A successful start to the L.O.S. Young Birders' Club Campaign

George's introduction

On Friday 12 January, Tony Bishop, George Pike and Martyn Jones began the L.O.S. Young Birders' Club campaign at Gilded Hollins Community Primary School in Leigh. 

Our first presentation was to a Year 4 class of pupils all aged between 8 and 9 years old and the main focus of the session was to tell the pupils about our Society, what we do and how we can all help birds and wildlife in general.

Tony loses his bottle

The presentation was introduced by George with Martyn operating a PowerPoint slideshow and this led into a demonstration by Tony of how to make a simple bird feeder out of a recycled plastic bottle (full details of which are here).

Then it was the pupils turn to make the feeders - the class was divided into five groups of six pupils who each had a tray with all the materials to make one birder feeder between two children.

Fortunately the children listened very carefully and there was only one slight accident with the seed!

Here are some photos of the construction process:

Inserting the perches

Filling the feeder

The finished product

Unfortunately we didn't have time to make the Bird ID Dials as planned with the Year 4 class, and so we left them with the materials and quiz to do so at a later time.  The class teacher seemed very keen to do this and carry on the work we had started.

The first session was finished with Martyn giving a short presentation about the LOS Young Birders' Club which is planning to give a guided tour around the bird hides at Pennington Flash at the Big Garden Birdwatch event being held there on Sunday 27 January, more details about which will follow in a later post.  

Martyn also showed the pupils the new LOS Young Birders' Club Website where they can add their own bird sightings, as well as send in photographs, artwork and nature reports by email for publication on the web.

In the next session we gave a revised version of the presentation to a Year 5 class of pupils aged 9 and 10.

This time we had a little longer to deliver the materials and so after George had done the introduction, Tony showed the class how to make the Bird ID Dial.

The pupils paired up and had no difficulty in cutting out the dials and assembling them with the fastener. To the left is a photo of the finished product.



Tony then demonstrated how to make the bird feeder and again the pupils were very enthusiastic and skilled in making their feeders. Here are some of the results:


At the end of the session the Society donated a metal bird feeder with fat balls for the Year 4 class and a metal and plastic seed feeder to the Year 5 class as a thank-you for their hard work during the sessions. We were made to feel very welcome by all the staff and pupils at Gilded Hollins and they seemed to enjoy the activities as much as we did.  On our way out we noticed that some of the feeders had already been hung up in the trees outside the Year 4 classroom.

Hopefully we will manage to visit a lot more schools and organisations in the area to encourage bird and nature watching and conservation. Our next presentation will be given to St. Thomas' Primary School in Leigh on Wednesday 23 January, and we are hoping to visit Bedford Hall Methodist Primary School next month.

If anyone reading this has any contacts with primary schools in the Wigan and Leigh area we'd like to hear from you so that we might arrange to give them our presentation and encourage membership of L.O.S. Young Birders' Club events.

Martyn Jones

Mink Recording

Following two appearances today by our Conservation Officer Roy Rhodes on BBC North West Today and BBC North West Tonight, we have received 14 new records of mink in the area, bringing the total to 27 records.

If you missed the video reports on BBC TV, they will appear here in the new few days and if you would like to report a mink sighting please do so here, rather than on our normal contact page.

Save wildlife habitat at Worlaby in Lincs

Hi everyone.

Below is a request from Pauline Greenhalgh, asking us all to sign the Government Petition, I would be obliged if you would do this to help save a fantastic bird haunt.

Regards
David Shallcross, Chairman.

P.S. would you also circulate to your own contacts.

https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/43941

This could do with signing by as many folks as we can get it round to. Its been begun by David Newby to try and stop the land at Worlaby in Lincs returning to agriculture and thus losing the short eared owl winter population, not to mention killing all the voles in the process ... 

We have visited on several occasions to take photos as you know and while there have counted 6-8 owls flying and the count has been up to 16 Short-eared Owls some years. We've also seen Barn Owls and Hen Harries hunting over the area. I would say its a Nationally Important feeding place for raptors ...

