Devil Birder

Before moving on to the new blog (see link), I'll finish this one off with a quick summary of recent birding (since 13th August).

Here are some highlights:

14 Aug 

Beddington Farm

juvenile Cuckoo (patch tick 124)

self found Wood Sandpiper

also Little Owl showing well Little Egret

15 Aug

Beddington Farm

22-23 Aug

Rutland

An enjoyable time at Birdfair, seeing Simon King, Johnny Kingdom, Chris Packham and numerous other familiar faces

STUNNING views of a pair of Ospreys (British year tick)

Willow Tits and Chiffchaffs in the hand

25 Aug

Rainham Marshes RSPB (low light)

watched people watch a male Montagu's Harrier fly away; couldn't get on it. Then went and dipped a Ring-billed Gull.

Sanderling (British year tick)

Yellow-legged Gulls, Black-tailed Godwits and other bits and pieces

30 Aug

Beddington Farm 

Osprey (Beddington year tick)

31 Aug

Beddington Farm

my last one or two Common Swifts of the year

5 Sep

Beddington Farm 

Tree Pipit (Beddington tick 125)

Banstead Downs

Great Black-backed Gull (patch tick 67)

8 Sep

Banstead Downs

Hobby (patch year tick)

10 Sep

Banstead Downs

Tree Pipit (patch tick 68)

12 Sep 

Oare Marshes KWT 

GLOSSY IBIS (lifer) -flew past after nearly 3 hours and just as I'd packed my camera away; later it reappeared on the deck and I got some shots though!

Banstead Downs

Grey Wagtail (patch tick 69)

13 Sep

Beddington Farm

Spotted Flycatcher (self found; patch tick 126)

14 Sep

Beddington Farm

Little Stint (patch tick 127 and British year tick )

20 Sep

Westcliff-on-Sea

RING-BILLED GULL (lifer) - finally caught up with Rossi the Ring-billed Gull

21 Sep 

Banstead Downs 

Brambling (patch tick 70 and I believe this is the autumn's first record for Surrey and London this year)

22 Sep

Banstead Downs

Pheasant (patch year tick)

27 Sep

Abberton Res. (see NEW BLOG for report and pics)

WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPER (lifer)

Spotted Redshanks etc.

Banstead Downs

Reed Bunting (patch tick 71)

I hope you enjoy the new blog, the main reason for creating it is because I can add photos to it (I have run out of space on Webs!) and the auto-saving of your post. All too often have I lost my blog post on Webs and had to start over again, e.g., this post! 

I have already put my Essex report up on it with photos.

90 hours down the Farm so far during the summer holidays, that's nearly four days solid birding. 6 days per week I've been there 5 hours per day.

Has it been worth it? Yes and no... I've managed three patch ticks in that time: Little Owl (1st August), Black-tailed Godwit (12th August) and Nuthatch (13th August- this is actually a pretty scarce bird down the farm). I have achieved no patch year ticks on top of this...

Other than this I've enjoyed regular sightings of Green Sandpipers, Common Sandpipers, Greenshanks, Hobbies and Peregrines.

90 more hours to go before that school locks me safely away... I've gotta get something in that time, surely...? It's August for goodness sake...

My Beddington life list in currently on 123 and my Beddington year list lies on 110, 2 above my 2008 patch list.

Let's just see how it goes...

On Sunday 9th August I persuaded my dad to take me down to Farlington Marshes for the Spotted Crake that had been seen here recently. I needed this as a lifer and of course more importantly, for Britain. It was also a meagre attempt to try to soften the big gap between Phil Wallace's year list and my own after his excellent pelagic the day before and the one he was on that moment.

Although I always appreciate my dad taking me, going with the parents has several draw backs. They don't get up till about 9am, take about 2 hours to get 'ready' then the journey doesn't really get started until they have visited the service station a mile down the road for snacks. So I usually only end up on site between midday and 1pm. This time I arrived at roughly 1:30pm.

