Japan/Yokohama/Citizens' Forest (1 Viewer)

[Charles Harper]

After considerable effort with ruler and calculator at trying to break down others' patch maps and/or patch descriptions into comparable hunks-- coming up successfully with some kind of numbers in about half the cases and being faced with inadequate data in the other half-- I've settled for the nonce on a REALLY BASIC habitat breakdown of (1) woodland, (2) open land (3) urban/suburban, (4a) freshwater, (4b) saltwater. Plus of course those other basics of geographical coordinants and altitude. Anything more complex demands too much of my meddling in your patchwork; as it is, I will probably be pestering several contributors for a little more information.

Consequently, I created a very simple graphic of my own patch (attached and hopefully legible), for which a few photographs should offer some dimensionality: closed forest, open forest, fallow grassland, cultivated land, and transitional areas.

Oh for an airplane.

For the patches that I've roughly calculated--

Mine: TOTAL Area 1.0 sq.km. (open land 49%, woodland 49%, urban/suburban 2%, freshwater fractional).
Birdman: TOTAL Area 2.0 sq. km. (open land 88%, woodland 18%, urban/suburban 3%, freshwater 1%).
Michael Frankis: TOTAL Area 0.25 sq.km. (open land 15.5%, woodland 77.5%, urban/suburban 5%, freshwater 2%).
Surreybirder: TOTAL area 4.0 sq.km. (open land 70%, woodland 8%, urban/suburban 20%, freshwater 2%).

Let me know if that is grossly inaccurate.

For Phyllosc, I have no scale yet; for CarlosGY, the 3 marshes & the reserve are spots on a much larger-scale map; walwyn's says the photo is not his patch; for ashley beolens, I'm not sure what's what besides sheep fields (I went back to your homepage, but I still can't read it properly).

 

[Michael Frankis]

Hi Charles,

My local patch is 25ha = 0.25 sq.km (not 0.5). You got the habitat proportions more or less right, how, I don't know! Perhaps the open land (football pitches) a bit low, more like 15%

Michael

 

[Charles Harper]

Thanks, Michael. I adjusted the figures in the thread starter. You would pity me if you saw me hunched over the kitchen table, working at a scratch pad, chewing my pencil, trying to turn hectares into square meters into square kilometers. As to the proportions, I have a little experience working with perspective. And I was lucky-- couldn't see under the trees.

 

[Michael Frankis]

Hi Charles,

100 hectares = 1 sq. km. Easy!! That's the glory of the metric system

I'll see if I can work the proportions out better off a map sometime. I'd post a scan of the map but for copyright problems - the UK mapping agency (Ordnance Survey) are very hot on chasing up breaches of their copyright

Michael

 

[birdman]

Just for the record, Charles... it looks like you have my patch down pretty good.

I'll do a bit of work at this end, and if I come up with anything much different I'll let you know.

Thanks for putting the effort in, here, and thanks also for the details of your own patch.

If you need to pm me for any more info... you know where I am!

 

[Charles Harper]

Birdman, the area seemed to measure out a little larger than you estimated at the beginning-- I based it on that 5/8 of a mile from pond to road that you gave us. And I presumed you didn't bird much across the road or in the housing development.

 

[Andrew]

You have been busy, I am under the process of uploading details of my WeBS patch. To me my local patch is massive in comparision as I love my home/birthplace so much and explore all the places but I suppose the stretch of the canal I cover monthly should count as a 'Local Patch'. I am sorting out photos and will link them to Streetmap to show where each section is and what they look like. May even post the results of my surveys each month.

 

[birdman]

Your assumptions are entirely correct, Charles.

Great stuff... I hope this Local Patch Forum really takes off!

 

[Karl J]

Wow, Charles thats a fair bit of work in there. Interesting stuff on your own patch there as well. Good photos as well, thanks.

Yes, as for the spots on a much bigger map - well yes sort of. It's certainly a big area, much like Andrew said above it all seems local to me. But rather than them being just spots, the marshes sort of run 1 into the other (if that makes sense), so in effect it's all one big area.

I'll get the map out this evening and work out a more detailed analysis of it but feel free to ask ( PM ?) anything I might miss out

 

[phyllosc]

Charles.

You're doing some excellent work here. I've posted a map of roughly the same are in my aearial photo. It might be more useful for your studies.

How many species of Phyllosc do you see on your patch?

Dave

 

[Charles Harper]

Japan boasts four regular Phylloscopus warblers and five accidentals, none of which I've seen in my patch, since I have seldom-- until this Patch Forum started!-- birded it during migration. Instead, I go to the mountains or the west coast, and annually get Yellow-browed, Arctic, and Eastern Crowned. There is another thread discussing elusive ticks, and the fourth regular Phylloscopus is one of mine-- I haven't seen a Pale-legged (Sakhalin) Warbler yet. Maybe I'll get it in Seya Citizens' Forest.

 

[phyllosc]

Interesting Chas. I need Eastern Crowned and Plae-legged but have seen the others here in the UK.

There was an Eastern Crowned record in Europe that was centuries old and just when it was being regarded as 'stringy' one was pulled out of a mist net in Sweden last year.

Dave

 

[Michael Frankis]

There was an Eastern Crowned record in Europe that was centuries old and just when it was being regarded as 'stringy' one was pulled out of a mist net in Sweden last year.

Norway!

Michael

 

[phyllosc]

Thank you, Michael.

Computer upstairs. Books, Birding Worlds, British Birds etc down stairs. I couldn't be arsed to go and check.

