On the Bird Trail

GND

2010-11-24T13:52:00.003Z

So I've been at Carsington a bit more often than normal, more Date With Nature days mainly. We're currently trying to make sure everyone has the opportunity to sign up to our Letter to the Future campaign, and let the politicians who can do so much to provide a healthy environment for future generations know just how much we all care about this stuff. If you haven't done it yet, follow this link which tells you all about it.

As ever the reservoir remains a brilliant place to be doing this work with some cracking sunsets lately and smattering of tasty birds. I regret I missed the recent Black Redstart (some small consolation that I saw the one last November) , but the Great Northern Diver is settling in now and easy to find most days.
Another juvenile bird so bang goes any theory that we get the same birds returning each year, this isn't site fidelity, Carsington is just a natural magnet for any GNDs that end up this far inland. It'll be a sad winter when we don't have one.

And because these divers are such fantastic birds, check out these Youtube videos....

Voices: Common Loon
Loon joins scuba divers

...Common Loon being the given North American name for the same species.

Then there are the surprises that happily occur while on site. Closing things up at the end of another DWN event I had a Barn Owl sail by the Wildlife Centre. In other areas of the reservoir you can expect them, especially the areas with unimproved grassland the STW rangers look after so well, so it was more than pleasant to see it comfortable enough to quarter the busier parts of the water's edge.
If it weren't for the volunteering I'd never be up and out there so regularly and I'd miss so many of these things. The rewards they are manifold.

A little catch-up

2010-11-01T15:33:00.004Z

Been a good long time since I've updated here, that's life for you I suppose. Here's a brief summary of my birding exploits since February...

Slimbridge in the early days of March, just a majestic place.
Large numbers of Whoopers and Bewicks were still around and perfect in the sunset during the last afternoon feeding session. Green-winged Teal, the close American relative our native duck, was the only lifer on the trip, but you go for the spectacle and sausages in the cafe. A chap at the table next to us asked for an ID and for a relative novice gave a spot description of a Shelduck, and he was thrilled by what he'd seen, they are stunners after all. Don't think I've ever seen a non-birdwatcher converted so completely so quickly. Well done Slimbridge.

Meanwhile at home in the garden the Dunnocks were upto something...

Delicate subject, I'll let Wikipedia explain it:
This species makes up for its drab appearance with its breeding behaviour. Females are often polyandrous, breeding with two males at once, and thus giving rise to sperm competition. Males compete for mating access to the female, but DNA fingerprinting has shown that chicks within broods often have different fathers, depending on their success at monopolising access to the fertile female. Males try to ensure their paternity during courtship by pecking at the cloaca of the female to stimulate her to eject the sperm of other males with whom the female has recently mated.

Those were birds in my garden, here's one that might have come from Australia...

One of the birding events of the year came in May with this Oriental Pratincole at, let me get this right I always mixed it up with Freiston Shore, the RSPB reserve at Frampton Marsh in Lincolnshire. This was a bird that ticked every box, outrageous/unimaginable vagrancy, movie-star looks and enigmatic behaviour. It swooped by the hide hawking for insects much like a Swallow and each time to fresh "wows" from any observer newly arrived. Of course a lifer, and other nice birds included Temminck Stint and Curlew Sandpipers. One of those regional twitches where you see familiar faces, so altogether a very nice day indeed. The RSPB have done wonderful things at Frampton, wasn't many years ago we visited on spec and found pretty featureless bleak marshland with nothing like the variety of life present there now. Well done RSPB!

Happily a more local twitch, with a less criminal CO2 output, came with a Great Reed Warbler at Straw's Bridge Nature Reserve near Ilkeston. A local lady heard it singing and recognised it as something very different from what she usually finds and alerted a birdwatcher she knew. Well done her!
Bit of a brute as warblers go. Good populations are just across the Channel and it seems like we really ought to see more of these overshooting their migration. Currently they remain a exciting vagrant and potential breeder/coloniser should all the right things happen some day. This one stayed for about two months in a patch of reed bed you could almost stretch your arms around.
(Here's a video of it singing.)

June, and our first trip the Farne Islands...
Arctic Tern on the girlfriend's head. Nuff said. For more on the Farnes check out the blog kept by the National Trust wardens.

An uneventful summer later and my bird of the year at Carsington Water.My ultimate bogey bird bagged and on the local patch too - I thought it'd be many a fruitless hour spend on the east coast before I saw one of these. It's a Wryneck of course, almost more reptile than bird. Found by one the top chaps from Carsington Bird Club at the reservoir just off the dam wall (which has always been a bit of a migrant magnet). With patience and several rain showers later the bird hopped out from the bushes and within two yards of those of us who stuck around the afternoon.
Very rare bird for Derbyshire which makes it more than doubly amazing that another (or the same one) turned up not far away in a housing estate in Heanor. Couldn't get there for that one but by all accounts the residents enjoyed the bird as much any ornithologists as it skipped out of the way of buses and perched on window sills. Some of the local kids on their way school must have seen a truly stunning stop of nature. What a bird!

October and it had to be Spurn. Winds weren't at their most favourable, you can't keep a good place down though.

We've had better days there, Waxwing, Snow Buntings, Mealy Redpoll, Merlin, Jack Snipe were the best of it. The girlfriend's favourite was this Goldcrest we found behind the dunes. Completely fearless and perhaps exhausted after a hop across the North Sea (for a bird that would sit comfortable in a teacup a pretty damn amazing achievement), a bit of a treat to see so much detail on such a miniscule bird.

And that's really the chunk of things. Oh there were other days, other birds, Turtle Doves and Cetti's Warbler at Wicken Fen were memorable, and our Little Owls up at the pit did very well this year. Birds for another update, another time. I promise to do my best and keep this blog going, dib dib dib.

Old Moor, Budby, Birds

2010-02-16T13:49:00.005Z

Paid a visit to Old Moor at the weekend, good birds, good shop, good times. No stellar species around, Ringed Plover was about the best of it, lots of courting Goosanders, bountiful Lapwing flocks, and an entertaining female Kestrel (pictured) in the car park that dropped down after prey right beside our car. The Yellowhammer comes from the Tree Sparrow Farm area of the reserve where long-staying Brambling weren't playing ball.
Wath Ings hide had a Common Snipe several birdwatchers were convincing themselves was the Jack report a day before, it's one of the pitfalls of reading the sightings news that I'm pretty sure was susceptible to once upon a time.

Also been Budby way, as always nice views of several Green Woodpecker, a handful of Crossbills went over, otherwise hardly a dicky around. Better was Carburton were ploughed fields have proved magnetic for numbers of Greylags I've just never seen there before, and among them there be scarcer geese. Four Pinkies, and I found a surprise lifer in a White-front (#229), it looked dark to me but other guys with more experience we're happy it was a Russian race bird. We simply don't get many of either in the East Midlands, although a few birds were seen in North Notts not long after mine.

A Garden Bonanza

2010-01-14T12:41:00.003Z

Mostly a garden update this one. All this snow and slipping down in the street has seemed worth it with the feathered visitors we've been getting. The Fieldfare has taken up residency for now, and the very wee cotoneaster and pyracantha we planted in the front garden last year have scored us a Redwing or two. The growing Reed Bunting attendance has peaked with around 15 birds at a time, and I pause to type here because a Mistle Thrush just landed on the lawn, it's squabbling with the Blackbirds over an apple core.
Extra bit of excitement came last night when closing the curtains in our spare room I noticed a shape in our heavily prune cherry tree. Twas a Tawny Owl, probably looking for the mice and voles that hoover up the seed spill from the day's action on our front garden feeders. The bird stayed a minute or two, even looked through the window at me. In the end it swooped into the gloom of our back garden, just magical. Makes species #45 on the garden list since moving in almost a year ago.

Final mention goes to the Weasel I saw darting around our patio the other day - another new record for our garden.

Looks like the thaw will set in for a couple of days now, expect we'll be back to normal by the time of the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch.

As the water is still frozen there's not been much up at the pit lately. The best I can report is a Great Black-backed Gull as an overfly down in the village the other day.

In other news, recent findings suggest that Grey Squirrel impacts on woodland bird populations far less than previously feared, although locally they could be bad news for scarcer species like Hawfinch, so we can almost like them again.
The perfect excuse to add a few squirrel pictures to the thumbnails of my recent photographs below...

The Bleak Midwinter

2010-01-06T13:50:00.006Z

Haven't posted for a while so I'll quickly round up the last month. Bagged two lifers in that time, the first came with the dozens of Common Crossbill at Broomhead Reservoir near Sheffield. Just wasn't getting any luck with well known local sites like Sherwood Pines or Matlock Forest, and learnt about Broomhead on Birdforum. Brilliant places, loads of Crossbills - saw a dozen or so and heard more - mixed in with Goldfinch, Siskin and some entertaining tit flocks. Seemed to disturb a Tawny Owl that flew through the wood around midday. Hand-fed a desperate Robin in the layby where we parked the car.
Peaceful place.

A corking Firecrest (#228) accounts for the other lifer, a now well watched bird at Moorgreen Reservoir. Apparently they are present most winters, the word just hadn't gotten out before. Locals speak of Lesser Woodpecker and some other interesting birds in there too. Looks worthy of more attention.

Both species bogey passerines I'm very happy to have finally cracked.
Dipped however on a Siberian Stonechat at Bevercotes Pit Wood near Ollerton in Notts. Several European Stonechats around, none quite so dandy as the Sib. Went a day late for that one.

A lot of action in the garden at the moment. About eight inches of snow will do that around here. Numbers of Reed Bunting have hit at least 11, lots of the common finches, Redwing and Fieldfare have been through, Great Spotted Woodpecker too, and next door's apple trees are being vigourously defended by a Mistle Thrush. Late one day a Yellowhammer came and went very briefly - noticed it among a very busy flocked mostly by the very horizontal perching shape. This morning 150+ geese were heading north-west while I had my breakfast, no chance of a defo ID but really they had to be Pink-feet.

Nothing up at Pleasley Pit at the moment, at least nothing on the water, it's been frozen for a fortnight, the last birds I saw were Snipe evacuating elsewhere just before Christmas. The winter thrushes remain, as do a single female Stonechat and lots of Yellowhammers.

Very quick visit to Rufford with family earlier this week where I managed a few photographs. Wild birds are so tame there it's difficult to go away without a decent image or three.

Donna Nooked

2009-11-23T15:02:00.006Z

Cute, huh?
Donna Nook of course, we had a trip out there with our fellow RSPB crew at Carsington. Amazing place, the numbers say it all; 842 seal pups, 955 cows and 344 bulls. All sorts of stories going on with them, to left and right there were new borns, suckling mums, mums ready to give birth, beachmaster brutes fighting for mating patches, and abandoned pups not yet driven to the sea by their hunger. Real wildlife spectacle this one. Zillions of people around too, which makes sense because these few weekends are the best for visiting the colony and it really has to be the weekend because access to the beach is closed for the RAF flyboys to do their bombing practice across the mudflats. These mega visitor numbers make for an odd carnival feel to the whole thing, burger vans and portaloos aren't found at many nature spectacles, so all it's a world of difference from the cold solitudinous suffering that makes for most birding trips at this time of year. Shan't complain about that. The long walk from the dunes to the shore with the low tide does ask a little bit of work from you, which is an effort altogether worth making because there's action far out there, lots of fighting and mating in shallows you miss if you're afraid to get your boots a bit muddy (well... a lot muddy!).

Bird-wise there was always a distant passage of waders, dozens of Curlew, Redshank, Knot, and Brent Geese are always good to see, Great Black-backed Gulls presumably patrolling for afterbirth were nice too. Singles of Turnstone and Sanderling fought the winds down on the shoreline. Bird of the day was a single male Snow Bunting (#226) that overflew during the long trudge across the mudflats. The highly distinct black and white of the wings making for a very welcome, very easy to ID passerine fly over, and for me, a lifer!

After the many dramas of the Grey Seals we took to Rimac for a brief afternoon visit. The potential for Hen Harrier, Short-eared Owls and other top class birds is clear, the best we could muster was a noisy cloud of Twite, a faraway Little Egret, a Sparrowhawk, and Stonechat. A quiet visit then but the saltmarsh not without scenic beauty, well in the right light anyway.

Lots of pictures taken by girlfriend and me, and I've struggled to edit them down to just a few, so here's lots of thumbnails (click to enlarge):

Hello!

Plus bonus videos taken by the girlfriend:
The Seal Scene
Fresh Born Pup

Rutters

2009-11-17T18:58:00.005Z

Had a trip down to London at the weekend as the girlfriend needed to visit the Chinese embassy (would you believe the big screen above the desk in the consulate showed pictures of a military parade - missiles, jet fighters, millions of soldiers - I'm not kidding). With the price of train tickets we drove half the way, stopping off at Rutland to break the journey up. Glad we did too, gathered two life birds I was hardly expecting. First was a snoozing Long-eared Owl (#224) by the path to one of the hides. Heard them plenty in Sherwood Forest, the squeaky gate call of the chicks around dusk, first time seeing one though.
The other lifer was a Slavonian Grebe (#225), a full winter plumage bird easy to ID, and actually a nice comparison with a few Black-necked Grebes around. Winter ducks aplenty, some nice Golden Plover in the afternoon sun. Didn't have time to check out the assortment of divers off the dam wall. The Little Egret video comes from Rutland, watch out for a Hitchcokian cameo from a Shoveler near the end.

There was time in the day to take in the London parks when down there. The Grey Herons in Regent's Park always a treat, especially if you have a camera.

Also took in maiden ride on my new bicycle today. Went under a mass of Fieldfare, they sounded like a giant bag of marbles being shaken up.

(Regent's Park)

(Park "plastic")

A Birdwatch to Remember

2009-11-10T13:57:00.009Z

Big day at Carsington this weekend. It began with a report of a Black Redstart (video above), by the end of it Great Northern Diver (mostly summer plumage), female Scaup and Common Scoter, and a Ring-billed Gull made for the best visit I can remember for a long time. First and last birds there lifers too (#222 & #223), and interesting birds. The RB Gull is a Carsi regular, turning up in the roost early each November staying for a few weeks and then it's off again. Must have its reasons I suppose. Bet it spends the summer somewhere like Scotland, can't really see a trans-Atlantic migration from its normal range being made every year.
The Black Redstart was a second site record, the previous one a spring bird from as far back as 1996. Charming birds, a sort of smoky delicacy in the feathers, they've a definite touch of class about them. Ours spent a lot of time on the sailing club building, picking off flies warming themselves up on the sunny side of the roof.

To add to the impressive cast earlier in the week we had a Garganey of debatable age and even gender during the RSPB's A Date With Nature event. That's how it can be when you have eclipse males around, this ostensibly female-looking just too warm coloured to be a female. Might still be on the water now.
The water is really really low on the reservoir meaning the acreage of exposed mud is enormous, good for the wintering Teal and surely alluring for any vagrant waders. Eyes peeled. The Garganey enjoys the mud too, but really ought to be in Africa already.
Yellow-legged Gull, Ravens, Buzzards, Peregrines, Goldeneye, tonnes of Tufties, Wigeon, Pochard and Coot, Snipe and other regulars make it fairly easy to notch maybe 60 species in a day visit at the moment.

