Gull Watching

See those specks on the far pool? In amongst them was supposed to be a Kumlien's Gull, a rare vagrant race of Iceland Gull all the way from Arctic Canada, only it wasn't. The first day in a week the bird doesn't turn up is when I go there. Ah well, I did score my first Glaucous Gull, so I couldn't count myself as disappointed.

Gull watching is a new thing for me. I'd always thought of it as grossly labourious, not only do you need to study very carefully to distinguish 2nd-winter this form 2-nd winter that, but you may very well end up browsing 20,000 such birds at some winter roosts. That's more like bird-working than birdwatching to me.
Still, I felt I should bite the bullet and did plenty of homework with guides and specialist websites, and felt confident enough to give it a go. Fortunately the site I chose, Carr Vale, only had around 300 gulls in the day roost so it was a pretty easy start, and the bird of the day was a handsome 1st-winter Glaucous Gull (looks like this), which did rather stick out once you found it. It's the white wing-tips you look for first - then you can be quite certain it's either Glaucous or Iceland Gull, and work it out from there.

As for the Kumlien's, a special bird like that attracts twitchers to my local area and it was surprising how poor some their ID skills were. I'm no purist myself, I don't expect great expertise from any birdwatcher I come across, yet I cannot understand why anybody would travel dozens of miles to spot a bird when they don't actually know what it looks like. A couple of times some of the elder gents swore blind they had found the bird and then went on to describe an individual with black wing-tips (probably a Herring Gull), the first thing that should indicate the bird wasn't their target.
I find most twitchers do know their stuff, but this small minority who can seldom tell anything apart and still claim life lists into the 300's, well, I do not understand them at all.

After a while, I surprisingly found the gull watching quiet fun. It's a true test of ID skills, which is something you don't very often get after a decade's worth of birding, so there is real achievement when you pick out something a bit special.

Hoveringham Gravel Pits

Disused gravel pits are becoming a real boon for wildlife these days, particularly those nearby rivers like the Trent. Today we scored American Wigeon (here's different one the girlfriend snapped in Cambridgeshire last week) on a network of pools at the old works around the Notts village of Hoveringham.
Splendid day all round, with roosting Tawny Owl, courting Buzzards, stout Stonechat and confiding Goldeneye. Duck-wise this is the time to go looking for them, we still have the winter influx but unlike November/December they're coming into marvellously handsome breeding plumage - which makes IDing jolly easy.

Stonechat

Tawny Owl

The Buzzards.

Great Legs

They're always special, those close encounters, those moments when a wild bird wonders almost beneath your nose in complete obliviousness to a threat that you don't actually pose. This Redshank toddled metres below a hide at our much visited patch of late, Carsington Reservoir.

Redshank will forever be on my list of probable favourite birds. I could never choose just one species, but the unassuming grace of these waders makes them a certain contender.

Big Garden Birdwatch: My Results

We scored a pretty usual spread for our garden during our hour, although a surge in Blackbirds seems to have coincided with the berries on our pyracantha coming into maturity. Quite a relief really, as we rarely saw even one during the summer (around the same time the new neighbours next door brought their cat into our little ecosystem).
A Sparrowhawk circled over at one point and everything panicked. We sat for half an hour before any birds returned. If we do have a star bird, it's probably our pair of Stock Dove, although only the one showed up for our count.

Our results read:

6 Blackbird
5 Collard Dove
1 Feral Pigeon
1 Stock Dove
2 Blue Tit
10 House Sparrow
1 Dunnock

We'd surely have more if it weren't for the fact that our suburb is only 25 years old, so there are very few mature trees around.

(Big Garden Birdwatch)

Starling Roost!

There are few more common garden birds in Britain than the Starling, so what's to get excited about? Try a flock somewhere in the 100,000 range, twisting and contorting in unimaginable formations as they gather to their roost. They begin in the hundreds, a few different flocks scurrying from different directions, and this continues for fifteen minutes until you suddenly begin to realise they've become not flocks but waves, not of hundreds or thousands, but tens of thousands of individuals all following the same enormous plan - to stay in amidst the writhing torrent of birds until at some predestined or perhaps telepathic point they decide to land en masse, thus evading any dazzled predators patrolling the vicinity.
Some of them came down into trees just 10 or 15 yards away from us, dropping like stones, sounding almost like rifle fire.

Video 1 - Kirk Ireton Starling Roost
Video 2 - Kirk Ireton Starling Roost
Video 3 - Kirk Ireton Starling Roost
Video 4 - Kirk Ireton Starling Roost

I'd always wanted to view this spectacle and I'm really truly thrilled to have actually found it. It's peaceful like waves crashing along the shore, it's artistic - an animated, emoting sculpture across the whole sky, and above all it's just bloody big nature!
Alas it's not easy to photograph or video, especially with mid-range digital cameras, so here's Bill Oddie's memorable version filmed for his BBC series. Well worth a view any day of the week.

Of course with these numbers of birds flying overhead, there's always likely to be one drawback.

Dabchick versus The Waterfall

The cold weather can bring out strange behaviour in some birds.


Video 1 - Dabchick versus Waterfall
Video 2 - Dabchick versus Waterfall
Video 3 - Dabchick versus Waterfall

He never quite made it.

The Bittern Trip Mk2

As the saying goes, if at first you don't succeed... so this was our second trip to find the Bittern at Potteric Carr NR, near Doncaster, and this time we weren't to be disappointed.


Perhaps it was the birds becoming more comfortable at their wintering site, the calmer brighter weather, or maybe we were just luckier this time, whatever the reason they showed well yesterday, with two different individuals from one very popular hide. A new lifer for me.

Their famed talent for transformation is well founded, and we watched these birds seamlessly move from streaky egg-shape to towering serpent. It's quite remarkable, and quite typical of this highly charismatic species.

That other elusive bird of the reedbed Water Rail was similarly accommodating, indeed more so. I'd never previously heard of them coming to feeders, never mind seen it, but now I'm a believer. As the tits and finches scattered seed down onto the grass below, the Water Rail skulked and crept from the reeds, out into plain view to peck up the remnants, no more than ten yards from the hide.

On the far side of the reserve beneath the main road into Doncaster, 2,000-3,000 Golden Plover roosted in the afternoon with smaller numbers of Lapwing.

All in all, a grand day out, and just reward for all that Christmas shopping I've had to do with my girlfriend.

Bittern in Winter, Black-necked Grebe breeding in the Spring/Summer, Potteric Carr is quickly becoming a must-do for the northern birder.