Perhaps David you could circulate this round the LOS email group? Only a few hundred signatures is hardly going to sway anyone - they need many more folk to sign - this is important for the population of shorties in the whole country - not just a little problem in a corner of Lincolnshire!

Regards

Pauline

First Presentation for L.O.S. Young Birders' Club

Friday 11 January will see the first presentation by L.O.S. members to primary school pupils in a bid to raise awareness of birding, wildlife, habitat and nature in general in our local area. Our first presentation will be to Year 4 and 5 pupils at Gilded Hollins C.P. in Leigh when we will be stressing the importance of feeding birds throughout the winter, making bird feeders and identification dials and finishing off with a short identification quiz.

As a follow up to this presentation, the pupils will be invited with their parents to attend the Big Garden Birdwatch event at Pennington Flash on Sunday 27 January where are number of guided walks will be run by L.O.S. members as well as other related activities.

The long term idea is to form an L.O.S. Young Birders' Club, which meets once a month for a guided walk around a local site.  The youngsters will need to attend with their parents and will be given checklists on which they can record their sightings.  A website has also been developed for them to submit their sightings as well as any reports, photographs or artwork which they do at school or at home. A link is on the right hand side of this page.

More details will follow on the exciting event at Pennington Flash next week.

Breeding Bird Survey 2013

A recording square has become vacant for grid reference SD5300 Billinge. A volunteer is urgently needed.

Please contact Mrs A.J. Smith 01942 861759 for details.

Fieldtrip to Marshside RSPB and Hesketh Bank RSPB

This very next Sunday (13th January), join us all on a trip to the seaside!  Marshside and Hesketh Bank, with possibly Martin Mere en route.

Waders galore plus who knows what else. Weather guaranteed!

Meet at 0800 hrs at Doctors Nook car park, bring friends and lovers, buckets and spades, binoculars and scopes, butties and flasks and last but not least husbands and wives.

Please drop me a line if you can make it.  

Al Foy

Waxwings at Howe Bridge Crematorium

In the last week or so we've been very fortunate to have up to 20 Waxwings in the L.O.S. recording area at Howe Bridge Crematorium.

(c) Ian David Greenhalgh

(c) Ian David Greenhalgh

The birds have been very tame and quite easy to photograph and on some occasions there have been more photographers present than birds!  The only problem has been the weather with the light often being very poor on many occasions.  That said, some excellent shots have been taken by our members.

(c) Pauline Mellor Greenhalgh

(c) Pauline Mellor Greenhalgh

At one point whilst I was there, a large group of noisy leather-clad bikers arrived en masse and headed towards us, clearly quite amused at what all the birders and photographers were doing. Read about what happened here on my blog.

(c) David Shallcross

(c) David Shallcross

I think you'll all agree that there is a great deal of photographic talent in our Society! Martyn Jones

Derby Room Meeting

Our first meeting of the new year is on Friday 4th January.

"The Ken Gallimore Memorial Lecture", once again and for the 42nd time, we welcome Gordon Yates, who will show us his film "A World of Birds"

Gordon has never disappointed us that's why we invite him year after year. Here is an extract from Gordon's Blog, he has a new DVD out which you can buy at the meeting.

The undoubted highlight of the Pennine year was the finding and filming of a female Barn Owl who had laid her eggs on the ground in a corner of a barn. Daily filming was taken of her as her eggs hatched and the young even climbed out on to her back and inter acted with a singing Swallow on a beam above. It was one of the most exceptional events I have ever seen in more than forty years of filming Raptors and highlights our latest DVD ‘A Bird for all Seasons’. This will be our last DVD and incorporates seven years of filming as it follows the lives of eighty species of birds through the seasons of the year. It is proving very popular and one purchaser informed me that he had already watched it thirteen times since he had purchased it twenty days ago!!! 

My DVD can be purchased through my website www.gordon-yates.com  or telephoning me on 01706 631770.

Fieldtrip to Leighton Moss and Sizergh Castle – 18th November 2012.

Nuthatch (c) Martyn Jones

It was a cold start to the morning with fields by the side of the motorway being white with frost as we travelled to the grounds of Sizergh Castle for our first stop.  Some of our members were already there when we arrived and soon pointed out a group of trees where they had seen Treecreeper.