Also had good numbers of Pink-footed Geese overflying the few days. Nice to be under their direct flight path between their first port of call in Lancashire and their real destination in Norfolk.

Another video of the Black Redstart, it just misses a whopping big fly there...

As October Flies By

2009-11-04T14:01:00.006Z

Bad bird-blogger, I haven't updated for over a month. To keep it brief mid-October we had our first big trip to Spurn. Not a classic day despite a favourable easterly from the sea, a netted Radde's Warbler released as the Anchor pub car park made for a very cheap life tick (not sure it really counts for that matter), and I chalked of another long-term bogey with a Jack Snipe skulking around the pond at Canal Scrape or whatever it's called. Bar-tailed Godwit, loads of winter Thrushes, a Merlin and smattering other nice birds made it all enjoyable enough. Only bummer was another from the nets - a Red-flanked Bluetail - missed the release for that one and then the bird refused to pop out of the bush it dived into. Invairably whichever side we chose to look from the bugger would briefly show from the other. Grah!
For a first experience of Spurn in autumn it was all right, and we'll return next year. The spectacle of dozens of birders and the near-miss car accidents when a report of a mega goes out is something altogether different to local patching.

More recently we dipped on a Cetti's Warbler at Potteric Carr (might it winter there?). We picked a day when it chose to keep schtum, the regulars told me the bird has days like that and then others when puts on a real performance. Ah well, loads of Cetti's around the region at the moment, we'll pick one up sooner or later. Superb views of Bittern (video above) made up for any disappointment and I'll agree that Potteric Carr is quickly becoming the best place in the region, some dare even say the country, to see the species. One bird resident, with five expected as winter takes hold.
Slightly annoyed by some photographers camped in the hide near the Field Centre, the one with the feeders right infront. Giggling and saying 'poor thing' each time you scare off a GS Woodpecker with an assault of loud photo shutters, and would you believe a flashgun, isn't really on. Hardly what they call fieldcraft is it?
Otherwise hugely impressed by the new hides, lots and lots of new hides, overlooking the lagoons where all the Golden Plover hang out. It was always a big nature reserve and now you can access the whole thing, brilliant.

Finally, had a day RSPBing at Carsington yesterday. More schoolkids, more exclamations of 'wicked' after first views of Lapwings through a telescope. Bird of the day was a rusty Garganey that looks more like a juv male than a female. Frustrating to lose the bird when a low-flying Spitfire put up probably every bird on the reservior. Later it was refound at the other end of the water, with a Great Northern Diver, yes - they're back, or at least one so far. Now if we're really talking about the best place in the country to see a particularly scarce bird, Carsi genuinely rates for its GNDs.
The Carsington Kingfishers continue to put on good shows...

Last word, Lesser Redpoll in the garden, thats species #41 since January.

Carsington Kingfishers!

2009-09-28T15:13:00.002+01:00

Did Carsington last week, first event I've done for months, so long ago they've even changed the name of it - A Date With Nature - sounds like a date worth keeping. Fairly quiet there, the best bird news is the Kingfisher is becoming quite tame and posing very neatly in front of the hides and Wildlife Centre. If it sticks around better photographs should follow, I was busy going wow with the visitors on the day when the birds was super close.
Wigeon numbers building, Tufted Ducks and Coots arriving all the time and will soon become so many I think it's a spectacle Carsington is too rarely credited with. A Yellow-legged Gull sat on a tern raft almost literally all day. There was half hour during which it wasn't there. Remember reading somewhere the large gulls spend an average of only 26 minutes feeding each day, so I suppose plus some flight time that approximately correlates.

Plenty of action in the garden too, we've re-sited our nyger feeder and suddenly there are Goldfinch all over it, Coal Tits have also been drawn in. A Chiffchaff this morning makes #38 for our list since moving in last January.
Getting on for that time of the year when the Swallows and Martins disappear, still plenty around the hall, takes about a week to realise when I've seen my last one.

Still around

2009-09-15T17:44:00.003+01:00

Busy times again at work, so less birding at the moment. Couldn't miss out on a juv Garganey at Kings Mill Reservoir, picture above. While at work I have been seeing more Buzzards around Hardwick and a couple of passes from Hobbies lured by the clouds of hirundines that hit us in late summer. Not a single Swallow nest was occupied anywhere around the hall this year, some were repaired but remained unused. Big shame that one. A family of Spotted Flycatchers turned up again in the Stableyard. Green Woodpeckers always a delight to see on my way through the estate.

For cuteness sake, here's a dopy Field Vole we found beside a path during a walk in Dovedale last months. The little fella scurried around my boots. Is it any wonder they are the number one prey item for dozens of predators?

Danebower

2009-08-18T17:33:00.003+01:00

Did a new part of the Peak District for us at the weekend, across most of Derbyshire, beyond Buxton and to the border with Cheshire, where it's bleak and the birds are few - but what birds they are!

After all the driving we eventually found a pull in around Danebower and a path down into the valley and the old quarry.
Best of the day was a late summer male Ring Ouzel quite close and quite apparently ticked off with us. This was a lifer so we were altogether happier about the encounter.

Other notables came when a Raven sailed by quite low and flushed up a couple of Red Grouse, the corvid even seemed to lunge for one of them. Better views of grouse came later but the girlfriend had used up her camera battery taking admittedly pleasant portraits of sheep.

Several Wheatears were a nice reminder of Scotland.

Earlier in the week we had a Tawny Owl when we went a short way to Norwood to find darker skies for viewing the Perseid meteor shower. Too cloudy to see many of them, the owl was a cracker though, drove right by it first but it was bold enough to let us reverse the car back to have a good look of it perched on a telegraph pole, headlights illuminating the whole bird. They look so big when you get that kind of view.

Willow Warbler in the garden today, our first since the spring.

Isle of Mull

2009-08-10T10:29:00.010+01:00

(Otters, promise.)

So, Mull, huh? As good as they say? It sure is!

Expectations had already been boosted on the long journey up there when a lay-by along Loch Awe produced a family group of Ospreys, a couple of adults and two or three fledglings. The skies were bucketing it down (too heavy to get out of the car even) so no pictures , just fantastic memories for us.

Onward to Mull we had booked one of the wildlife safaris you simply must go on when you make it to the island. There are seven currently running and we chose the W ild About Mull tour because it could pick us up from our campsite right on the tip of the Ross peninsula. Bryan, our guide, did us well with an Otter early on, a WT-Eagle in a tree across Loch Scridain and then Golden Eagles sailing across the highest ridges on the island. That's the big three ticked. The Goldie was a lifer for me (#218). Seals, Red Deer, Raven, Golden Plovers, Stonechat soon followed, with Red-throated Diver and Red-breasted Merganser coming earlier in the day, and all in all it was £37-each well spent.
Like most visitors we did the tour at the beginning of the week so we'd have a handle on the place for the rest of our holiday.

We camped for the whole week at Fidden Farm just a mile or so south of the Fionnphort and the ferry for Iona. Like the wildlife tour, Iona really demands you devote a day to it, at least then you might stand a chance of actually spotting one of the many calling Corncrakes that excite, frustrate, but mostly excite, all around the enchanting isle (video). Not a bad island if you enjoy your history or you're in with Jesus either. We failed on seeing a CC, so to tick or not to tick? That is the question. A lot of people have been pondering that all over England during this good Quail summer, another noisy skulking bird. I'm still undecided.

Back on Mull, we connected with the WT-Eagles again a couple of times, once back at a nest site we'd seen on the tour. The one chick apparently fledged the day before (grah!), but the good news is they tend to go straight down into the nearby woodland and stay there for several days so you still get to see the parents bringing in food.
Early mornings around Fidden did well for the holiday list, Dunlin, Ringed Plover, Snipe all in the brook beside the farm, and the buildings themselves housed a not unspectacular summer Starling roost with perhaps a 150 birds funneling during the evening. Wheatear everywhere, same with Oystercatcher, Redshank, Hooded Crow of course. Nice surprise one morning was a male Peregrine chasing away either another male or perhaps a youngster directly over head at about 40ft on my way to the camp toilets one morning. The screaming sure woke me up.
Nearby the farm a dead end track leads off past Fidden to the scatterings of other farms on the south-west tip of the Ross to where we had some of our best birding of the holiday. Within a minute of each other we had a WT-Eagle sail in quite low from the west, and then sitting on a rocky pinnacle a Golden Eagle, which then took off to glide along the rolling ridges in the distance. Impressive!
An impromptu visit to Tireragan nature reserve followed after we picked up a map leaflet from the farm at the end of the track. A warning to visitors, the paths may start easy, but they soon disappear into a dense jungle of bracken, so taking a compass and an OS map would probably be a good idea. Do go though, we had a family group of ring-tail Hen Harrier careering across the sky, looked like they were tossing each other around the sky actually. Close views of Ravens checking out us checking them out followed, and then the briefest view of an immaculate male Hen Harrier - which be honest are the ones we really want to see - frightening every Mippit and Stonechat in the area.
Elsewhere along the Ross we very briefly had a single Twite, with reported flocks of up to 50 birds eluding us somehow.

Must briefly mention Carsaig bay, a short visit there discovered Spotted Flycatchers, they're always a pleasure.

Finally, for the girlfriend's birthday I promised we'd go find our own Otters, and this we did. I don't want to say quite where - somewhere west of Glen More will do - we found a mother and cub hunting on a rising tide. I say hunting, it really looks like play. Picked up a Merlin cruising across the shoreline here too.
On the day we left for home, one more stop by the same area brought us a dog Otter and we had reasonable close views of him 'sprainting' a small rocky island in the loch. A charming, if poo-themed, way to end our holiday.

There's gotta be a next time when it comes to visiting the Isle of Mull.

White-tailed Eagle at something toward half a mile distance.

Given a special invite to the ladies loos in Bunessan to see these fledgling Swallows.

(Meadow Pipit video here)

Still here

2009-07-16T14:07:00.006+01:00

Apologies for the paucity of posts lately, not been out birding as often as I prefer. Still it's been nice to get up to the pit a few times in the week to check out the Little Owls ferrying prey to wherever their young are hiding out. Occasinally we have had the ridiculous situation of looking high and low for the birds only to look around and find one on the telegraph pole a few yards behind us. Gotta smile.
Also had a Barn Owl do a circuit of the place last week.

In the garden it's delight to be ticking off big sexy invertebrates species, blue damselflies, and ringlet and gatekeeper butterflies new in over the past couple of days. Seems to help that I've let the lawn grow into a meadow as all these creatures have taken to resting in the long grass. Read somewhere that you increase invertebrate life fifty-fold if you simply stop mowing, and I'm beginning to believe it.
The video there features another newcomer, bird species #37 for the garden, it's a juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker - check out the red crest.

Off camping on the Isle of Mull next week, Eagles, Otters, etc, that should probably warrant a post or two here when I get back.

Recently added to my Youtube channel:
Pretty damn dark silhouette of a Little Owl
How to unwrap a slug Blackbird style
Wolf Spider with egg sacks
Redshank at Carsi

Nightjar!

2009-06-09T14:19:00.004+01:00

Check out the picture, if it looks like a glove with a tissue pegged to it you're only partially right. What you actually see is our successful Nightjar mimic.

It all began on Saturday night with the Nightjar Walk the delightful rangers at Sherwood Forest Country Park put on at the start of every June. This was our second time on that walk and wow, we had decent views of the Nightjar, Cuckoo, Woodcock and some Tawny fledglings dazzled by our torches at the end of the night. We also got some top tips for a return visit, on how to get our own close encounters with Nightjars (without attracting them with recordings which by the way is illegal). Hence the glove. As they patrol at dusk males see the white spot and in the gloom it looks to them like the markings on a potential rival, and in they come for a closer inspection.
Well, this we tried last night not long after sunset, this time just the girlfriend and me there, and WOW. With the glove sat on a fence post in came the male, we had it circling within 10 feet of us, 10 feet! Wafting by in that strange floating flight action, it seemed to be looking at us looking at it. Better yet when we began to leave in he sailed again and landed on a fencepost not very much further away and sat there chirring. By now it was getting late so we ultimately did head for home, but not without first pegging that tissue to the back of my hat, and wouldn't you know it, another male gave us a couple of passes back out in the middle of the common.

These are magical, half-mythical birds, near impossible to photograph or film during flight so encounters with them tend to be private and personal, related only through story. All of that only makes this odd frog-mouthed, insect voiced, bark feathered bird even more enigmatic.

Here's a video of the chirring from the walk, you'll also hear the ranger trying to attract one in and listen carefully for the hiccup of a roding Woodcock.

I've been birdwatching most of my life and I can't think of a more thrilling encounter than we had last night. I'm still buzzed.

Sad therefore that the Nightjar is declining in number, particularly in the Sherwood Forest/Budby Common area, now they have only two chirring males left these days. Why? Well there is an apparent conflict between local expertise on how the National Nature Reserve should be managed and what the rangers are dictated to do by Natural England's bureaucracy. I don't know the whole story but I hope they sort it all out because these birds are clearly suffering.

Cliffhangers

2009-06-09T13:58:00.002+01:00

Recently holidayed up around Flamborough/Bridlington, so as a birdwatchers we were attracted as if magnetised to the RSPB reserve at Bempton Cliffs. Late May/Early June practically every Guillemot, Razorbill, Gannet and Fulmar was still on eggs. Still the bird metropolis is an exciting, elevating place to visit. The comings and goings of 200,000+ seabirds, well, you try going there and not feeling philosophical.

Picked out a nice campsite while there called Wold F arm, apparently it's under a stewardship scheme and it shows. Skylarks waking you up at 4am can only be the good way to rise at that time of the morning. Loads of them around, the odd Grey Partridge and Yellow Wagtail too, and we had a Little Egret go over one evening which has to be good record for the Flamborough area.
Really must go there in the early Spring or Autumn when it's a migrant bonanza on that headland.

For all the seabirds, my favourite at Bempton is the Corn Bunting, just don't hear that jangling key song often enough.
Also, the bridled Guillemot (same species, different race as the Common) was a nice one, an attractive auk made even more attractive, and not many of them around this south of their range. Check out the video...

First Lady

2009-05-26T16:25:00.003+01:00

Did Budby Common at the weekend, had promised the girlfriend a Cuckoo. Plenty heard of them and one of the two calling males gave a couple of fleeting views. We've done better there before, but these are always skittish birds. The usual suspects were also around, loads of Tree Pipit, although surprisingly saw only one Woodlark.
Had our first Painted Lady of the year, a real faint one. Ours was ahead of a big influx that has hit the UK over the past couple of days.

Elsewhere Barn Owls are back for another season of train dodging on one of my local patches, and I'm seeing more Red-legged Partridge on my way to work (which may be bad news for any local Grey Partridge left around here).

Reterns and what's that Stint?

2009-05-13T18:06:00.005+01:00

Nice day ABBing at Carsington yesterday, nice to see visitors excited by the antics of the Common Terns. Whether they manage to remove the Black-headed Gulls from the newly deployed raft and get a chance to nest looks like big story for the next few weeks. Just not sure they're quite feisty enough to do it. I think the word soap opera writers use for the interest inspired by this sort of thing is jeopardy.
3 Common Sandpipers were a charming addition too. The Garden Warbler video comes from the Sheepwash end of the water.

