March Meeting of the Louth Area Gropup

NOT CUDDLESOME – JUST AWESOME!                          OUR LOUTH OTTERS

They move by night along the waterway between Tetney and Louth, they are large in size but few in number. If you are sitting silently in the silent hours by the river bank you may just see one. By day their presence is easily identified by small piles of spraint. Pick one over and you will see that our elusive mammal, the otter, lives on fish, crustaceans and insect larvae whilst crayfish are a favourite food.

Louth wildlife enthusiast, Stewart West, held 70 people spell bound on a March evening when he regaled them with a mixture of facts, anecdotes and video clips. He displayed distribution maps of the otter presence in the UK for the last 50 years which showed how the species had increased in number. His experience of otter observations derives from a lifelong interest. He has recorded them in England and in Scotland and sees them regularly in this area.

Should you be lucky enough to see an individual otter or even a mother and cubs don't approach them. Their powerful jaws and sharp teeth will have your finger off in an instant!

If you missed Stewart’s presentation this time come to the LAG Information Morning on 29 October when he will be there with his videos to answer your questions. RW

Meeting: Conoco Room, above the Library, Friday 11th March 7.30, All welcome!

Our speaker on Friday evening 11 March will be local wildlife expert Stewart West who will talk about, ‘The Ecology and Distribution of Otters in and around the Lincolnshire Wolds’. He will show some videos of otters that live in our local streams. I am not sure whether he will tell us where these streams are located!

At our February meeting I forgot to ask for 2 volunteers to provide and serve the teas, coffees and biscuits at the forthcoming 11 March meeting. It is a hectic task but there is no entry fee for the 2 volunteers and there are always plenty of people crowding into the kitchen to do the washing up. Please let Ruth on ruth.gatenby@tiscali.co.uk  know very soon if you are prepared to have a busy evening otherwise we may have to just chat during our break.

We have a very clever blackbird in our garden who has learnt to balance precariously on the fat balls and peck off lumps which fall to the ground for him to eat. However, he has become a victim of his own success as a cheeky dunnock and a ponderous wood pigeon have noticed his trick. They wait on the ground to pick up the pieces - often before Mr Blackbird hits the ground!

I was fascinated to see a jackdaw watching the blackbird’s trick from a nearby tree. Nevertheless, when he alighted on the fat balls the blackbird chased him away.

  

Many thanks to the 19 people who sent me a copy of their results of the January Great Garden Bird Watch. I have listed the 32 species by family and have added up the totals. The figures are wonderfully skewed as we have a marsh farm and a Wolds smallholding in the results!

Perhaps more of us we can do it again next year and don’t forget the Butterfly Count in August.

Ray Woodcock Chairman LAG

Sparrowhawk	1	Coal tit	7
Pheasant	14	Blue Tit	26
Curlew	6	Great Tit	20
Black-headed gull	47	Magpie	11
Common gull	7	Jackdaw	10
Feral pigeon	9	Rook	20
Wood pigeon	383	Carrion crow	16
Collard Dove	14	Starling	24
Barn Owl	2	House Sparrow	73
Kingfisher	1	Tree sparrow	0
Great spotted woodpecker	1	Chaffinch	12
Green woodpecker	Heard!	Greenfinch	28
Wren	6	Goldfinch	20
Dunnock	11	Brambling	10
Thrush	1	Bullfinch	3
Robin	15	Siskin	1
Blackbird	43	Yellow hammer	2
Long-tailed tit	19

PS: We need a few more raffle prizes for the AGM on 8 April.

Great Garden Bird Watch

SOME RESPONSES TO MY REQUEST FOR YOUR GGBW LISTS

	LIST OF SPECIES AND NUMBERS
	SPECIES	NOS		SPECIES	NOS
1	Sparrowhawk	1	17	Coal tit	7
2	Pheasant	14	18	Blue Tit	26
3	Curlew	6	19	Great Tit	20
4	Black-headed gull	47	20	Magpie	11
5	Common gull	7	21	Jackdaw	10
6	Feral pigeon	9	22	Rook	20
7	Wood pigeon	383	23	Carrion crow	16
8	Collard Dove	14	24	Starling	24
9	Barn Owl	2	25	House Sparrow	73
10	Kingfisher	1	25	Tree sparrow	0
11	Great spotted woodpecker	1	26	Chaffinch	12
11	Green woodpecker	Heard!	27	Greenfinch	28
12	Wren	6	28	Goldfinch	20
13	Dunnock	11	29	Brambling	10
13	Thrush	1	30	Bullfinch	3
14	Robin	15	31	Siskin	1
15	Blackbird	43	32	Yellow hammer	2
16	Long-tailed tit	19

Many thanks to the 19 people who sent me a copy of their observations. I have listed the species by family and have added up the totals. The figures are somewhat skewed as we have a marsh farm and a Wold smallholding in the results!

Not all the lists are shown below. I have just included some that had comments. Thank you again; perhaps we can do it again next year and don’t forget the Butterfly Count in August.

