Penduline Tit, Barton © Roy Harvey 2001
Penduline Tit at Barton April 2001 – by G P Catley
April 10th was yet another in a long run of glorious spring days with a biting cold northerly wind and the threat of rain!
At about 15:00 hrs having had my daily fix of the drake Ferruginous Duck I moved to the south-eastern part of the site where tall hawthorns provide shelter from the north wind and a nice pool of reedmace and willows offers the ever present chance of a Penduline Tit. For twenty years, since the Blacktoft marathon, I had been scanning the three small areas of reedmace that exist in my 120ha local patch of clay pits. Autumn and winter scanning had turned up numerous Blue Tits, Reed Buntings, Wrens and the occasional Long-tailed Tit scattering the bulrush fluff skywards but never a sign of the bandit masked tit.
As I took stock of the breeding bird activity in the shelter of the hawthorns I noticed one of the local pair of Long-tailed Tits sitting motionless on the outer limb of a small hawthorn on the edge of the pit. For such a hyperactive species its lack of movement seemed somewhat strange but I guessed its nest was nearby and concentrated on locating it. After a couple of minutes of watching the static Long-tail I picked up a strange song that failed to ring any bells? Surely I had not missed the song of Long-tailed Tit for 33 years? Then I thought I heard a high pitched sreeee call descending at the end! It was repeated and a small bird dropped from behind the Long-tailed Tit into the base of the adjacent reedmace. Still not really believing the possibility at hand it was only when a cracking male Penduline Tit climbed up the reedmace stem and settled to feed on the fluffy head that it really sunk in—I had found a long-hoped for bird not only in Lincs but on my very local patch.
For the next fifteen minutes I watched it through bins and scope, up to 60x mag, and took notes and made some sketches as it fed in the reedmace and then moved up into a low hawthorn where it sang loudly. After about 20 minutes with the bird seemingly settled I decided to make the dash back to my house to pick up my camera. Within 20 minutes I was back and relieved to find that the tit was still feeding on the reedmace heads between bouts of singing. The site was at this time still not open to the public so I could only inform a few local observers who had to be escorted while on site at all times. While waiting for the arrival of the first visitors the Penduline flew up into some taller thorns and had a fracas with the local pair of Long-tailed Tits and later a Blue Tit. It flew up high and my heart sunk as I thought it was about to disappear before anyone else saw it but thankfully it soon returned to the favoured reedmace. Roy Harvey arrived and obtained excellent video of the bird and a digital image through his scope. That evening 11 observers saw the bird. The following morning Wayne Gillatt and Steve Routledge managed to pick it up, at considerable range, from the outer fence and then had the good fortune to have it fly into the hedge, by the road where they were standing, and start singing. They observed it interacting with a Blue Tit and then it apparently flew about 300m east into another superb area of habitat in another clay pit where they relocated it pulling the fluff off willow catkins! It returned to the original site later and was last seen there at 18:30 on 11th after which time it called a few times prior to dusk but was never seen again in spite of a considerable amount of searching.
Previous county records of Penduline Tit are as follows:
- Wolla Bank a male seen briefly, by Kieth Atkin late in the afternoon of October 14th 1991, with a male and female both being seen early the following morning,15th, by Colin Jennings, Rob Watson and Ed Mackrill, but not subsequently.
- Gibraltar Point one found by Jim Clarke in the east dunes on April 27th 1994
- Gib Point a male photographed by Neil Smith in the west dunes on June 13th 2000 [photo Birding World 3.6.223]
Graham Catley
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