Targets for 2018 (1 Viewer)

Been away over Whit week, the boys' first taste of foreign birding in southern Portugal & Spain. Account under way here https://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?p=3725946#post3725946 . Although a family holiday, given the family it's no surprise that ticks were had....

No birding since getting back from Spain, but we all enjoyed watching Damselflies (Red-eyed and, I think, Azure) at Erddig yesterday afternoon, and then a Banded Demoiselle was in next door's garden this morning.

And the Odonata theme continued after school today with Large Red Damsel and both Demoiselles on the river behind the house.

June 17th: part I

Well, it’s been a while what with one thing and another, but this weekend we finally got out and about again. Saturday morning saw us up at Amlwch at first light, getting well soggy and not seeing Snowy Owl. To be honest my hopes were not high to start with, but I just couldn’t not go. Morning’s highlight was a very close in Harbour Porpoise, which in the stillness of the morning we could hear exhaling on surfacing and then sploshing back under the water’s surface. Absolutely nothing else of any interest whatsoever.

Sunday was much better. Wykeham Forest Raptor Watchpoint was our ultimate destination, but before settling in for a prolonged stakeout we stopped off at a spot along a country lane that had been recommended to me. On arrival it turned out that three our target bird species were picking up grit from the layby we’d been directed to, taking flight as we pulled up. We relocated them, a trio of Turtle Doves, on a fence at the bottom of the roadside field, with one male displaying away at a female and the third bird playing gooseberry a little way off.

A good start, and half an hour later we pulled up at the watchpoint car park and made our way bout to the benches that look out over Troutsdale. A couple of birders were already in place when we arrived, and a few more turned up soon afterwards. While waiting for the raptors to get active we were kept entertained by Crossbills flying by, Garden Warblers in the scrub below us and a Tree Pipit sitting up on a nearby fir. Wasn’t long before we were picking up Buzzards toing and froing, and a Goshawk was called out, but it was rather distant and the boys never managed to get onto it. Still, things were clearly warming up on the raptor front and before long another shout went up, this time Honey Buzzard. Trouble is, when I tried to follow directions I managed to end up on the wrong bird. On the plus side, the wrong bird turned out to be a Goshawk, much closer this time, and I managed to get the boys onto it in the scope, but by the time they’d both seen it the Honey was no longer available. A shame, but now it felt like it was just a matter of time, and so we settled back down again and continued scanning.

June 17th: part II

Wasn’t long before another shout came up, this time for a super close Honey, coming in from behind us to the right, swooping low over the fields down in the valley and up the other side, attracting the attention of a Common Buzzard along the way. There then followed prolonged views of at least two Honey Buzzards, seemed to be attempting to display but the Common Buzzard was pretty relentless in its harrying and just wouldn’t let them alone, giving at excellent opportunity to compare the two species. This went on for at least fifteen minutes, but eventually the protagonists drifted off behind us to the left and became obscured by trees. We left soon after, but not before catching up with an old friend from back in the day who had turned up with his kids.

The journey home was broken first at Swillington, where we failed to catch up with Black Tern, Black-necked Grebe or Bittern, and then Moore, whose Black-necked Grebe proved rather more amenable!

Fine shots of the buzzards - and that male Turtle Dove is full-on!

Cheers
Mike

July 20th

Well, it’s been an extremely busy few weeks but, as the hiatus on this thread would suggest, busy with things other than birding. However, with various projects reaching completion and the summer holidays upon us hopefully we’ll be able to start getting out a bit more, particularly with three trips away planned, two of them with some potentially target rich environments.

Today was our first free day for a month, and with a pants weather forecast and things pretty quiet bird wise I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. The idea of a four hour drive to attempt connection with a highly mobile Sooty Tern was never seriously entertained, but a reported Bonaparte’s Gull a mere hour and a half away at Porthmadog, well that could work. Always a long shot, worst case scenario would be spending time overlooking a marsh scanning through Black-headed Gulls, failing to locate the Boney’s, but out and about in a fairly decent area and not ridiculously far from home. Sold.

Well, as you may have already realised, we never did find the Gull, and three hours was quite long enough to stand out in the drizzle looking for it. I thought the boys’ patience stood up pretty well, helped by the distraction of a mum Otter with a couple of kits legging along the main channel through the marsh, prolonged if distant views, as well as occasional close passes by narrow gauge steam locomotives and year tick Common Sandpipers. Ultimately, in the face of little to no improvement in the weather, we opted to drop in on the Glaslyn Ospreys and then head home. The very distant Ospreys were barely discernible shapes in the drizzly gloom, and much more fun was provided by some colossal leaps from the fish in the river, salmony trouty jobbies, going full on polaris before gravity spotted what they were up to and grabbed them back.

