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Essex Birding (3 Viewers)

Listing and Iceland Gull Coalhouse Fort

Sharp Shin said:
OK - I'm in on the BUBO Essex Year List 2014 as well. Just put it up there. Must admit, from my location in north Colchester, I'm usually tempted to hop over the border and do much of my birding in Suffolk. This list might tempt me to stay closer to home and save on petrol.

Stewart
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Belated Happy New Year all and enjoying catching up on the BF Banter. Good to see some new 'familiar names on BUBO. Been using it for a couple of years now since I started listing. Tedious to set up and start but happy with it now.

Someone asked about Essex totals - I managed 200 + a snow goose or something farmish in 2012. Started gently and just wondered how many I could see, but by October was around 180ish and had 200 in sight so started burning some rubber. Last year I only really chased Essex lifers so came up short but improved on my own patch which was my focus, as it is this year.

Hoping this weekend to add Iceland Gull to life, Essex and patch list. Been seen this week on a number of occasions following ships up and down river. Coalhouse Fort radar tower is advised place or perhaps up the sea wall path towards Tilbury Fort as the ships are nearer there. Lots of kittiwakes, and a merlin around too.

Relate to the Essex northerners looking longingly towards Suffolk, as I often find myself sat in my patch counthing 3x the number of harriers over the Thames at Cliffe added to reports .... yellowlegs, purple sandpipers ..... :) My listing is more about trying to improve my attentiveness, discipline and fieldcraft. I'll be happy with a top 4 finish this year ... for Man Utd that is!

A good birding year to you all :)

Steve
 
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BirdPics said:
Just seen a 13 year old birder on twitter with a British life list of 308!!!

How is that possible?! Spoiled kid haha
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The back-story to these young teenagers with big lists is that they are often driven around by their birding/twitching parents and encouraged to join in as a sort of eye-spy game. This way, the kids don't interfere with the parents' pastime. (There was an illustration of this on the 'Twitchers' programme that was on TV a while ago.) Nothing at all wrong with introducing children to nature walks, but here we are often talking about long hours spent in the back seat of a car.

There are a couple of repercussions for this type of activity. The first relates to issues of child-development and parenting, but this isn't the forum to explore that.

The other repercussion is for the 'craft' of birding. There is a craft to birding and it is learnt through local birding and getting well experienced with the commoner birds, before scooting off to 'collect' the rarer ones. You need a good experience with, say, Dunlin before you can identify some of the rarer waders. You need a good experience with, say, Chiffchaff before you can feel confident with some of the rarer warblers. And so on. Even our 'top lister' Lee Evans would strongly agree with this and repeatedly makes the point.

Tom - I don't know you, but from what I've read, you are doing very well at developing birding craft on your local patch. Don't fear, are already a far better birder that all these 'infant twitchers' put together!

Stewart
 
Sharp Shin said:
The back-story to these young teenagers with big lists is that they are often driven around by their birding/twitching parents and encouraged to join in as a sort of eye-spy game. This way, the kids don't interfere with the parents' pastime. (There was an illustration of this on the 'Twitchers' programme that was on TV a while ago.) Nothing at all wrong with introducing children to nature walks, but here we are often talking about long hours spent in the back seat of a car.

There are a couple of repercussions for this type of activity. The first relates to issues of child-development and parenting, but this isn't the forum to explore that.

The other repercussion is for the 'craft' of birding. There is a craft to birding and it is learnt through local birding and getting well experienced with the commoner birds, before scooting off to 'collect' the rarer ones. You need a good experience with, say, Dunlin before you can identify some of the rarer waders. You need a good experience with, say, Chiffchaff before you can feel confident with some of the rarer warblers. And so on. Even our 'top lister' Lee Evans would strongly agree with this and repeatedly makes the point.

Tom - I don't know you, but from what I've read, you are doing very well at developing birding craft on your local patch. Don't fear, are already a far better birder that all these 'infant twitchers' put together!

