A nightingale doesn't sing in Berkeley Square

I'm now down to my last week at work but that is no excuse for not getting out there and catching up with some good birds. Today was a combination of going for a couple of old favourites together with seeing what else might drop in.
First up was my annual trip to Paxton pits in Cambridgeshire for the nightingales which breed there. It is starting to get very depressing though. Five years ago they had well over 10 pairs on site At 8 in the morning you could pick your bird and join the crowds listening to their beautiful song. Two years ago the number dropped off a cliff. Last year wasn't much better and this year their website was reporting only 3 or possibly 4 pairs on the whole of the extended site. I walked all of my usual areas for them - the bit by the hide, the triangle, the hedge by the field but nothing. Lots of other birds were singing - blackcap, garden warbler, chiffchaff, willow warbler, whitethroat - but not a whisper of a nightingale. My last chance was near the river, where another birder on site told me they had heard one a few days before. After perhaps 20 minutes I finally heard the characteristic chattering, explosive call from deep in a bush. One male was desperately trying to attract a mate. I listened to him for about 15 minutes. As ever he remained pretty deep in the bush, never showing himself well enough for a photo. This was the only one I heard though.
Why their numbers are down so much is a mystery. Other summer migrants were there and the habitat is not any different to my eyes. It is probably a combination of factors including the perils of the migration across the guns of the Mediterranean. Other sites are also reporting lower than normal numbers so it may be that they are going the way of the turtle dove. The sound of Summer will be different in years to come.
After Paxton I went cross country to Leicestershire. Two of our rarer terns were reported yesterday and came up on the pager again today. These were white-winged terns, cousins of the black terns, both of which are migrants through our lakes and reservoirs in Spring. They are very late arriving this year though and by the time I got to Eyebrook it was clear that today they were making up for lost time. Both black and white-winged were being reported across a number of sites, in good numbers as well. Without exact directions though I was expecting a long search across the reservoir searching them out. Even before I got out of the car though I saw one fly straight past the parking area and in company with a black tern. I grabbed my gear and pretty much straight away got onto them fishing up and down opposite the road.

In all, there were 2 of the white-wingers and 10 of their commoner cousins the black terns. They are both smaller than our common terns and have a different habit, more bouncy in flight picking insects off the the surface rather than diving for small fish.

You can see why they got their name - that black body with the contrasting white wings. They also have a characteristic white rump which shows very well when they are flying away from you. After about 30 minutes the black terns all formed into a flock and rose up and up on a thermal. Eventually they disappeared, moving on north to their breeding grounds. The white-wingers though remained, fishing and darting around on the reservoir. It does say something as well that whilst we were watching the terns an osprey, presumably from Rutland water, was fishing on the far bank, but we only gave it a passing glance! 

Finally I went further across the country to Cambridgeshire, to Eldernell near Whittlesey. The target here was a white stork. These are pretty controversial birds at the moment. There are many escapees in the country and there has been a reintroduction scheme in Germany. This one, although ringed, did not have any of the tags associated with the escapees so it may be a kosher bird.

It was always a long way away though, eventually appearing to go to sleep by a gate on the far side of the flood. More visible were 2 or 3 common cranes which have a territory nearby, their honking calls echoing around.

Right by the car park is a bridge with swallows nesting under it, and a pair decided to have a rat on it long enough for me to grab a few photos of them. Beautiful birds with the sun on their feathers.

A lovely day in the Spring sunshine. One lifer in the form of the whit stork plus 4 other year ticks. As I write this there are flocks of up to 60 birds still dropping into reservoirs across the country. Vey pleased with my smaller flock though. What might be next? Well, probably a trip back to Eldernell where corncrakes are calling towards dusk!!

A nice hobby!