I was out of the car like a bullet, only to realise I'd left my phone and my pager in the car...nice... pegged it back then was on my way again. I saw a small gathering of birders looking eagerly over at where the bird was reported to be showing as if they were on it and quickened pace. On the way towards them I flushed a Northern Wheatear. It was a huge anti-climx when I got there and found they weren't looking at anything in particular at the moment. After about five minutes I relocated the Spotted Crake in front of the reeds on the east side of the lagoon where it showed well for the whole half hour I stayed to watch the bird. It was very energetic, running along the edge, in and out of reeds, jumping on and off of stems, bathing, preening and being given a hard time by the much bigger Moorhens. A brilliant lifer. Just before this, I saw a winter plumaged adult Spotted Redshank which was a nice year tick with the many Redshanks as well as a handful of Greenshanks, a couple of Common Sandpipers, a Ruff and many Grey Plovers, Oystercatchers and Black-tailed Godwits. A Water Rail also showed well.

I then went off and had a very enjoyable walk around the seawall and through/around some fields and bushes. From the seawall I saw two small flocks of Whimbrel (8 and 4), c.500 Curlew, 200+ Oystercatcher, 2 Brent Geese (presumably injured...), a gathering of 25 Little Egrets with c.10 others scattered here and there.

I watched the Crake again for a while on the way back, one of the highlights of my year.

Day number two of August and an excellent finish to the weekend, 3 year ticks. So I've managed 5 year ticks this weekend, one of which was a British tick.

Phil Wallace picked me up at at 1020 this morning and we headed over to Oare Marshes in the hope of getting waders and the Spoonbills that had just come through on the pager. We dropped his wife off at her parents' relatively near Oare before we got on site to find the reserve full to the brim with people. We just about found a ''parking place'' and discovered that we'd narrowly missed the Spoonbills in flight and they'd dropped out of view. We gave the east flood a bit of a grilling before preparing to head off for the Swale embankment to see if we could view the Spoonbills from a more elevated position and different angle. Here we managed a year tick for both of us; great views of five feeding adult Curlew Sandpipers which still retained much of their summer plumage . As we were getting ready to go to the bank, I spotted the three Spoonbills fly up and head roughly north west before dropping out of view some distance beyond the west hide. Relieved, we stayed where we were and searched the east flood more carefully.

Also on the east flood was at least 5 Greenshank, 12 Avocet, several Teal, 5-10 Ruff in various plumages and 2 Sandwich Terns. Two Swallows and about five Sand Martins passed through.

We did the main walk and here we had a small, Sedge Warbler-like bird that dropped into some low coastal vegetation, never to be seen again. Thoughts ran through my mind of Zitting Cisticola, especially seeing that one was seen about a week ago not so far away, at Whitstaple. We had a few Whimbrel flying around, calling, and feeding as well as a single Common Tern on the Swale, a summer plumaged adult Knot, a Turnstone, several Grey Seals on Horse Sands, my first ever Clouded Yellow butterfly and other bits and pieces. We bumped into a mutual friend, Dave Coppen, while scanning the Swale for Little Terns. Dave managed a good photo of possibly the same Clouded Yellow butterfly and gave us advice on how to track down a couple of year ticks we needed. I glanced through my scope a few times and struck lucky one time, picking out five or so feeding Little Terns, a year tick for me and a lifer for Phil. They were very distant but certainly Little Terns. Two of them were also seen on the deck. From where we were standing, next to the Swale hide, I heard a squeeling Water Rail.

Phil and I completed our anti-clockwise walk while Dave continued his walk in the other direction. Phil and I returned to the road over looking the east flood where we bumped into Phil's mate, Mick, and Dave soon joined us again. Here, we all enjoyed views of the Curlew Sandpipers, Ruff, Black-tailed Godwits, Dunlin and a Common Tern. Fifty or so Common Terns flew over us to the Swale and a couple of Whimbrel called and circled overhead.

