The Big Filthy Twitch!

So on Friday night (27/12) myself, Dave James & Sam Candy headed to the Grange Inn for a beer or two. Birding was planned for the following day, however the original plan of going for the Yorkshire Ivory Gull was scuppered by its recent disappearance. So where now?!

As the beer flowed, the outrageous prospect of heading SW was then brought up and in no time at all it was fixed! Sadly Jon & Kirsty couldn't join us and nor Sam as he was working. However Dave got in contact with several people and soon got local birders Andrew Dove and Martin Hopper to join us.

So the plan was to head straight for Devon, to Brixham (near Torquay) for the White Billed Diver, near by Cirl Buntings, then on Portland in Dorset for the mega rare Brunnich's Guillemot, as well as a nearby Glossy Ibis. It was set to be one hell of a day!

At the horrendously early hour of 5am we set off from Grange Park with Dave doing the first half of driving. After a long old journey, (including a bit of metal falling off my car causing a brief bit of worry. All ok in the end though!) we arrived just after 9am in rather wet conditions. However as if by magic it eased as we parked up by the harbour. We were greeted by the great site of Turnstones milling around along the streets and by the harbourside. Amazingly I even managed to entice one over to softly peck my finger!

In no time, while putting up my tripod Dave gave the call that he had the Diver in the inner harbour. Didn't realise how close though! We went on to enjoy brilliant views of the White Billed Diver for a fair while, even looking down on it at times, it was that close! It was a seriously impressive bird and that bill...wow what a weapon! There were also several Shags knocking about at pretty close quarters as well as the numerous Turnstones bombing around. Eventually the bird moved out of the inner harbour and that was then our cue to move on.

I then took over the driving, giving Dave a well earned rest. Next was the short journey along the coast to Labrador Bay near Teignmouth for Cirl Buntings, a lifer for Andrew. We were hit by a short sharp shower on arrival, but it didn't stop us very quickly connecting with around 10 Cirl Buntings in the hedge right next to the car park. Result!

It was then time for the next leg, a 2 hour jaunt down to Portland. Sadly it was just a bit risky going for the Bonaparte's Gull at Dawlish with the priority being the Brunnich's and time pressing on. We made great time, enjoying great views along the way, especially the views of Chesil beach close to Abbotsbury. We arrived around 1pm and after a confusing few minutes we found the place by Portland Castle. There were tonnes of birders about. It quickly became apparent that the bird had gone off in amongst the large amounts of boats moored up and was out of view. It was a nervous 15-20 minutes or so before eventually my first ever

Brunnich's Guillemot suddenly appeared down pretty close in front of us. YESSS! He proceeded to show really well although the combination of it frequently diving and a heavy rain shower made photography a very tricky business! Nevertheless it showed brilliantly and several times surfaced right in front of me, literally feet from the shore.

The area was also a brilliant place for seabirds. As well the Brunnich's our list of sighting included 1-2 Black Throated Diver (a yeartick), a Black Guillemot, several Great Northern Diver, a female Eider, a Razorbill, a Guillemot, good numbers of Red Breasted Mergansers & Shags, as well as a lone Little Grebe. 

Last stop of the day was a short trip away to adjacent Weymouth and to Radipole. We parked up by a small playing field opposite the RSPB Radipole Lake reserve. In no time at all we were on to the Glossy Ibis that had been present a little while now. It was a pretty bizarre place to have one, feeding in a flooded area of a football pitch. We enjoyed the bird for a while, watching it fly around and landing in a nearby tree, as well as seeing it join the prestigious 'shit list'! Around 3pm It was time for a well earned McDonalds. Dave promptly threw ketchup all down his trousers, but all in all it well bloody well received!!

The 3 hour journey home then began. A brilliant day and a really enjoyable trip with great company. Was such a bonkers beer-fuelled plan and we actually pulled it off, seeing all our targets. For me it brought two lifers in White Billed Diver and Brunnich's Guillemot.  It also brought presumably 4 of my last yearticks of 2013, bringing the total to an impressive 246, agonisingly just short of 250.  Finally a big thankyou to Dave for his 4 hour driving marathon, getting us to Brixham for 9am!

Velvet Scoter

On Thursday (19/12) I finally caved and took a trip over to Eyebrook Reservoir just into Leicestershire in the hope of getting some photos of the drake Velvet Scoter that had been present for a fair old while now. On arrival I signed in at the fishing lodge and quickly got onto the bird fairly close to the dam. I enjoyed him for a while from near to the fishing lodge, and also enjoying some decent views of a female Smew.

I then moved onto the dam. Here, with the sun behind me I managed to get some brilliant views of the Scoter cruising around and diving occasionally. It really was a treat to see such a bird so well and so close. The normal view of one of these would be a little black blob half a mile out to sea!