As we watched this area we could see a number of small birds flying up and down from the ground where they were feeding and saw Nuthatch, Bullfinch, Chaffinch, Coal Tit and other members of the Tit family.

Hawfinch (c) David Shallcross

Someone from the other group shouted they had just seen a Waxwing so we all moved across to join them. We checked the area where they had pointed out where there was a large Holly bush with lots of berries but no signs of the Waxwings.

Not long after this another bird higher up, near the top of a large Hornbeam Tree was spotted and when checked through the telescope was found to be a Hawfinch, the bird we had been hoping for.

Eventually three birds were near each other feeding on the Hornbeam seeds and although once again the light wasn’t at its best and with looking towards the sky you couldn’t clearly see all their colours, I think we had a better view than last year when we saw one bird in this same area.

Waxwing (c) Martyn Jones

On now to Leighton Moss and we had only just stepped out of the cars on the car park when a bird flew into one of the trees. After a closer look we could see this again was a single Waxwing which I think most of us managed to see. To the best of my knowledge I think this bird is an LOS first for our site visits.

As we walked to the public causeway we passed a small group of Long Tailed Tits moving their way through the bushes and from the public hide we could see several species of duck such as Goldeneye, Shoveler, Tufted Duck, Pochard, Gadwall, Wigeon, Mallard and Teal, a few Cormorant were on a small island and while we watched all this a Marsh Harrier flew low across the reed beds until it dropped out of sight which put to flight a number of the ducks. Greylag were seen from “Lillian’s hide” and some of our members that arrived before we did said they had seen Bittern, Kingfisher, Snipe, Buzzard, Bullfinch and Treecreeper.

Pintail (c) David Shallcross

From here we went on to the coastal hides and as we walked towards them from the car park we found a patch of Candlesnuff fungi growing on some moss covered logs.

Once in the hides we saw Heron, Little Egret, Lapwing, Redshank, had heard Curlew, saw Pied Wagtail and to add to our duck list some Pintail and a Red Breasted Merganser that was having a little trouble with a fish it had caught as it tried to turn it the right way round so it could swallow it.
Eventually it managed to do this and one more fish ended up as dinner.

On our way home we made one last stop near Warton Crag and at first there wasn’t much to see. After a while, suddenly dozens of Jackdaws began to fly into the nearby trees, a little after this the birds started flying round and a few at a time headed for the rock face. The air was now filled with the characteristic Jackdaw sounds but over all this we heard the loud “cronk” of a Raven and managed to pick it out and eventually saw it land on a rocky ledge. 

Peregrine Falcon (c) Martyn Jones

Not long after this a Peregrine Falcon appeared over the top of the crag but did not stay long as it was being mobbed by Jackdaws.

More and more of the Jackdaws had now flown to various crevices in the rock and as they settled themselves down for the night it was also now time we headed for home.

Thanks to Al for organising the trip and as always to Joan and Jim for my lift.

Jeff Hurst

Final Indoor Meeting of 2012

Marsh Harrier

Just a quick reminder to say that tomorrow evening's (Friday 14th December) presentation talk in the Derby Room at Leigh Library is 'Sky Dancers' by ornithologist and conservation expert Keith Offord.

The 'Sky Dancers' in question are Harriers and these magnificent birds of prey are perhaps one of the most enigmatic and interesting groups of birds.



Of the eleven species of harrier in the world, Britain is host to three, Hen Harrier, Montagu's Harrier and Marsh Harrier and Keith will explain the present state of health of the populations of these three breeding species.

It's a presentation not to be missed and doors open at 7:15pm with the meeting starting at 7:30pm. This is the last meeting of 2012 and as usual everyone including non-members are welcome.

Indoor meetings will resume in the new year on 4th January 2013 with the first fieldtrip of the year being to Marshside RSPB and Hesketh Out Marsh RSPB on 13th January.  Again, everyone is welcome to bring friends and family.

Full details of these and future events are on the meetings and fieldtrips pages.