Ten targets for 2017 (4 Viewers)

October 15th

I must say Rob, you have a much better half term than we do in Wales; we have two weeks yet to wait :-C

A morning at Spurn, seeking and failing at one of my tartiest list gaps; Arctic Warbler. Had a couple of goes, but to no avail although I gather it was seen (we clearly lack Rob & co's persistence). Hoofed around looking for migrants but pickings were thin, highlights being incoming Redwings and departing House Martins and Swallows, as well as very good views of Bearded Tits, despite the stiff breeze.

We fared somewhat better with Rose-coloured Starling at Easington. While our first go drew a blank a second attempt came up with the goods. We arrived to find a handful of folks staking the place out, where the bird was occasionally seen in bushes behind one of the bungalows, as well as up on the wires. After twenty minutes or so of waiting the crowd had grown to thirty plus, with still no sign. Another twenty minutes of waiting and the bird finally popped up in the bush behind the house, by which time the three of us were the only ones left waiting! It was the first time in the day that I couldn't see another birder anywhere! We tried to beckon the last three to have left as we arrived back at our car and they were driving off but they didn't notice us (should've checked their mirrors more). Nothing else of note for us, Arctic Warbler will have to wait for another day.

The year list has now reached last year's final total of 207.

Interesting, the starling has moulted a bit since Thursday.
We were on the point of leaving (all sat in the car!) when there was a movement of people from the Crown and Anchor towards the churchyard as the Arctic warbler was showing - we got pretty lucky there.

Rob

Nice Bearded Tit pix. the starling looks as scruffy as they always do!

Cheers
Mike

October 29th: part I

A two day Diet Coke & jelly baby fuelled road trip started as we left home at 05:00 and drove through the night, weaving our way through the unseen Welsh countryside, Skinny Lister’s “Forge & Flagon” looping on the stereo, thanks to my two DJs being fast asleep in the back with all the CDs. Arrived at Pwll Du rather earlier than necessary, so sat in the car for a while, breakfasting on cold pizza, before venturing into the slowly brightening, briskly breezy outdoors and off along the old tram track to the quarries, occasional Redwings calling overhead. Being first on site there was the brief period of wondering if were in the right place, before a passing dog walker reassured us that we had indeed arrived where the recent infestation of birders had been densest and then, bit by bit, more birders started to arrive. Before long there was a score or so of us, slowly pacing the track along the base of the quarry cliff, scouring the rock face and the scree and rubble beneath it for any sign, and the boys had headed off over the rolling grassy mounds, presumably grown over spoil heaps, where we had found a couple of dozen Meadow Pipits when we first arrived, but precious little since.

Eventually, as I was nearing the far end of the quarry, two birders approaching me became suddenly animated, they’d seen someone off in the distance behind me waving, the bird had been found. Specifically, found by Arch. I was pleased to see the boys in amongst the small group of birders grilling the bird, but positively delighted when, as I approached the closest birders I was told “It was them young lads found it!” Brilliant, I’ve never seen such a huge grin on Arch’s face. Turns out he’d seen it silhouetted, couldn’t quite tell if it was a bird even (thought it might be a mushroom, of which there were many), and as he shifted position for a better line of sight it flew a short distance and he realised what it was; Rock Thrush! They then found the nearest birders, told them, they all headed over to where the bird still was and started beckoning others over. Shortly after this I finally turned up. My first UK Rock Thrush since one on Anglesey over thirty years ago, and a fantastic way to start our trip.

Splendid stuff.
On Saturday Andrew was running in the Scottish cross country relays at Cumbernauld. I concocted a plan which involved us leaving Cumbernauld after the race and heading for the Slamannan plateau. We drove out from behind a small wood to find c200 Taiga bean geese right beside the (very minor) road. Our appearance rather spooked them and the nearest birds walked/flew a bit further away but these were the closest views I've ever had. A lifer for them to go with Tundra beans seen a few years ago. Afterwards we headed for Gartmorn dam, where unfortunately the ferruginous duck was nowhere to be found. Daniel did pick up a nice drake scaup however.
The rock thrush at St Fergus didn't show like that!

Rob

October 29th: part II

The plan had been at this point to continue down to Dorset, with Lodmoor’s Lesser Yellowlegs our first target but a quick check of today’s news as we walked back to the car and lo and behold a target bird had become available! Now, the Cotswolds does not lie on the natural route from Gwent to Dorset, but I’ve done weirder detours, and reckoned we had a fair chance of fitting this in and still getting to Dorset in good time. I was sort of right.

