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Introductions and a Trip to Rutland (1 Viewer)

As this is my first post, I suppose I better start with some degree of introduction. I'm Alex and I currently live in north Northamptonshire. My local patch is more or less around my village, a general public targeted summary of the wildlife of which can be found here albiet in a very slightly out of date form.

Realistically, I've only been doing any birdwatching to any notable degree since Spring 2009 towards the end of my final year at University. I'd enjoyed birdwatching before I went to secondary school but just ended up dropping out of it a bit. More recently though I'd got into digital photography and always enjoyed trying to photograph wildlife and a walk around a nearby park one day, seeing nuthatches and goldcrests amoung other things, set me off it seems.

A trip to Northumbria later that year made me decide to buy a camera suitable for wildlife ready, but not being able to afford an SLR, I settled on a super-zoom digital as a compromise. It made me decide to go forward with an idea I'd been toying with for a while - a personal challenge to try and photograph as many birds as I could in the UK (or out for that matter, if I should happen to go).

To add a kind of online record I created The Bird-dex (a geeky reference that people may or may not get) where I'd post the photos in a catalogue of birds, with a bit of information to vaguely help anyone who might for some reason be interested.

I've put up ratings grading the quality of the photos and the difficulty of finding the bird from the perspective of a non-twitcher with a fairly generic patch. If there are any mistakes in any articles I've made feel free to say so in the comments. Everything is explained in detail on the site itself.

Anyway, as of waking up this morning my total species photographed stood at 145 and my British life list at 157.

Trip to Rutland
It was unfortunatly always going to be quite a brief trip - I can't drive myself and I don't live in the best place for public transport connections (a bi-hourly bus to the nearest town being the only option short of a lift or an hour long walk) and so this whole trip has to line up with a family meet up happening at Rutland anyway - I effectively had just about two and half hours.

I tend to usually go to Egleton when visiting Rutland, I do like Lyndon (and indeed, have a couple of nice shots from there) but with having Egleton to thank for a number of the species that BirdGuides considers "local" and my only "scare" (a rather obliging spoonbill) I tend to favour it.

As usual my first stop was the hide directly outside the centre, it may mostly get the same species as my own garden, but there was the slight possibility of a siskin (a species which frequented my bird-table the winter before I started this project and I haven't seen a peep of one since.) But to no avail. I did however get a better photo of a great tit, a bird which although I see it very regularly seems to have decided to never be photographed at a good angle at a good range.

greattit2.jpg

A quick drop into the visitors centre to pay for my pass left me with a slight dilema - a green winged teal a fair distance south or a grey phalarope a fair distance north, with not really enough time to do both.

I decided to go for phalarope as although possibly technically more common I decided it was more inevitable I'd need to get one sooner or later whereas the teal was probably more counted as a bonus should I get it. A long walk later (stopping off briefly to get a marginally improved photo of an egyptian goose) I arrived.

With the help of a pair of kind people already in the hide (and the use of their telescope for which I am very greatful) I was able to see the phalarope. A new life tick. On the downside it was tiny on the telescope, and that dwarfed my own camera or binoculars. An attempt at creating an unholy chimera of my camera and the telescope proved ineffectual. Having seem the bird though that was a decent enough result, I then decided to head back along the path and see if I could find the Teal before time ran out, checking out a few hides along the way.

The first hide proved a decent success, with new improved photos of redshank, dunlin and ruff.

redshank2.jpg

The following hides weren't so obliging and knowing I didn't have much time to kill I only stopped long enough to see that nothing interesting and obvious was present. Outside the last hide before the centre though I noticed a couple of finches in the the trees, and knowing that my finch count is low I checked them out. A quick look ruled out the usual suspects and so I took a few quite photos on autofocus before trying to focus manually, in which time they flew off. Consulting the identification forums on this site later confirmed them to be (lousy photos of) lesser redpoll - a lifer and new species for the bird-dex.

As I passed the centre I dropped in briefly to check if anything else had turned up and after the man at the the desk deciphered the writing on the sightings sheet, discovered that two species I needed (slavonian grebe and red throated diver) had been seen elsewhere on the reservoir, but no where I could concievably get to in two hours let alone the 50 minutes I had left.

Unfortunatly seeing the Teal wasn't to be, I had to turn back due to time before I got to the hide where it was supposed to be. I did however have a few minutes to kill back at the centre and at least managed to get a marginally improved photo of an avocet.

avocet2.jpg

So, day's summary:
Two lifers: Grey Phalarope and Lesser Redpoll
One New Bird-dex Species: Lesser Redpoll
Seven Improved Photos: Dunlin, Egyptian Goose, Ruff, Great Tit, Redshank, Avocet, Teal

Not a bad day.

Hopefully I'll keep this blog updated in a slightly briefer form in future on any other notable birding trips.
 
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