n e w s l e t t e r WINTER 2015

AN ON-LINE COLOUR VERSION OF THE NEWSLETTER IS AVAILABLE AT:

www.rspb.org.uk/groups/suttoncoldfield/ Then click on ‘NEWS’

Sutton Coldfield Local Group

Editorial A very warm welcome to the latest edition of the Newsletter from your Local RSPB Group. As you turn the pages I’m sure you will agree that we have quite a diverse range of flora and fauna for you in this edition from the very tiny to the slightly larger!

We start with Matthew Barker encouraging us to take a closer look at Sutton Park (p2-3). I have been lucky enough this year

to be involved in some of the recording of the flora in the park as part of creating a new flora list for Sutton Park. I can only marvel at how lucky we are to have such an important jewel of a nature reserve right on our doorstep. I would echo Matthew’s request in urging everyone to report any sightings of flora and/or fauna you have to the Park Rangers on site or at the Visitor Centre. In this way a true picture of the wildlife present or passing through can be recorded and therefore help to safeguard and shape the management of the park. A big thank you to all those of you who have shared your birding/wildlife highlights with us (p4-5). It’s lovely to hear about those special moments and ‘once in a life-time’ experiences. I can certainly relate to Janet Meakin’s experience in particular when I had a similar magical experience one day in July whilst walking along the River Severn heading out of Shrewsbury. It was a glorious day, wild flowers lined our route in abundance and there seemed to be a new delight at every turn including good views of

What’s this? See pages 2-3 to find out...

a kingfisher, sand martins, a kestrel family and even a pair of owls to name but a few. Talking of ‘once in a lifetime’ experiences it seems that some of our members have been fulfilling lifelong ambitions too (p6-7). What a magical time that must have been! Luck was certainly on their side that day. If you are interested in exploring the intriguing world of the names of our British birds and gain a fascinating insight into our long and intimate relationship with birds then Geoff Green has produced something you may be interested in (p8).

And last but by no means least we are now delighted to welcome Mark Cordle to the Group Leader role; although Mark is new to the RSPB, he is enthusiastic about the Group and we look forward to him taking us into new directions for the future. More details will be in our next issue! Until next time, thank you to everyone who has contributed to this edition. Happy Birding! Jackie, Editor

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Sutton Park National Nature Reserve is a 2100 acre site comprised of three distinct habitats. The first and dominant habitat within the park is lowland heath. The heath within the park is comprised of a number of distinct plant communities including acid grasslands, expansive regions of heather and gorse along with wetter areas of birch woodland bog and mire. The second distinct habitat within the park comes in the form of the 16th Century coppice woodlands. The coppice woodlands were created as an economic resource to provide fuel and timber and also a supply of holly used to supplement winter grazing. Today the coppices are dominated by oak with an almost unique understory of mature holly with a number of plantation species interspersed. The third distinct habitat within the park is that of the watercourses along with the seven pools that were created to provide fish for the medieval table and latterly as a power source for water mills. These three distinct habitats form a complex network across the park providing a diverse range of opportunities for many animal species throughout the year.

The heath within the park provides a home to species such as stonechat, Dartford warbler, grasshopper warbler and skylark. Green woodpeckers constantly feed alongside an increasing number of starling. Common lizards can be heard scurrying through the undergrowth. Rabbit burrows provide a home for wheatear along with the droppings so beloved of the minotaur beetle whose pencil-sized holes can be seen around burrows in late winter.

The wetter areas provide suitable habitats for species such as the reed warbler and cuckoo. The wetter areas also play home to frogs, smooth newts, and a great many spiders that live alongside the snipe that love to induce screams of surprise from certain members of staff! Above the heath throughout the summer, swallows, swifts and house martins can be seen feeding on a wide variety of invertebrate species which will include both the heather and hieroglyphic ladybirds.

SUTTON PARK NATIONAL NATURE RESERVE by

Matthew Barker, Sutton Park Ranger

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Stonechat male perched on bramble.

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On a hot sunny day the beautiful green tiger beetle can be seen hunting for prey as buzzards soar effortlessly overhead. At night fall glow worm can be seen preparing for their nights of illuminated passion.

The woodland within the park provides a habitat for countless species of harvestmen and centipede along with songbirds including wren, bullfinch, goldcrest and crossbill. Sparrowhawk hunt through the trees and occasionally goshawk are seen. Stoats and weasels dash over paths hunting rabbit and mice. As night falls across the park tawny owls begin their dialogue as brown long-eared bats emerge from their roosts to hunt along-side noctule and pipistrelle bats. Foxes and muntjac bark their respective calls as badgers snuffle over the woodland floor.