Can beat that all though, this afternoon I checked Birdguides and there it was a report of Little Stint up at the pit. Good birds, but I've seen them before, even in Derbyshire, better stay in and get some work done in the house. A couple of hours later I check again and jeepers, there's been an upgrade, they're Temminck's Stint! - a lifer for me and probably the first in Derbyshire for many a year. Admittedly the difference is slight between the two species (and the mistake easy to make), basically Temminck's have pale legs, but they are a good deal rarer than Little Stint, both birds notable for being so flaming tiny, like unbelievably small for waders.
So Pleasley scores again, I really do like having the pit just a short walk away.

Here are a couple of strictly dodgy digiscope efforts, taken from a windswept video too shaky to dare post, glad they were still there...

Wow, Rutland Water

2009-05-11T15:02:00.007+01:00

The plan was to scooch down to Rutland to finally bag one of the many Cattle Egrets in the country these days, by the end of a very long day we'd scored a list of 81 species and some memorable views - this despite missing out several hides and the Manton Bay area.

Big surprise was the new lagoon on the north side of Egleton Reserve, even googling after the visit I find very little online to cover quite what an interesting development it is. Being Rutland it's another big area of water with islands and scrapes that are an obvious magnet for all kinds of waders, and crowning glory of this achievement is an Osprey platform with attending bird. To give an idea of what it's already getting we saw Sanderling, Sandwich Tern and Avocet on or around that lagoon (gales over the last few days certainly helped with that). At one point the two Avocets mobbed the Osprey, which really underlines two of the big successes in British bird conservation over the last couple of decades. Who'd have imagined that even 15 years ago?

On other lagoons, three Black Terns, a pair of summer plumage Black-necked Grebes, and dozens of Hobbies hawking high and low, are all birds to make any day. Early evening a Cuckoo finally showed itself after teasing with distant calls all day long.

Shouldn't forget the reason we travelled in the first place, the Cattle Egret. Always kind of distant, invariably gorgeous, and yes it was among the cows (substituting for the elephants and rhinos of Africa).

An apparently plastic* Ruddy Shelduck hybrid raised and disappointed hopes, and yet what a richly coloured bird nonetheless.

Get thee to Rutland!Osprey nidifying...

...Hobby... flying.

Ruddy/Cape/Egyptian Goose/Shelduck thing

Cattle Egret

Plus, a bonus video, shot from a good distance...

*plastic - noun, slang: A wild bird of dubious origin, usually an escapee from an ornamental wildfowl collection.

Wood Sand

2009-05-02T22:24:00.005+01:00

Bit of action up at the pit this week, a Wood Sandpiper spent a couple of days up on the big water. Nice attractive bird, sleeker than the common-er sandpipers, and fairly rare on passage, so a good standard noteworthy tick any year. Brought a few county birders up to our splendid little patch.
Wheatear, Yellow Wagtail, still add flavour, and the Reed Bunting vid comes from Pleasley too.

Today I spent my lunchtime in the gardens at Hardwick Hall, and do you know I saw just the bird I went there to see. Yep, over goes a Hobby while I'm tucking into my cheese sandwich. We are on a ridge so raptor passage does have potential. Had a probable, let's say possible, Honey Buzzard go over during last year's invasion but being at work I was too busy and without bins, couldn't confirm the bird for myself, and it stays probable despite one being reported 10 minutes later a couple of miles away in the right direction.

Edited to add: Another lunchtime, more birds, 2 Ravens over for short time until they could takes the harrassments froms the Jackdaws no mores! Don't get many of those in our part of the county.

One of those Remember When Moments...

2009-04-27T17:10:00.008+01:00

(vid from the girlfriend, check out the birds at beginning and end with the dark bodies and white cheeks)

Birders nationwide will be aware of the big thing that hit us in Derbyshire at the weekend, 11 Whiskered Terns at Willington Gravel Pits (DWT) somewhere by the Trent just south of Derby. Eleven, that's a flock almost three times larger than the previous record and the first of the species for the county since, oh, only 1883! Their usual range dots pockets of south and east Europe, with the BBRC recording an average of something like 2-5 in most years since the 50's of this small elegant smoky coloured marsh tern with the attractive white cheek.

Terns on migration tend not to stick around so we zoomed straight from work down the A38 the day after their arrival when 8 were still knocking around, swooping and nipping insects in the distinctive bouyant flight these birds have. Being a county tick for all Derbys birders and a lifer for many of us in the midlands there was plenty of interest, all of us ever so polite to make sure everybody had time at the front of the small viewing platform and to discuss the unprecedented wow factor of the event. Imagine finding them, reporting them, swearing you've not been on the gin.
They've mostly dispersed now, sightings as far and wide as Cleveland, Rutland and Cambridgeshire are probably our terns.

My confession is that I hadn't done Willington before which makes me a bad birdwatcher because it's quickly becoming the best site in Derbyshire. Equally I let the side down by putting work before these kinda birds, bad birding indeed.

Anyway, cracking site, amazing spectacle. Also had Little Egret, Lesser Whitethroat, first Swifts of the year and reeling Grasshopper Warbler for the evening.

Memorable stuff indeed. That Shrike has a challenger for best personal twitch status.

Back down to Earth there's a very industrious Coal Tit in my garden right now. Cool Tit more like it.

Carsi

2009-04-24T18:41:00.005+01:00

(Willow Warbler)

Was back at Carsington this week for the Tuesday ABB. Stunning weather, anybody who's been on holiday has got to have used up all their good luck for the year. 2 Great Northern Diver remain on the reservoir and look likely to tease us with mere hints of summer plumage before disappearing in the next week or so.
The best of the rest were a couple of pristine White Wagtails. You can spend hours checking every Pied Wagtail umming and ahhing over their identity but when you actually find a White one you really know it. Shelduck was a nice record for Carsington, Little Ringed Plovers are around, plus the regular waders and warblers. Mallard ducklings are already out and about.

The House Martins have begun work on nest cups up around the visitor centre and the RSPB volunteers will spend a bit more time this year featuring them on event days, which ought to be lots of fun. Like all hirundine they're fascinating birds.

Across the Border

2009-04-20T15:50:00.006+01:00

This past Saturday we had some time at the end of the day to head into Notts, so we did the Carburton - Budby Common double bill. Buzzards entertained from the pull-in at Great Lake and a small flock of Mandarins clattered around the trees. Give it a month or so for Honey Buzzards and perhaps last summer's Osprey will return too.
The Nuthatch vid comes from Carburton.

To Budby before sunset, again a little early in the season for the best action there, Tree Pipits with that go-bezerk trill at the end of their song were the big feature, Linnet and Yellowhammer among them. Late May to early June we'll definitely return for the Cuckoos, Woodcock and Nightjars, Woodlark ought to be singing too.

Blackcap!

2009-04-14T17:47:00.005+01:00

Happy surprise in the garden today, our first Blackcap, that's #32 on the garden bird list (since January when we moved in). You can tell the early ornithologists were all men, this being a female she clearly had a brown cap.
The bird has feasted all day on ivy berries, nice to see it bathing too. In the last week a Willow Warbler passed through, which is a nice early date anywhere never mind in my garden, and a Peregrine has gone over again. I'm in the middle of a busy Easter stretch at work, so god only knows what I'm missing when I'm away from the house.
Would have gone for some local Waxwings if I'd had the time, yes, they're still around!

Yum?

On the sightings pages I see Sandwich Tern, Cettis Warbler, Osprey in the county, birds like Redstart and Cuckoo arriving back too, it's getting bloody exciting out there. Had better find the time.

Pleased

2009-04-06T15:22:00.005+01:00

Loving life in Derbyshire, albeit just about 100 yards into the county. We can take a 10 minute walk and there's Dipper, Little Ringed Plover and Little Owl variously around the village. It's also a little pleasure to see Mallards in the street when I go to work in the morning.

Went to a talk at the local RSPB grou p, good stuff on farming with wildlife and the Higher Level Stewardship scheme. Learned a wee bit about margins, scrapes, etc, travelling through the countryside in the week after it's easy to spot the what ifs on the local farmland. What if the hedgerows weren't all massacred at the same time, what if the roadside verges weren't mowed so short, what if more farmers became stewards of our natural heritage as well as providers for the table. I suppose there's a whole can of worms there, economically and politically, but what if it saved the future of our wildlife?

And what if I posted another video?

Down at the mill, it's the Dipper again, for a cool half a million you can get it on your garden bird list.

In Confirmation of Spring

2009-04-06T12:53:00.005+01:00

Did another Carsington ABB last week, that's where the Chiffchaff came from there. The Great Northern Divers are still around but shouldn't be there for very much longer. Always a tease to have them disappear just before summer plumage kicks in. My first Swallows and Sand Martins of the year were scooting along the dam, plus the Redshanks and Oystercatchers look frisky and ready to begin nestwork.

Another first for the year was a Willow Warbler right on time at Kings Mill Reservoir.

Scenes from Carsington...

RNG

2009-03-28T17:04:00.003Z

(picture courtesy of the girlfriend)

Inspired by some epic photographs on Birdguides we finally took the trip down the A38 to Foremark Reservoir, a bit south of Derby, to catch this long staying Red-necked Grebe that's more or less reached full summer plumage. Real glamour bird this one, a rare specimen of Russian chic and proper little show-off drifting around 20 yards in front of the car park (this beats the pale distant RNGs you usually freeze your bits of for in the mid-winter at Rutland Water).
Also picked up my first Wheatear of '09, hopefully to be met with again in July if all plans for a week on the Isle of Mull come together.

What's missing from this entry? Oh yes, the dodgy digi-video-scope effort...

Dipper at'Mill

2009-03-25T15:01:00.005Z

Nice bird in the village today, unusual this far east in Derbyshire, it's a Dipper, of course. Well worth all of that 5 minute walk down to the mill. Looked territorial too, so fingers crossed on that, even if it means a hard time for the regular Grey Wagtails.
Technically a good county bird for Nottinghamshire listers when it flits onto the opposite bank of the Meden.

Also, while a Coal Tit calls outside my window, a couple of good birdy articles in the Independent this week, well, one good, one bad:

Triumph of the Bumbarrel - AKA the Long-tailed Tit

The Sound of Silence - The Cuckoo is Vanishing

Through the car window

2009-03-09T10:56:00.004Z

A shot of Redwings the girlfriend took last week on her way to work in Derbyshire. Won't be seeing these birds for too much longer now, not until the autumn anyway.
She tells me in China they have a very similar bird the Eyebrowed Thrush, which is commonly sold as a sweet swinging cagebirds. I think we both prefer to see them in (or usually over) the fields.

In other news frogsprawn has appeared in our new garden pond. Can hardly describe how thrilled we are. It's the simple things when you're into nature, isn't it?

Yawny Owl?

2009-02-24T19:06:00.006Z

Little tardy updating here, the owl video is from a couple of weekends ago. The location is... somewhere... along the Trent near Hoveringham, South Notts. Between the large flooded gravel pits and the river that location is a real corridor for birdlife. To add to our Tawny Owl there, Egyptian Goose, Shelduck, Redshank, Goldeneye and Green Woodpecker were the best of a quiet visit. Come the Spring the place will be heaving with Common Terns and Yellow Wagtails.

As for any link between owl and river I think that is purely coincidental on this occasion, however Tawnies do apparently take fish. That said, it'd be one helluva reckless owl that took a dip in a river that large.

A most elegant Snowman?

2009-02-09T13:47:00.005Z

Worst bird video ever? You decide.

What you can see there is a Great White Egret, the ridiculous big yellow bill is the key feature from this view. It's been hanging around some small fishing lakes a bit SW of Derby for the last week or so, which continues the tour of the Midlands this bird has been on for months now, all of this a fair way off from the East Europe it really belongs in.
Haven't my life list to hand, the GWE takes me up to #214 or something like that.

Rubbish view, cold day, stood at the roadside, great bird, and it's all worthwhile.

Oh, as I type there's a 1st-year male Reed Bunting feeding in the snow on my patio, three weeks in and that's #27 for the garden list.

Snow Surprise

2009-02-05T15:11:00.001Z

Well that's nice, the first Pied Wagtail in my parents' garden - ever - so far as I can remember and my family has lived here for over 25 years. The bird is still out there now, occupying the rim of the bird bath while more snow is falling.
It's one clear reminder for how providing access to water really can make all the difference for a lot of birds.

Wicked

2009-02-02T15:59:00.005Z

It couldn't really happen, could it? There's no way I'd miss seeing Waxwings during their greatest irruption for some say 20 years. Well of course! The girlfriend and I finally connected with the Tibshelf massive which were hanging out in a school car park, up to nine birds while we were there but as many as 22 at other times. They were gorging on the fruiting trees, shared with not terrible hospitality with the local Mistle Thrushes and one Fieldfare.

Elsewhere in the county there are reports of more than 200 Waxwings in Ilkeston, which gives a handle on the kinds of numbers that have hit the UK this winter. Flocks of 1000+ in Scotland.
The girlfriend thinks they're plumage recalls some kind of exotic foreign dress, not a million miles away from geisha costume. That's one description of them I can certainly abide with.

While I type a glance out of the patio window here at my parents' house and I see 11 Blackbirds which is a probable record for the half tennis court or so of garden out there. 4 inches of snow and they've downed all arms, as they should in winter, almost tolerating one another - save for one really pissed off territorial male.

Had planned to volunteer at the Carsington ABB tomorrow, doesn't look like the weather will allow this.

Here's a video of the Waxwings shot by the girlfriend...

Be sure to select the HQ option in the bottom right corner or it'll look like the bad bootleg copy of the original. Better yet, you can select a High Definition version here. Listen out for their call too.

Happy birdwatching everybody, it's back to flatpack furniture for me.

Spot the Christmas cliche

2008-12-23T16:33:00.003Z

Had quite a bit on my plate of late so birding has taken rather back seat for the last few weeks. A spot of local patching today though, with an Egyptian Goose providing some interest at Sutton Lawn. GS Woodpecker, Goldfinch, L-T Tits, Sparrowhawk, etc, the usual suspects, but as yet no Brambling there this winter - usually the park is dependable for small numbers, but zip all as yet, not many Chaffinches either for that matter.
What else? Oh dear reader, if you haven't seen a Waxwing yet this winter then that makes at least two of us. Seems everybody else has been enjoying their current irruption, so don't stop looking now!

Merry Christmas bird fans.

"Some days you are the bird...

2008-12-08T14:58:00.005Z

...other days you are the statue." ~ Ricky Gervais

Forgot to post this earlier, yes that's the Steppe Grey Shrike, yes on my head. That's not photo-shopped by the way, that version features Britney Spears.
Anyway, good news of a sort after analysis of those feathers discovered on site after the Shrike's disappearance found they did not belong to our bird. So the imagination is set free, you can decide for yourself what happened to certainly my Bird of the Year, and many other people's too I'm sure.

How delightful, a pair of Stock Dove outside my window, pecking around beneath the bird table.

Short of disaster we should be moving house soon, The new garden is full of trees; apple, pear, cherry, birch, plus various fruiting shrubs. Ought to be one way to avoid piling on the mileage to get our birdwatching done.

Gone, but never to be forgotten

2008-11-28T14:44:00.005Z

Last video and final words on the Steppe Grey Shrike, as news came today of only feathers being found in the area the bird had been favouring. I saw a Merlin work the ditches myself while on site, Peregrine and Hen Harrier were around too, among commoner predators, so chances are it was snatched by a raptor. A sad demise for an amazing bird, but what a bird!