Ray

Rook	20	Robin	2
Starling	7	Collard Dove	2
Gull	lots	Pheasant	4
Curlew	6	Wood pigeon	2
Chaffinch	4	Wren	1
Jackdaw	8	Barn Owl	2
Blackbird	2	Kingfisher	1
Blue Tit	4
Great Tit	6

The sea-gulls maybe don't count for the garden birdwatch, as don't the 309 pigeons I counted on my walk to the paper-shop this morning (they roost in the pine wood), but seeing a kingfisher fly up the dyke was nice and I don't often see two barn owls at once.  If I had got up earlier, I'd have seen the tawnies too.

Notable absences are the sparrows, not house, hedge or tree sparrows, and greenfinches, which several years ago were our commonest bird, are only rarely seen these days.

Biff

Good evening All,

Our list of birds for the bird-count is as listed below: -

BLACKBIRD        3

PHEASANT         2

ROBIN               1

WOODPIGEON    1

BLUE TIT             2

WREN                1

Weather was warm that day: as always, we usually get more numbers and species, but that was it for that weekend.

Regards,

Brian

Good evening Ray

These were my sightings last weekend: House sparrow 6, Starlings 8, Blackbirds 5, Blue Tits 3, Feral pigeons 7, Robin 1, Great Tits 2, Gold Finches 3, Collar Doves 2, Magpies 5, Dunnock 2, Long Tailed Tits 5, Carrion Crows 4, Jackdaws 5, Greenfinch 2, Pheasant 1, Yellow Hammers 2, Black Headed Gull 1(lots overhead!) With a bank, hedge and field next door, we always have plenty of activity.

We have yellow hammers regularly. When we came here first our keen friend in Horncastle Road had never seen one in her garden so was sceptical. But with a good hawthorn hedge on top of a bank they come down to take the seed I deliberately scatter for them. I do not think that Brian sees them and he is only a few 100 yards away.

Hope to see you Friday.

Ken

Hello Ray

These are the birds we recorded: -

Blackbird 1 House sparrow 6, Crows 3 Starling 3, Robin 2, Wood pigeon 2

Bullfinch 2, Greenfinch 11

I think they were just passing through

Bluetits 2

Great tits 1

Sadly, no long tailed tits   

Happy bird watching to you and Jane

Brenda

I was pleased to see the Coal Tit as I have seen him around in my garden recently when he got caught looking in the mirror at the back of a glass ornament on the wall and could not get out.

I had a good look at him then until a crowd of other birds gathered and diverted him from his fascination with his image.

See you on Friday

Best wishes to Jane

Regards

Christine

Species seen at Coastguard Cottage Theddlethorpe brambling, great spotted woodpecker chaffinch, wren, dunnock, great tit, blue tit, magpie, wood pigeon, robin, blackbird, pheasant. 

regards John

Many thanks,

Just think what the list would be if we recorded your Rimac sightings.

Ray

Ray 85 species this week (John)

Here is my list of birds observed for the Big Garden Bird Watch:

1 magpie, 3 blackbirds, 2 blue tits, 6 chaffinches, 9 goldfinches, 2 sparrows, 1 robin, 1 long-tailed tit, 2 pigeons and 1 great tit.

This is representative of what we see in the garden, although we often see collared doves and starlings.

Best wishes

Glynis Dunthorne

Hi Ray,

My list from last Sunday is   6 blackbirds, (fighting over some apples) 1 blue tit, 1 great tit, 2 collared doves, 1 starling, 2 wood pigeons, 1 thrush and from the front garden 17 (at least..... they kept moving) sparrows

 Not very inspiring but it all helps in the count Since then of course I have had chaffinch, greenfinch, robin, long-tailed tits, dunnock and a wren but not in the hour last weekend.

See you on Tuesday, Sue

The peregrine nest tray was installed on Monday, though sightings have been rather sparse in the past couple of weeks.

Regards

Geoff (Mullett)

Your long tailed tits were in our garden, Ray.  7 of them. Also, 1 blackbird, 2 robins, two blue tits, two great tits, about 15 house sparrows, a wren.
At the back, in the field, five magpies, 7 crows cock pheasant, a flock of pigeons and a flock of sea gulls. FYI, the following day(Monday) in our young woodland at Raithby by Splilsby I saw a Kingfisher, two barn owls, a buzzard being harried by rooks and I heard a green wood pecker.
Margot Charlton

Can't match Biff for numbers or diversity but my results were as follows:

Blackbird 4

Blue tit 2

Chaffinch 2

Coal tit 2

Collared dove 2

Dunnock 1

Great tit 1

Greenfinch 3

Jackdaw 5

Robin 1

Siskin 1

House Sparrow 7

Starling 3

Wood pigeon 2

Most of the normal candidates put in an appearance apart from the Goldfinches. My bird of the day was the Siskin, who obviously came specially to brighten my day! Louise

Judith John here and I live in the centre of Louth. I saw, for the garden bird watch, 13 blackbirds, 5 long tailed tits, 2 coal tits, 3 blue tits, a great tit, 2 chaffinches, 7 starlings, 5 sparrows and a bullfinch. And also 2 ring-necked collared doves and 4 woodpigeons.
Other birds seen in the garden but not on the day include a greenfinch, jackdaw and last summer we had 2 hedgehogs!

Judith

And of course there was my sightings which included a couple of Common gulls and 5 Black-headed gulls. These noisy birds sit on our roof waiting for bread or better still scraps of meat. Ray