The streams and pools across the park contain pike, perch, carp and bream and increasingly trout once more. White clawed crayfish hide away out of sight alongside bullheads to avoid the attention of the herons and little egrets that stalk the streams. Kingfishers can be seen patrolling the water and travers-ing the pools. If you are very lucky you may see an osprey. They fly over the park around September and have, on occasion, been seen to fish. The waters also provide a habitat for dragonfly species such as the 4-spot and broad-bodied chasers seen on their ceaseless pursuits. Many of the animal species that are peculiar to heathland areas such as Sutton Park are easily overlooked but with a little patience and a touch of perseverance much can be found. All sightings should be reported to the Ranger Service on site or via our facebook page - Sutton Park NNR, give us a like! ED’S NOTE: The answer to what has been captured on film on page 1…..it is in fact one of the ospreys that have been seen to fly over Sutton Park captured on film by Matthew Barker but is this the only image of a ‘Sutton Park’ osprey or do you know different?

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A green tiger beetle

A brown long-eared bat seen in the park

A four-spotted chaser

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MARTIN CROSS I was asked at an RSPB meeting for any highlights I might have had birding locally. The following photo’s were what I took, both being on the River Tame at the back of Beaver Metals, Marsh Lane, Water Orton.

The goosander family was taken on 15th May 2015. Mom & 13 ducklings although I saw them the following day but only 12. The next time I saw what may have been the same family was on the 15th June, very much bigger ducklings but only 8 of them... The leucistic black-headed gull I photographed on 3rd June 2015.

PAUL BRAMBANI My highlight was on 6th September seeing a green woodpecker on a neighbour’s back lawn which was there for 10 minutes. JAN AND GRAHAM JENNER We have

visited the North Norfolk coast for a number of years and heard the bitterns calling but have never seen one, however, we visited Minsmere reserve this year and within a few hours of being there had two clear sightings. For us it was a great day as we had given up any hope of ever seeing one.

SUE WEBSTER I was in Scotland from 24th to 28th August with West Mercia Trefoil Guild, part of Girlguiding UK, and we stayed at Netherurd in Peebles, the house of Scotland Girlguiding. On the way we stopped at Gretna Green and I saw young swallows being fed in the nests. The adult birds were being kept busy with the late brood. It was lovely watching them. At Netherurd I was amazed at how many house martins had nests around the house. There were hundreds of them. I guess they were getting ready to migrate as by our last day most had suddenly gone! There were just a few which had not yet flown in a field with outbuildings in. I also saw a pheasant from my bedroom window. Buzzards were also seen on the way home. At the Birdfair at Rutland Water I saw little egrets and a great white egret. One Saturday in October, as I left band practise at church, I heard a bird of prey over Six Ways, Walsall and looking up I saw a peregrine falcon flying over chasing a group of pigeons! Not sure if one was caught but the peregrine was a great sight! LINDA HOBBS My highlight was seeing a

young fox in the garden for the first time in the autumn of 2015 as I hadn’t realised that they had bred this year. BOB GRIGG We were at Burnham Overy Staithe along the sea defence embankment when we noticed some bird activity in a bush close to the path. When we looked through our ‘bins’ it was in fact a recently fledged young cuckoo. The bush was only a few yards away from us, and we watched as a pair of reed warblers frantically flew back and forth to satisfy its demands. The young bird moved only a few yards further away followed closely by the reed warblers, still trying to fill its gape. A ‘once in a life time’ sighting. ROS AND BOB BRADLEY We were lucky

enough to see and hear a marsh warbler in Norfolk, the first we had seen since the early nineties when they used to breed in Worcestershire.

BIRDING/WILDLIFE HIGHLIGHTS - 2015

The goosander family photographed by Martin

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The leucistic black-headed gull

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SUE WALKER On a recent visit to Blithfield Reservoir, we walked to the hide overlooking Blithe Bay with a birder who wanted to see the crane. 'I saw an osprey catch a fish earlier', he said. 'You probably won't see it again because it will be full up!' Having spotted the crane amongst the Canada geese, we made our way to the hide overlooking Tad Bay. Here, a couple told us that the osprey had flown over about 10 minutes earlier - just our luck! However, we saw several waders; greenshank, dunlin, godwit and several ringed plovers. Also, amongst the Canada geese and greylag were a few barnacle geese. We waited patiently but with no sign of the osprey, we decided to walk a bit further to another hide. One look and we decided that we could see less here then from the earlier hide. We were about to leave when a large 'gull' flew past. 'That's a large gull', I said. 'What's that - oh, it's hovering, it must be a raptor!' And indeed it was, a beautiful osprey that flew around in front of us, hovering occasionally with legs dangling. What a treat!' MARGERY WILLIAMS A memorable highlight