(By the way, that certainly wasn't me feeding the bird corned beef!)

Shrike: A Pose

2008-11-27T19:58:00.005Z

Steppy again, perched on my scope.

No report of the bird today, although midweek birders may have been thin on the ground with the rainy forecast. One theory for why the bird looks so untidy goes that its native habitat are the arid plains of areas like Kazahkstan, leaving this bird naturally unaccustomed to hunting for prey in wet grass. As good a theory as any I suppose, particularly as I read in the Lincolnshire Bird Club forum a list of discoveries found in one of the shrike's pellets:

Remains of at least 11 Pterostichus melanarius (Carabidae – ground beetle family)
Remains of at least 3 Pterostichus niger (Carabidae)
Remains of 1 Ocypus olens (Devil’s coach horse beetle – Staphylinidae/rove beetles)
One aedeagus (male sexual organ) of Catops tristis (Coleoptera – Leiodidae)
Remains of unidentified species of beetle elytra (wing cases)
Miscellaneous heads of non-Coleoptera invertebrates (possibly Diptera)
Heads of two different species of possible Lepidoptera

So beetles basically, which makes sense for a bird smaller than our voracious Great Greys.

Tail Spin

2008-11-26T12:44:00.005Z

Shall be moving house fairly soon with my new home closely neighouring the nature reserve at Pleasley. The garden is full with established trees and potentially poses a squirrel problem for my bird feeders. Not a worry though, the solution is out there, and it's highly amusing...

...or perhaps not. Better advice may come from the RSPB - put chilli powder in your seed mix.

Speaking of mixes, a nice mix of birds during yesterday's Carsington ABB where we hit 40 different species from the Wildlife Centre for the first time for quite a while. A Kingfisher was the star for most visitors, plus the Great Northern Diver - these winters Carsington wouldn't be Carsington without one of those.

Steppe To It

2008-11-24T17:14:00.006Z

Location, location, location.

Broke my 50-mile local twitch limit yesterday, but surely worth it for one of the rarest and showiest birds to hit Britain all year. Over the last few years I've had maybe half a dozen Great Grey Shrike sightings, almost always at a range of 100 yards or so, try to comprehend therefore how it felt to have a Steppe Grey Shrike land on my head - I'm still trying myself.
To briefly explain Steppe Grey Shrike is either a different species or different race (in taxonomy terms these birds are rather in the wild west*) to the very similar the Great Greys, just a touch paler in one of two places . We see perhaps 50-100 GGS during the winter in the UK, however the Steppes breed much further east than Greys - from N Iran across to Uzbekistan and should spend their winters in the tropics well east of us. Now human habitation is sparse in these areas so the Steppe Grey Shrike is a bird that should seldom come across mankind and therefore the birds seem to have developed no fear of us. Hence pictures of this one on people's scopes, cameras, cars, heads, etc.
It's only the second or third record of Steppe Grey Shrike in the last ten years, and a real treat still drawing in good crowds into its third week of residence in the Lincs flatlands south of Grimsby. Likelihood is this is probably the most photographed bird.... ever.

In some birding circles concerns raised have been raised over birders and photographers chasing this bird which too high a vigour, but truly it is more a case of the bird following us - maybe it believes we'll stir up worms or beetles. The temptation therefore is to feed it, not something I'd personally want to do - I reason it's been there 3 weeks now and been seen to find its own food which is probably healthier all round than anything people could give it.

Hogging the eyepiece

Also picked up a Grey Pharalope at Covenham Reservoir on that long drive home, another highly confiding thoughie.

Rates as the best birding day the girlfriend and I have ever had. Peregrine, Merlin, tonnes of winter thrushes and Curlews, Brent Geese all fly-overs while we tried not to step on the Steppe, plus a Barn Owl near miss (phew!) on the way back. Videos to post soon.

*technically, the species we're dealing with here appears to be a Southern Grey Shrike

Padley Gorge

2008-10-29T21:21:00.003Z

Padley Gorge has been on the list of long forgotten birdwatching destinations I never quite seem to make it to, like other birding sites of local reknown well within easy reach, Lound, Holme Pierrepont and Willington Gravel Pits, to name just three, much heard of but never given time to. So it makes me rather happy to type up a post about my visit to Padley Gorge.
In the far east of the Peak District this is more walking than birdwatching country, and few walks could offer more splendour for less strain than the one we chose from Grindleford. Less than four miles, it packs in oak woodland, the drama of the gorge and some fringes of moorland.

Now autumn really isn't the time to go birdwatching here, aim for the spring and dapper characters like Pied Flycatchers and Redstart are on the menu. Still, for now there are the warm colours and crisp aromas of the fall season to enliven the senses.
Stonechat up on the open stretch of the walk was about as exciting as the birdlife got, stout birds though, let's not devalue them please!

Late in the day, the drive home neatly led us via Leash Fen, an area of wet moorland interspersed with scatterings of birch hitherto unknown to many a Derbyshire birdwatcher until the delightful news of the convergence of up to 8 Short-eared Owls, attracted by an explosion in the vole population this year, or 'mole' population as another source might have it. I'm sure it's voles though. 4 birds are still there, regular as clockwork they quarter the area, just after four 0'clock when the weather suits. Nice birds, the peeved expression, generated by the patterns on their facial disk, gives them a real air of attitude, there is almost something of the Demon Headmaster in them when they look directly at you.

Who you looking at?

Notts birds in the news (and Senegal)

2008-10-02T17:29:00.003+01:00

Birds feared dead found in Africa

Two small birds thought to have drowned at a Nottinghamshire nature reserve last summer have been found nearly 3,000 miles (4828 km) away - in Africa.

The pair of Common Terns - which were too young to fly - were among chicks living on a specially-built platform at Attenborough Nature Centre.

When rising flood water covered the area last year it was thought all the chicks, which were ringed, had died.

But records from March show two survived and migrated to Senegal.

(BBC NEWS link)

Carsington Wins Energy?

2008-09-27T20:55:00.004+01:00

The big news at Carsington, bigger than shags, peregrines or any bird for that matter, and in some ways quite literally big, is that Carsington Wind Energy has won its appeal against Derbyshire Dales District Council's decision not to allow the wind farm to be built.

Now the project seems destined to go ahead it is perhaps times for those of us associated with the site to welcome the new development. Carsington is so brilliant because it provides such a wealth of biodiversity for Derbyshire (plus a wide range of recreational pursuits for Joe Public), and now the opportunity arises to contribute toward a sustainable future for the region. Perhaps that is the view chosen by the RSPB, the organisation has dropped its objection to the plans.

The impact of wildlife and rights of way are still concerning, and even the most loyal windfarm advocate would have to confess they are something of a blot on the landscape - turbines higher than Big Ben is the oft quoted comparison at Carsington. So are they desirable? No, no at all. Will planting them in Carsington Pastures mean we're taking one for the team in the name of sustainable development and action against climate change? Yes, and what a tremendous thing to do.
Let's face it, better us having the wind farm than Lewis.

A high worldwide demand for wind turbines may delay the development until 2010. Try to stave off the pessimism during the wait, all right folks?

More Old Moor

2008-09-26T17:38:00.005+01:00

Took the family to Old Moor, in good time to enjoy part of the weeklong stay a fabulous Osprey. Kingfisher and Little Egret from the same hide thrilled family to satisfaction, and later in the day picking out Greenshank, Curlew Sandpiper and Spotted Redshank (all top inland records) from the Lapwings, Dunlin and Golden Plover did it for me.

The great facilities at Old Moor impressed too, including a full array RSPB optics in the shop. In the market for a new scope my dad tried and buyed the Viking AV80, plus a zoom eyepiece. The image through it is as clear as a bell, although for me the twist-cups of eyepiece seem quite bulky. That's about my only criticism though.
For the price it offers great value, and who better to be giving money to than the RSPB?

Mum raided the shop for gifts, picked out Pochard and Shelduck from the fluffy bird toys. Good choices, top ducks.
Proof the RSPB as something for everybody? Well, enough for my family anyway.

Treecreeper at the feeding station

Migrant Hawkers, getting it on

Paper bag

2008-09-12T16:55:00.006+01:00

One of the two Shags are Carsington this week, popular birds for a county as landlocked as Derbyshire. A nice showy pair with a rich warmth to the brown hue of their juvenile plumage that's a bit lost on this digiscope effort.

Perhaps shows the Pythonesque nature of birding, to Joe Public they look indistinguishable from the Cormorants of which we have plenty, to birdwatchers they're a reason to get excited.
Hobby through on the day too, a couple of hours after Tuesday's ABB, and a rise in duck numbers whispering about the change of seasons.

Been treated at work lately with a family of Treecreepers taking to the big Cedar of Lebanon next to the gatehouse at Hardwick. Rare? No. Spectacular? No. Lovely? Oh yes.

...and substituting for a rocky coastal island, the draw off tower, current home to Carsington's two Shags.

Bird Storking

2008-09-02T12:36:00.003+01:00

A while since my last post and I wonder where to begin this update. No doubt about it, the honour really does belong to the immature Black Stork [lifer #212], literally a big lifer, had in North Yorkshire over the weekend. The location was Cawood, a small town along the Ouse with fields sparse and wide enough to satisfy this most wary of birds. The wait to see it pop up out a ditch was around 2 hours and well worth it, although enormous thanks go to the birder who yelled us back. The girlfriend and I had just quit for the day, accepting the dip, and had walked no further than 30 yards when the shout came, "HEY, IT's THERE!". Never give up hope folks. Anyway a bird like that though shy gets noticed wherever it wanders, the individual possibly first picked up in Ireland, and now has made its way to Spurn. That's a long long way from Hungary - the region the Black Stork really ought to be in. The girlfriend, upon seeing the bird, she simply exclaimed, 'WOW!'.
Peregrine through too on the day also.

In other news, I have lots of shiny new bird kit. We'd actually headed up to N Yorks to check out some RSPB optics at Fairburn Ings, and only made it for the Stork when I realised it was just another 10 miles motoring on the day. I was after new binoculars on my RSPB volunteer/discount card, and settled for a pair of RSPB BGs. £60 more and I could have had the HGs, but I preferred the cheaper model. They feel a touch lighter and seem just as bright to my eyes. Tried the Viking range too, but for the same price they were dimmer and had a definite blue hue. Weird really, Viking manufacture both its own and the RSPB range, so why the difference?

So bins sorted, it was a scope next. The venerable old Kowa has served us well for 10 years, but using the Swarovskis at ABB events has spoilt me, they are simply too good to go without. Fortunately those of us not rolling money the London Camera Exchange have a wide range of fully serviced secondhand optics, and we found an AT-80 plus 20-60 zoom (and a spare 32x eyepiece). Sure it's a ten year old model but still light years ahead of mid-range scopes from Viking, Kowa, Opticron, etc at the same price. Also, forked out a Viking S1 tripod which is a sturdy animal and very easy to use.
Tried out the new set-up on my well neglected local patch today, King's Mill Reservoir, and straight scored a distant Dunlin (we get maybe three through in a year). I'm sure I would have overlooked the wee wader with the old Kowa, so am I happy with the Swarovski? YES, YES and YES again!

Round-up of for the supporting cast in August goes... family group of Spotted Flycatcher at Carburton/Wellbeck watchpoint and hundreds of hirundine gathering nearby, Yellow Wagtail at Hardwick village in Clumber Park, Red-crested Pochard at Carsington. Nice enough to keep my going in a month I've been at work almost non-stop. Glad it wasn't sunny, that would have been awful!

Common Sandpiper (Carsington)

p.s. Stressed? Tried Birdsong radio here or here.

Sensational Sandpipers!

2008-08-12T13:55:00.003+01:00

So many birds, so little time to post anything about them.

A very quick round-up of a successful trip to North Norfolk should really include the Sandpipers at Cley - White-rumped and Pectoral (presumably brought across from North America by the weather system that made for such a warm and windy week at the campsite) , plus a rusty coloured summer Curlew Sandpiper. The girlfriend spoke, in a hide packed full of genuine birders, of how all the small waders looked a like. "A variation of a theme", one chap replied. She was a little more impressed when I suggested at least one of those tiny birds hatched not long ago in the Arctic barrens of Northern Canada.

Spoonbills have been a regular feature at Cley and five were present for our visit, at least one of them a definite juvenile. Well done to any birdwatchers who saw those birds doing anything other than sleep!

Greenshank, Spotted Redshank, Green Sandpiper, Little Gull, Knot and a single Brent Goose were the best of the rest at Cley.

Over at Titchwell later in the week Bearded Tits were the clear winner. Superb views of a family group and then a lone male, just a little patience along the path and they popped up hardly five metres away. Don't be too quick to get to the hides, is my advice there.
As per usual it was a great site for close views of Avocet and Marsh Harrier, and unexpectedly out on the beach a raft of eclipse Eiders drifted just offshore.

Elsewhere, family groups of Little Terns fishing in the channels around Wells harbour will remain memorable, a Hobby at Dersingham Bog, Med Gulls made a visit to Snettisham worthwhile even if the tide was well out, and the girlfriend enjoy stalking the Oystercatchers in the PYO strawberry fields.

Invertebrate life was pretty tops too, but I'll post about that another time. For now, what are you waiting for? Pack up, get Norfolk bound, it's brilliant!

Little Gull @ Titchwell

The Eider

The Spoonbills, surprisingly active!

Holiday Birding

2008-08-05T14:26:00.008+01:00

Super busy at the moment so this post must fly by almost as quickly as my holidays, both the family shindig up in Bridlington and the week's camping in North Norfolk.

Birdwatcher or not, a holiday to the East Yorkshire coast really does demand you devote one day to the RSPB reserve at Bempton Cliffs. Over 200,000 birds nest on cliffs over 100m high, and the whole cacophany that erupts from that sheer mass of life makes it an inspirational place, inviting philosophy and peace of mind.
Bloody good birds around too. Gannets, Guillemots, Kittiwakes, Puffins and Razorbills make up the major numbers, with scatterings of the other commoner gulls. In the meadows behind the cliffs notables during our visit in mid-July included a juvenile Wheatear and singing Corn Bunting - that unmistakable jangling keys call.

Back in Bridlington, more Kittiwakes nesting in the streets and more than 60 Turnstones in the harbour added interest to late evening strolls. Here's hoping they will adjust to the construction of the new multi-million pound harbour/marina recently announced by the council. Fingers crossed it doesn't change the character of the town too much either.

Scenes of the day...

The Wheatear (named for its pale rump visible in flight - wheatear is apparently an old country corruption of 'white-arse')

Finally, a video of a show-off Gannet.

My Norfolk post next time folks.

Pinks and Buffs

2008-07-05T21:24:00.002+01:00

Just a video of the Bullfinches and Tree Sparrows at a feeding station at Carsington. Sometimes I forget that some parts of the country just never see them in the numbers we have up there.

In other news, I have to mentioned Barn Owls. First bird of impeccable timing that wafted by while a ranger was telling us volunteers how they maintain the hay meadows at Carsington. Take from me, heck take it from the owl, Severn Trent Water do a great job up there. Looks like the owls are breeding in the vicinity.
As are my local pair at King's Mill, still dependably dodging the trains and returning with prey. Would it be too much to lodge an order of hree more fledglings from them?