Stewart
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Kids who've seen lots of birds are certainly driven around by the their parents, for sure. And being out and about, learning the craft of birding (whether on a local patch, or in other bird-rich bits of the country) is certainly the way to become a better birder.

But with respect, I guess you don't know anything about the Craig family or what sort of birding they do, so I'd be a bit careful with the generalisations. I don't know them well, but well enough to suspect that you're barking up the wrong tree at least in this instance - and that Mya would laugh at the idea of an 'eye spy' game. Who's to say that she doesn't have the decent experience of common British birds that you rightly say is essential, or isn't a keen and good birder in her own right?

I'm sure that there are people with kids who fit the image you've described - but let's not assume everyone does.
 
I could wade in with pedagogy, research, different assimilation experiments by Bartov, Pavlov, Zimbardo and the Sandford Collectives of childhood behavioural experts but instead I will go with ....

Went to Southend today, Med gulls, Turnstones and some gulls I need to be certain of, could be kittiwake, who knows.
 
Something from the right broke the water for a while, took my time trying to find it and it had gone... Sat, pissed off on the train back whilst a young family next to us argued about who had eaten the most...

Sulk was over by Tesco where pinot grigio was bought...

Where and when in wallasea tomorrow?
 
dbradnum said:
Kids who've seen lots of birds are certainly driven around by the their parents, for sure. And being out and about, learning the craft of birding (whether on a local patch, or in other bird-rich bits of the country) is certainly the way to become a better birder.

But with respect, I guess you don't know anything about the Craig family or what sort of birding they do, so I'd be a bit careful with the generalisations. I don't know them well, but well enough to suspect that you're barking up the wrong tree at least in this instance - and that Mya would laugh at the idea of an 'eye spy' game. Who's to say that she doesn't have the decent experience of common British birds that you rightly say is essential, or isn't a keen and good birder in her own right?

I'm sure that there are people with kids who fit the image you've described - but let's not assume everyone does.
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Fair point here David, though I had careful placed the word 'often' a couple of times in the first paragraph, to allow for exceptions such as the one you mention. I think I relapsed in the final paragraph and put the word 'all', in my attempt to pat Tom on the back!

I don't really want to rehearse the whole 'twitching versus birding' argument, as it is well-worn and largely sterile. The aim of my post was to make young birders such as Tom feel that they didn't have to be envious of younger big listers (well, perhaps they don't anyway).

Stewart
 
Viv, BB,

Was at Wallasea this afternoon. Very muddy, though passable without wellies.

No marsh harrier, peregrine or merlin, but short eared appeared at dusk on the cover SW of the carpark. Barn owl along the north seawall between the farm and the carpark, ringtail hen harrier out in the middle, and an amazing 3 (three) corn buntings. My second visit this winter, and a total of 4 corn bunts seen. Last year I had 250+ in one visit.

Had the Foulness rough-legged buzzard too from the seawall east of the conveyor, though it was mega distant and entirely luck. It was on an apparently unusual foray to the north end of Foulness, so maybe viewing from the very south east corner of Wallasea would be the best bet.
 
bitter_bugger said:
Linford, with hilarious jokes like that one about Man Utd in the top four, is it true that breaking in to stand up is hard?
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Hey Steve, you need to know that as a 'Tipster' - I now have form! :)!'

'Iceland Gull (2w) came upriver past the Radar Tower at East Tilbury) Coalhouse Fort behind a smallish mineral barge/boat just after 12noon'. Good chance of the same tomorrow.

First for me and was good to have experienced birders alongside to confirm and also identify it a 2nd winter. Interesting as last weekend one of them saw a 1st winter Iceland gull. So there has definitely been (or still is) 2 Icelands traversing past East Tilbury over the last couple of weeks. As another experienced birded saw one 3 times on Thursday perhaps they still are both about.