A couple of hours or so after leaving Pwll Du we arrived at Twitcher’s Gate on Pit 74, via a drop in at the Cotswold Water Park Info Centre to get a fix on exactly where we needed to be. The news was negative, but much of the pit was unsighted, and there was a hide to check from, but it was a bit of a walk. A bit turned out to be rather a lot, and on arrival the bird was super distant, but with patience and 60x zoom we all picked it out in the end, principally on bill pattern, in amongst the Pochards (attached pic, barely even a record shot, gives a notion of how far off it was). Between two attempts on the Paxton bird and now this I can’t believe how far we’ve walked this year to finally nail RING-NECKED DUCK, but it’s good to have another target down, leaving just Woodcock to try and sort out before year’s end.

The time we took on getting the Duck meant it was pretty late on that we arrived at Lodmoor, around twenty past three, but with the recent switch to GMT that meant we didn’t have a huge amount of daylight left to play with. On the plus side it was really very fine daylight, with an unobscured lowering sun at our backs, the area to be searched bathed in its light. This had brought a few hopeful photographers out to try and take advantage of these conditions, and it was from them that we learnt we had not long missed the Yellowlegs, which had been displaced by a stroppy Ruff and dropped down out of sight. Darn. While the Togs staked out the most favoured feeding area, we opted to patrol up and down, birding as we went, enjoying the aforementioned Ruff, a couple of Marsh Harriers, Lapwing, Snipe, Blackwits and more Med Gulls in one place than the boys had ever seen. Eventually the sun dropped low enough that it no longer lit up the scrape, and on our next pass the lensmen had packed up their gear and gone, and I was beginning to think we would be back at some point tomorrow. Then as we left the main spot one more time to check a little further inland a loud Tringa-esque call rang out behind us, sending us scurrying back and bingo! There he was, Lesser Yellowlegs! We enjoyed watching him stride up and down the far shore for a while, and then it was time to go, over to Poole for another Travelodge night, with mammals firmly in our sights for the following morning.

You have done well! Great pix of the Lesserlegs. We had it fairly distantly....

John

I miss Med Gulls!

And that RN duck shot is a proper old school record shot!

Cheers
Mike

MKinHK said:

I miss Med Gulls!

And that RN duck shot is a proper old school record shot!

Cheers
Mike

Click to expand...

*** SPOILER ALERT ***




Wait till you see Lesser Scaup....

October 30th: part I

Our first frost of the season sat lightly at the top of the windscreen this morning, crunching quietly as the wipers did their first sweep. Half an hour later we were first car in the car park at Arne RSPB, and setting off on the track towards Shipstall Point. No sooner had we reached the first stretch of heath there, off on the left, beating the bejesus out of a shrub, was our number one target for the morning; Sika Deer. His face was largely obscured by the vegetation he was attacking, but we stopped and watched for a while and were treated to his cry, a weird, banshee, siren of a wail, quite arresting, the usual description of a squeaking gate barely begins to do it justice. He was answered by a second beast, silhouetted against the lightening sky on the rise off to the right. Being caught between the two of these eerie sounding creatures was disconcerting to say the least, given how belligerent they can become during the rut. We saw a couple more stags during the morning, including one ridiculously tame individual grazing right behind the hide, antlers draped with dry grass, he just lifted his head from time to time to eyeball us before eventually sauntering off towards the saltmarsh. Remarkable. The morning was occasionally punctuated by further wailing cries, but the brighter and sunnier it got the less eldritch they sounded.

They generally are tame around there, but at this time of year you shouldn't take it for granted. Testosterone is funny stuff.....

Excellent shots. I'm glad you had such good views.

John

Congratulations on the first post on Birdforum that has included the word 'eldritch'!

Re eldritch - I was impressed too!

'Tis the season for such words, and I've always liked it. Glad it has a fan base out there, hadn't expected that!

As for the "tame" Deer, I did indeed approach with extreme caution, kept the boys well back till it had wandered off, but there was a lady stuck at the top of the steps to the hide who seemed intimidated by its proximity, and it would have felt ungallant to observe from a distance and then turn tail leaving her still trapped there!

October 30th: part II

The other mammal we were hoping for at Arne was Water Voles, which are known to show very well on the ponds by the path to the hide. We scoured these on several occasions during the morning but had no success. Out on the marsh the Spoonbill flock numbered a meaningful 42 and at one point was joined by a dozen Barnacle Geese, and the heath yielded up year tick Dartford Warblers. The handful of Red Admirals wafting about may well turn out to be our last this year, and there were a few handsome looking fungi about. Surprise spot of the morning was one Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, complete with camera crew, out shooting for a series on wildlife of the west country (so far as I could gather), to air early next year on BBC2. Watch this space.