Phil and I went to the west hide. On the way there I flushed a pair of Hobby. They flew up and started going for a Common Swift, I didn't think the falcons had much of a chance, the Swift was keeping well away and the Hobbies didn't seem to be putting in much of an effort but one of them took the Swift, and myself by surprise as it suddenly came in and snatched the bird from the skies. It  and its mate immediately flew up together, calling and flapping, as they passed the Swift, still flapping in vane, between each other and flew off. Quality.

At the west hide we saw little of interest other than three or four Yellow Wagtails feeding around a gate and a couple of cattle. We headed back to the car, picked Phil's wife up and headed home.

A brilliant day! 3 year ticks- I was worrying that this would be the first year in a fair while that I'd miss Little Tern and Spoonbill, but I got them both in one day! Also goes together nicely with the Purple Heron and Wood Sandpipers yesterday.

My year list now stands on 212.

August 1, wader month. I'm down at Beddington at 0800, grilling the Mitigation Scrape and Jim's Pit. The rewards: about ten Green and one or two Common Sands... right...

Off to look for Little Owls nearby, me and Kevin's chances weren't looking great but sure enough I spotted a bird. Beddington tick 122-yeaah!

We hung around Jim's Pit and the Irrigation Bridge for another couple of hours before Kev decided he had enough and I went into the main site with Johnny Allan, Nick Gardner and his keen son who has been dubbed 'Little Gripper' for reasons you can work out.

At the lake we had good views of a Common Sandpiper and the immature female Peregrine which Kev and I had watched tear apart a kill earlier but little else.

I hung on till about 1315 and waited, rather grumpy after nearly 6 hours of relatively little happening, for my dad to pick me up at 1400. I got a text from Phil Wallace who suggested we go for the Purple Heron and Wood Sandpipers that he reported had just come through on Birdguides. I didn't believe it at first but of course agreed, and went ahead with cancelling dad's lift and waiting for Phil. While I was waiting I checked Birdguides' Bird News Anywhere WAP site and sure enough, one juvenile Purple Heron and 3 Wood Sandpipers. Fair enough. Shortly afterwards, it came through on the pager.

Phil picked me up outside the farm and we were off. We arrived in half an hour or 45 minutes and hurried over to the peacock tower where a load of birders was crammed into the top floor. It wasn't showing at the moment but in the meantime I got onto the 3 Wood Sandpipers that were showing on the islands in front of the WWF hide, nice year tick, I love these birds! Soon people got excited as the main quarry raised its head. It took me a while to get onto it but yes, there it was, the Purple Heron another very unexpected British tick, and in my listing county- London! It continued to show its head and neck on and off until it flapped around in the ditch it was feeding in and fully emerged, everyone was well pleased! I snapped a few shots and Phil and I headed over to the WWF hide to get better views of the Wood Sands after it disappeared once more.

We got two or three brief but closer views of the Wood Sandpipers from the WWF hide, and in better light. Phil and I headed off to the cafe for a hot drink before returning to the WWF hide briefly but the Sandpipers weren't showing, home we went; and just in time; the rain began to pour.

A brilliant day in the end!

I made my return to this bird filled county last weekend, with a clear mission. I didn't have time to do any birding on the 25th but the next day I was out at the secret Montagu's Harrier site, scanning. After an hour or two of Marsh Harrier I hit it with a distant male Montagu's Harrier, a British tick . It was very distant so couldn't pick out much detail but I could clearly see all that I needed to, it was a Harrier and it was grey all over.

Also had here was a single Red Kite, a handful of Marsh Harriers and a heard only, singing Yellowhammer.

Off to Lakenheath Fen RSPB, which was a lot quieter than when I visited the reserve earlier in the month. Fortunately, the only good bird I saw was the one I was after, Common Crane. A nice year tick as one flew right to left in front of the western most viewpoint.