Both gulls have been seen following ships upriver but today we had very few - 4 that I remember and all small. The Icelands (and kittiwakes) have tended to be seen following the RO-RO type ferries. Had good views of it as it flew over the edge of the mud and salt marsh towards the Radar Tower before veering back out to tail the boat.

We left shortly after as we ran out of boats!
 
JamesA said:
Viv, BB,

Was at Wallasea this afternoon. Very muddy, though passable without wellies.

......

Had the Foulness rough-legged buzzard too from the seawall east of the conveyor, though it was mega distant and entirely luck. It was on an apparently unusual foray to the north end of Foulness, so maybe viewing from the very south east corner of Wallasea would be the best bet.
Click to expand...

Must have just missed you. Left Coalhouse and went to Wallasea arrived 2.30ish. But I walked right to the gate as far east as poss. Merlin over on the walk, then had good but distant views of the RL Buzzard for best part of 3/4 of an hour from the cable-linked radar mast station northwards past the church, houses and over to the tree area beyond the grey triangulated buildings. Was a skating rink to get there but rewarded by a spectacular peregrine display over the River Roach on arrival too. Think I may have sighted a female hen harrier hunting too west of me across the fiel, probably nearer to where you were. Only glimpsed it for a few seconds and towards the sun. May have been your ringtail.

Couldn't get back in time to make the roost over the grassland and missed the SEO's.
 
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David,were they the family that were featured on the twitching documentary a couple of years back ???
I got the impression from that programme that she liked birds and birding /twitching but I also got the impression that she seemed to be missing out on a lot with friends her own age.
Saying that,I would much rather my daughter be birding of her own choice at that age than some of the things that teenagers get up to but I would like it to be her choice.
I am although prepared to understand that a TV programme is edited for the sensationalism the viewers enjoyed and it may of painted the family in a light which isn't 100% right.
As I say she seemed to know her stuff and i didn't get the impression she was there just so the parents could indulge in their pastime as they did seem keen for her to more than get involved.
From the documentary it appeared that at times she was less than thrilled to be getting out of a car at 6am after an all night drive and at one point that morning when saying she was hungry,she was told that she couldn't eat until she had seen the bird lol.
It just seemed a little extreme to me
 
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As for lists,was on bubo last year and was doing ok until around may but then work got in the way.
When I get a chance will do an Essex year list for 2014 and UK list for 2014
 
Linfordbirder said:
Must have just missed you. Left Coalhouse and went to Wallasea arrived 2.30ish. But I walked right to the gate as far east as poss. Merlin over on the walk, then had good but distant views of the RL Buzzard for best part of 3/4 of an hour from the cable-linked radar mast station northwards past the church, houses and over to the tree area beyond the grey triangulated buildings. Was a skating rink to get there but rewarded by a spectacular peregrine display over the River Roach on arrival too. Think I may have sighted a female hen harrier hunting too west of me across the fiel, probably nearer to where you were. Only glimpsed it for a few seconds and towards the sun. May have been your ringtail.

Couldn't get back in time to make the roost over the grassland and missed the SEO's.
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As far as I know this is the first time it's been seen from here, most/all others have continued south from the metal fence and viewed from the SE corner, as James says. It's probably another 15 mins walk allowing for the fact it's a bit muddy!

Even with a good scope, if viewing from the NE corner it won't be anything other than very distant. There are also several Common Buzzards on a Foulness, one very pale one, and another with contrasting pale head and dark underparts, and with a pale tail base, so anyone looking would probably want to double check to make sure they're looking at a RLB rather than a Common Buzzard.
 
Bitter bugger

Was just talking to someone about Mersea.
It's one if my favourite places for birding,especially around Stone point overlooking the Blackwater and onto brightlingsea.
There's something about being there at any time if the year and feeling a million miles away from the busier parts of the County.
If I wasn't buggering off to Norfolk for a week (for the 2nd week running),that's where I would be tomorrow
 

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