Keep on the sunny side folks.

Daddy Long-legs

2008-06-25T13:57:00.005+01:00

A quick post to wrap up the Wales trip. On the way across we bisected Cheshire, very close to a nature reserve were Black-winged Stilts were still nesting. Didn't expect us to pass that by without taking a look, did you?
This was only the 7th known occurrence of nesting in Britain for this species (found more usually around the Mediterranean coasts), unusually two or possibly three pairs breed in Nottinghamshire in 1945, with a handful of other records since then. Cue the RSPB and their Aren't Birds Brilliant team to watch over the birds and show them to the public. You couldn't miss them...

Ridiculous and beautiful looking birds really, my girlfriend labelled the male bird 'daddy long-legs' and you can easily see why - indeed proportional to body size they have the longest legs of any bird in the world. Not only strange by appearance, the parent bird had the habit of carrying the chick around under its wing, so you'd see the adult stood with two legs poking from its armpit and know where the chick was.
Sadly it was only one chick. The clutch hatched during a stormy night which the rest of the brood failed to survive, and now regrettably I have read that the one chick has been taken by a predator since our visit to the site. Just 1 week away from fully fledgling too.

So for this year, that particular spectacle is over. Let's see if the Stilts pop up anywhere next Spring. Keep an eye out for ridiculous birds, all right?

Maybe you'll find a long-stayer worthy of naming, like Sammy, a remarkable bird that took residence at the RSPB's Titchwell Reserve for 12 years from the mid-90's. Thought at the time to be the most photographed bird in the UK, beat that Kate Moss!

GOP

2008-06-20T15:03:00.003+01:00

Wales again, another ABB, the Glaslyn Osprey Project in Snowdonia. If you're in the region it's the perfect diversion, and though the nest is over a mile away from the viewing area the RSPB's scopes give great sights of these majestic birds that can't fail to thrill. The project has its own blog, check it out here.
Yes, that is Snowdon in the background there, the pointy peak centre left.

More intimate views available at the ABB site through the CCTV set up above the nest.

Top stuff.

Aren't Kites Brilliant!

2008-06-19T12:26:00.002+01:00

Continuing the birding story of my holiday in Wales, the next feathery target were the Red Kites at the Forestry Commission's feeding station at Nant-yr-Arian, in central Wales about 9 miles east of Aberystwyth, where an ABB project runs most days through the year. Around 100 birds arrive everyday at three in the afternoon to snatch a quick easy meal, swooping down with great dramatic poise to pick up their prize, usually chicken we're told, tossed to them by the rangers. This apparently helps improve breeding success, especially during dry spells when parent birds find difficulty in digging up their main prey item - worms.

Here's the video...

(another video here)

The hide is 20 yards from the feeding area, so you can view the Kites at very close quarters indeed.

Now truth be told, the profusion of Red Kites there lasts most of the afternoon, you really can't miss them in your anywhere around the site, and after an hour or two you begin to take them for granted. This has to be a marvellous thing, to be tired of Red Kites! After the entire Welsh (and therefore British population) at one point came down to just a handful of pairs, indeed research into their genetics tells that all Welsh kites are descended from just one female, these numbers indicate the most amazing recovery for the species.
There are up to 400 pairs now in Wales, and without hyperbole their survival has to be one of the great stories in nature conservation anywhere in the world. What a remarkable achievement! So even if the feeding stations feel a little like Red Kite theme parks, all is forgiven.

Of course you don't have to go to Wales for Red Kites anymore, there are birds from reintroduction schemes around much of England now, and some fairing a little less well in Scotland. The Welsh will tell you these are 'non-native' Red Kites since they came from European populations and perhaps they have a point. Truth be told, there is an argument that the RSPB jumped to quickly to reintroduce Red Kites to the UK from other countries. It's a cautionary tale.

Other birds around the site included Buzzards, Ravens, Siskin, and practically in the car park you have Tree Pipit.

Back to the Kites, and more pictures...

The valley to the west.

Ynys-hir

2008-06-16T14:26:00.004+01:00

Another swift post to sum up the best of the birding enjoyed on my camping holiday to NW Wales.

Top spot had to be the RSPB reserve at Ynys-hir, never heard of it? Me either before I went, but I am quite comfortably confident it's the finest RSPB site I've ever been to. Where to begin describing the plethora of habitats? The oak woodlands? The mudflat estuary? The fresh water pools? Or how about the reed beds and open pasture? I could go on.
As you may imagine, this extraordinarily rich variety offers a true wish-list of summer birds in early June... maybe 10 pairs of Pied Flycatcher by our straw count, almost as many Redstart, and best of all a single Wood Warbler - a lifer for the girlfriend and I. May have been too late in the day for the bird's amazing stuttering trill song (listen here), however a plaintive 'tuh' contact call quite unlike anything I've heard from a Willow Warbler of Chiffchaff helped to confirm with our ears what we seeing with our eyes through the thick green foliage.

In at least three of the hides we found nesting pairs of Swallow, probably my girlfriend's favourite part of the whole holiday came in watching them toing and froing, watch out for the video at the bottom of this post.

Other top sights for the two days spent there (we simply had to go back after the first one!) were family groups of Raven and Stonechat, a single Whinchat, display flights from Common Sandpiper, overflights from Little Egret, Sedge/Reed/Grasshopper Warbler among the reeds, Oystercatchers and Lapwings, hovering Common Buzzards, Siskin and Great Spotted Woodpecker visiting the feeders by the visitor centre/shop, and a sunbathing Treecreeper - stubby wings outstretch against tree trunk, to name the highlights.
For me most memorable of all was a Goldfinch nest riding the strong winds in the outermost branches of an oak tree at eye level from one of the hides - rising and falling five to six feet after every gust. We couldn't have planned to see a Goldfinch feeding its day old chicks, which trust me is an extraordinarily privileged view into the precarious early days of those birds.

Some pictures to illustrate all this beauty...

(Goldfinch nest just to right of picture.)

Perky Pied Flycatcher.

Those Swallows.

More Welsh birding to come.

Flying Entry

2008-06-11T17:43:00.003+01:00

Big update soon about my holiday away in NW Wales, but for now just a few local notes. Seems a while ago now (three weeks) that I scored with Black Tern back on the local patch at King's Mill Reservoir. This year they've been just about everywhere and seen by just about everyone, so I'm glad I got mine!
Lovely, elegant birds in summer plumage, and very graceful they are too hawking for insects at the surface waters. Their dark tones, relative small size, I don't mind admitting it took a minute or two of sifting through the large hirundine flock to pick out our bird.
It scored well with the girlfriend test, she was well impressed.

Last night we had a unsuccessful forray to Budby Common in search of Nightjar. We heard them all right, at least two, probably three chirring after 10pm, that was the extent of it though. What did show were Woodcock, we more than a dozen sightings of them roding above the treelines with that strange croaking and hiccupping display call. Can't say I'm disappointed after that!
We shall return though, possibly for Nottinghamshire Birdwatchers' Nightjar walk on June 20th.

So stories and pictures from Wales next time...

Carry On Doving

2008-05-23T15:10:00.003+01:00

A video of the Turtle Dove that graced the bird table at Carsington this week. Apologies for the poor image quality, but at least you get some comparison with the Collared Dove in front there.

Dove Me Do

2008-05-22T17:37:00.003+01:00

Had a surprise during our ABB event this week; a Turtle Dove arrived at the bird table, so far as I'm told making it only the second record for Carsington and the first in around 12 years. Great news as this is, sadly it looks like they are set to get even scarcer than that with intensive farming methods, loss of set aside and the eagerness of Maltese hunters to fill their bags, all impacting on this red listed species.
Charming bird, distinguishable for being slightly smaller than a Collared Dove, as well the obvious plumage differences.

The good news is the European Commission is to begin dealing with the Maltese government's failure to crack down on the illegal shooting, although that's little use if the doves have nowhere to feed or nest when they do get to the UK. More about that here

In case you were wondering the species' name 'turtle' comes from the French word for the dove, tourterelle, which is said to be closely onomatopoeic of the bird's purring song. So don't say I never post anything interesting!

Other birds for the day included a family of Raven playing along the hillsides, and a probable pair of Curlew bathed by the wildlife centre about 30 minutes apart in the morning. The male has a slightly shorter bill than the female, which is about the only way of telling them apart.

Most popular among our visitors however were the Lapwing chicks, best described as fluffy balls on stilts. Just two so far, but surely more to come. Well done Severn Trent Water for their management of the islands!

Turtle Dove

Budby Common, but its Birds Aren't

2008-05-19T14:04:00.004+01:00

Quick update. My last decent birding foray was an evening stroll around Budby Common/Sherwood Forest Country Park. It's a National Nature Reserve up there, and the wildlife richly deserves that great distinction. Over the expanse of open heathland we saw 3 Cuckoos, several Woodlark, Tree Pipits, a Hobby screamed through, Yellowhammer, Green Woodpecker and Jays were about too, plus Red-legged Partridge and Yellow Wagtail in the farmland nearby. Wasn't all birds either, we spotted a fox, a couple of hares and a stunning sunset too.
The reserve could be the finest wildlife destination in the whole of the county.

In a couple of weeks when the bird are more active the rangers do a guided Nightjar walk, I went on last year's and it was just brilliant. Be sure to give it a go if you can get there.

Coombes Gladly

2008-05-14T12:38:00.004+01:00

It's May, we're in the north midland, there's one place that screams a visit; The RSPB reserve at Coombes Valley (near Leek), and may I say it was brilliant at the weekend. The star birds are Pied Flycatcher (we saw 4) and Redstart (3), plus Wood Warbler although we didn't find any this visit - largely because we didn't hear any and the leafy canopy is already so full, keeping them well hidden.

There is some disappointing news to report as the hide overlooking the pond has been dismantled I'm told due to H&S concerns. Last year it made for unbelievably close views of the pied flies, but now replaced with a bench out in the open it seems those spec ial encounters are going to be a thing of the past, hence the dodgy digi-binned picture of the female (above). They are apparently discussing options for a more permanent replacement there.
Still, whether 5 or 50 feet away, they are magical birds to see at all, and the pond remains the top spot.

Other birds of the day included Raven, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker(!), Grey Wagtail, and woodland regulars like Sparrowhawk, Nuthatch, and Chiffchaff.

Broadleaf woodland, get thee to one soon!

Success!

2008-05-09T11:52:00.003+01:00

Another post that will have to be brief.

Firstly, say hello to one of the stars of Carsington ABB's Bird of Prey Day, this utterly gorgeous White-faced Scops Owl. His native region is around the fringes of the Sahara, so not a common bird for Derbyshire. I could kick myself for having to be work during the event . Anyway, between the local owl club, kids' activities and the resident birds of the reservoir, the day went marvellously. We really do have a good thing going on there.
The event took place to raise awareness of the RSPB's new Bird of Prey campaign. We are looking for 100,000 pledges of support against the continuing persecution which, despite being illegal for decades, still leaves our countryside impoverished of some of the most dramatic bird species in Britain, such as Hen Harrier, Goshawk and Peregrine.

FIND OUT MORE HERE AND SIGN THE PLEDGE.

In other news, I was thrilled this week to watch a pair of Little Ringed Plover mating at one of my local sites. Moments earlier the female gave the impression of already brooding eggs, but then the male arrived. Up she stood, literally giving him the nod, and well, he didn't need to be told twice.
Lovely to see these birds because they are still rare breeders for the region, though colonisation quite quickly these days.

Later folks!

Brief Round-up

2008-04-25T14:31:00.004+01:00

Thought I'd give a little rundown of my recent local birding activities...

Pleasley Colliery is doing a fine craft in attracting small numbers of good county species, twos of Yellow Wagtail and Wheatear, the odd Dunlin and Oystercatcher, suitably supported by the cast Lapwings, Redshank, Skylarks and Green Woodpeckers. It's a little gem across them, far more to the old pit workings than meets the eye.

Meanwhile King's Mill had three of its own Yellow Wags, and the Barn Owls maintain their immaculate presence.

At work (Hardwick Hall), I'm seeing Buzzards on and off, and I was thrilled yesterday watching a pair of male Kestrels in aerial combat. With Nuthatches, Chiffchaffs, Willow Warblers, there's a decent crew in the grounds of the hall, and they make for a lovely lunch break.

Be a fundraiser with Everyclick

2008-04-21T12:56:00.003+01:00

I'll quote this directly from the letters page of the new RSPB magazine...

If just 10% of the RSPB membership used Everyclick as its internet search engine, the RSPB could earn £288,000 each year. Everyclick gives half its revenues to charity: you can specify which one. Please change your search engine to Everyclick and register the RSPB as the charity of your choice by going to www.everyclick.com

Alternatively, if you don't want to register you can just use/bookmark the search page I've created there which is already set-up to benefit the RSPB.

Truth be told, after using it for about a week Everyclick is pretty poor compared to the big famous leaders in the field. My opinion is that it will probably be useful for general searches, but for any detailed bit of info you'd do better to try Google (unless of course you're in China).

Conversations overheard in car parks

2008-04-18T12:17:00.005+01:00

"The RSPB are in the bird observation hide, it's fantastic!", said the well impressed member of the public to her friend as I passed on my way to the loo.

She was talking about this week's mid-week ABB event, and what more is there for me to say about it? Well, being the school holidays in some counties we had plenty of families through the centre, with plenty of very cool kids and their wonderful descriptions of the birds they saw through our scopes. For one girl Chaffinches were a particular favourite, and she may be onto something - with the splash of colour on the male bird, perhaps we undervalue them.

The bird life was varied enough to supply plenty of interest. Willow Warblers and their descending songs are the latest arrivals to promise that warmer weather can't be far away now, and Blackcaps twittered in similar hope of milder skies.
The glamourous Great Northern Diver showed well during the event, as did our Little Owl, and elsewhere around the water a lingering, lonely, lost Pink-footed Goose associated itself with a small gathering of Canadas (it's a long way to its Greenland summering grounds for that bird). On the migrant hot-spot of Stones Island 3 Yellow Wagtails were a colourful addition to the black, grey and white of the Pieds, so intense is that yellow hue the birds might have been crafted our of mounds of lemon rind.

And then there is one more character to make note of, a Weasel, and a particularly fearless one that I discovered sunbathing in the leaf litter beside a path. I approach slowly, with high caution, but really I needn't have because it soon became apparent this small mustelid was as interesting in me as I was in it, as the creature repeatedly popped its head out from the undergrowth to watch me watching it. By the end of the interaction the weasel was within arm's reach and I was rustling, dare I say playing with, the leaves in front of me in game with this curious animal that I didn't quite understand the rules to. After 15 minutes I had to break away as I was already late for the ABB event, leaving the little dude behind.
No regrets though, it was a truly memorable encounter for me, and I think if there is a moral to this story of countryside and wildlife it is this, get out there because you can get so so lucky!

The pictures from the day...

The Pink-foot.

Swallows around Stones Island.

Happy birdwatching everybody!

In the news...

2008-04-11T17:55:00.002+01:00

There's no bad time for good news, and here's some of the best...

