and so it begins......

Having been away for pretty much all of August in Sri Lanka, I've now come back to the most exciting time in the birding year - the Autumn migration. At this time of year, anything can, and frequently does, turn up. It also marks the start of my having a bit more time to catch up with them, as from now on I'm down to 3 days a week a work!
The precursors of the main migration rush are often the waders, returning back south from their breeding grounds in the Arctic. On their way north in the spring they are in a rush to get to the best breeding sites. In the autumn they are a bit more relaxed and can hang around for a few days feeding up. This certainly applies to one pretty rare bird, a long-billed dowitcher, which has taken up semi-residence at Oare Marshes in Kent. This is a pretty small reserve in north Kent, on the edge of the Medway estuary. I've been a few times before so I knew the way and got there about 7 to a beautiful sunny morning.

The reserve is right at the end of a road leading to Harty ferry and is basically just one large pool surrounded by reeds. This view is from the road looking across the reserve to the river at the back of of the marsh. The centre ground at high tide, which was 8 today so just after I arrived, is covered with waders. The downside though is that you are looking straight into the rising sun making for, how shall I put it, challenging viewing and photographic conditions.
Still, I got out my 'scope and set up next to the 4 or 5 other birders already scanning the marsh. There were hundreds of golden plovers, dozens of black-tailed godwits, dunlin and ringed plovers as well as  smaller numbers of ruff, greenshank, redshank, spotted redshank, turnstones and avocets.

The first good bird we got onto was one which dropped in the day before - a red-necked phalarope. These are gorgeous, delicate waders, breeding in very small numbers in Scotland but normally a classic migration bird. These are horrible photos into the Sun, but hopefully give the impression of what they look like.

 They are always busy, spinning around in shallow water picking flies off the waters surface. They often do this in deep water, so swim rather than wade. They have a characteristic "jizz" of seeming to be peering curiously at the water in front of them, hunting by sight for their breakfast.
Close by was the second of my targets, the long-billed dowitcher. I haven't seen one for a few years, since a long-staying bird at Lodmoor in Dorset, and they are rare if not actually mega in this country.
They are a more typical wader, long-legged, feeding by probing the mud. Size-wise they are larger than a redshank but smaller than a godwit. The thing to look for though is the bill which is, well, long!!

The top picture here gives you an idea of size - its the 6th bird from the right on its own, with lapwings for comparison. The lower one shows you that long, dagger-like bill.

These two gives you a bit more detail, albeit you may have to take my word a bit! A medium-sized bird, with a long, slightly down curved bill. The plumage is quite brown, with distinct markings and you can just about make out a white supercilium. I was on site for well over an hour and it only moved a few feet from this spot, feeding then sleeping, but never coming out into decent light. Still, a cracking bird, indeed a good pair of birds. Despite the best efforts of myself and the other birders on site we couldn't find any other rare waders, such as little stints or curlew sandpipers, but I should be able to pick them in then next couple of weeks.
After this, with not much else around in Kent, I braved the southern M25 - awful as usual - to go to Staines reservoir.

 The south basin has been drained for repairs, turning it into a magnet for waders. It is vast however, and all the waders were on the far side, again with the sun in totally the wrong position and a heat haze making viewing awful. Luckily a couple of the locals including "reservoir Dom" were on site and over an hour of ruining our eye-sight we managed to pull out 5 or 6 wood sandpipers and a probable, by dint of it not being anything else and being there for the last few days, pectoral sandpiper. Not the most satisfactory of views but I may try again later if it stays, as the reservoir isn't due to be filled for a few weeks yet.
A good day all round - 4 new year ticks taking me to 246 and way ahead of my best ever year with the main part of Autumn still to come. Would be nice to get a few lifers in the mix though!!

Climate change! What climate change?

Despite the increasing bad news about the decline in many breeding birds in the UK - turtle doves, corn buntings, red-backed shrike, skylarks to name just 4 - there are other species that are gaining ground, mainly coming across from Europe (don't tell Nigel Farage). Lets ignore escapes like the parakeets, but little egrets are now common, great white egrets and cattle egrets, spoonbills and glossy ibis and even little bittern have jumped the channel and breed in increasing numbers.One that has been on the list of "next" has been bee-eaters. These exotic-looking birds are found on the near continent and every year small numbers come across, but are normally just "fly-bys". Two years ago though a pair nested on the Isle of Wight following 5 previous attempts going back to the start of the last century. With the climate warming though, there is a pronounced movement of our resident birds moving north and continental warm-weather birds moving in so they were mooted as a likely next candidate. So, when 2 weeks ago a group of bee-eaters were spotted at a gravel pit in Nottinghamshire it was not a surprise though it did create quite a stir.
The site is a working quarry, so strictly out of bounds. The RSPB though stepped up to the mark and very quickly set up a car-park (£5) and a viewing area. Last weekend over two thousand people visited them, prompted by national news coverage in papers and on the TV!!
My first chance came this week, with a work meeting in Warwick, about an hours drive away, at 11am. So, I had to plan on getting the birds first, which meant a 4.15 alarm call and on the road by 4.40. A blast up the A1 (the M1 was closed for smart motorway works!!) got me to the village of East Leake by just before 7. The nice RSPB man took my £5 and pointed me in the right direction.

