West Midland Bird Club Annua! Report No 42 1975 Photographs: M C Wilkes The front cover shows a Nuthatch in a typical gravity defying posture. The photograph below portrays a female Kestrel at its nest, the young can be seen to the right of the picture. West Midland Bird Club Annual Report No 42 1975 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 9 Branch Reports 10 Membership Secretary's Report 10 Ringing Secretary's Report 11 Field Meetings Report 11 Ladywalk Reserve 11 Duck Counts at Blithfield Reservoir 12 Birds of Staffordshire—Recent Additions 18 1975 Bird Record Localities 24 Classified Notes 104 Recoveries in 1975 of Birds Ringed in the WMBC Area 110 Recoveries in WMBC Area of Birds Ringed Elsewhere 113 Arrival and Departure of Migrants 120 Key to Contributors 121 List of Species Requiring Descriptions Price £1.00 2 Officers and Committee 1976 President Vacant Vice-Presidents A J Harthan, Dovers Cottage, Weston-sub-Edge, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire 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, 18 Greenhill, Burcot, Bromsgrove, Secretary Worcestershire Ringing P Ireland, 33 Banbrook Close, Solihull, West Secretary Midlands B92 9NF Conservation G C Lambourne, The Cottage Farm, Redditch, Officer Worcestershire B98 OAP Chairman ARM Blake, 102 Russell Bank Road, Four Oaks, Research Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands Committee Kidderminster M R Jones, 7 Lyndhurst Drive, Kidderminster Branch Secretary Staffs. Branch D Smallshire, 8 Wright Avenue, Moathouse Estate, Secretary Wednesfield, Wolverhampton Coventry Branch C H Potter, 227 Boswell Drive, Walsgrave, Coventry Rep Solihull Branch Mrs D Dunstan, 4 Blossomfield Road, Solihull, Rep West Midlands Main Committee Mr T B Hutton, Mrs C Randall, Miss M Young, Mr S Young 3 Editor's Report The Annual Report this year has undergone some significant changes. Last year's editorial referred to local government reorganisation and the effect of the new county boundaries and said that a decision on whether to adopt the new boundaries for record purposes should be made at national level before being finally determined locally. Although no decision has been made nationally, the firm lead in support of the new boundaries taken by " British Birds " has been followed, so, for the first time, records in this report appear under the new county system. In- evitably this has created certain problems, not least being that many observers are uncertain which localities are in which county, especially where the West Midlands is concerned. To overcome this a map of the new counties appears immediately before the Classified Bird Notes. This shows every locality for which a record was submitted for 1975 and is accompanied by an alphabetical list for each county of all localities, together with their grid reference. This should enable observers to determine in which county any particular locality falls. The map also indicates which areas are well recorded and which are inadequately covered. The new county of Hereford-Worcester creates an added complication, since records for the old Herefordshire are still compiled by The Hereford- shire Ornithological Club and those for Worcestershire by the WMBC. Whilst separate records can easily be combined to provide data for the new county, fears were expressed that maintenance of separate records would become increasingly difficult as the old county boundary disap- pears from new maps and memories begin to fade. To alleviate these fears the boundary has to be permanently defined. Fortunately this can be done using parish boundaries, which were unaffected by local government reorganisation, and consequently will remain on future maps. Accordingly, for definitive purposes, a list of the parishes on either side of the old county boundary also precedes the Classified Bird Notes. The editorial changes outlined last year have been expanded. The report has always aimed to do more than simply catalogue occurrences and considerable research is needed if the commentaries on recent trends are to remain meaningful. This year, therefore, the editorial work has been even more widely shared and my thanks are particularly due to Alan Dean, Rob Hume and Dave Smalishire for their help in preparing this report. Thanks are also due to Rob Hume for once again providing his delightful drawings as a visual record of the year's highlights. Finally I must repeat last year's plea for more information on the commoner species, especially comparative data between one year and the next. I would also remind contributors of the list of species at the back of this report for which descriptions are required and urge that the fullest details are provided. 