Hare today....

It's very easy to go tramping round the countryside picking up sightings and adding to lists. Distant birds or subliminal sightings have their part but what you really need are experiences which lift your spirits. Today was certainly one of those.

We started off very early with a trip to one of our favourite reserves, Oare marshes in Kent. This is a lovely, compact reserve, a central area of pools surrounded by reeds and grassland with the tidal Swale river on one side. It can get some very nice birds and normally has lots to see. Today though it was  quiet. Even the flocks of waders on the central pools were reduced to about 50 or so godwits. 

Two families of swans seemed happy to paddle around in the marsh,

and there were lots of wrens and whitethroats declaring their territories from the bushes and overhead wires.

The star species of the reserve are the turtle doves, but even these are getting harder to find. Two were sitting on the telephone wires by the cottages and one came down to feed on some grain on a path nearby.

It was interesting seeing them next to woodpigeons. You got an idea of the size difference between them, the tiny dove next to the big, bruiser of a pigeon. Their population has crashed by over 95% in recent years, driven by being shot on migration in the Med and by habitat and food loss over here. These pockets of safety for them are becoming increasingly important.

After this we headed over to the Isle of Sheppey, across the Swale estuary but 30 minutes drive. It is a very wild area, especially in Winter, but in Summer it can be quite bucolic, with flower-strewn meadows and verges separating arable fields. 

Although we saw many marsh harriers quartering this fields the star for us was the multiple sightings of hares. It started as we were driving down a side-road and saw a brown shape lolloping through the grass.

In this one field, right next to the road, at least 4 hares were chasing each other and hiding in the long grass. A good start but they quickly disappeared and we moved on to Harty Ferry. There is a lovely old church there and a farm shop which sells eggs from the chickens pecking around in the gardens. We had a quick coffee and decided to try a path we'd not been on before, leading towards the river and eventually Shellness. 

Lots of birds were calling from the hedgerows and red-legged partridges were pottering about round the field margins, tempted in by the grain feeders marking this out as a shooting area later in the year.

Nearby another hare was eating grass and shoots with a family of pheasants and more partridges for company.

It let me get quite close before it lolloped off down the field. The next sighting was something I would never have expected.

We were slowly walking down a track, trying to find a cuckoo which had been calling from a stand of poplars. Around 30 yards ahead of us we spotted a hare sitting on the path.

Now normally, when you come upon any wild animal suddenly, especially a hare, they will firstly freeze  then quickly dash off into cover never to be seen again. Well, this one clearly hadn't read the rule book. It sat in the path staring at us whilst I fired off some shots.

As it turned I presumed it would then revert to type and dash off. Incredibly it moved, in a very relaxed manner towards us. We were both keeping as still as possible as it loped towards us.

It then got totally bizarre. The hare just kept coming down the path as if we weren't there. It paused about 20 feet away from and sat down on the path for a quick groom.

By now, I had zoomed out on my camera to get it into the shot. I started off with my 100-400mm lens at  maximum. I was now down to about 170mm but it kept on coming. Eventually we think it got to no more than 6 feet away from me. My lens was set to minimum zoom and I could only just focus on it!

Hopefully you can see in the last picture how it is staring up at me. I could hardly breathe as it seemed to be about to stand on my feet! Finally I think it realised that these two strange trees in the path were actually people and it quite calmly reversed its path and disappeared into the field margins. We could finally breathe again! 

I have never, ever had a a wild hare approach me like that. I have no idea if it is a bit like Colin the cuckoo and has become habituated to people, or was just really chilled out. As the area is a shooing estate I suspect it would not last long if it was happy to come near people so I think it was having a relaxed day! 

A superb day in a gorgeous part of the countryside. Even the eggs which we got the farm shop were top notch with our tea tonight!!

 

A river runs through it

With the obvious issues we have this year, I'm trying to focus on lifers rather than just adding to my year list. With a bit of luck I should get to 400 on the UK400 list this year, and on the stricter BOU list next year, so it's worth the effort.

So, on Friday when a mega rare popped up it certainly piqued my interest. The bird in question was a river warbler - a locustella warbler, related to the Savi's and grasshoppers warblers. The last truly switchable one was over 10 years ago, so out of my targets and a blocker to be cleared off. It was showing really well throughout Saturday so there was no choice, an early start on Sunday.

The bird was at Ham Wall in Somerset, near Glastonbury. I've already had some good birds there - pied-billed grebe, little bittern and Hudsonian godwit to name but three. It was very early start to beat the half-term traffic and by just gone 7 I was pulling into the car park. The river warbler was already on RBA as calling from the path to Avalon Hide.

I grabbed my gear, foregoing breakfast or coffee and headed off for the 10 minute walk. It was a short walk to the area where about 15 birders were staring at some reeds.

Ham Wall is a very large reedbed - brilliant for bitterns, great white and cattle egrets and all their allied friends. I got a great white (year tick) walking to the twitch.

Even as I walked up I could hear the bird calling -or singing more accurately. It is a locustella (like a locust) so makes a long, repetitive, call more like an insect than bird. 

Before, when I've seen Savi's or grasshopper warblers then tend to be loud but skulking. This one was half-right. It was very loud but it was very showy. Sitting about 30 yards away it had a favourite series of perches from it would call incessantly for minutes on end.

Now this bird should really be in Russia, east Germany or the near Asian states, certainly not here. It is calling to try and find a mate. The chance of that happening is vanishingly small. This led to a conversation amongst us that we felt sorry for the bird. It was putting in a monumental effort with low or no chance of success. I would guess that for the two hours I was there it was visible for 90% of the time and singing for most of that.

When it sings, it just opens its beak and noise comes out, rather than open and closing to modulate the notes. Only occasionally did it stop to either feed out of sight in the reeds or to sit looking rather dejected by its lack of success.

I stayed almost two hours, but the light was pretty poor and the crowd was growing. With everyone being well behaved they were queuing to get the good slots to see the bird so I packed up and headed back. 

A cracking bird, showing stupidly well. A nice twitch as well, catching up with a few old faces and some new ones as well. Despite the slow start this year is turning out quite well.