It's getting dusky

Another early start, this time to go up to Marsh Lane near Solihull ( and the forest of Arden for those who remember the World/ Superpanel conference) for a dusky warbler. This really is a very nondescript warbler, but pretty rare. Normally it should be in Asia but recently has become a regular vagrant to our shores, mainly in the autumn. It was also as lifer for me.
So, got to a muddy field by about 8. The bird was calling, a harsh "tac, tac" call from low down in some nettles. I got a fairly decent view, making out the eye stripe and overall colouration, enough to id it anyway. It then moved to a sunnier location where about 10 of us followed it up and down the hedge for an hour or so getting tantalisingly brief views as it fed vigorously in ivy. Tow or three times it stopped to allow half decent views but never long enough for a photo. Good start to the week though, with two or three days in Weymouth coming up and a black-browed albatross patrolling the south coast - now that would be nice!!!!
On the way back I stopped at college Lake in Bucks where jack snipe have been seen recently. These are the smaller and rarer cousins of our common snipe and occur in late autumn/ winter. They have a lovely habit of bobbing up and down which is one good way to identify them (as well as overall smaller size, shorter beak and more marked facial patterns).
 

Still here...

Saturday, so work party down Maple Lodge. Quick trip to Long Hedge hide as the osprey had been reported earlier, and bang on cue it dropped in with a fish already in its talons at about 8.15!!

 

It didn't stay long though.Then about 10.30 when we were having a large bonfire it popped up again, doing a fly-by and quick circuit of the reedbed.

 

Whilst  not the greatest photos in the world, these images show nicely the damage to it's wing. Tee primaries on its left wing have been, presumably, removed by a shotgun blast. Close-up you can see the jagged edges. It doesn't seem to be harming its ability to fly or catch fish although whether it is this damage or the fact it is a juvenile which is causing it to remain around is open to conjecture.

Then finally we sat in the hide again all afternoon and it popped up again between 3 and 4, still not fishing but giving some really close-up views as it scanned the lake presumably looking for any fish near the surface. It seems happy and with the weather still quite mild it will be interesting to see how long it remains

 

 

 

 

Doesn't feel like winter yet

Took a trip out to Norfolk today with Judith - combining birds with a bit of lunch and visiting a couple of galleries.
First stop was the Wolferton triangle where we've seen fly agaric's before, but nothing this year, not any sign of the golden pheasant which I personally think is a mythical beast!!
Next stop was Titchwell. Lovely weather, not feeling anything like winter or even late autumn. Birds seemed to think so too, no big flocks of geese, no white-fronts at all and only one small flock of pink-feet. On the reserve we got a very distant hen harrier, but other than that it was just the usual you'd expect - godwits of both varieties, sanderling, dunlin, redshank, curlew, brent geese, teal. There were a few scoter mooching around offshore but otherwise nothing on the sea.

 

This is a good example of the difference between bar-tailed (top photo) and black-tailed godwit (lower two). There is an overall size difference, but this is difficult to see unless in close proximity. Bar-tailed has a smaller, more upturned beak and a short neck. Black-tailed has a longer beak and a much longer neck. It also often is in deeper water. The plumage out of breeding season helps, with bar-tailed having more marked colouration whereas black-tailed is overall plainer.



The teal were particularly confiding.

 

After this we went off to Burnham Market, or Chelsea-by-the-marsh as it was half-term and the place was rammed with yummy-mummys and their identically dressed sprogs!!! Apart from that it is a really nice place - Hoste Arms does a good lunch and the fishmonger sells fresh and reasonably priced crustacea!!

We then nipped over to Cley, where there was flock of about 12 snow buntings on the beach, but no sign of the reported lap buntings of shore larks.

Bye bye and give us a ring

With the weather starting to look pretty blustery we may have seen the last of our Osprey. I saw it briefly yesterday morning but then no one saw it for the rest of Saturday. Ignoring the clock change we got up before dawn today and wnet down Maple Lodge and gave it about two hours or more but no sign. If I had tyo guess I reckon its half-way to France to now, and good luck with the hurricane forecasted for tonight.
To keep us busy there was the usual selection of ducks and the little grebe, and I tried a few arty shots. I do like the pochard with a very impressionistic background! There was also a lot of jays flying around, two kingfishers chasing each across the lake and a sparrowhawk zooming around till it was chased off by two magpies!!!

 

In the afternoon I nipped out to Wilstone for the juvenile ring-necked duck. Due to total incompetence it took over an hour to get it, needing another birder to put us onto it. Really dull, drab bird but stood out from the others. Good spot if you weren't looking though. Also had red-crested pochard, golden plover, black-tailed godwit and snipe. There was a very good number of teal, I would estimate in the hundreds. Slowly building the year-list, up to 212 on BOU or 214 on 400club rules, still way behind last year!!! 