4 Birds in 1975 1975 was a remarkable year that will long be remembered both for its weather and its birds. The continuing succession of mild winters meant that the year began quietly. January and February were not without interest, however, with a party of Waxwings spending several weeks in Staffordshire and records of Slavonian Grebe, Whooper Swan and Glaucous and Iceland Gulls. The discovery of two Mediterranean Gulls was noteworthy. Early March produced several more Iceland Gulls, whilst an extraordinary party of 39 Kittiwakes passed through on the fifth. Spring was very late. Snow fell in early April and May was cold and windy, with severe frost at the end of the month culminating in further snow in places on the first two days of June. Such unseasonal weather brought widespread reports of damaged nests and perished young. Migrants were generally a week behind average and slow to arrive in numbers, with no March records for Sand Martin or Willow Warbler and no Swallow until April 10. The cold weather also inhibited song which in turn doubtless affected breeding success. Despite this, early May saw a Hoopoe and the first of several Ospreys that were to occur during the summer. Gales on the seventeenth, followed by calm, anticyclonic weather the next day, brought a strong movement of Little Gulls, Common and Black Terns, together with a summer-plumaged Long-Tailed Duck. Three days later a Marsh Harrier appeared, to stay until early June, and then an exceptional party of six Temminck's Stints arrived at Upton Warren. After such dismal weather, few could have anticipated the long, hot summer, which began in the first week of June and continued almost unbroken into September. June was the sunniest for twenty-five years and many places recorded their hottest day for half-a-century during the early August heatwave. The hot, dry weather enabled some species to enjoy a good breeding season, but the hirundines suffered in many areas through lack of mud. The outstanding breeding record was that of Firecrest, which in line with its recent national spread, bred in Worcestershire and the west midlands for the first time. A further spread seems likely. In Staffordshire, Field- fares nested for the second consecutive year and Hen Harriers also attemp- ted to breed. Of the commoner species, Stonechats showed a welcome increase, with notable breeding success, especially on wasteground in the Black Country. Black Redstarts also had a good year, Whitethroats continued their recovery and two Marsh Warblers were singing well beyond their normal range. The year was an exceptional one for rare birds in Britain and the west midlands had its share. A Cetti's Warbler was present from early May until mid-July, followed by a Caspian Tern early in July and then, in the middle of the month, a White-Tailed Plover, which for many was 5 the highlight of the year. This bird stayed for a week and was watched by hundreds of observers. If accepted, this will be the first record of this species for Britain and Ireland and the second time that Warwickshire has enjoyed such a privilege, the other less happy occasion being when an Upland Sandpiper was shot in 1851. By mid-August a Peregrine had settled in at Blithfield for a stay that was to last six weeks and a Red Kite passed through Warwickshire. The year was one of the driest on record and by autumn most of the reservoirs were ideal for waders. A marked influx on August 31 included Knots, Sanderlings, Curlew Sandpipers and a solitary Red-necked Phalarope, whilst an Arctic Skua was also noted on the same day. September began with anticyclonic weather, but by mid-month a westerly airstream brought deep depressions and gales. A strong passage of Black Terns occurred on the eighth and ninth and good numbers of Little Stints were reported. October brought many warm, dry days and the year closed as it had begun with very mild weather. Late autumn saw a large influx of Long- Eared Owls and Great Grey Shrikes in Britain and by the end of the year some of these had begun to reach the west midlands, though many more were to appear in 1976. Amongst many interesting records, October brought Black-necked Grebe, Gannet and Whooper Swan; November Great Northern Diver, Long-Tailed Duck and Smew and December Black-Throated Diver and Velvet Scoter which all added to what had been a most exciting year. G R Harrison Obituary Lord Hurcomb The death, this year, of our President, Lord Hurcomb, was a great loss to the many societies with natural history interests in this country and throughout the world: he was either the founder or leader of many of these bodies and perhaps the most influential and important of them was the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, of which he was vice-president.