One stop on the way home, at Gronant for Little Terns. Much better viewing arrangements in place here than in previous years, so much better views were had, including a couple of chicks but the rain soon caught up with us so that was that for the day. (Then nearly had a heart attack when I saw RBA was reporting a Snowy Owl at Porthmadog, but turned out it was a late report of one a week ago. Phew, can live with that!)

A week in the west Highlands produced such local specials as black guillemot and hooded crow plus a couple of white-tailed eagles (the second low over our accommodation picked up by Daniel). A family party of dotterel on Aonach Mor was very welcome.
Back home Daniel came on my WeBS count which was quiet but did add puffin to the year list, plus 3 whimbrel. Next day, while supporting Sue in a 10k trail race, the boys and I heard a green woodpecker - increasingly local in Fife.
Next up a long haul family birding adventure...

Rob

July 26th

Still seem to be struggling to find time for birding in amongst life scudding by, but I suppose I should update on what little we have seen, starting with Mandarins in Llangollen on a family day out, recently fledged birds I think, scrambling for scraps with the local Feral Pigeons by the river while families played and paddled nearby.

July 28th - August 4th

A few bits and pieces were picked up on the annual family Pembrokeshire holiday. Bottle-nosed Dolphins in Newquay harbor on the drive down, Meditaerranean Gulls and Sanderlings on the beach (the latter particularly endearing, giving excellent close views) and Manx Shearwaters from the coast path. Also some nice dragonflies, Migrant Hawker in the Cathedral grounds in St Davids and Golden-ringed at Hilton Court the pick of the bunch.

We're just back from a family birding trip to Sabah! Boys coped very well with early starts, forest birding, leeches etc. Fantastic trip - a report may appear in the fullness of time...

Rob

August 14th: part I

A really nice run out today started at Burton Mere Wetlands. No sign of the recent Spotted Crake, wasn’t really expecting it, but the resident Cattle Egret was on show and a couple of Yellow Wagtails were flitting about across the far side of the scrape was a year tick. Green Sandpiper and Spotted Redshank were also welcome additions to the year list, and there were still a couple of lingering Avocets. On the non bird front there was a Wall Brown showing from the visitor centre, an unusual site record according to the staff there, a couple of Common Lizards were basking on the usual stretch of fence and plenty of Brown Hawkers were bombing about, with one hung up on some willow screening.

edenwatcher said:

We're just back from a family birding trip to Sabah! Boys coped very well with early starts, forest birding, leeches etc. Fantastic trip - a report may appear in the fullness of time...

Rob

Click to expand...

Wow, bet that was ace. I am all anticipation for that report....

August 14th: part II

The main event for today was a second attempt on the Hoylake Bonaparte’s Gull. We had a go after work on Sunday, but the tide was way out and the Gull absent. This time we were planning to hit Hoylake late morning and hang around for the high tide early afternoon in the hopes this would make it easier to find our target. As it happened, in spite of the water’s edge being way off in the distance when we arrived, the bird was very quickly located in a small group of Herring & Black-headed Gulls just off the lifeboat station. It was standing right by a Black-headed Gull, giving an excellent compare and contrast opportunity, which the boys took full advantage of, having been thoroughly briefed on the best features to look for. Within five minutes the Bonaparte’s Gull upped and took flight, the only bird in the gathering to do so, and slowly diminished as it headed off to the distant tideline to feed.

This was the boys’ first new bird since the Wykeham Honey Buzzards in June, which means the tick-a-month run is over, standing at 43. Would have been nice to make the half century, but to be honest it’s a relief more than a disappointment. A bit of a laugh while it lasted, but it’s not all about the ticks, fun though they are.

As an aside I did find that my period of enforced inaction due to illness this spring, coupled with some expensive car woes, kind of took the wind out of my sails and cost me a good deal of momentum and I have found myself somewhat in the doldrums over summer. Two more trips away before the schools go back, with some decent birding potential on both, will hopefully get me back on track in time for autumn!

August 15th

With a trip to Suffolk to see relatives planned things were shaping up nicely for the first day, with Spotted Crake at Lackford and American Golden Plover at Hazlewood making it onto the itinerary, but I decided to start the day at Cavenham Heath, to look for Stone Curlews. Things did not, however, go quite according to plan.