The best of times, the worst of times

For the last week or so, there has been a juvenile osprey down at Maple Lodge. It fishes the lake opposite Long Hedge hide and roosts in the trees surrounding. I went down on Tuesday night to have a look with Judith and it was showing quite well, sitting in a tree for about an hour getting beaten up by crows and magpies. Eventually a low-flying helicopter scared it off.
Yesterday I went down in the afternoon but it didn't show.
So, this morning Judith and I decided to go along in the early morning when I  has been fishing. Got into the hide about 9ish and it was sitting in the same tree. Hide was pretty full with the usual suspects - Geoff Lapworth, Steve Cater, Paul Lewis and a few of the other locals. After an hour or so it did a quick fly by and landed in a much better tree directly opposite the hide in beautiful sunlight. Another 20 minutes or so and it relocated again. All the time it was scanning the lake surface. Then eventually it dived into the lake. Motor drives fired like mad and it came back up with a fish and flew directly over the hide. Wow. I've never seen one catch a fish like that so well before and certainly not a mile from my house!!
So, if that was the best of times, what was the worst. I was surprised on holiday that a lot of our otter photos weren't as sharp as they could be, and the ones in poor light on Tuesday were a bit sub-optimal, but I put it down to conditions etc. Checking the camera back today I was concerned my photos looked very poor compared to everyone else's. Getting home it was clear they were rubbish. The lens seems to have a fault and is giving me a double image. Not a sharp image there. I really could cry. The best set of photos in this country of one of our favourite birds and I really should delete the lot.
Below are some of the more salvageable ones, including a set of the dive and recovery with the fish, which apparently is a 4 to 6 ounce roach..... Ah well.    

 

That's got the family

Not a bad year really. I've now managed to tick not only a new species but complete another family. Early this morning I nipped out (if that's the right word for a two hour drive!) to Hemstead Forest in Kent where a flock of 6 parrot crossbills have been showing well. I timed the drive well, arriving about 15 minutes after first light. Two other birders on site already. Had been in the clearing no more than 5 minutes, with many common crossbills flying over, when 6 birds with a distinctive contact call  flew over. This was probably enough to id them, but they stopped in a tree about 100 yards away and even in the poor early light you could see the enormous conk on them really well in profile.
Seemed like a nice site, with lots of crossbills, the parrots, a two-bar around somewhere, bramblings calling overhead and some redpolls in the trees as well. So, that means I've now got all 4 of the crossbills currently split by the BOU, and all of them in the last month give or take a day.
After that, I drifted down to Dungeness to see if there was anything around, but both land and sea were pretty quiet. There was still a good movement of swallows out from the coast numbering in the hundreds in an hour, arctic and sandwich terns moving along the coast and a couple of arctic skuas (or parasitic jaegers to our cousins!) pestering them. One little gull on the patch by the nuclear power station was nice. On the land, lots of linnets and a late (over-wintering?) blackcap was all I could find.
Still, that takes my life list to an almost respectable 322 and year-list to 212. Aiming for 330 by the time I go back to work on Dec 2, but that could be a stretch target at over 1 a week.

Caper capers

part 3 of our Scottish holiday, this time on speyside.
For the last 5 days, we were in Speyside staying at the Boat Hotel in Boat of Garten, very well placed for most of areas around. The weather was starting to turn, but it was still pretty mild although th mornings were misty!!
As well as the stunning scenery around our main targets were the Speyside specials - crested tits, capercaillies, red and black grouse, ptarmigan and Scottish crossbills. Eagles would always be nice, although having already seen them they were less of a priority and we didn't figure on getting anymore otters.
Apart from red grouse, which were plentiful and confiding, particularly on the Farr road out of Findhorn. Here we had them about 20 feet from the car, quite curious and I presume destined for the pot!!!

Their compatriots the black grouse proved a lot harder to pin down. Out of the lek they didn't seem
easy to get at Tulloch Moor, but we finally got a very distant view from the Coire na Ciste car park. This came from a tip off from Speyside Wildlife, more of whom later. In the same area we got our only miss, as the weather proved too intractable to get onto the tops to go for ptarmigan.
Having had only really poor views of a very distant capercaillie last time we were up, in the spring, we set out to try and track them down. After a couple of abortive self-found attempts in the forest around Loch Garten we got a tip from a Heatherlea guide that "walking up to Rothiemuchus lodge" might be a good idea. So, we set off on what is a decent track/ road up to the load by Loch Morlich. Didn't seem that good, as cars kept coming past us. Quite soon after getting into the wooded area though I heard a distinctive call and a flock of Scottish crossbills arrived in the pines near us. It was a group of about 10 birds including at least a couple of smart males. After walking for another 30 minutes we then heard a much more musical, trilling call. I got Judith to get out her iphone and on playing crested tit we got a very smart pair come down to check us out. So, two targets we didn't expect but not the one we did. We walked all the way to the lodge without any sign of capers. Coming back down we scanned what looked like suitable areas and played caper calls but nothing. We were almost out of the forest when suddenly there was a tremendous noise and crashing from high up in the trees to our right. Two or possibly three) large shapes were flying or rather battering their way through the pines - capercaillies. We ventured into the woodland a few feet and in the distance you could see a male fly off. Distant but definitely a caper!! Not wanting to just chase them we waited for about 20 minutes but they didn't return. Happy, we set off down the road and about 5 minutes later a huge bird flapped across a clearing - another male caper, this time beautifully viewable. Mission accomplished!!!
What else was good? Findhorn valley was spectacular but didn't yield much apart from one lone golden eagle floating really high on the tops. There was large numbers of red deer though on the hillside, and when we arrived early morning they were bellowing and jousting away on the hillsides. The Moray coast was really blowy but we got large numbers of long-tailed ducks as well as little gulls, velvet and common scoter, common eider, red-throated diver and lots of gannets.
Red squirrels were a bit shy this time, but we did get a couple of god views down by Loch Garten.

One night we went to the hide run by Speyside wildlife. This is basically a large, but heated, hide in the woodland near Loch an Eilean where badgers and if you're lucky, pine martens come to food. Although the weather was foul we were lucky and got quite a few badgers and one pine marten. The photos aren't great as you're looking through glass, with some artificial light and no flash!

Mainly though it was about the scenery and the landscape with some great skies and perfect reflections in the lochs.