The miracle in Madagascar – a blueprint for saving species By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Friday, 11 April 2008

The Independent

A study aimed at preventing the continued destruction of wildlife in Madagascar is being heralded as a scientific triumph that could act as a blueprint to save many other species from mass extinction.

continued...

The gist of it is that protecting the world's great biodiversity hot spots may now include comprehensive techniques which include action plans for the ecosystem rather than a handful of popular species (as has been the modus operandi in many situations). More than 2,000 different species were surveyed for the project and all that information fed into a computer model which alerted the conservationists to where their resources would have the greatest consequence. And it worked!

How cool is that?

Great Greenshanks Batman!

2008-04-10T13:22:00.004+01:00

Well folks, I think we can call this spring and the bird life confirms it. Chiffchaffs are everywhere, and those zipping flocks of hirundines can't be argued against. Birds do it once again, this time enriching us with the hope that very soon it'll be so much warmer outside.

I had another fabulous ABB day this week, in mostly fabulous weather, and I'll use that word again, we had some fabulous birds coming in, almost a wader bonanza in Carsington terms. Bird of the day was an unbeatable Greenshank, the site's first for a good long while. Their traditional migration route toward their breeding grounds on the moors and peatland of NW Scotland is coastal, hence the rarity in Derbyshire. Most will winter in Africa, though many also spend the cold months around the SW coast of the UK.
If one thing strikes me when I sight a Greenshank it is their beautiful daintiness, how the bird is almost too delicate. Nearest species we have to stilts, at present.

Other birds for the day included Common Sandpiper, Common Scoter (marine ducks that migrate overland between the Irish Sea and Scandinavian breeding areas at this time of year), Little Ringed Plover, the regulation pair of Little Owl, Wheatear (on the dam - real hot-spot for migrant passerines), and White Wagtail (the continental race of Pied Wagtail - look for birds with pale grey backs and very clean white flanks below the line of the wing). Almost goes without saying the Great Northern Diver remains, and now shows a hint of summer plumage on the back. Hopes are high it will turn fully before it departs - into something like this - handsome or what?

Icing on the cake, and the whole point we do the events at Carsington, was a bumper crop of membership sign-ups for the RSPB. That's win-win for everybody, for birds, for people, forever.

I have news to report that isn't so sportive. My previous entry reported on the return of the King's Mill Barn Owls, which is great, but alas I learn today their territory is imperilled. Already an area of superb hunting habitat south of their nest site has been ploughed up for commerical development, which will doubtless include the construction of a new road. The local RSPB group therefore views the long-term future for Barn Owls at the reservoir in very pessimistic terms.
My hopes rest on remembering how they surprised us by turning up, surprised is in their bizarre choice of nest site, surprised us with their breeding success, and I look forward to them surprising us again. I watched one of the birds sat on a post a yard or two from the railway tracks the other night, and for a heart-stopping moment it scarcely flinched as two trains thundered by it. Again, after all the noise had died down it was a surprise to see it calmly perched with the same simple ease it had been before the trains passed. Blaze is the word that springs to mind.

Got five mintes, why not look at the RSPB's campaigns website?

Early April Update

2008-04-07T10:52:00.003+01:00

Thought I'd do a round-up on my recent birding activities...

The girlfriend is besotted with the Derbyshire Dales so we headed westward again and made this time for Monsal Dale. It's April, thus we had four seasons in the day, and good smattering of birds even if we found nothing stellar - Buzzards soared over the valley, while in the wooded glades Great Spotted Woodpeckers were ever so noisy (their calls sound to my ear like miniature crow vocalisations), Treecreepers crept up trees, and Goldcrests rushed through their tiny whistling song.

We walked the Monsal and Brushfield circuit - route here - an easy 10km up and down dale. Brushfield Farm was particularly noticeable for its birdlife, with many dozens of tits and finches attracted to the feeders around the farmyard. This makes up for the quieter stretches and rewards the walk.
In in the next couple of months Redstart should be arriving up there soon, and I could scarcely imagine a more dramatic setting to find them in.

Elsewhere, around the Hardwick and Teversal area large-ish flocks of Fieldfare remain with around 200 going over at a time, with smaller flocks of up to 50 Redwing also scattered around. I kick myself that I missed an Osprey at Pleasley by 30 minutes, but feel vindicated for walking so late in the evening at King's Mill Reservoir for we rediscovered the Barn Owls, a pair back at last year's nest site.
They will never lose their glamour with me, and I feel so lucky to have them 10 minutes walk from the house.

In other news, the RSPB will soon launch its new Birds of Prey campaign. Please take time to read about it (here) and sign the pledge of support to protect these fantastic birds from the illegal persecution that still exists in the countryside today.

Bird News

2008-04-01T14:46:00.004+01:00

From the Guardian...

Also today, BBC Radio 4's Today programme featured - at 7.46am if you want to listen again online - a piece about the RSPB worrying that migrant birds are outstaying their welcome and threatening native species such as the sparrow [by competing with them for feed].

The report explains that the RSPB will now send out traps to everybody who took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch (all 400,000 of you, well done!) to catch the foreign finches and return them to their native country - Denmark. One of these traps is named the 'Moggy' and is apparently very effective at taking wild birds.
(Another link the story can be found - here.)

Other bird news today includes dazzling footage from a new BBC series about evolution, which shows footage of a recent discovered colony of flying Penguins. Stunning stuff.

Okay, fair cop, let's check today's date. How fascinating it is though that birds should feature in two big April Fool's jokes this year. I think we expect to be amazed by them, and as fanciful as they are, there's the truth in these stories. It's birds being brilliant again folks!

Chee Dale

2008-04-01T13:24:00.003+01:00

Another weekend and another Derbyshire Dale. The girlfriend and I don't have so many more to go now. This time it was destination Chee Dale, weather fine and sunny, and me sort of ill*.

Truth be told, if you were to draw comparisons with more the renown dales like the Dove, Lathkill, Chee Dale struggles to compete for scenery and drama. The most exciting stretch is where the limestone gorge pushes walkers into the river (there are stepping stones, in case you're wondering). Still, it is of course pleasant and, psst, a little private, much quieter indeed than the aforementioned dales, being there is like being under a massive living green duvet. You may even have the dale to yourself during the week.

My bird list for the walk wasn't huge, it was however promising. This is a real Derbyshire Dale so yes, there is a resident pair of Dipper, but also Green Woodpecker, Chiffchaff, Buzzard and Grey Wagtail, show what promise lies within, and the day following a Barn Owl was reported in the area. You go there, you see something!

Speaking of something, here's a very unexpected something from our day at Chee Dale...

...there were bats!
(If you have any idea how difficult they are to photograph, you'll understand my glee in having anything to show you!)

Small size, rich brown fur, black face and ears, I'm saying they are Britain's most common species, Pipistrelle. Now I'm no expert but this isn't the first time I have seen bats out in daylight during the first half of spring. My own hypothesis is that they are coming out of hibernation near to starvation and desperate to feed. This early in the year it is still very cold at night with few flying insects yet emerged, so it makes sense for these bats to hunt during the day.
Equally, they might merely have been disturbed from their roost, though for me everything about their whirring behaviour suggested classic feeding technique around the woodland clearings. We saw just two individuals, one showing well enough we could follow its course right into the rockface, the minutest fissure, which rather makes sense as the cave systems around Derbyshire are particularly notable for their populations of hibernating bats.

At the head of Chee Dale is a Derbyshire Wildlife Trust reserve, 'internationally important' as the volunteer team working there told us. They also advised a return visit in late May when the wildflowers are apparently magnificent. I think we'll do just that!

* Preyed upon during the week by the norovirus/winter stomach bug, I was so happy to have the birdsong outside my bedroom window as I tossed and turned myself into a half comfortable knot. Even the Dunnock's slightly flat twittering was sweet enough to ease my suffering. So hail to the birds, they rock again!

A Right Poser

2008-03-20T23:03:00.003Z

I had another ABB! day at Carsington this week. Pretty average event by our standards, by which I mean GREAT! Plenty of excited schoolchildren through, although many of them were dangerously obsessed with ticking off the birds on their list. It's a ragged road to go down kids, believe me!

Our bird list for the event included the Great Northern Diver (surely this bird has earned itself a pet name by now - 5 months into this year's stay and probably 6 last winter too!), Buzzard, Raven, Kingfisher, Oystercatcher, Redshank, Lapwing, Little Owl (the pair cosying up together, aww...), Kestrel, Bullfinch and notably a lost Pink-footed Goose with the resident feral Canadas and Barnacles, among the regular characters. Reports of Sand Martin arrivals also came in with a reliable recording of 2 birds, and I enjoyed a nifty Chiffchaff giving himself away with an unmistakable call that really jolly well announces the beginning of spring.
Those first few Sand Martins may provide that unlikely possibility this weekend of the sight of hirundines skimming over fields of snow, weather which should push them back south again.

Special mention goes to the Robin (pictured), so disregarding of my presence I could flip to the macro function on my camera.
I was reading recently that catholic as the Robin's diet is, with a great range of berries, seed and kitchen scraps taken in winter, they still require invertebrates during the season and would perish without them. So in harsh weather, offering mealworms to your garden Robin could make all the difference. After all, you try searching out insects and spiders during the harshest weather of winter and discover how easy it is!

Some thumbnails of the red-breast...

Happy birding folks!

Sprawk!

2008-03-14T15:00:00.006Z

Had a visit from the neighbourhood Sparrowhawk earlier this week. As I had the choice to break away from what I was doing I sat for an hour in anticipation of the hunt, only to be frustrated when the bird lunged after a sparrow down the other side on next door's roof.
But what am I saying frustrated? It's thrilling enough to see the bird at all!

Over the years I have watched some memorable hunts outside my kitchen window, most remarkably when a mouse chose really the worst moment possible to ascend the bird table - as a Sparrowhawk was already sat on the fence about six feet away, hardly believing its luck I'm sure. I was impressed the mouse clambered around the overhang onto the platform, much more amazed when the hawk swept in, and somersaulted in one swift movement to snatch the startled rodent as it leapt a good 10 inches in the air at the last instant in vain hopes of avoiding its terminal fate. Incredible reflexes from both creatures.

This is the first time I've noticed the Sparrowhawk perched around the garden since last summer. Fingers crossed it'll be claiming a territory here.

When I'm ABBing visitors do share their experiences of backyard Sparrowhawks, most people chuffed to have them. To the less assured I try to explain it in terms of having a 'David Attenborough film in your garden'. There are Lions in the Serengeti, Tigers in the Sundarbans, and your garden, it has Sparrowhawks! All apex predators, full of (deadly) charisma, just enjoy the action!

Aren't ABB Days Brilliant?

2008-03-12T16:13:00.003Z

It's been a while since I had the time to update, so in no particular order I'll attempt a few posts to recap the past month, starting with...

...another Carsington ABB(!) event day.
Forget the Great Northern Diver, Raven, Little Owl and Curlews, stunning as they are they made for second billing yesterday, for in front of the wildlife centre - a mere handful of yards from our big window - we had Great Crested Grebes deep in courtship, head flicking and weed* waving, the whole divine, unimaginable, shebang which they repeated throughout most of the day.

Our visitors, those who came despite a nigh hysterically bad weather forecast, were truly thrilled. With luck these birds shall nest in the willow to the left of picture (above), however there are complications. After such a beautiful display the pair were chased from the area by a feisty lone individual grebe of their own species, a real spoilsport by any measure - who wasn't above diving beneath the water to nip at the feet of our star couple. The day ended with the one bird snoozing in their place.
So what next for these grebes? Will they reclaim the willow? Can the villain of the peace attract a mate of its own? Will the Coot have the final say on who nests there? The story, as they say, is to be continued...

Elsewhere on the day Bullfinches queued in resplendent pink costumes at the feeding station near Lane End hide, and beside Paul Stanley hide I saw my first Chiffchaff of the season. Spring is whispering around the reservoir. Our Tawny Owl remains resident in its tree, one wing again curiously drooped as it naps the day away - it's a real sloucher of an owl we have up there.

During a previous ABB(!) event day, a charming couple told me about the foxes they'd become firm friends with. As they described feeding the animals, the couple themselves recognised the relationship was turning more toward owner/pet than watcher/wildlife, and asked for my advice. I told them that feeding is fine within reason, but failed to be more specific. Well, if you're out there I did a little reading (referring mostly to Chris Packham's excellent book 'Back Garden Nature Reserve') and if you do want to feed your suburban foxes the best practice is to make sure whatever you give them is a bonus and not a replacement for their usual diet. Do it no more than three times a week, putting the food in different places, any kitchen scraps will do. Above all enjoy watching them!

(* it should be understood that an offer of filthy pond weed equals true romance in the grebe world!)

Lathkill Dale

2008-02-12T14:06:00.000Z

What unseasonal warmth! Did we sleep away the winter so quickly?

Well, I can tell you, it remains chilly of a morning down in the Derbyshire Dales. With my free weekends rapidly running out, the girlfriend and I chose a walk new to us, up and back down Lathkill Dale in the heart of the Peak. For a Sunday it was hardly busy, so the scarcity of birds was somewhere toward surprising. Two pairs of Dipper were skittish dazzlers, and the odd languid Buzzard sailed over late morning, beyond that Great Tits, Robins, Goldcrest and Song Thrush added birdsong to the atmospheric mists. Something about the acoustics up there, the slightest twitter is so rich!
Grey Wagtail were a notable absence, I suppose still huddling for warmth down on the broader reaches of the river where the sunshine can find them.

And now for something completely different... walking my niece to the park yesterday I observed behaviour from a pair of Carrion Crows quite new to me. One of the birds was eagerly pecking under the guttering of a house along the street, making me half-wonder whether it was searching for the eggs of early nesting sparrows. No, that wasn't it. Peck, peck, the crow grabbed and pulled out an enormous cob sandwich! Almost immediately thereafter in came the second bird, chasing away what was evidently an intruder raiding the food stash of the resident pair. It must have been watching them store the items there.
Of course I never have my camera when I really need it.

Back up Lathkill Dale, along the ridge above the valley, my first butterfly of the year, a stately Peacock for the Peaks.

Fudge Duck

2008-02-08T13:15:00.000Z

I forgot to mention the Ferruginous Duck from last week (Fudge Duck for those unwilling to risk the pronunciation). The bird was found on the lake at the old American Adventure Theme Park, near Ilkeston. The site is fenced off these days and patrolled by heavies from a security firm which I'm told erected signs reading "NO BIRDWATCHING". To say the least it wouldn't be on my hit parade of birding destinations, but this duck is special, and a smashing find.

Closely related to Pochard and Tufted Duck (species they closely associate with), Ferruginous Ducks breed chiefly in wetlands north of the Black Sea and winter in north Africa or areas south and west of the Sahara, with smaller populations in France and Spain. Their numbers are crashing as their breeding habitats are drained for farming, so they are set to become an even rarer sight for UK birders. Up to 10 birds a winter reach Britain now, but in the future, who knows?

There is one other thing I should mention; Ferruginous Ducks are popular among wildfowl collections and birds from zoos, bird sanctuaries, etc, do go a-wandering wild in the UK. This means birdwatchers are always likely to discuss the natural origins when an individual turns up. Now this Derbyshire bird arrived in winter, is notably shy, exhibiting all the behaviours of a wild duck, so a 'true' vagrant it is.