this year was when Jean and I went to Belvide Reservoir on July 16th. We were informed a reed warbler was feeding a cuckoo. I had seen this on TV films but never ‘live’. It was an amaz-ing sight, and we felt very sorry for the poor reed warblers who were frantically perching on the cuckoo's back, head and even flying up in front of it in an attempt to put food into its ever gaping bill. The cuckoo never attempted to lower its head or move in anyway to help its poor over worked surrogate parents. Another highlight was when, a few weeks later, Janet and I were at Marsh Lane. We were looking through a screen at the reeds when a young water rail emerged and meandered around them, pecking and feeding. It was less than a foot away from us. If the screen wasn't there we could have touched it. It was unaware of our presence so we were able to watch it for at least five minutes before it wandered back into the reeds. JANET MEAKIN The highlight of my birding

year was cycling through the dunes of the North Wales Cycle Path in May with the sound of skylarks overhead, grasshopper warblers reeling from the undergrowth, swifts, swallows and house martins skimming across the path

ahead and stonechats, posted like sentinels on the tops of stunted bushes, together with the glorious weather – it’s a memory I’ll never forget! COLIN SEDGWICK Before breakfast, one

morning in August, I crept out of the holiday cot-tage where we were staying in the Lake District, leaving the rest of the family having a lie-in. I was off on a ‘local twitch’ to Low Gelt Bridge near Carlisle. I’d heard from an RSPB colleague about a pair of bee-eaters that had set-up home in a sand quarry. Finding the location was straightforward. RSPB volunteers from the nearby reserve had set up a 24hr watch directly opposite the nest hole on the other side of the quarry. After about 15mins the bee-eaters appeared, landing on a nearby fence, both with insects in their bills. They seemed to try to distract nearby predatory crows before one of the birds flew into the nest hole to feed the young. This was repeated many times whilst I was there. It was totally unreal to watch these brightly coloured, exotic birds flying around in the northern English countryside. Ed’s note; With their

kaleidoscope plumage, bee-eaters are one of Europe’s most striking and beautiful birds. The Cumbria bee-eaters were discovered by the quarry’s foreman who noticed the colourful birds flying amongst the site’s colony of nesting sand martins. Bee-eaters have now bred in the UK for two consecutive summers. NB Bee-eaters are a schedule 1 species, which means that intentional or reckless disturbance of their nests is a criminal offence.

JOHN AND DENISE ALLEN We took a package holiday to Mexico in March; the accommodation was a series of 3-storey apart-ments connected by walkways. Our apartment was on the 3rd floor, imagine our surprise on the first morning walking to breakfast when we were eye to eye with a keel-billed toucan. This bird was also having breakfast feeding on the fruits of a cecropia tree. We were to see this toucan every day of our holiday. What a delight!

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One of the bee-eaters which

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After a chance meeting at the Rutland Bird Fair in August 2014 with Manoj Vardhan of VIGT Tours, and subsequently reading testimonials of previous tour guests, three of us (Paul Hobbs, Mike Box and David Hall) decided we would like to take one of VIGT's “history, culture and wildlife” tours in India. Although principally birdwatchers, all three of us particularly wanted to see tigers in the wild also to experience some Indian culture and history. All the tour & travel arrangements were put together in advance by VIGT, the two principal areas for tiger opportunities being Corbett National Park and Ranthambhore National Park. We were not disappointed. So it was that we arrived in Northern India in February 2015. On the 23rd whilst at Corbett, we decided to go on the early morning elephant ride. This was a great experi-ence, excellent vantage point, and felt surprisingly safe and relaxing; we were concen-trating now on looking for tiger. Although reportedly in the area, after nearly 2 hours it looked as though we were out of luck as we were crossing grassland back to the lodge.

Then our guide Anil spotted a male to our left forward of the elephant moving through the undergrowth. A brief view then it was off - low through the grass. We thought that was it until a few moments later it suddenly was there again right in front of us - we heard a deep growl and the tiger raised itself up as if to leap at the elephant before pulling out and moving away. Very exciting (and momentarily quite scary!) but a very brief encounter, with only a couple of grabbed photos, but we felt lucky with what we had seen.

