What the hell is that?

Despite it being the start of Autumn the birding is very flat at the moment. With no real year list to go chasing after and no lifers within an 18 hour drive (Sumburgh hotel is tempting but a bit far!) I'm back to local birding. Today I wanted to try out my new camera - a mirrorless Canon R5. This is pretty-much cutting edge tech as far as cameras go - more like a computer with a lens attached. I headed off down to Maple Lodge after lunch to go and try for the resident and very tame kingfisher. This juvenile bird has been showing stupidly well from the rotunda hide since mid-summer.As ever down there I had the hide almost to myself. A couple of people came in over about two hours but otherwise I could set up my gear and cross my fingers. 

Overall it was pretty quiet but I had a good chance to learn about my camera. Ducks were almost entirely absent but a few young moorhens and a grey wagtail.were pottering about on the edges of the pool.

On the larger pool a dabchick and its very large youngster were fishing amongst the reedsand a lone swan came in to have a preen.There were two targets  I really wanted to try the camera out on. The first was the dragonflies, mainly migrant hawkers, which were patrolling the reeds. They gave the camera a real try-out on its focus tracking ability. I think it performed pretty well, locking onto the fast moving insects and holding them as they darted around.

They also stopped on the kingfisher posts giving me the opportunity to see how well you could crop in distant objects, again it past the test with flying colours.

The young kingfisher was a bit elusive today. It did come into the pool four times, but only perched three times to allow me to get any images. When it did though it posed very nicely with the light coming from the side and bringing its colours out nicely.

What was interesting was when it dived from its perch and came up with a tasty snack. I assumed it was a small fish. It was only when I looked at the photos later the I realised it was actually a beetle. 

You can see its large bulbous eyes and long legs. Those more knowledgeable than me on these things think it is one of the great diving beetles. It looks a bit crusty and hard work to digest to me but I assume it knows what it is doing! Certainly it seemed very satisfied when it had finished and flew off!

Overall it was a very good couple of hours in the hide. Not the best showing from the wildlife down there but the beetle made up for it! The camera passed its first test with flying colours though I still need to read the instruction manual!!!!

 

Closer to home

 Most of my recent posts have been about trips to parts distant in search of waifs and strays. I had the chance this weekend to do just that and head back up the A1 to Bempton for a green warbler. It is a very small bird, hiding in a large bush surrounded by twitchers and TBH it didn't float my boat. So, I decided to spend the morning at Maple Lodge instead pestering our local kingfisher.

The reserve has always been good for them, but over there last couple of years they have had successful breeding seasons and have been showing very well from a couple of the hides. Rotunda hide has been especially good and there'd been one of this years youngsters showing very well from there for a few weeks. I headed off after an early breakfast for the very short commute of about 5 minutes to the reserve - Bempton is about 3 hours or more! At that hour the reserve is empty so I had the hide to myself. As I walked in I could see the kingfisher was already showing on one of the branches we had put up for it outside the hide.It was pretty well hidden behind some overhanging vegetation. The advantage of this bird is that it really doesn't worry about people. I set up my camera on a tripod, banging around in the hide and moving benches, but it didn't move or fly off. It did wait about 5 minutes then flew to another nearby branch where it studied the water for a potential breakfast.

It worked out though that it wasn't very hungry. It started opening its beak and moving in a strange way. Just as owls cough up pellets, kingfishers do the same. They have to cough up the undigested bits of the fish they have eaten - bones, scales and the rest. This one did just that, the pellet appearing in its throat then being thrown out of its beak!

In the last photo you can see the pellet being hurled into the water below. It can't be pleasant to have to do that after every meal!!!!

It then spent a bit flying around the various perches and grooming itself and seeing if there was anything to eat in the water below.

Finally it saw something which attracted its attention. First it hovered over the pool 

then it dived in and came up with a small stickleback which it tossed around in its beak before swallowing it.

It was a great couple of hours, such a privilege to have one of the iconic birds of the British countryside being so confiding. Hopefully it will carry on being so kind to us!

A long hot day

 Carrying on with my rather laissez faire attitude to going for lifers, I had another trip out today for a long staying bird, a black stork. This one even by my standards has been around for a long time before I've got round to going for it. It was on the 12th of August when it first appeared at Frampton Marsh, showing stupendously well to some lucky observers. Since then it has been commuting around the local area, disappearing for a few days and becoming less showy. I've tried for it twice, coming back from Bempton after Albert and also last week after the white-tailed lapwing. On both cases I dipped but it was a side-show on both occasions. This time I set out to nail it and made it my first and only stop. 

By 7.40 I was pulling into the car park on what promised to be a very hot day. The forecast was for temperatures almost to 30C and light winds. I started off with a walk round the circuit of the reserve to see if it was showing. The reserve was quite quiet for the time of year. There was a good-sized flock of godwits on the marsh waiting it out till the tide dropped and they could go and feed in the Wash.

They were pretty sedentary as though the heat had already started to get to them.

Normally there are large flocks of knot but they were absent today, though some smaller waders were around including some quite smart spotted redshanks.

and a flock of 27 spoonbills. Frampton is always very good them!

Of the stork though there was no sign. By 9.45 I was back at the car for a coffee and some breakfast. I decided to play the waiting game and headed back out to the highest point in Lincolnshire, a small mound in the middle of the reserve. It gave a good 360 degree view of the reserve in case the stork flew. Initially there was about 8 of us so we could scan all points. A very distant merlin on the gate-post gave us some distraction 

and a hobby hawking over the field gave us hope that the heat building would drive the stork into the air.

By now it was 11 and getting very hot. I had a short break for some water back in the car then headed back to the mound for another stint. I was now the only watcher left and it was getting a bit uncomfortable. I decide to leave it till 12 and then call it. I had a final check of my phone before packing up and an alert popped up "Black stork still at Frampton" but no further details. The RSPB visitor centre was only a few hundred yards away so I yomped there and asked one of the ladies if they knew anything. "Oh yes, it just flew across the car park. I've got a photograph". I had been looking in the wrong direction and had missed it. "It dropped down over towards the next set of fields though". It had to be done so I grabbed my gear and together with about 5 others we fast-marched along the exit road towards the north end of the reserve. The fields were either reeds (no chance of seeing anything) or wheat fields with a combine harvester (not attractive for a stork). By now, it was just the two of us and we were some way past the reserve. A small track led off the road and we tried down there. Didn't look hopeful as a man was in the field doing something to a herd of sheep. "Doesn't look too hopeful for a.....what the hell is that under the tree?" The black stork was in the shade of the only tree around. Unfortunately just as we saw it, it saw us and took off.

My camera settings were all wrong and it was straight into the sun but I managed to grab a few photos of it as it drifted back towards the reserve.

It is a first year bird and very handsome although these shots don't do it justice. We marched back to the visitor centre and found out it had landed in the grasslands opposite. At very long range and through heat-haze you could barely see it.

but for some people this was their only view! In case you are wondering, it is the black lump in the lower photo! The visitor centre did a good range of cold fizzy drinks which hit the spot with the few of us who had gone out exploring. 

Although by now I was very hot it had been another good day. That takes me to 391 on my UK list. If I'm to get to 400 soon I need to probably not leave lifers for a month before going for them next time!