After having had one last crack at the Voles we headed back to the now heaving car park and café and grabbed hot chocolates piled up with marshmallows for the boys and a black coffee for me, and then hit the road once more, bound for Blashford, and what turned out to be our second stupidly distant drake American Aythya in as many days, as the Lesser Scaup drifted up and down the far side of the lake. So that’s another one that will be in need of an upgrade at some point, but at least it’s in the bag, and the light was right for picking out the purple sheen of its head from time to time even at that distance.

I had had some fanciful notion of detouring via Rutland for American Wigeon on the way home, but when faced with the reality at the last minute I baulked at the extra driving involved and in the absence of anything else to divert us I decided to call time, not even going for Water Pipit at nearby Ibsley when texted about it (for which thanks John) as by then Blashford was five minutes behind us and home was over four hours away. A great trip, with an excellent strike rate and some quality time spent exploring Arne to counter-balance the twitching. I’d do it again.

That Lesser Scaup Shot really is a cracker - and great to see Douglas Adams being channelled - especially by something as bizarre as spoonbills!

Cheers
Mike

November 2nd

A family day out to Anglesey started with a crack at the Red Squirrels at Parc Llyn Mawr. We arrived to bad news though, with signs up saying that owing to the dreaded pox recently being found in Anglesey Squirrels for the first time the feeders had been decommissioned to discourage too many animals gathering in the same place. Arch spotted one dashing through the car park, but we couldn’t relocate it, so we headed off in search. A half hour loop round the “Squirrel Trail” yielded just brief tree top views for me but no one else, and ended in time honoured fashion with one showing well in the car park when we finally got back. By the time I found an angle to photograph it unobscured by twigs it had gone into full snuggle-down mode! I only hope that the current outbreak doesn’t spell the end for these lovely little rodents on the island. Nothing else of wildlife note in the day, but we enjoyed the exhibition of “Birds of Wales” art currently on show in the gallery at Llangefni, as well as the beautiful Tunnicliffe’s that reside there.

November 3rd

The marshes from Nel’s Hide at Marshside RSPB this morning were teeming with birds. Hundreds of Black-tailed Godwits, some massed together in a big roost, others feverishly feeding away, Lapwings abounded, with a few Golden Plover mixed in, dozens of Ruff, a few Redshank, Curlew & Snipe, a couple of Dunlin and a lone Greenshank. Wigeon & Teal were all over the shop too, with generous numbers of Pintail, Gadwall, Shoveler, Mallard & Shelduck, flocks of Pink-footed Geese coming and going from the saltmarsh the other side of the road. In amongst all of this activity, somewhere, was a Long-billed Dowitcher. We scanned and scanned until my eyes started to complain, and then decided a change of scenery wouldn’t hurt and headed up to view the spectacle from Hesketh Road. Here we bumped into a couple of birders (one of whom I recognised from an Ivory Gull twitch over thirty years ago) who helpfully filled us in on the Dowitcher’s recent habits, allowing us to refine our search a little. No joy from Hesketh road, so off we went to try again from Nel’s Hide and this time – pay dirt. We’d been told that it sometimes got in amongst the Godwit roost, and over towards the left hand end of this is where we did indeed locate it, swimming and occasionally flying between the slightly raised hummocks and tussocks that broke the water’s surface here and there, very actively drilling away with that impressive length of beak. The views were distant, but not too bad with the scope zoomed in a little, and I have attached a few more old school record shots.

And here’s a stat for you, from Long-tailed Tits in the in-laws’ back garden on Boxing Day 2014 to today’s Long-billed Dowitcher that’s at least one tick a month for three straight years!

Home early to tick off Thor: Ragnarok. Bloody hilarious, and a fine way to round off the half term hols.

Speaking as the tallest inhabitant of Niblheim, there's something terribly wrong about describing Ragnarok as "bloody hilarious"!

Well done with the ticking performance though, keep it up - as long as you can..... I'm just happy I've again managed to avoid a blank year this year, and I wonder how long that can last.

Cheers

John

November 12th

Sometimes it's nice to just have a relaxing weekend of not doing very much. Twice, maybe three times a year, tops. Still managed to fit in a Sunday afternoon stroll round the local gravel pit down Fagl Lane, for the boys to pick up the Long-tailed Duck that's been hanging out there the past couple of weeks (I saw it Monday). Plenty of Great Crested & Little Grebes about too, as well as a few Goosander, and the Long-tailed was still loosely associating with the small Mallard flock that tucks itself up against the east shore towards the north end, making viewing tricky through the waterside Alders. Also, in a carbon copy of Monday's visit, Beluga Number 4 came by low overhead.