This is the site as you walk in from the car park. It looks like a typical old gravel working, lots of disturbed soil and smallish lakes. To get your bearings, on the left side of this photo above is a solitary ash tree, which is the bee eaters preferred perch, and, though hard to make out, on the far right are about 8 twitchers/ birders/ curious tourists already on site.

This was the viewing area - the ash tree in the distance and a lake to left and right where the birds, along with lots of sad martins, were feeding.
Straight away I got onto the birds, sitting in their favoured ash tree. As the first shot below shows, it was still some distance away - this was 500mm lens uncropped!

You can see why they are so popular - exotic, colourful and full of character. There were 7 originally, but we could only see 4. Last week there was frequent copulation, so it is presumed that the other 3 are females who are now on eggs. They nest in holes in sandy banks, and are again presumed to have requisitioned old sand martin burrows.

For the first 30 minutes or so, they were flitting on and off the tree catching insects, in this case a rather juicy looking dragon fly. All are caught on the wing, with a languorous, almost lazy action in the air unlike the frantic flight of hirundines. You can also see them in this short video.

Bee-eater video

They then decided that the feeding over the gravel pit wasn't good enough, so they all decided to firstly have a fly past us. Thy never got that close but it did give a chance to see them in the air.

Most of these are pretty large crops, so not the best quality, but you can hopefully get an idea of the graceful flight pattern and those stunning Mediterranean colours.

The top one of these three actually shows on of them "lightening its load" which is an unusual shot!
They then spent half an hour in a tree on the far bank, having a bit of a groom and a general chat.

Finally they seemed to decide to split up and three headed off to a field to feed, out of our sight, whilst one came back to the ash tree and tried his luck on the gravel pit again.

By this time it was getting on to being past 9 and I had to move on to get to my meeting in Warwick. There were still cars pulling up into the car park as I left. If they do breed and raise young this will be one popular attraction over the Summer. Really great day, a superb year tick to take me to 238 and back to 16 ahead of Martin again, who saw them last week. What could be better?

Reeling in the years

My company has been part of the recent ransomware attack. So, with my pc in lock down and the office out of bounds and all my emails sent on my phone I had some time on my hands. Only a bit of time though as the phone still required me to make a call at lunchtime so I had to work out what to do locally.
One possibility was a grasshopper warbler which has been seen for the past few days at Heartwood Forest. This is near St. Albans and was where we saw the wintering short-eared owls two years ago.
It only took about 20 minutes to get there, to find a car park full of dog walkers - never a good sign when looking for birds but they were all well behaved and kept to the paths.
The "gropper" was reported as being between the farm and round wood. I knew where the farm was but which one was the round wood was a bit of a guess. So, a 15 minute yomp got me to where I could see the farm but there were three possible woods and all looked quite, well, round! With no clues I carried on down the fence line. Near a stile, and close to a wood, was an area of low, scrubby bushes. This is perfect gropper habitat.
Elsewhere the fields were alive with birdsong - linnets, whitethroats, skylarks, goldfinches and lots of butterflies. More importantly I then heard a very loud and strange bird song, the characteristic reeling of the grasshopper warbler. The link below shows you why it is called reeling, being just like the sound of a fishing reel spooling out. This link is actually a bird I saw two years ago, but you get the point.

Grasshopper warbler calling

Now groppers are normally known as birds which you can hear but are hard to see. They both skulk and throw their voices. This one started off like that.

You could see it in a bush, but it was hard to really get onto it. It made it easier though as it was singing incessantly. Gradually with a bit of patience it started to become braver and come out into the open.

It is a typical lbj. No colour, no real distinguishing marks. Very streaked on top, plain off-white underneath. That round-tail is pretty characteristic though.

Finally, it came out onto a nearby branch and showed itself in all its glory. As it turned its head, where the call came from moved as it threw its voice around. When it looked straight toward me I could see right down its gape!

Quite surprisingly there were no other birders around so I had it all to myself. I stayed for probably 30 minutes, twice about to leave till it struck up its song again calling me back. I eventually dragged myself away though and went back home for a bit of phone-calling. Nice bird though!