I nicely achieved my goals, although I didn't manage to see the Breydon Pacific Golden Plover...

After several weeks of not being able to go for one reason or another, this was the weekend I managed to get down to Dunge for the Roseate Terns that have been hanging around at The Patch all summer. My two main year-listing rivals had already bagged them so I was determined to make the best of it and snatch them back (and complete my set of breeding Terns for my British life list, also having 2 rarities- White-winged Black and Caspian). Also, I was hoping to perhaps get a Shearwater (Manx or Balearic would do, or preferably both) or Skua as a bonus.

We arrived in the early afternoon and I hadn't walked more than 200 metres towards the bund when my pager came through with a message saying there was both Pec and Curlew Sand at the ARC, ran back to the car and hitched a lift round there, making my way to the Hanson Hide. Before long, I was onto the Pectoral Sandpiper, an adult which showed well- useful year tick. There was also about 7 Common Sandpipers, c.10 Little Ringed Plovers and a handful of Dunlin. No sign of the Curlew Sand though, apparently it flew off (in the direction of the scrape at the east end of the ARC, I gathered from a birder's gesticulations) so, after getting fed up of being in a crampt hide of people constantly calling Lapwings and Dunlin as the Pec, I headed up there. After a few quick scans nothing more than a Common Sand, an LRP, a Ringed Plover and a couple of Oystercatchers were picked up. I headed back to the sea, where I was going before I was so conveniently interrupted.

Here I came across two birders who brought positive news of the Roseates as they headed back to their cars; they were showing well on the beach with a Black Tern...brilliant! I snuck up and around the Tern flock to get the best angle and distance using the bund. I got to a good spot and slowly emerged over the top, pretty much expecting the Terns to go up (I've found that the Gulls here flush at the slightest encouragement) but to my surprise they were pretty tame and didn't mind me moving around on top, trying to find a comfortable position to watch them from.

Now all I had to do was scan through around 200 terns, 100 perched, half of them sleeping and the other 100 flying in a confusing bundled swarm over the patch, while a chilly, strong wind was pushing my view around. Not the easiest of tasks but I went ahead with it. Eventually I took the scope off the tripod, made a bed for it in the shingle and lay down to scan through them, this was pretty stable.

I scanned through the loafing Terns several times with no luck before turning my eye to those feeding; in no time I picked up the adult Black Tern (starting to go white around the forehead) but the Roseates still failed to show up. I desperately scanned the two flocks of loafers and the feeding swarm alternately for two and a half hours, with several false alarms (mainly sleeping pale-primaried birds before they showed their bill) before I picked up a dark-billed, long-tailed Tern with little black on the primaries on the far side of the more distant flock- score! I had finally found my first Roseate Tern! It didn't stay long and I lost it shortly after it flew off to feed so I turned my attentions back to the Black Tern that had now settled fairly close to me. These were easily my best views of this species yet, and this was a year tick.

Other birds seen while scanning through the Terns were few and far between but a juvenile Med Gull was loafing with the Black-headeds and I got onto a handful of distant, passing Gannets.

I had another attempt at the secret London Nightjars with Kevin McManus the previous night, at the right place this time but we again had no luck (1 singing Yellowhammer was the best bird), which was a shame seeing as we had to spend about 5 hours in Sutton, some of which involved sleeping through Harry Potter) in order to go for them (long story!). In Sutton there were 2 Peregrines. At Beddington earlier we saw a Bullfinch (fairly unusual for the farm, especially at this time of year), 8 Green Sandpipers and a Common Sandpiper.

