in the Exotica section. The Report and Records Committee has sought to overcome this by setting up an Appendix 1 to the list which will contain those species known to have occurred in the wild in GB but only as escapes in our Region. This will include all those species previously listed in square brackets e.g. Snow Goose and those sedentary species not known to have established populations in the Region and which are unlikely to have wandered here naturally e.g. Golden Pheasant. Occasionally escapes of species that occur naturally in our Region turn up e.g. White Stork and in these cases they are indicated as such in the main account but are not included in the totals. It is important that we continue to document the occurrence of species on Appendix 1 for today’s escapes could be tomorrow’s wild birds and for this reason we still require some kind of supporting evidence when claiming any of them. The more observant of you will notice that Ruddy Shelduck has been put in Appendix 1 but not Egyptian Goose. BOURC is of the opinion that no wild Ruddy Shelduck are believed to have occurred in Great Britain since 1946 so we have followed their lead and placed it in Appendix 1. However, there is a strong possibility that Egyptian Geese could reach us from the naturalised populations in Norfolk so it remains on the main list. Appendix 1 thus contains the following species: Great White Pelican Red-breasted Goose Saker Greater Flamingo Ruddy Shelduck Golden Pheasant Lesser White-fronted Goose Marbled Duck Lady Amherst’s Pheasant Snow Goose Falcated Duck Red-headed Bunting Ross’s Goose White-headed Duck Lesser Canada Goose Hooded Merganser One further change to the list is to rename the Exotica section Appendix 2 to fit in with the newly designated Appendix 1. The regional list is reduced by two as the 1953 record of Tawny Pipit has been rejected by BBRC and Ruddy Shelduck is assigned to Appendix 1. One of the advantages of computerising Staffordshire’s records has been the ability to produce up-to-date distribution maps. But, even better than this, has been making these available over the internet thanks to the efforts of Craig Slawson of Staffordshire Ecological Record. These can be found at http://www.staffs-ecology.org.uk/atlas/atlas.php Finally it gives me great pleasure in expressing my, and the Club’s, thanks to Gilly Jones who has stepped down as County Recorder for Staffordshire. Such a job can, at times, be both rewarding and thankless but she carried out her role in a conscientious and meticulous manner and our knowledge of Staffordshire’s birds is all the better for that. We welcome Nick Pomiankowski as her replacement and wish him well for the future. 4 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 Andrew and Angela Goodwin, John Harris, Nick Pomiankowski and Steve Seal, for their articles; to Bert Coleman for another fascinating Ringing Report and to artists and photographers Steve Cole, Terry Davies, Tony Davison, Alan Dean, Pete Dedicoat, John Harris, Phil Jones, Dave Kelsall, Mark Priest, Steve Seal, Steve Turner, and Andy Warr for making their work available; and above all to the County Recorders and their teams: Warwickshire: Jonathan Bowley Worcestershire: Andy Warr, Terry Hinett and Brian Stretch Staffordshire: Nick Pomiankowski, Neil Carter, Martin Godfrey and Andy Lawrence. West Midlands: Tim Hextell. 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 5 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 JJ Bowley 17 Meadow Way, Fenny Compton, Southam, Warwickshire CV47 2WD [email protected] Worcestershire A Warr 14 Bromsgrove St, Worcester, WR3 8AR [email protected] Staffordshire N Pomiankowski 22 The Villas, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 5AQ [email protected] West Midlands K Clements 26 Hambrook Close, Dunstall Park, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, WV6 0XA [email protected] Ringing Secretary All ringing recoveries 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. D W Emley, 23 Leacroft, Stone, Staffs, ST15 8GF [email protected] 6 Birds and Weather 2004 2004 saw a total of 235 species recorded in the Region. Among these were two firsts – Bufflehead and Black-headed Bunting – making a grand Regional total of 341 species. It would have been 343 but the 1953 record of Tawny Pipit in Staffordshire has been removed following a review of records by BBRC and Ruddy Shelduck has been placed in the newly-formed Appendix 1. The wandering Bufflehead was added to the county totals for Staffordshire, Warwickshire and West Midlands, while Black-headed Bunting was added to that of Warwickshire. Other county additions included Broad-billed Sandpiper and Red-rumped Swallow in Staffordshire and Spotted Sandpiper and Little Bunting (in 2003) in the West Midlands. January started rather cold and changeable with some heavy rain in the north of the Region. High pressure to the south gave cloudy but mild conditions with rain or drizzle on the 5th giving way to scattered showers on the 6th. There followed a very unsettled few days as vigorous depressions swept their associated fronts across the Region it being mostly mild or very mild at first. A deep depression then brought gales and lower temperatures with some thundery showers on the 11th and more rain or blustery showers followed on the 12th and 13th as another depression tracked close by. Yet another deep depression crossed northern England during the 15th and 16th bringing widespread gales and flooding in some areas. An arctic airstream brought heavy snowfall, accompanied by thunder and lightning, during the 28th and, after a sunny but cold start on the 29th, heavy rain and gales swept across the Region from the west. The year started well with a herd of 19 Bewick’s Swans at Dosthill, five Whooper Swans at Whitemoor Haye and, following strong southerly gales on December 31st, the first Fulmar in the Region for ten years at Draycote. Meanwhile the Park Hall Long-eared Owl roost held seven birds.