West Midland Bird Club Annual Report No 43 1976
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West Midland Bird Club Annual Report No 43 1976 Swallow by M. C. Wilkes West Midland Bird Club Annual Report No 43 1976 Being the Annual Bird Report of the West Midland Bird Club on the birds in the counties of Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire and West Midlands. Contents 2 Officers and Committee 3 Editor's Report 6 Treasurer's Report and Financial Statement 8 Secretary's Report 8 Branch Fleports 10 Membership Secretary's Report 10 Ringing Secretary's Report 10 Ladywalk Reserve 11 Movements of Starlings to and from the West Midlands 1 5 Status of the Little Gull in the West Midlands 1947-76 16 Hybrid Glaucous x Herring Gull 18 1976 Bird Record Localities 23 Classified Notes 99 Ringing in 1976 111 Key to Contributors 112 Species Requiring Descriptions Price £1.00 2 Officers and Committee 1977 President C A Norris, Brookend House, Welland, Worcestershire Chairman A T Clay, The Coppice', Park Lane, Great Alne, Warwickshire B49 6HS Secretary A J Richards, 1 Lansdowne Road, Studley, Warwickshire B80 7JG Membership D M Hawker, 19 Wycome Road, Hall Green, Secretary Birmingham B28 9EN D M Thomas, 43 Mayhurst Road, Hollywood, Treasurer Birmingham B47 5QG G R Harrison, Bryher', Hatton Green, Hatton, Editor Warwickshire CV35 7LA Field Meetings N P Coldicott, 183 Station Road, Wylde Green, Secretary Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands Ringing P Ireland, 33 Banbrook Close, Solihull, Secretary West Midlands B92 9NF Conservation G C Lambourne, The Cottage Farm, Redditch, Officer Worcestershire B98 OAP Chairman ARM Blake, 102 Russell Bank Road, Four Oak: Research Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands Committee Kidderminster M R Jones, 7 Lyndhurst Drive, Kidderminster Branch Secretary Staffs Branch D Smallshire, 25 Caspian Way, Wheaton Aston, Secretary Stafford Solihull Branch Mrs D Dunstan, 4 Blossomfield Road, Solihull, Rep West Midlands Main Committee Mrs D Dunstan, Mrs C Randall, Miss M Young, K J Bentley, S C Brown, T B Hutton, A F Jacobs and S Young 3 Editor's Report To combat continuing inflation, this year's Report has been slimmed down and printed by a cheaper process, but I hope readers will not detect any significant reduction in quality. The aim has been to maintain an accurate, informative and well-presented Report, whilst keeping costs within an acceptable budget. Amongst the changes, the Migrant Tables have been merged with the Classified Notes and some wildfowl and wader counts have been tabulated. More records than ever were submitted for 1976 and I must thank everyone for their contributions. Inevitably, with space limitations, they cannot all be published, but I hope this does not disappoint anyone to the extent that they are deterred from submitting records in the future. Every record is valuable. Rare or unusual records, many from observers unknown to the Editorial Committee, continue to increase. To be'scrupulously fair, each one must be fully substantiated before it can be accepted for publication as an authentic record. This procedure is not designed to question an observer's ability or integrity, but simply to establish facts, and it is being applied even more rigorously than hitherto. May^ I therefore appeal to all contributors to send full descriptions with any record relating to a species included in the list at the back of this Report. A small percentage are rejected, usually because the observer declines to provide any description or is so brief that all similar species cannot confidently be eliminated. Finally I must again thank Alan Dean, Rob Hume and Dave Smallshire for their help in writing this Report and Rob Hume also for providing the illustrations. Birds in 1976 In a year of climatic extremes, 1976 will be remembered for the worst drought in 250 years. It was a good year though for divers, sea-duck, raptors, waders and terns and altogether 222 species or distinct races were recorded—more than in any previous year. Winter was generally mild, with brief cold spells and a severe hurricane on January 2. A longer cold spell in late January and early February froze many waters outside the Midlands, causing an influx of wildfowl especially Smew. Long-eared Owls were widespread and three Rock Pipits occurred in January. Several waders were unusual winter visitors as were three Woodlarks in late February. Snow Buntings and a Spotted Crake enlivened a quiet March, whilst a strong arrival of Wheatears on the twenty-first, followed by the first Swallows and House Martins promised an early Spring that did not materialise. Early April held few surprises, but water levels were low and highlights of an excellent passage in the second half of the month were four Harriers, 4 two Ospreys, two Kentish Plovers, a pair of Dotterel and an exceptional party of 