I had a very memorable, very different Saturday night on the 11th. I had a meal in my village carvery with Kevin McManus before heading out to a secret local site for Nightjars, we both wanted them for our London lists and it would be fantastic for my 'Sutton' list. We were dropped off and wandered into the wilds of what we thought was gonna be the place that held these magical birds for us. After going up, down, left, right, across and sideways for 20 minutes or so we came to the conclusion that we were either in the wrong place or the gen we were given was worthless. We strolled over to the nearest main road and looked at the map, realising we were in totally the wrong place... we needed some further help so popped into the local club and asked for directions! We had it nailed on- yes! Off we went... before we knew it we were once again completely lost. It was getting very late and we resorted to knocking on doors for help unsuccessfully before wandering aimlessly in another random direction, bringing us to a main road. Here, we wandered around for a bit and thought we had the right place, but gave up after five minutes and headed, laughing  hysterically, back the the main road, worked out where we were and got picked up...

what a disaster !

Nice trip to the farm today. I saw 2 Greenshank, 4 or 5 Green Sandpipers, 1 Common Sandpiper and a glorious Hobby. Scoped 2 Peregrines in Sutton from the bund. It was also nice watching a juvenile Kestrel begging for food from its mother while the male was hunting in the south east corner.The southern enclosed lagoon was looking brilliant for Waders and I was really expecting to find something good, but went home disappointed.

Been dreaming about the 6 weeks of wader hunting freedom I've got coming up. I love finding inland waders, even if they're really common on the coast like Dunlin and Knot. Need to make a point of catching up with the Godwits, Grey and Golden Plovers + Oystercatcher this year for my Beddington/local lists. Missed an 'Oyk' yesterday.

The second and final day in Norfolk and I had the iternary finely planned out in my head; Lakenheath then Weeting Heath followed finally by the secret Montagu's Harrier site...though it didn't quite work out that way.

We left for Lakenheath Fen RSPB at just after 0900 and arrived shortly after 1000. The helpful staff at the visitor centre refreshed my mind on the key areas and I set off like a speeding bullet to the prime Golden Oriole spot, as I was limited on time. I knew I was near when I saw a group of people watching the 2nd plantation keenly and I heard my first British Golden Oriole, a male singing away. I didn't manage to locate it perched but did get one or two brief views of the bird in flight and heard at least one juvenile calling too. At least one Cuckoo was singing away in the plantation, too, and I hardly ever see one so was keen to locate it, needless to say I failed and had to press on to the next viewpoint where I was told I'd just missed one of the adult Common Cranes poke its head up...bugger. I had about half an hour left before I needed to head back to the car so was optimistic that at least one would show, even if only briefly and partially, in that time but by the time I had to leave none of the 15 or so people at the viewpoint glimpsed them again. Nethertheless I saw two or three Bitterns in flight and several Bearded Tits as well as 2 or so Marsh Harriers. I haven't seen much of the former two this year so it was a shame that the excitement that would normally surround a sighting was overshadowed by the need to see the Cranes and get them on my year list. A brief search around the car park failed to produce any Grasshopper Warblers.

Next up Weeting Heath NWT. We found the site eventually and met my uncle and his girlfriend there. While they had a drink with my parents at the visitor centre I made my way over to the West Hide where after a couple of minutes of scanning I located a single, fairly distant Stone-curlew, my first ever. The heat haze and distance didn't make for quality viewing but when it clouded over the views were improved and the photos slightly so. This is my 242nd British bird, 202nd British bird this year and 261st World/West Pal bird ever for me.

Dad made it quite clear that he was no longer willing to go to the Montagu's Harrier site, much to my frustrated disappointment. I can't complain really though, because he has promised to go up again in 2 or 3 weeks to see my uncle,  the Montagu's Harriers and the Cranes.

We left and had a quick dinner at a Little Chef where the mini-flying-silverfish of Norfolk attacked once again. We were inundated with these strange creatures back at Welney. They don't look like they should be able to fly, but they can and make good use of it! We set off for home after finishing off a maple syrup pancake and got back at 2000.

A good although quick-paced and rushed trip. I would have liked to have seen more of Golden Orioles, Cranes, Montagu's Harriers, James +Simeon Grundy and Connor Rand though.