In our second week we had moved on to Ranthambhor NP. The first game drive on the morning of 1st of March was Route 6, which was a very rocky drive. It seems that the drivers in their enthusiasm to get their guests good views of tigers place their comfort secondary! We were buffeted about so much that it was impossible to take any photos en route, so much so that we had to ask Raj our guide to proceed more gently, after which the journey was much more comfortable. We did look for tiger but only saw many birds and mongoose. After lunch Raj had managed to get us on Route 3 - reputedly the best one for tiger sightings. Having seen a tiger at Corbett we were not really expecting to have any more views – as we had spoken to several people who had had no sightings after several visits. But how wrong could we have been?! We stopped by the large lake and on the opposite bank (about 200 yards away) was a tigress with not one but three, year-old cubs. Watching them play – out in the open, on a large fallen tree - for around 30 minutes with their mother was superb and beyond our dreams. Hundreds (literally) of photos taken this time!

LOOKING FOR TIGERS IN INDIA by

Mike Box and Paul Hobbs

One of the tigers seen by the trio

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However Raj saw the female moving off and decided to move our jeep to a better spot to see her. Then WOW suddenly she was walking left to right in front of our jeep about 8 to 10 foot – completely indifferent to our presence. She stopped, looked over the lake and then slowly walked back right to left. What can you say - she was magnificent and we were very lucky all thanks to Raj and the driver. After these excellent views heavy rain started to fall so we drove back to the hotel. There was no rain cover on this jeep so we were literally soaked to the skin, but happy nevertheless!

Following our trip we found out some more informa-tion about the tigers we saw in Ranthambhor. The mother tiger is named Unnis (also called Krishna) and is a daughter of the famous tigress Machli who has featured in several wildlife documentaries such as “Tiger Dynasty” and “Queen Of Tigers”, she was one of three female cubs in Machli’s fourth and final litter in Autumn 2006. So Unnis was about eight and a half years old when we saw her with her cubs.

Although we are principally bird-watchers and were pleased to have during our two-week trip a bird list of some 265 bird species, many of which were new to us, plus several other mammals - including rare Indian gazelle and black buck - the tiger sighting was the most memorable part of the trip for each of us, and fulfilled one of our life-time ambitions, to see tigers in the wild!

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The tigress with her cubs

A close encounter!

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A special thank you to Vince O’Brien and

Star Cars for providing us with our printed versions of the

Newsletter.

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The RSPB is the country’s largest nature conservation charity, inspiring everyone to give nature a home. Together with our partners, we protect threatened birds and wildlife so our towns, coast and countryside will teem with life once again.

We also play a leading role in a worldwide partnership of nature conservation organisations.

The Sutton Coldfield Local Group was established in 1987 and is run by volunteers. It holds regular events to which

RSPB members and the public are welcome. If you would like more details, please contact our new Group Leader:

Mark Cordle Tel: 01922 636696 or email: marc.cordle@gmail.com The Field Meetings Organiser is: Tony Green, 22 Milton Avenue, Tamworth, Staffs B79 8JQ

Preferred contact by email: tonygreen777@hotmail.co.uk or Tel: 01827 750633 Mobile: 07531329664

This Newsletter is edited by Jackie Bloor, 18 Glenville Drive, Erdington, B23 6PR Tel: 0121 382 4602

The views expressed in this Newsletter are not necessarily those of the RSPB or of the Group Committee.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a registered charity:

England and Wales no. 207076, Scotland no. SC037654

We are on the Internet! We now have our own RSPB website, it can be viewed using the following link:

http://www.rspb.org.uk/groups/suttoncoldfield/

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What’s in a name? Quite a lot it seems...

A new self-published book, entitled British Birds: names~facts~myths by Geoff Green

explores the intriguing world of the names of 231 British birds. The book examines the wide range and meaning of local bird names, the derivation and meaning of the vernacular English name and also their scientific name. This gives a fascinating insight into our long and intimate relationship with birds. Many myths, tales and lore are recounted establishing the characteristics we attribute to birds often linked to their names. Collective nouns are given providing another useful insight into the nature of birds. Alongside this the book adds many interesting facts and figures ranging across a bird's breeding behaviour, migratory feats, feeding habits, song, physiology and detail of their often extraordinary senses to our treatment of birds. Notes are given of the relative in-crease and decrease in some bird's numbers. Enjoy this book as a serendipity of the fascinating meanings of the diverse names given to British birds, intriguing information on their lives and the many tales about them, true and otherwise. The book can be found on the Amazon Bookstore - search for 'British bird names' and you can obtain the book as an e-book or paperback. Alternatively contact Geoff Green at gdgreen@talktalk.net or 'phone 01404 813127 and he'll send you a paperback copy (£9.50 including postage).