They are best identified by their white bottoms as no other wild duck in the UK has anything to confuse it by. Beyond that Ferruginous Duck males like this one have a wonderfully rich colour, a chestnut brown that shines purple in the sun. Even at 200 yards, it was gorgeous. A picture can be seen here.

I bet that duck is still drawing in many a birder, relocated as it has to the smaller waters of Loscoe Dam.

In other news, the home patch I've been neglecting still harbours results. At King's Mill Reservoir a Water Rail was showing well, always smaller than you think, and the electric blue flash Kingfisher shot by me. The only sad news I have to report is the probable loss of a Barn Owl, the lifeless white lump seen lying on the surface of the dual carriageway under which a pair had successfully nested last year. The truth is, this tragedy always seemed likely.

Somewhere Up There

2008-02-06T13:55:00.000Z

Spot it yet?

Another ABB day as Carsington has gone by, with moderate numbers of visitors through for a windy day in February. I'm pleased that our team continues to grow, and that I can also report we are exceeding our membership target. Pure joy for all of us involved.
So you tell me you're a birdwatcher? You say you aren't yet volunteering with the RSPB or local wildlife groups? Oh heavens, you are missing out!

The birdlife is beginning to alter with the early change of seasons. The Oystercatchers have returned from their winter break on the coast. They look for all the world like painted clockwork toys, so are always a winner with visitors. Redshank, Snipe, and a couple of elusive Dunlin hint that good times for wader enthusiasts are just around the corner.

Our Peregrines failed to show, though one was noted mantling a Coot at the weekend. These raptors will now be returning to their breeding territories, indeed the Derby Cathedral female is already prospecting her nest ledge, so Carsington may lose this bird's regular presence quite soon, unless a pair take to one of the nearby quarries. We can only hope!

Our Great Northern Diver remains on site, yesterday being the occasion I've seen this most enigmatic and elusive individual for several weeks. Since the girlfriend described its shark-like features I haven't been able to shake the comparison from my head. It must be worse for the fish.

My treat for the day was taking time to pick out a Tawny Owl from the foliage of their traditional roosting tree. You can be sure they are creatures of the night because only a nocturnal species could have such a groggy appearance in the daylight, it's nothing short of comical.
The tip to finding them on a suitable a tree is to consider the time of day and the weather. In winer these birds will follow the sunlight around the tree trunk, or otherwise choose the side sheltering them from the wind. My other piece of advice; never stop searching.

So tired.

The Great Survivor

2008-02-04T15:45:00.001Z

Ever hear the one about the timid Blackbird? So scared of cats he went completely...

White!

Okay, not really. He's what the experts call an 'albinistic' Blackbird, a partial albino to the rest of us (complete albinos have bizarre pink eyes - like this fledgling sparrow). Some family of mine noticed him last week during a non-birding visit to Rufford Country Park. I knew there had been infrequent reports of a 'Whitebird' at the site since it was discovered in Feb '06 - that makes him at least 3 years old - so quite the survivor. Conventional birdwatching wisdom suggests these eye-catching birds are a more conspicuous target for predators such as Sparrowhawk, a theory which makes his continued presence all the more remarkable.

Here's a brief explanation on how albinism occurs in birds...

Pure albino birds lack pigmentation and because feathers are made from keratin, which is naturally whitish in colour, their plumage is white. The absence of pigmentation also affects eye, leg and bill colour - the eye and legs appear pink owing to the blood vessels showing through, and the bill will be whitish. As well as pure albinos there are partial albinos which simply have a few white patches on their plumage or have white plumage but retain their proper eye or leg colour.

Albinism is usually a genetic condition that causes the absence of pigment, but may also be caused through malnutrition, parasites or injuries. A common belief was that too much white bread was the cause of albinism, but this is not the case. Albinism of varying degrees is quite common in Blackbirds.

from garden-bird.co.uk

In addition, I wonder if these birds are perceived as an unattractive partner by other Blackbirds. Perhaps he therefore avoids the stress, dangers and energy expense of raising a brood each year. Pure speculation on my part, I really have yet to read any research on the matter.

The bird itself is a real show off, posing almost as if aware of his glamour...

The girlfriend takes a picture.

A little donation to his upkeep.

The video: An everyday bird made glorious by the great lottery of life - genetics.

Rufford is itself a pleasant birding destination. True enough that genuine rarities are unlikely to turn up, but Hawfinches can be a notable presence in the car park during winter mornings, and during our visit all the regular woodland species showed, Nuthatch, Chaffinch, a small number of Siskin, many affording very close views. On the lake Great Crested Grebe and Tufted Duck, while Buzzard have also spread to this part of the county and can be seen overhead.

A couple of thumbnails from the day...

Robin

Rufty Tufty

Happy birding everybody!

Video 1 - More of the Blackbird

BGBW Reminder

2008-01-25T15:53:00.000Z

Take part because the testy Robin says so!

Just a reminder to everybody that this weekend (26th-27th Jan) is the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch - your chance to participate in the huge national bird census the conservation charity organises annually. Check out the website for more - an hour is all it takes and time spent enjoying the undervalued wildlife we all have out there the other side of the kitchen window, all of it contributing to the RSPB's understanding of the influences affecting bird populations.
I'll post my results on Monday.

In other news, my birding activities have taken a backseat to the house-hunt for now. As a reward for last weekend's endeavours the girlfriend gave me 30 minutes at the Ogston Reservoir gull roost. Time well spent as one of those lovely mottled marble 1st-winter Glaucous Gulls (like this one) settled in the ranks.
He'll be an inland wanderer spending the winter feeding at local rubbish dumps, and hatched last year probably somewhere in Greenland. Isn't it wonderful what faraway birds turn up Britain?

Interestingly, a chap told me the Iceland Gull I saw on the 1st of the month, is potentially a Kumlien's Gull, the Canadian subspecies and a much rarer vagrant to Britain (1 or 2 per year in my region). The ID differences are small (these gulls have faint markings on their wingtips rather than pure white), and it's a fine judgment I couldn't make for myself with adequate confidence. The reappraisal came from club members at Ogston.
For me, perhaps it's bad birding to dismiss worries over the exact identification but I can live by just letting these things go from time to time. Among all the regular gulls, it sure was a shimmering stunner.

Is Birding Bad for the Environment?

2008-01-11T16:59:00.000Z

Here's an interesting article from The Times...

A lungful of carbon delusion

Jonathan Leake

How are we to deal with climate change? If you had asked that question 10 years ago the answer would have been simple: plant lots of trees.

If, however, you had asked that same question four years ago you would have been told that nuclear energy and wind farms were the solution. More recently still you might have got yet a third set of answers: biofuels, carbon capture and trading.

...continued

Give it a chance as it goes on to explain the fashionable five minute answers to climate change, carbon sequestration, nuclear energy, etc, for the fallacies they are. It also has harsh words for conservation groups, indeed it mentions the RSPB by name, and I'm vexed because its criticisms are entirely valid. The society does encourage car travel, its magazine is dependably full of advertisements for long-haul birdwatching holidays, while inside in the news pages the dangers of climate change could form an omnipresent headline.

Closer to home I think about all the birdwatchers I know. Most weekends they will be travelling by car, often to sites flung across all regions of the UK, and I begin to wonder, is birdwatching as an activity really such good news for wildlife conservation? We commonly use private transport far more than people who could scarcely give a damn about wildlife, the of which irony sticks out like a saw thumb, and a particularly unwelcome saw thumb at that.

It is abundantly clear to most of us now that carbon emissions influenced climate change has to be the greatest concern for all conservationists. Saving those coastal lagoons today may mean very little when the sea has claimed them in 50 years time, rainforests in South America are already suffering severe drought as weather patterns change, we know the list of conservation projects imperilled by climate change has the potential to be endless. This is why in certain quarters expeditions like The Biggest Twitch can receive such unquiet derision. During 2008 a former RSPB warden plus partner shall fly all over the globe, carbon footprint and all, hoping to break the record for number of species seen in a calendar year, and they do this in the name raising 'awareness' for conservation issues (that bang you just heard was your jaw dropping on your desk).

Clearly we're not all quite as deluded as the Biggest Twitchers, and yet, so many of us will think nothing of regularly driving 50 miles to see some admittedly charming birdlife. With a million RSPB members, maybe 3 million more people birdwatching every year, this all adds up. Fearing that they are a growing influence on carbon emissions and climate change George Monbiot uses the term 'love miles' to describe the flights and car journeys we undertake to see friends and relatives . In a similar capacity, the phrase ethical birdwatchers may need to begin thinking about is 'bird miles'.

Surely this makes it time to reined in our bird miles, and enjoy our local birds for the beautiful natural heritage they are. What is the other option? To continue down the path we're on, encouraging mass transit to top bird sites, ultimately beckoning closer potential oblivion for simply countless numbers of species in the UK and around the world.

'Bird miles' may be a drop in the ocean, infinitesimally insignificant in the face of India's new model car or China's new model coal-fired power stations. But where do we make a stand? There could be no more idea place to begin that with our choice of leisure, should we find it pollutes beyond reason, even if that includes birding. This does not mean the end birding, we all still have kitchen windows.

This month the RSPB heavily promotes the Big Garden Birdwatch, a great exercise indeed. It campaigns to save the albatross, the Sumatran rainforest, the Aquatic Warbler in Poland and fights the expansion of Lydd airport.
Is it time for the RSPB to begin encouraging away from our cars, to make more of our local areas, dare I say, limit our travel?

I can hardly imagine a message members would want to hear less. What to do folks?

Best of 2007

2008-01-10T17:55:00.001Z

It occurred to me that I failed to make an end of year appraisal for 2007, so here's a quick best of round-up...

Best birding site visited... difficult to choose, it'd have to be the North Norfolk Coast, and those magical dawn moments of thousands of roosting Knot, thousands more commuting Pink-feet, Shore Lark below the dunes and Barn Owl quartering closer than you'd dare imagine.

Best bird seen... for rarity value, the juvenile Night Heron at Fairbun Ings in July. Rumour has it this may have been the first true wild bird of the species hatched in the UK.

Best bird photograph...

This Swallow fledgling feed at Bempton Cliffs RSPB, also in July.

Best bird video...

Barn Owl at Holkham NNR, late August.

Best local find... not a classic year, but a pair of Whinchat at Brierley Forest Park stirred interest in the place during April. They would probably breed were it not for the dogwalkers. According to BirdTrack these were earliest birds reported in my region for the year.

Best memories... too many to mention, a shortlist list would include the Starling roost near Carsington, wintry days and rare ducks at Hoveringham, Osprey days at Rutland, magical Montagu's Harrier in Lincolnshire, the Nightjars of Sherwood Forest, 3 lifers in one day with Long-tailed Skua/Sabine's Gull/Red-necked Grebe, picking up a stranded Little Auk at Snettisham, and really I could go on and on.

Best decision... getting involved with the RSPB, volunteering at their Aren't Birds Brilliant(!) events at Carsington Water in Derbyshire, where I educate the public about the RSPB, conservation and birds in general. A genuinely worthy cause, I get to watch and talk about birds all day long, and it's a great crew down there too. That moment when you see it click within a kid, the gasp and dazzle of discovery when they realise how amazing the birdlife is out there, it'll never get old.

The numbers:

190 species on the year list
18 lifers

For the foreseeable future my prediction is 2007 will be my best year for sheer numbers of birds seen. Between moving house, rising petrol prices, and the intention of greenifying my birdwatching activities, I should be cutting back on the travel for 2008/9.

Old Green Eyes

2008-01-09T16:22:00.000Z

The sound of happy visitors!

The Carsington Aren't Birds Brilliant events continue their success, and I was on duty twice this week.
We had some pleasant weekend winter sunshine on the Sunday and how the crowds flocked in. Somewhere in the region of 600! Plenty of adults and delightfully plenty of kids too, several very eager to use our scopes. The technique I've developed is to encourage the children to describe the bird they're viewing so that I might identify the species. 'It's a big goose like bird, lots of black on its head and neck, and a bit of white on its face', that sort of procedure. They're usually very good at it, and happy to be told so!

Tuesday was quieter due to the horrendous weather and the onset of the new school term. Walkers and a handful of caravan enthusiasts made up the visitor numbers, both arriving at the centre for the indoor heating more than the birds, but I'll wager they were warmed by both.

As for the birdlife, the Great Northern Diver is still an enigmatic and elusive presence, while the regular Peregrine sets pulses racing. We're low on waders with odd Redshanks joining the skittish flock of 200-300 Lapwing. The treat of the week was the very quiet afternoon when we volunteers were able to scoot down the opposite reaches of the reservoir to view a pair of roosting Tawny Owls. Talk about childlike excitement, I found myself saying, "I saw it blink!". Oh you really can't beat a good view of a true wild owl.

The girlfriend shot the above video at the end of Sunday's event. We'd lately had a conversation over whether any of the British species of birds are ugly, and I confess, I nominated the Cormorant. That prehistoric appearance they have, they're closer to be to dinosaurs than Blue Tits, as if evolution scarcely finished the job on these birds. Sure the green shine of their plumage can be attractive in good light, but really, where was nature's artistic flair? With that said they are fascinating birds, skilled hunters of fish that will coordinate in teams of a dozen or more, and their always entertaining, if clumsy, courtship dance owes something to David Brent
Do they devastate fish numbers on inland waters? Sometimes, in isolated cases, but not at all often. Ask a fisherman and they will tell you Cormorant eat 1 kilo of fish per day, ask a birdwatcher and their answer will be half that. The truth? It probably lies somewhere in between. Therein begins an argument any conservationist would be brave to venture into. Instead, here's another marvellous Youtube video, this time we're watching the famous Li River fishermen, who've found a mutually agreeable coexistence with their Cormorants. Beautiful stuff.

Back at Carsington, in front of the Wildlife Centre Mallards were mating, while Coots built a nest and fiercely defending a territory. Roll on spring, the birds are ready!

Shrike One!

2008-01-05T21:03:00.000Z

Budby Common

Another successful local rarity tracked down today. Budby Common, an area of sandy heathland immediately north of Sherwood Forest Country Park NNR, has been a traditional site for Great Grey Shrike for years now. This winter has been no different, with at least one being reported since early December. It can go up to a week without apparently being seen, but you can generally be sure there's a shrike out there.

A short walk from Budby village brought us to the heath and almost immediately the GGS showed up, pearching atop a scattering of several small trees. It had obviously read the ID literature because this bird showed textbook behaviour, standing on guard on the highest, most exposed branches and even hovering before swooping down on prey hidden deep in the heather. It was just a completely different story to the aloof Shrike we saw only very at Ogston Reservoir last winter. Perhaps the close proximity of the road at the Derbyshire site influenced the very shy behaviour of that bird.

Back to Budby, and there's a two bird theory among some of the locals, although I'm not so sure myself. We watched our shrike for about an hour and saw it wander quite widely between the two areas it has most commonly been sighted. This movements makes sense as their winter territories can reach 50 ha, and that's pretty damn big.

Here's another murky digi-video-scope for the birdtrail record. Hey it was windy all right? And it's the middle of winter out there!

For a better video try this delightful YouTube offering of a Great Grey Shrike in Israel dispatching a mouse. These birds are hardly the size of a Song Thrush, but ferocious enough to deal with all kinds of prey, birds up to the size of Fieldfare and mammals as large as Stoats! Just a real marauder of bird species, making the black highwayman's mask very fitting plumage.

