Parrot Crossbills

Yesterday (Sunday 24/11) me, Dave, Sam, Jon & Kirsty headed for Norfolk. number one target were the party of 12 Parrot Crossbill at Holt Country Park. They'd been there a while so we were pretty dam hopeful of catching up with them.

On the way in the early morning gloom we briefly stopped near to Guyhirn (Cambridgeshire) to have a look for the small flock of Common Cranes from the roadside. We weren't to be disppointed with 4 birds present. A nice start to the day. Terrible picyure below:

We arrived at Holt Country Park around 8am and met up with Kieran and Bob, friends and local birders. After a while of waiting around the car park, a birder beaconed us over to a nearby path. There in the top of a pine were the feeding Parrot Crossbills!

Over the next half an hour or so, we enjoyed great views. It was difficult to say how many there were, however possibly up to 10 birds. They then relocated to the car Park where enjoyed them a little more along with a nice coffee. Fabulous!

We then went a short distance along the road to Edgefield Tip where we quickly picked up a smart 1st-winter Glaucous Gull residing in a field with other large gulls. A nice bird and a lifer for Jon, Kirsty & Sam.





Next we visited Salthouse with the hope of Snow Bunting and Black Brant. In the car park a brilliant little flock of Turnstone that were rediculously tame.

We walked east to Gramborough hill and slightly beyond. The sea was relatively quiet with a distant Diver species, probably Red Throated, in flight and several Guillemots flying about.
We eventually found a decent sized flock of Dark Bellied Brent Geese. Before long Dave found a smart Black Brant amongst them. Further birds here were few and far between and we failed to find any Snow Bunting.

We drove a short way west to Cley to have a closer look at a Black Brant, this time in the field just east of the Beach Road. It showed brilliantly well with the sun behind us, amongst a flock somewhere between 50 &100 of Dark-Bellied Brents.

   









We finished the day at Titchwell to again have a go at Snow Bunting and maybe something on the sea. After a seriously welcome jacket potato and chilli, we set off up to the beach. Sadly we saw very little, but a nice walk right round to Thornham Point was very nice. Best birds seen were a brief Barn Owl, 1-2 Marsh Harrier, 3 Eider heading west and all the usual waders and waterfowl. 

But that wasn't where the day finished. As is tradition we turned into Wolferton Triangle in the vain hope a Golden Pheasant would show itself. Unbelievably we were in luck! We literally turned into the road to see a male Golden Pheasant casually strutting his was across the road 50m or so away, before disappearing into the dense, roadside rhododendron. What an end to the day! Great days birding with as usual, wicked company.

Bucknell Wood & Kingfisher

Yesterday (21/11) I spent a couple of hours walk in Bucknell Wood. I love walking around there and I tend to visit quite regularly. The place really reminds me of going round Salcey Forest when I was a youngster about 10-15 years ago; so unspoilt and you barely see a sole there. You really feel like you have the place to yourself. Sadly now Salcey just isn't the same.
Back to the wildlife and I really had to work to find anything. Eventually I did find some Crossbill, however failed to properly give them the once over. I had the briefest of views of 3 in flight, followed by several more calling, all very much obscured by dense woodland.

First thing this morning (22/11) I went back to track these Crossbill down, really keen to find my own local Two-Barred or Parrot. I stomped miles through the horrendously muddy rides, however no sign. There were a couple of flyover Redpoll sp, a smattering of Siskin, 2+ Raven, good numbers of Bullfinches & Redwing & 2 Roe Deer. The undoubted highlight though was the suprise find of a very confiding female Kingfisher around the small pool on the southern edge of the wood.

I must have watched it for at least 45 minutes. It caught 2 fish out of a total of 5 attempted. 40% success rate! It was fascinating to watch it. It would take the fish to a thicker branch, really bash it several times on the branch and then swallow it whole. Was brilliant to see some behaviour I'd never seen before.  

A lot of effort for little reward

Been trying my absolute hardest to find some decent county birds over the last week or two but despite several nice ish things, nothing really good to reward the effort.

On Sunday (17/11) myself, Dave, Jon & Kirsty headed up to the north of the county in the slim hope of finding some Crossbill species. So Wakerley Wood, one of the best places in the county for Crossbill was to be the first place to visit. Despite a huge stomp around we didnt see a massive amount. Best birds were a couple of flyover Crossbill, several vocal Ravens, a smattering of Siskins and 12 flyover Golden Plover.