Dave

 

[Charles Harper]

Ah, phyllo-- mine's just the reverse: books upstairs, computer downstairs. A major living rearrangement is in the works, though-- I can't stand all this exercise, running up and down the stairs every time Michael posts!

 

[Andrew]

Warblers, I can identify the common Brits but need to learn the different types. So far I know there are Achrocephalus, Sylvias and Hippolais. The Phylloscs are new to me. I have always meant to read the section on warblers in the Collins but keep putting it off to go birding.

 

[phyllosc]

Come, come, Andrew, you must know your Willows and Chiffs, surley?

Dave

 

[Andrew]

I can identify them but not sure what groups they fall into, will need to learn this!

 

[Charles Harper]

Patch in early December with Some Comments on Casual Counting

Mister Micawber's English Emporium held its annual Christmas party Saturday night at a local pub. Fifteen students ate, drank, and sang 'White Christmas'. Mr. Micawber himself had even more fun and got home at three in the morning. He had a bit of a headache when he awoke, but by noon his hands and eyeballs were steady enough for binoculars and he ventured into his local patch.

After a week of chilly rain, the weather on December 7th is gloriously autumnal. The forested areas are primarily evergreen, but the occasional deciduous stands have dropped most of their leaves, so that it feels more open, and the odd red maple or golden ginkgo in a shaft of sunlight is magnificent. Best of all, the massive orb-weaving spiders whose webs I blunder into all summer are gone, and I no longer need to walk the paths flailing a stick ahead of me.

Winter passerines are here at last. Several Bull-headed Shrikes have staked out their territories and are perched at sapling tips surveying their domains. I count over a hundred Oriental Greenfinches and fifty Eurasian Tree Sparrows, with six Hawfinches among them, feeding on weedseeds in an acre of overgrown goldenrod, silvergrass and kudzu, and a few Meadow Buntings as well. Dusky Thrushes have at last begun to arrive, though I only see a few, a fraction of the number that will eventually be hopping around the shortgrass fields; no other thrushes yet. Oh yes: down in the deepest, boggiest part of the Cryptomeria forest, I find two Red-flanked Bluetails.

But the find of the day is seven Eurasian Jays. In thirteen years, I have always and only seen two birds (if I saw any-- they are quite secretive), but today I was flabbergasted to see, one by one, seven of them flitting single file through the trees. Is this an influx, or did the pair at last breed successfully?

The numbers: Jp. Pygmy Woodpecker 1, Jp. Green Woodpecker 1, N. Sparrowhawk 1, Oriental Turtle Dove 5, Bull-headed Shrike 4, Brown-eared Bulbul 30, Black-backed (White) Wagtail 2, Olive-backed Pipit 1, Jp. Bush Warbler 2, Great Tit 7, Varied Tit 1, Long-tailed Tit 1, Jp. White-eye 2, Daurian Restart 1, Red-flanked Bluetail 2, Dusky Thrush 7, Eurasian Jay 7, Large-billed Crow 5, Carrion Crow 2, Meadow Bunting 4, Oriental Greenfinch 110, Hawfinch 6, Eurasian Tree Sparrow 50.

There has been some discussion on the habit of counting individual birds, and I would like to continue to encourage anyone who writes down the birds that they see, to include numbers as well, as a gauge of changing populations, and without worrying overmuch about the pressure of exactitude. Today I paid some attention to how I was coming up with my numbers. The large flocks of greenfinches and sparrows were seen in one place and estimated as multiples of ten after I had counted through the first ten birds; the bulbuls, on the other hand, were seen in twos and threes and then, at the end of the trip, rounded up to an even number, for birds, though seen, I felt I had failed to tick. The small numbers were of course counted exactly as I saw them and assured myself they were different individuals (for example, the shrikes stay on territory, and the thrushes were all visible at the same time in the same field); but there were exceptions:

(1) Of the crow species, one is surely undercounted. Carrion Crows are open country birds and easy to see, but Large-bills are associated with the deeper forest, often fly audibly but invisibly overhead, and at this beginning of the mating season are flying raucously, by twos and threes, in large circles; I saw five, but there were likely more; I just could not be sure they were different birds flying over. Principle of conservatism: don't count if you think you might be re-counting.

(2) Japanese Bush Warblers are usually counted by ear, as was, unusually, the Long-tailed Tit. Bush Warblers are safe; individuals are localized; but tits are not: I know the latter was in a group; I have never seen a lone bird. But I could not locate them high in the trees this time, so it goes down, with some reluctance, as one individual: principle of conservatism again.

(3) Principle of conservatism a third time: one nice bird is not on the list-- Goshawk. I see him frequently, but not every trip. Today I found a pile of fresh-plucked turtle-dove feathers by the forest rivulet. Didn't count him, though (neither the gos nor the dove).

I suppose that, depending on one's patch, it can be daunting to count individuals. Vast rafts of ducks or flocks of shorebirds, swirling terns or swallows, secretive partridges and rails and so on can definitely be challenging and time-consuming. But I feel that whatever the nature of the patch, if you are frequenting it reasonably regularly, your censusing skills will rapidly improve, becoming less onerous and adding to your understanding of the birds around you.

 

[logos]

Ah, Varied Tit!

One day it will be mine!

Couldn't agree more about noting numbers Charles, they don't have to be precise (within, say, 10% is probably good enough) as even rough estimates will give usable data over the long term.

Even 'increase' or 'decrease' is better than just jotting down a name to indicate presence in a regularly watched area.

Spud