54 Bar-tailed Godwits. Four Avocets appeared in mid-May, a small Black Tern passage began on the twenty-third and Whiskered Terns were noted on the next two days. Other May highlights were four Temminck's Stints and a Little Bittern, which was the first for over seventy years. With the driest, warmest and sunniest summer this century, insects were abundant, so many species enjoyed good breeding success. Ruddy Duck bred for the first time in Warwickshire; the first positive proof of Hobby breeding in Staffordshire was obtained and Cirl Bunting may have bred in Worcestershire. Red-backed Shrike, Grey Phalarope, Corncrake and Caspian Tern occured in June, whilst July produced two Spoonbills, Quail and Savi's Warbler. August saw the first Curlew Sandpipers, a Peregrine which stayed for a month and the first of several Wrynecks. The driest sixteen months on record ended abruptly in late August. Autumn, with the second wettest September ever, periods of severe gales and a December which was one of. the four coldest this century, brought several influxes of seabirds and a scatter of continental drift migrants. Several summer visitors stayed late. Fieldfares arrived late and Siskin and Brambling were virtually non-existent. Gales and storms between September 9 and 13 produced Great and Arctic Skuas, Sabine's Gull, Pur- ple Sandpiper and Red-backed Shrike, whilst a White-winged Black Tern occurred at the end of the month. A second Grey Phalarope was seen in early October; raptors were especially evident in mid-month, when an ex- ceptional party of 13 Snow Buntings was reported, and Ruddy Duck reached an all-time national maximum of 350 at Belvide. Gales in late October brought an influx of sea duck and two divers. Merlins were unusually widespread during November and the last Swift was noted on the 28th! A Guillemot was found dead in December, when a hard weather movement between the 9th and 12th brought Whooper Swans, White-fronted Geese, Velvet Scoter and Red-necked Grebe; and another between the 1 7th and 26th produced all three species of Diver and two parties of White-fronted Geese as a reminder of how exciting a hard winter can be. G R Harrison Obituaries Stanley C. Porter The untimely death of Stan Porter was a sad loss to the Club. His reputation as a bird photographer was national and his pictures appeared in most of the prestigeous publications. Not all bird photographers are ornithologists but Stan Porter was and perhaps it was that fact that made him always put the welfare of the bird first; in this respect, in addition to 5 his skill, he was an example to those younger photographers whom he so generously helped. He was an enthusiastic member of the club and his advice was often sought and given. AT Clay Antony John Harthan Different people will undoubtedly remember Antony Harthan for a wide range of different reasons but there will be a common denominator which we will all share; we enjoyed his company wherever and whenever we met him. He was one of the most genuine people I have ever met and his devotion to the cause of nature conservation was an inspiration to everyone who knew him. He was born in the Vale of Evesham in 1908, educated in Oundle, and spent nearly all his life working in the area, taking over a fruit farm at Sherriffs Lench before the war where the attractively named Badgers Hill was his home until 1963. A visit to Badgers Hill was an education for Antony knew his birds in a way that few can equal. With the advantage of living and working in the country and with a remarkable facility for observation he really understood what was going on around him. His meticulous recording enabled him, long before the modern survey techniques were developed, to demonstrate the way in which bird populations fluctuated from year to year; it was in the early 1950s that he was expressing alarm at the damage being done by the new agricultural and horticultural techniques. His monument will certainly be The Birds of Worcestershire which was published in December 1946 and brought up to date in 1961, but these two publications do scant justice to the man who dedicated his life to the countryside. Of course the Birds of Worcestershire was invaluable as it was the first list to be published since 1901 and a great deal had been discovered in the forty five year interval, but it is a revealing work for, unlike so many county avifaunas, Antony Harthan gave his Worcestershire work a special flavour with his original observations of bird behaviour. Coming at a time when the five volumes of The Handbook of British Birds was the bird-watchers Bible, and Field Guides had not been invented, Harthans Worcestershire was a gem. With the passing of Antony Harthan we have lost a man of distinction and great personal charm and that most valuable, and increasingly rare, individual the all round naturalist who really knew the countryside.