After enjoying well received cup of tea, I headed back across the border and over to Ditchford GPs to do some more gulling. Ditchford really has to be one of the best places in the country for gulls and recently has been no exception with a probable American Herring Gull, several Iceland and a Glaucous Gull, as well as several Caspian & Yellow Legged thrown in for good measure. The pits were initially rather devoid of gulls but as the day went on, more and more appeared. For much of the day it was extremely hard work finding anything unusual. Best birds were 1-2 Egyptian Geese, an Aythya hybrid (Scaup X Tuftie?), a Grey Wagtail and great numbers of Red Kites.

Eventually, around 15:20pm after what seemed like forever, I finally found something decent as quite a dark coloured 1st winter Iceland Gull appeared amongst the large numbers on the waterski pit as well as an adult Yellow-Legged Gull and a very vocal Green Sandpiper. After that the drop in temperature got the better of me, ending a decent days birding producing quality rather than quantity!

Some great December birds

The last week has been a real good one birding wise. Three nice year ticks bringing 2013 up to 242 and one lifer (a county first no less!)

It all started last weekend on Sunday (08/12) with Dave James and Jon & Kirsty Philpott at Grafham Water. Target was the female type Velvet Scoter, as well as anything else that might be around. We began scanning from Mander Car Park where I soon sound the female type Long Tailed Duck distantly with Tufted Ducks. A good start!

We moved around to one of the hides overlooking the area that the Scoter apparently frequented. Despite good numbers of Goldeneye, Little Grebe and a Green Sandpiper, there was no sign of the scoter. On leaving the hide Dave thought he may have seen it fly in and this was confirmed when a birder came down the path and told us it had indeed flew in. After a couple of minutes I managed to pick out the Velvet Scoter alongside a Great Crested Grebe. We all watched it for some time until it flew up towards the dam. Mission success! Very ropey photos below:

We headed back to Northampton,to Ecton SF. We however saw very little other than a couple of Chiffchaff.

On Tuesday (10/12) I went to Boddington Reservoir in the late afternoon to have a look what was about, and to have a good look through the gull roost. There were at least 4 Goosander kicking about, however on the whole it was rather quiet. Best of the rest including a very vocal Willow Tit busily feeding away in the car park and a Little Owl briefly sat in one of the nearby oaks at dusk.

What was initially IDed as a Yellow-Browed Warbler was found at a private site in the north of the county on 06/12. On closer scrutiny it amazingly turned out to be a Hume's, the Yellow-browed's far rarer relative, wow big news! Access was limited to the site, however arrangements were made for Wednesday (11/12). Myself, Dave James & Sam Candy headed there and even before our allotted 1pm slot, we had already got decent views of a tiny Hume's Leaf Warbler, a lifer for all three of us, BOOM! Over the next hour we enjoyed excellent views at times, with it also calling frequently. After getting our fill of the bird we headed to the pub for a celebratory pint, car-ticking a Great White Egret while driving over the Pitsford Reservoir causeway!

I'd seen recently that a Cattle Egret was regularly being seen near to Buckingham and so early yesterday afternoon (Saturday 14/12) I had a bit of spare time to catch up with it. It soon appeared distantly in one of the cattle fields, however gaining views was really tricky due to a big thick hedge between me and the bird. After a little while some distant shooting spooked the bird, however this worked out just great as it flew to the other side of the road to it's 'favourite' muddy cattle field in full view. I enjoyed brilliant views of it for a good while, before eventually heading home feeling very chuffed. Out of the now 4 Cattle Egrets I've seen, these were by far the best views I'd had.

Stormy Norfolk

Myself & Jon Philpot had planned to head for Norfolk to get Jon some good views of both Hawfinch & Snow Bunting.

The weather was set to be rather crazy but still we decided to go. So yesterday (Thursday 05/12) we started first thing at Lynford Arboretum in blustery conditions. We spent most of the morning wandering about. We had the briefest of views of a couple of calling Hawfinches overhead, a few Crossbills, Redpoll sp & Siskins knocking about, but really it was all too quiet. All the birds were well and truely keeping their heads down out of the strong SW wind.

We then travelled to the coast, to Titchwell. Again the weather was extremely windy with some seriously powerful gusts. Despite the conditions, we managed to see a Jack Snipe flying around on the approach to the freshmarsh.

We headed straight for the beach and fought the seriously strong westerly gale to get over to the ruined pillbox where I managed to find a bit of respite from the conditions. Scanning the sea was tricky but ended up to be fairly worthwhile, finding a Great Northern Diver, a Red Necked Grebe, at least 4 Long Tailed Duck, a female Red Breasted Merganser and several Goldeneye.

Struggling to stay on our feet and now rain lashing into our faces, we decided to hotfoot over Parrinder Hide. Here we spent a bit of time drying off while having a good look through all the stuff on the freshmarsh. Best bird here was a handsome adult Mediterranean Gull amongst the increasing number of gulls.