One of the sounds of Summer is always said to be the gentle purring of the turtle dove. In recent years though their population has plummeted, due to habitat loss here, in their wintering grounds in Africa and the slaughter as they pass over the Med. In Herts you used be able to track down a few pairs. but now they have totally been lost as a breeding species. The nearest reserve to me where I know you can get them is Fowlmere in Cambridgeshire. This is a small reserve, basically a lake with reedbeds and woodlands surrounded by mixed farmland. They have 3 or 4 pairs of turtle doves nesting each year.
I wasn't early arriving as I had a lie-in so I was bit concerned I might have missed them before they left the reserve to go and feed in the fields. I was lucky though. As I walked out of the car park towards the Draper hide you could one calling from the woods, the gentle purring call suiting ideally the pastoral scene. I was really lucky though as I caught one brief view of it flying and then that was it. For the next two hours on the reserve you heard nothing, presumably as they had left to go and feed.
That didn't mean there was nothing else to see though. From one of the hides a dabchick was looking after its sole baby, lurking in the reeds.

The bushes were alive with warbler song - garden warblers, blackcaps, Cetti's warblers, reed and sedge warblers and chiffchaffs and willow warblers. Most of them were lurking as the day warmed up but both this chiffchaff and a reed warbler were close enough to get a photo.

Finally, over the reed bed two raptors were plying their trade. A part of marsh harriers were clearly nesting and kept dropping in and out of the same area of the reeds, presumably where they young were.

 There were also 3 or possibly 4 hobbies hawking for dragonflies. They were particularly active but as they normally are where a tricky subject to photograph. They dart left and right at great speed chasing there prey and t lock onto them is really hard. These are not therefore great photos but I will go back and try later for better ones, possibly earlier in the morning.

Not a bad day but slightly disappointing. Next time I will have to get up earlier and get there after dawn to get the turtle doves. Early bird catches the worm after all.....

Working hard...

I'm only a couple of weeks away from retirement. One of the last things I had to do was to go over to our Lisbon office and do a handover of my projects. Fortunately though I managed to work a bit of free time into the trip. My colleague and friend Jon Haigh had arranged for a trip out birdwatching for the pair of us. Jon is a total "dude" birder so our local guide proved invaluable.
We started off from Lisbon in his car and headed out to the Tagus estuary. The weather was not what we expected though. Despite Spring coming on it was cold, overcast and windy. Not ideal weather to introduce Jon to birding, but you could say it was typical of a days birding!
We started off on an estuary at rising tide.

Most of the birds were some way off and not in photography range, but we got Jons Portugal list off to a good start. Whimbrel, grey plover, dunlin, turnstones, marsh harriers, black kites and a pair of overflying bee-eaters were all nice to start off with.
We then moved back into the car and quickly got spotless starling and the recently split Iberian magpie. After that we headed for some a private reserve which we had access to. This had a pool with two star targets - little bittern and purple swamphen. We scanned the reeds but nothing seemed to be there. Jon then wandered across to us and said "I've just seen an interesting bird with a red beak". We thought it might have been a waxbill, but quickly worked out it was not a tiny bird and was seen crawling up reeds. He'd only gone and seen the little bittern and had not alerted us to it. Jon's first lesson in birding - don't keep it to yourself. To be fair he did look crestfallen when he saw the scale of his crime but we tried to be gentle with him. It refused to show again, so we headed off round the reserve getting nightingale, hoopoe, waxbill and a few other commoner species. Before we left we had a last go at the pool. Jon managed to redeem himself, refinding the little bittern in virtually the same spot!!

They are really small birds, not much larger than a coot and can disappear really easily, as this one did again. They are present in the UK most years and bred on the Somerset levels but would be a really good bird to see. Much commoner here but still tricky.
Next stop was some salt pans further along the coast. The main target here was Kentish plover which nest here.

They are similar to the commoner ringed plover but more delicate, washed out and with a nice brown cap. They used to nest in the UK but have now been lost to us as a breeding species. They are also a bogey bird for me, having dipped on them numerous times. We also had breeding plumaged curlew sandpipers here plus a Sardinian warbler scratching away nearby.
Finally, and I suppose most surprising was the large flock of flamingos, not just here but over the estuary.

You may note there are no pink birds here. These are all juveniles, the pinker adults having migrated to breeding ground in Africa leaving the juveniles to spend their summer in Iberia.
All in all a very pleasant way to spend a morning, albeit in bloody cold weather. I'm hoping Jon had got the bug now. He certainly now knows the lie of the land and is the 110th best birder in Portugal now according to the BUBO list. Only upwards from here.