In Britain the Great Grey Shrike is strictly a winter and passage visitor, most of ours probably coming from Scandinavia or possibly Russia. Perhaps 50 or so are present in the UK each year, with a tendency to turn up practically anywhere there is suitable habitat - including but not exclusive to heathland, peat bogs, the edges of pine woodland, and coastal dunes. Basically wherever they are, it's a top notch species, always special.

Elsewhere on the common were Jay, Green Woodpecker, Meadow Pipit, Kestrel and in adjoining farmland a Skylark warbled and a Buzzard cried as it sailed into woodland. A birder who walked from the Sherwood direction noted a pair of Stonechat.
Otherwise, Budby Common is best in spring/summer, as during a July afternoon you have better than not chances of see Nightjar, Cuckoo, Woodcock, Woodlark and Tree Pipit (blog entry from last year). If you can give it a day, you could scarcely find a more rewarding site in the whole of the East Midlands, and they have ice cream at Sherwood Country Park visitor centre!

Derbyshire Does It Again

2008-01-02T17:28:00.000Z

Happy New Year!
It's be grand old start to 2008 for me. With a little local knowledge and the defiant will to ignore a particularly groggy head and get up early on the Bank Holiday, I scored with 2 lifers yesterday.

Click the image to enlarge and trust me, it's a Hawfinch.
View a real photographer's effort here.

I should be ashamed posting such a poor picture. I swear, if I take a worse bird photograph all year long I should be very surprised. It's a Hawfinch down by Cromford Canal. That's been a traditional location for this impressive and elusive finch for a number of years now, news which has clearly spread as more than a dozen birders where searching for them on New Years Day. Every one of them, I believe, left having had good views too.

The best spot for them were these tall beech trees nearby the car park, with 3-5 birds staying mainly in the higher branches, though the Hawfinches were occasionally enticed to the ground by the bolder Chaffinches already feeding down there. These sights only occur in winter as you would so well to see Hawfinch come to earth at any other time of the year. Spring, summer and into autumn, they feed high in the canopy and are hidden by foliage.

Overall the conservation status of Hawfinches is very positive in Europe, recent analysis suggesting a boom, indeed an increase of 658% across the continent between 1980 and 2005. Wow!
Yet the news in the UK seems less positive, with a decline in most breeding areas.

The bird itself is unmistakable once you find it, and beyond the obvious - that enormous nutcracking bill, the bulky size and peachy tones, it was the black mask that struck me. There's something almost Dick Whittington about the way it looks.

Elsewhere along the canal, 14 Dabchicks along a couple of miles afforded very close viewing, with one quite bizarrely eager to take the bread visitors were throwing to the ducks. Surely this cannot be healthy for a species evolved to feed on aquatic insects and small fish?

Other bird species along the canal included Jay, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Goldcrest, Nuthatch, Grey Wagtail (around the water treatment works) and Coal Tit. So far as other wildlife goes, Cromford is most famous for Water Vole, and I very clearly remember how easy they were to see chugging along the canal when I was a child. Now in 2008, we only saw a dead one drowned on a steep banked length of the canal (I'll save you the photograph), and I hear that they've dropped in number big time in the last several years. It's very sad for me, because I'm still young and yet I can already say I remember when...

My other lifer of the day was an Iceland Gull at Ogston Reservoir. Again, a traditional site, with upto 15,000 gulls roosting in the winter on those waters, a few of the rarer species are always going to turn up. So with the Black-headed, Lesser and Great Black-backeds, Herrings and Commons, in came a superb 2nd-winter Iceland Gull. A beautiful, largely white bird, with warm brown speckles, gull species just don't get anymore attractive.

A murky video of a gull not from Iceland!

Check out the white wingtips on the bird at the back - always means something a bit special in the UK.

Ironically, Iceland Gulls do not breed in the country that gave them their name. Instead most seen in the UK will originate from Greenland. They rare inland and are most numerous on the coasts of NW Scotland, but a few dozen birds will always turn up on reservoirs in the midlands, just like Ogston.
The girlfriend was tired so we left while more gulls were heading in, apparently Glaucous and Mediterranean Gull arrived later on. However we did see a pair of Pink-footed Geese, associating with the Canadas in the surrounding fields.

So that's two new UK species for me, in one day, within hardly 30 miles of driving. I'm a happy birder!

Video 1 - Dabchick eating bread

Waggies

2007-12-31T17:09:00.000Z

More of the Pied Wagtail roost in Mansfield...

The artsy-fartsy photograph, because sharp shots in the dark ain't easy!

Again about 100, maybe 150 birds came in, and on the calmer evening the shower of droppings below made for a constant audible splattering.

Video 1 - More flittering

Bittern by the Bird Bog

2007-12-24T12:09:00.000Z

click to enlarge
Look close and look hard, look for the black markings on the back.

Potteric Carr, just south of sunny Doncaster, it's a big site, getting bigger, and full of birds. The star attraction here are Bittern. On any given day during the winter up to 6 birds are to be expected on the YWT reserve, and the neat part, as the staff was happy to tell me, is the they cut the edges of the otherview very thick reed beds fairly short, so you can see into the reeds a wee bit, which isn't done elsewhere. 'Best place in the country to see Bittern', he said. I could hardly disagree, we had three sightings through the day, of probably three different birds. They do not stay to breed on site yet, although there's no reason why they shouldn't soon begin to. Black-necked Grebe already do breed there (although are absent in winter), so that could be a fantastic spring/summer double in the future.

On Sunday 20th January, Potteric Carr has its annual Bittern Count day, with hides full of volunteers, ready to point of the birds which at the best of times are damn difficult to pick out. If you've never seen Bittern, make sure to be there.

Our best view was when one Bittern flew right-to-left across Piper Marsh, which is apparently its uniform behaviour, as the bird circuits the reeds in a clockwise direction. The flight is far more direct than the languid wafting of Heron, they go much quicker than that. The tip I was given by the locals was look for the gulls to scatter from the water, as if in predator evasion mode, because they see the Bittern coming before we do and are bloody scared of it!

Run!

Other notables for the day included Water Rail - with ridiculously close views as they fed right out in the open under the bird table on Willow Marsh. That's a very good spot all round really, with 19 species on or around the feeders. As one might expect on a reclaimed northern industrial site, there were Willow Tits all over the place, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Bullfinch, and Jay, also showed well. There is a pair of the vastly declined Lesser Spotted Woodpecker around Potteric Carr, not to be seen during our visit though (nor since the previous Tuesday), indeed such difficult blighters are they to find that one report a week during the winter is about the going rate - and this is the best time of year to see them!

More videos of the day:

Video 1 - Dim distant Bittern preening, wait for the movement
Video 2 - Water Rail again
Video 3 - Jay

Sleek Bird

2007-12-19T17:14:00.001Z

Just a brief update on yesterday's ABB event at Carsington. Top bird had to be the Great Northern Diver (which has been around since November 10th). That makes this the second successive year we've had the species present. Last winter 2 or possibly even 3 birds stayed, with GND present from November through to May. Pretty neat to have this bulky marine species. It'll have come from Iceland and in the cold half of the year really belongs around our northern coasts.
Otherwise notable were two Peregrine, as usual best seen perched on the towering electricity pylons.

Visitor numbers weren't great, but should hopefully rise at the weekend with the arrival of Christmas holidays. Memorable person of the day was the lady utterly in love with Wigeon, her genuine favourite she said. There's a Simon Barnes piece in today's Times about the duck which must go someway toward explaining why - read here.

Willow Tits: On The Brink

2007-12-17T17:14:00.000Z

Quite a cold snap at the moment, so a good time to get out around my alternative local patch Brierley Forest Park and make sure the feeding stations are well stocked.

Plenty out and about there, although the transient winter finch flocks, Redpoll and Siskin have moved on. Blackbird numbers are notably high with loose gatherings of 20 birds in several areas. Most gratifying birds to see, however, were Willow Tits, with 4 or 5 individuals congregating around the seed pots and hanging fat feeders.

The recent story of the Willow Tit is shocking both for the extreme decline in their numbers and for the lack of awareness of it. Just take a look at what happened to them in Kent. In 1996 there was estimated to be 500-900 pairs in the county, and now, it's probably none. There's a similar story over most of the south-east, East Anglia, much of Wales, indeed few are the regions in which they are not crashing or already extinct- Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire probably being their stronghold these days.

It may be that the very similar Marsh Tit, declined significantly itself since 1960's although probably levelling off now, provide the sort of ID confusion that lead birders to think there are Willows present in areas where they have lately disappeared from. The best way to tell between them is their call ( try listening at the RSPB website) - although even those can vary enough to be confused, and the slight plumage details aren't always sure fire either. General advice is to look for a slight wing-bar on the Willow Tit.

The national figures say it all really, a decline of 72% in the years 1994-2002, nearly three quarters gone in only eight years! Little wonder it was recently added to the Red List of species of greatest conservation concern.

There is still much debate over the cause of this catastrophic dip. The Willow Tit's weakness is its choosiness, only very wet young plantations of willow, birch and alder scrub, and occasionally pine, will do, so on sites where plantations are maturing, drying up or are being cleared of scrub, Willow Tits suffer quite badly. One influence on this change is the national boom in deer populations, Roe and Muntjac in particular will nibble away the undergrowth these birds rely upon. Coupled with general habitat loss to development and urban sprawl, and Willow Tits are running out of breeding sites.

The other theory that's given a lot of credence proves how difficult biodiversity can be to manage. Despite having an abominable 2007 when the heavy rains washed away all their caterpillar food, Blue Tits are generally on the increase in areas where Willow Tits are losing out. The evidence suggests to some that Willow Tits, the only tit species in Britain to excavate its own nest cavity, are muscled out of their territories and nest sites by the other tits. Mainly Blue Tits, but also Marsh and Great Tit will do this. Great Spotted Woodpecker are another additional pressure, as they will raid nests for chicks.

Studies are ongoing and we don't really have any answers just yet, and I'd suppose there won't be just one reason for the crash. I tend to wonder about the future and climate change. With dryer summers degrading their habitat further, more competitor species making it through milder winters, the future looks bleak for the Willow Tit, real into oblivion stuff.

Thankfully we still have them locally, chiefly due to all the old colliery sites around here that have been returned to nature and planted up in the last 20 years, sites such as Brierley.
They are also present at Carsington, and I'm volunteering there tomorrow. I just might begin adding Willow Tit to the conservation spiel I give to visitors.

Doubling Ducks

2007-12-16T20:30:00.000Z

L-T-D

Seemed like a while since the girlfriend and I had been on a local twitch, leafing through my entries here is was the Rutland Red-necked Grebe in October, so it was due. A quick browse of Birdguides (where would birders like me be without such websites?), came up with a nearby Long-tailed Duck just across the county border in Derbyshire, at a LNR called Williamthorpe Ponds. Upon arrival it turned out to be quite the typical modern local nature reserve, a small pocket of wildlife much surrounded by Acme industrial complexes Ltd.

...when the duck eventually stopped diving.

This Long-tailed Duck (#204 for my life list) has been a long stayer, present on site since late November, and true to form there it was, a mucky looking 1st-winter drake, with a tail of diminutive standards. Still cute faced as ducks go though, rather round of head with the facial expression of a sated puppy. These guys ordinarily winter at sea, and are fairly common on our northern coasts, hence the local twitch value of this inland bird here in the East Midlands. Most LTDs seen around the UK will have come from the breeding populations in Iceland and Greenland where they nest on lakes and freshwater marshes, feeding largely on crustaceans, molluscs, and aquatic invertebrates, during which they dive for long periods.
Our bird seems happy where he is, and quite fearless of man. Just a little patience and views within 10 yards would come. A really nice bird.

Bonus!

As ever, just being out and about brings its own rewards, this time a wandering Water Rail. Icy days seem to encourage them out of the reeds and this one walked with a couple of yards of us, utterly oblivious. It made for quite the most memorable encounter, and I could hear others squealing in the reeds. Check the video links below.
Other birds around included the regular winter ducks, both common grebes, and I heard a Willow Tit or two.

How cool?

The second scarce winter duck of the day was this gorgeous Smew back at one of my local haunts, Kings Mill Reservoir (you know it well by now if you read my bird blog), a neat stop off on the way home. Apparently only the fourth record for the site (check out the local recorder's website for more info), it drew in many a local birder, and happily a few non-birding passersby.
Winter males are always striking, for me their look harks of Walls vienetta, you know, that fancy white ice cream with the embedded wafers of chocolate. Historically Britain receives more wintering females than drakes, though I'm not so sure that's necessarily true these days, with around 200 mainly finding sites in the south-east, migrating from the lakes and rivers of northern Scandinavia and Russia where they breed. His diet mainly consists of small fish, larvae and invertebrates.

Check out the bouffant hairdo!

The videos:
Water Rail - Close Encounter
Water Rail - Paddles
Smew - Digiscoped (watch out for the coot!)
Smew - More of

The Roost of the Wagtails

2007-12-14T12:36:00.002Z

Here's a surprise treat, something I discovered during my walk to the bus station, it's an urban Pied Wagtail roost, in Mansfield. I knew there was one around the town centre, and there it is, in the lone beech tree tucked behind the closed down Tesco. Noticeable first because about half an hour after sunset, when the wagtails descend from the surrounding buildings there's quite the cacophony, almost giving the impression of a pet shop aviary given the high street location.

Quite difficult to photograph in the gloom though, so here's a dodgy video of the action.

For ten or twenty minutes before the wagtails came down to roost they circled quite high, gathering their numbers and emitting that familiar 'chiswick' call. Rather like Starling, they appear quite nervous, unwilling to be the first individual to touch down. Eventually it happened, half a dozen birds flitted into the roost, and then came a continual flurry for the next twenty minutes, getting louder and louder.
Difficult to estimate the total number, but by the end perhaps 120 birds came in, give or take. A quick explanation of this behaviour is that the birds find safety in numbers during the night and choose these urban settings because the micro-climate in our towns and cities tend to be a couple of degrees warmer than their more rural surroundings. The roosts are often traditional sites, with one used for at least 30 years, and some can contain thousands of birds. The largest one I'm currently aware of in my part of the world is in the centre of Nottingham, with reports of 850 individuals joining the roost. I try not to imagine the kind of mess them must leave below them.

Neater still, as I photographed the scene, shoppers stopped to look and listen to the spectacle, a couple of them venturing to ask me what birds there were. 'Lovely', and 'I would never have thought', were the sort of things they were saying.
And what else to say, but again it's a bird triumph, they wowed us again!

In other news, the girlfriend and I enjoyed a night at the cinema this week, as we went to see the exceptional new French version of Lady Chatterley. I mention this for two reasons, it's full of birds, and, here's the terribly nerdy part, I spent moments during the film mentally noting the location errors - for example, we don't have Black Kite in this part of Nottinghamshire (I live where the story is set), despite the bird of prey depicted soaring over the woods. Heck, I really wish we had them!
Anyway, is it really, really, terribly sad to be noticing these things? Awful, I'm sure of it. I suppose that's how birders are, we never really switch it off.

That's all for now, but here's a couple more videos of the wagtail roost...

Video 1 - Wagtails
Video 2 - Wagtails
Video 3 - Wagtails