Dip the first

About ten years ago, while on a work trip to Norfolk, a colleague and I, acting on information received, pulled up on a grass verge somewhere, scanned across an adjacent field, and there, on the short, rabbit nibbled turf, were a couple of dozen or so Stone Curlews, part of a pre-migration gathering. I duly marked the location in my road atlas in case I ever wanted to return. Over the years said atlas duly received a battering from the entropy fairy and fell apart and, most remiss of me I know, I chucked the thing without noting any of the bird sites contained therein. (In my defence I was experiencing something of a hiatus in my birding career at the time, two very small children and a brand-new mortgage helping with that.) So when I read about a pre-migration gathering of Stone Curlew at Cavenham Heath my mind’s eye painted a picture similar to my encounter a decade back and I thought to myself, we’ll have ourselves a piece of that. Alas, Cavenham was nothing like a short turf field, rather it was acres and acres of thigh high yellowish (ie Stone Curlew coloured) grass, which could have concealed legions of the things. All we found lurking within it was a small covey of Grey Partridge, although half a dozen Woodlarks that came up off the path as we looped back to the car was a welcome bonus. Oh well, at least I had a back up Stone Curlew site we could try later in the day.

Dip the second

Lackford Lakes. Not much to say really. Sat in a hide for fifty minutes, saw nowt. The Crake’s favoured patch of mud had been under surveillance since very early that morning, we left around 09:00, and the bird was not seen all day.

Dip the third

Hazlewood Marsh is a really nice site, acres of habitat, stacks of birds, including a few year ticks like Curlew Sandpiper, Whimbrel and Spoonbill. No American Golden Plover though, and like the Crake wasn’t seen all day. Humph.

Dip the fourth

Back up Stone Curlew site, much shorter turf, plenty of rabbits, no birds, but good views of Red Deer, first time I’ve seen them in Suffolk.

Dip the fifth

We were staying in Southwold for a few days, a site with a good track record for Caspian Gull, so I made sure we headed down to the harbour that afternoon, so I could scan through the Gulls. This I did for about thirty seconds before that crushing feeling of the futility of existence that I get whenever I try and find a Caspian Gull kicked in and I had to stop so I could breathe again. I really struggle with this bird, I mean it’s a Herring Gull right? I always start with good intentions, and I’ve printed off the BB identification article again and again, read the first few pages till my eyes glazed and my mind started sliding off the words time without number but I just can’t seem to get it to matter enough to me. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. One day I’ll be out birding and I’ll bump into another birder and ask “much about”, and they’ll say “not really, just a Caspian Gull over there”. “Oh, nice one, where exactly?” They’ll provide directions, I’ll take a good long look, make sure I can satisfy myself that it is indeed a Caspian Gull, maybe take a couple of photos, and then that’ll be me and Caspian Gull done. Till then I will just have to find a way of coping without it on my list. On the walk back to the house the boys added Ruddy Darter to their slowly growing dragonfly list. There were lots.

Increasingly I dream of seeing Grey Partridges..... you lucky chaps.

Does sound like a bit of a mare (all right, a complete mare!) Hopefully that's disposed of the bad luck for the autumn.

John

It wasn't great, but probably reads worse than it was. With the exception of Lackford, everywhere we dipped our main target we saw other stuff instead, and the miles driven were necessary to get to Southwold anyway, so no harm there. Also, after the very pleasing connect with the Boney's the day before we weren't left too smarting.

JWN Andrewes said:

One day I’ll be out birding and I’ll bump into another birder and ask “much about”, and they’ll say “not really, just a Caspian Gull over there”. “Oh, nice one, where exactly?” They’ll provide directions, I’ll take a good long look, make sure I can satisfy myself that it is indeed a Caspian Gull, maybe take a couple of photos, and then that’ll be me and Caspian Gull done.

Click to expand...

With apologies to the gull fans, I always swear to myself, whenever I see a new species, that this is the last time I'll even cross the road for a gull. But somehow I still occasionally end up hunting through hundreds of gulls looking for the one with the invisible difference in plumage. In the case of Caspian - saw one at Minsmere, in exactly the circumstances you describe. Seen it, ticked it, really really don't care if I never see another one.

Oof. Not good. I too cannot summon any enthusiasm to go for Caspian gull. Fife's first turned up earlier this year and I made no real effort to see it!
Daniel and I had an outing yesterday afternoon. The current local wader hotspot produced 3 ruff, 26 black-tailed godwits and a dunlin plus a juvenile water rail before we went to East Wemyss where Fife's record Mediterranean gull counts keep being broken. The high counts occur in the evening roost (37 last night) but we still managed 9 (2 adults, a second winter and 6 juveniles) late afternoon. Also present were sandwich, common and a juvenile Arctic tern.

Rob

First winter Caspian Gulls are the best-looking immature "herring type" gull. If you need to go and twitch one, go for a first winter!
Adults are not too difficult if you're close (and best in early winter when the Herrings all have streaked heads).
Anything in between is horrible and should be left to fanatics, haha!