West Midland Bird Club Annual Report No. 72 2005 The Birds of Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands 2005 Annual Report 72 Editor D.W. Emley Published by West Midland Bird Club 2007 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 2005 Annual Report 72 Contents 4 Editorial 5 Submission of Records 6 Birds and Weather in 2005 14 Systematic List 222 Ringing in 2005 228 Belted Kingfisher – a first for the Region 229 Aquatic Warbler in Warwickshire – a first for the county 230 The Farnborough Lesser Scaup – second record for the Region 232 County Lists 239 Gazetteer 247 List of Contributors 251 Index to Species Front Cover Photograph: Waxwing at Coleshill, Steve Valentine 3 Editorial A huge amount of work goes into the production of this Report so I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the production team for their sterling efforts in reducing the backlog to the extent that this year we have been able to publish two Reports – no mean task! It is encouraging to see the increase in the number of contributors (over 330), many of these now submitting records by BTO’s Birdtrack. This does have its problems though when it comes to compiling the list of contributors, especially when people have the same surname and initials. Please, therefore, could you supply your full name to the recorders when sending in your records. This year also saw the ability of WeBs recorders to submit their data electronically too, all of which should be accessible to the County Recorders. Increasingly the Club is receiving requests for bird-related data in connection with planning applications. Often these relate to areas that are not of direct interest to us but, sometimes, they are and in this context the importance of continual monitoring of bird populations cannot be over emphasised. In order to counter these applications, or at least mitigate any effects of the development, we need site-related data; not just records of rare species but, more importantly, of the common species. We need to know which species breed on a site and what use is made of the site by migrants and wintering birds. With the increasing pressures on our countryside, your records have never been more important – please send them in! If we don’t know what occurs on your favourite patch, we can’t help when the developers move in. Tim Hextell has stepped down as Recorder for the West Midlands and I would like to thank him most sincerely for all his efforts in that post. It is a pleasure to welcome Kevin Clements as his replacement and, on behalf of the Club, wish him well in that role. 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 Jonathan Bowley and Roger Broadbent for their articles; to Bert Coleman for another fascinating Ringing Report and to artists and photographers Phil Jones, Dave Kelsall, Brian Kington, Andy Mabbett, Brian McGeough, Richard Newton, John Robinson, Steve Seal, Neil Stych, Steve Valentine 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, Brian Stretch and Dave Walker. Staffordshire: Nick Pomiankowski, Report Writers; Neil Carter, Martin Godfrey and Andy Lawrence, Rarities Committee; Eric Clare, Bernard Smith, Mark Sutton, Steve Turner and Steve Nuttall, Site Report Compilers; Steve Nuttall, Mike Boote and Ray Perry, Data Input; 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 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] 5 Birds and Weather 2005 2005 saw a total of 242 species recorded in the Region; an improvement on 2004 when there were only 235. Among these Belted Kingfisher was new, giving a grand Regional total of 342. The latter of course a first for Staffordshire while Aquatic Warbler and Lesser Scaup were additions to the Warwickshire list (as was a recently accepted Least Sandpiper in 2002) and Dartford Warbler to that of the West Midlands. The latter species also bred for the first time in the Region since the 1870s – in Staffordshire. However, I suspect that the year will be best remembered for the unprecedented invasion of Waxwings with many three-figure flocks being reported and a few four-figure flocks too. January began rather unsettled with bands of rain and strong winds sweeping in from the west. Despite this it was rather mild, up to 12°C. The weather settled for a day or two with plenty of sunshine before another spell of wet and windy weather moved in on the 4th. Temperatures remained mild, even reaching 15°C. Birds remaining from 2004 included a flock of 17 Tundra Bean Geese at Whitemoor Haye, a male Smew at Draycote, Black Redstarts at the National Arboretum and Kings Bromley, a Cetti’s Warbler at Belvide, two Velvet Scoters at Draycote, Eurasian Bittern at Aqualate and Upton Warren and a Long-tailed Duck at Mars Lane. Of perhaps greatest interest though was the fact that some 2000 Waxwings were spread across the Region with the largest numbers being in the north. A male Smew remained at Chasewater from the 1st to March 6th while a female remained at Drayton Bassett Pits from the 9th to 28th. Roost watchers managed to find a scattering of Glaucous and Iceland Gulls throughout the month while a Caspian Gull was found at Throckmorton on the 9th. The mild conditions suited the rarer Chiffchaffs with Kempsey hosting a Scandinavian Chiffchaff on the 2nd while Hams Hall had one on the 5th and a Siberian Chiffchaff on the 10th. A Great Grey Shrike was found at Croome Landscape Park on the 6th and Firecrests at Clayhanger on the 8th and in a garden near to Walsall Arboretum on the 9th. A Great Northern Diver at Draycote, also on the 9th, was one of only two divers in the Region in the first winter period. A flock of 24 Jack Snipe at Lighthorne Quarry on the 10th was a record count for Warwickshire. High pressure built from the south on the 13th, maintaining the high temperatures of the past week, but leading to some overnight frosts. On the 13th, a skein of 100 Pink-footed Geese passed westwards over Little Stoke, the precursor of things to come. Another Great Grey Shrike was found on the 14th, this time on Cannock Chase, while there was great excitement on the 15th when a male Pine Bunting was found in a game crop at New Farm. By this time the Waxwing numbers had reached 3500 with one flock alone reaching 900 in Stoke-on-Trent! The high pressure began to slip away eastwards on the 17th and a series of depressions with their associated fronts brought a period of unsettled weather, accompanied by high winds, which turned wintry in parts.