There were 6 Avocet on show, with excellent numbers of Pintail, Teal and Dunlin. The wader numbers also began to build with Black and Bar Tailed Godwit, Knot, Turnstone, Grey & Ringed Plover, Curlew, Redshank and Oystercatcher all noted.

  












The sun was back out, however the wind was simply getting stronger so we headed back to the visitor centre and the insanely good jacket potato and chilli. After dominating that we headed back to Northants.
Sadly, that night a huge tidal serge hit the east coast as a result of the wind, coupled with the high tide. This had an enormous impact on Norfolk, with hundreds evacuated and the flooding of lots of important habitats. Areas particularly badly affected included Cley Marshes and Snettisham, with hides destroyed and banks simply washed away.

Long Tailed Ducks and a bit of 'Gulling'

Yesterday (Sunday 01/12) Dave James & myself started early at Summer Leys, in particular Mary's Lake where the previous day 3, yes 3 Long Tailed Ducks were found. Thankfully, they were still there in the far north east corner. After viewing them from the gate, we headed round to get a closer look. There were lots of winter thrushes around, as well as a vocal Chiffchaff and a Kingfisher.

One of the Long Tailed Ducks tended to split off from the other two for quite a bit of time with the two showing very well in bright sunshine at pretty close quarters. They tended to rest for a while before constantly diving for food.

So after enjoying the ducks, along with Jon & Kirsty, we moved onto Ditchford GP, (west of Ditchford Lane) to have a look through some gulls. We parked up at the embankment in Wellingborough and walked down along the river. The pits had a lot of gulls on and after initially not finding too much we moved up to the north side of the pits to look through the large gathering of gulls in the fields. Initially there was nothing then Dave thought he had a Caspian. I got onto the area of the flock he was looking at then suddenly noticed at the back of the flock was an adult Iceland Gull! Boom! It showed, largely obscured for a few minutes before sadly heading off towards Sidegate Landfill with several other large gulls. Poor record shots below:

After getting views of 2-3 Red Kites overhead and hearing a very local Chiffchaff, we headed back past Viaduct Pit. We soon flushed a Great White Egret. It flew around for a while before dropping down behind some trees on the edge of the pit. A nice surprise, but nowadays, not the exciting find they once were with Northants having more than it's fair share of birds. There could be as many as 6 birds in the county at present! 
I then picked out what I was pretty certain was a Caspian Gull on Viaduct Pit amongst more good numbers of large gulls. Later inspection of my photos and confirmation from Steve Fisher did indeed nail it as a very smart 2nd-winter Caspian Gull.

On leaving, we again came across the Great White Egret on the pit the other side of the viaduct. It showed very well before taking flight and cruising right over out heads and back towards viaduct pit. Below are a couple of incredible shots of it taken by Dave James with Jon's camera.

Siberian Chiffchaff

On Tuesday (26/11) I paid Boddington Reservoir a shortish visit during a stunning bright and still morning. Not a great deal about. Waterfowl included 12 Goosander (7 drakes, 5 females), 9 Teal (5 drakes, 4 females) and 1-2 Wigeon. The wooded area around Byfield Pool was packed full of birds with stacks of Fieldfare and Redwing as well as several Nuthatch. Between here and the road I had 3-4 very vocal Willow Tit roaving around, a really decent number.

I headed down to Northampton on Thursday (28/11) morning and thought I'd spend a couple of hours at Ecton Sewage Farm to have a look for Bearded Tits with it being another crisp, bright day. After having a look around the site and finding very little, I then headed to the large phragmites reedbed. Here there were lots of foraging passerines about, especially in the reedbed itself with several Wrens and Dunnocks feeding low down in the reeds. 1-2 Cetti's Warbler called and 3 Redpoll sp. went over calling with several Goldfinches. I then heard a very vocal Chiffchaff. Moving round to the north side of the reedbed and another Chiffchaff giving good views. I then heard a call that was not so familiar but I was pretty sure I knew what it was. It can only be described as a Warbler-type call but more reminicant of a single, weak, Bullfinch-type note. It had to be a Siberian Chiffchaff!!

I quickly got my phone out and gained a recording of the bird's call as it came pretty close but still obscured. I then e-mailed it over to Mike Alibone, the county recorder. I had to get some views of the bird. Sadly I only gained brief binocular views in flight and then briefly & distantly in the top of a small bush. Even these views though gave the impression of a rather grey cold looking bird, fitting very well with the call. It then melted into the reedbed and after a good search around, all I could find was another calling standard Chiffchaff and a couple of squealing Water Rails. 

Mike soon got back to me and indeed confirmed the identity as a Siberian Chiffchaff. Great little self find! Hear the recording below:

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