Next we went onto nearby Blatherwyke Lake. Again nothing massively unusual here. The Mandarins were playing very hard to get but I did eventually find a pair perched up low down in a lake-side tree. An Egyptian Goose, plenty of Red Kites and lots of Wigeon and wildfowl in general were all that was to be seen. 
Blatherwyke church was certainly worth a visit, having had several Hawfinch there back in January. No Hawfinch, but was it was full of feeding birds with Redwings and Fieldfares everywhere and a sizeable flock of Greenfinch . Highlight here was a female Brambling and several Siskins.
We briefly paid a visit to Fermyn Woods CP before finishing the day at Stanwick GPs. Best birds were a couple of Redshank, Golden Plovers, a few Snipe and a handful of Yellow Legged Gull in the roost.

I paid a mid afternoon visit to Boddington Reservoir again on Tuesday 19/11 with the intention of having a look at the gull roost. Not a great deal to write home about however there were 5-6 Goosander and a single Little Grebe.

There were really good numbers of gulls, with hundreds of Black Headed & Common in particular. There were probably around 50 Lesser Black Backs, 10-15 Herring, 1 Great Black Backed & best of all, a very dapper looking adult Yellow Legged too.

Stanford & Boddington Reservoirs

On a grey, miserable looking Monday (11/11), Dave James and I headed out to Stanford Reservoir to have a look for the long staying Osprey. Seeing it would have been the latest Northants record. It was my first visit to the site and it does look pretty good. There was no sign of the Osprey, however we did see some good birds including a Black Necked Grebe, a leucistic drake Red Crested Pochard, a quick flash by of a Merlin, a Peregrine (probably a young male), around 10 Goldeneye and a decent numbers of Fieldfares heading through including one bird missing it's tail!

We finished the day at Stanwick in the vein hope that the putative Azorean Yellow-Legged Gull would put in an appearance. It failed to show and in fact there were barely any gulls on the main lake! Best birds were a Redshank, a Dunlin, a drake Goldeneye, the odd calling Cetti's Warbler, good numbers of Fieldfares through and a rather impressive Jackdaw roost!

Tuesday (12/11) saw an early morning report of a redhead Red Breasted Merganser at Boddington Reservoir. So I threw some clothes and headed down there. A circuit of the site failed to locate the Merganser although I saw a few nice things, the highlight being a flock of 5 Red Crested Pochard (3 drake, 2 female) that flew in with 2 female Shoveler, also a relatively unusual sight there. Also seen were a single redhead Goosander, a female, Goldeneye, a calling Willow Tit and 2 vocal flyover Ravens.

Recents

Cop that!

This morning (10/11) I got a call from my good mate Dave James to say there was still a Clouded Yellow down at the Grange Park site near Northampton. There were a total of 3, 2 males & a female, and they afforded some pretty fab views!! Around 1 o'clock, both the female and male became rather flirty around a flower and incredibly they began mating with us standing there in disbelief!! For the next 45 minutes they stayed 'in cop' allowing Dave and I to rattle off a stack load of photos. Amazingly, the other male joined them briefly, attempting to join in, the randy little bugger! We finished watching two of the three until they went to roost high up in a nearby Oak tree. Smiles all round, how lucky were we seeing that! At present this constitutes the latest ever record of Clouded Yellow in Northants, however with decent weather forecast for this week, this could still yet be broken.

Harrington Merlin

This morning I decided to have a look at Harrington Airfield in the hope I'd come across the Merlin seen there frequently recently.
Birds were rather thin on the ground just initially just 2 Red Kites and a Buzzard over.

I then heard a rather distressed squeal from a Skylark and turned around to see the silhouette of a Merlin with Skylark in talons. After initially losing it in the sun I watched it cruise away off towards the shooting wall. Fantastic! I then got a call from Dave to say he had a Clouded Yellow at Grange Park...

Red Necked Grebe

Not done a great deal of birding recently...too busy looking for jobs, however on Saturday morning (02/11) me & Ems went for a walk around Farmoor Reservoir (Oxon). Was rather drafty, however the Red Necked Grebe that had been there in recent days showed nicely: