A Whole Lotta Rosy

Any half serious birder will be aware that this year is an irruption year for Rose-coloured Starlings. This species breeds in the steppes, semi-deserts and deserts of Central Asia and Southeast Europe but is strongly migratory, overwintering in India and tropical Asia. However when there is an abundance of grasshoppers and other insects then it will irrupt far beyond its usual range which is why they are turning up in such numbers in the UK this year.

Readers might remember that back in June when I went to see the Blyth's Reed Warbler at Far Ing in Lincolnshire, I did contemplate heading a bit further north to see the then resident Rose-coloured Starling at Collingham, Yorkshire but decided in the end not to. This has meant that despite this plethora of birds across the country I'd still yet to see one this year. What's more, of the various Rose-coloured Starlings that I've seen over the years (one in Oxon at Forest Hill and at least three in Cornwall) they've all been juvenile birds. Nice enough of course but I must admit that I'd been admiring the sheer beauty and colourfulness of the adult birds in the various photos this year and had mentally pencilled in making a bit of an effort to see one should the opportunity present itself. However, with sightings now starting to dwindle nationwide I was wondering if I'd missed the boat.

Fortunately Gods Own County of Oxfordshire came to the rescue. By all accounts we're having an excellent year here with a number of goodies such as Hoopoe and Red-footed Falcon already seen. This week, as you'll probably already have guessed, someone turned up a Rose-coloured Starling here in Oxon. This was actually the third such lead that our esteemed county recorder Ian Lewington had had to chase down but the previous two had turned out just to be leucistic normal Starlings. This one however was the real deal. Apparently comging to fat balls in a garden in East Challow, the news broke on Monday evening once the ID had been confirmed. Apparently Ian rang MM who actually lives in East Challow to tell him the news, and just as they were speaking on the phone the very bird in question came down to MM's garden pond for a drink - talk about coincidence! Those quickest off the mark were able to get down there that evening where the bird was seen though it proved rather mobile and elusive. I did contemplate going myself but in the end decided that it was getting a bit late and I was rather tired so decided to leave it until the next day.

The next day, those on site at first light managed to see it on the roof tops of Hedge Hill Rd, near the garden where it was first discovered. However, after a couple of sightings, by early afternoon the trail went rather cold. I'd decided on a visit after work but with no news since 1:30 pm and several people  already on site and not connecting I did start to wonder if I was going to succeed. Still nothing ventured and quite frankly I needed an excuse to get out of the house - this lockdown malarky is starting to "do my head in". So at 5pm I fired up the Quattro and headed off.  Rather stupidly, rather than listening to my Google Maps app's pleadings to go down the Botley Rd, I instead went onto the A34 ring road, thinking that at this time of day that would be quicker only to be met with a huge traffic jam which Google helpfully told me would take at least 9 minutes to get through. Anyway, eventually I was through though it was getting on for 6pm by the time I finally arrived at East Challow and parked up in the village hall car park. There I met SNT who'd just arrived at the same time. Whilst he chose to hang around by the church where it was seen at this time of day yesterday I chose to have a wander around. To be honest I was quite relishing the challenge: Starlings are relatively easy to see when they're not in a garden as they like to sit high up where they can survey things. So it was just a matter of wandering about looking at all the high up vantage points until I spotted it. "How hard can it be?" I pondered. At least it wasn't just standing around waiting for a bird to appear - something I tend to get rather restless when doing.

Up near Hedge Hill Road I met up with SB and his wife who'd not seen any sign. I did see quite a few Starlings on the rooftops here but sadly not the bird I was looking for. I did a quick circuit around the area before heading back down the road to check up with SNT, to find that BB had now joined him as well. Still no luck so I went back up the road again for a quick look about before heading back down. At this point, like all birders I started to have a natter about this and that. I was just chatting away down near the church when I happened to turn around and look behind me where I spotted a telegraph wire with a few birds on it. A quick lift of the bins and Boom - there it was! I put the word out so that other people in the area could come and see it and then set about taking photos. Sadly by this time of the day the sun was very low and almost directly behind the bird so conditions were pretty terrible and the quality was of the "record shot" level only.

Still it was great to see my first adult Rosy Pastor. The assembled few birders all papped away as best we could though given the light it was a bit of a half-hearted effort on all our parts. After a good ten minutes of more or less sitting there and doing nothing it then flew down and out of sight into what appeared to be a small farm yard of some kind. We all set about trying to find a viewing point into this yard. Whilst the others peered down drives I elected to head up the road where there was a footpath that lead off behind the houses and across the fields. By working my way around the field I was able to get around the other side and have a peer in. I was met with the sight of BB actually in the farm yard - apparently they'd been given permission to enter by the owner whilst I'd been on my detour.

At that moment the word went up that it was in flight. I saw it in amongst a dozen or so Starlings as they flew up from some hidden location and headed towards the tallest tree near the church. I was now stuck on the wrong side of the farm yard and so gingerly picked my was through the cow slurry as quickly as I could in order to join the others who were all papping away furiously as the bird presented itself on the right side of the light, albeit rather high up in the trees. I kicked the superzoom into action and managed a few shots myself.

The bird sat there preening for about five minutes before a Hobby came crashing through and put up the entire flock which scattered in various locations. At this point as I'd already got about as good a photo as I was going to get and it was getting late I decided to head back to Casa Gnome, enjoying the comforting glow of a job well done.

I later learnt that the bird wasn't seen again that evening nor was it around the next day so the Hobby must have scared it off from the location altogether. Still I'd managed to see my first adult Rose-coloured Starling and my third good bird of the year in Oxon. Not too shabby!

Surviving the Lockdown

With things slowly starting to get back to normal I thought that I'd reflect on the lockdown period, a strange twighlight world of home confinement punctuated by furtive forays out somewhere you hope you'll not meet too many other people. As a family at the weekends we've all needed to get out of the house and so we've been exploring some of the many BBOWT reserves within the county. Whilst I've been a long-standing member of BBOWT if truth be told I've not actually been to that many of the reserves. So when at the first weekend when we were all allowed out for socially distanced walks and the family asked where in the countryside would be a good place to go I suggested that we start to explore some of these locations. Whilst a café visit normally features strongly in any family outing, in these unusual times we resorted to a large flask of tea and some snacks to keep us going. Below is a summary of the various places that we've visited.

Sidling's Copse

I've visited Sidling's Copse a couple of times previously, once with my son in tow and once on my own but it was the first time for the rest of the family. Orchids and grassland flowers are a key feature here and there were still some Early Purples about though many of them were now swamped in the undergrowth.

Early Purple Orchid

The wooded area was completely carpeted in Ransoms (wild garlic)

Yellow Archangel

Bernwood Meadows

The next day we decided to go to Bernwood Forest. As we approached the main Bernwood car park we could see cars parked all along the approach road - clearly, as it was the first weekend of being allowed out, it was going to be heaving. So with a quick change of plans we headed instead to Bernwood Meadows where there was no one else. With a Cuckoo calling distanly as a backing soundtrack we wandered around the ususually dry Meadows. I was surprised at how few Green-winged Orchids were about and how stunted they were - I guess the very dry weather had taken its toll. From there we ventured into the wood and as we were some distance from the main car park and we kept off the main drag we hardly saw anyone else. We were lucky enough to spot a herd of deer running down one of the rides briefly before veering off into the forest.

Adder's Tounge Fern

Green-winged Orchid

Forester Moth - actually the first time I'd seen one. There were quite a few of them flitting sbout the place

Ardley Quarry

This turned out to be a bit of disappointment. It was an interesting enough site but smaller than we were expecting and whilst I rummaged about for butterflies the others soon exhausted the walking possibilities. I did spot several end of season Grizzled Skippers for my efforts but in the hot conditions they never settled long enough for a photo.

Bix Wood

This turned out to be a lovely wood. We approached along a footpath across a field and in the hot conditions enjoyed the coolness of the woodland shade. There was nothing of particular note on the nature front apart from some stunning Honeysuckle trailing down from the trees. A nice site though that I'd definitely want to visit again, just for the pleasure of the woodland walk.

Whitecross Green Wood

Personally this was the highlight of the various walks we did. A nice bonus on the way there was a Spotted Flycatcher on the telegraph wires at Horton cum Studley. This is always a less well know site and with the main car park closed we had the entire place to ourselves. What's more the rides were absolutely filled with butterflies. I know that the narrow rides there tend to concentrate all the butterflies in a relatively small area but it was full of them. It was mostly the usual stuff with Marbled Whites, Ringlets, Meadow Browns and all three Skippers but it was such a delight to see them all in such good numbers. Of course these woods are well known for rarer species such as White Admirals, Silver Washed Fritillaries and even Purple Emperors. We managed to spot several White Admirals and a fleeting glimpse of HIM though I didn't manage a photo of the latter. I heard several Marsh Tits calling and with some Common Spotted Orchids dotted around it was a great visit.

Beautiful Demoiselle

Common Spotted Orchid

White Admiral

Hail to Thee Blyth Spirit

Regular readers will have noticed a distinct lack of posts over the last few months here. The reasons for this are several: I'm now working full time, albeit from home at present, so don't have the opportunity so easily to take the day off to go and twitch something. Weekends are taken up with family activities and in these present difficult times, I'm trying to keep as strictly "family time". Also, at the start of the lockdown due to Government restrictions twitching wasn't even an allowed option and it was only later on (which happily coincided with the Hoopoe and the Red-footed Falcon in Oxon) that it even became a possibility. Not that there's been a great deal that I would have wanted to twitch. I've watched with interest as we were invaded by Rose-coloured Starlings and Marsh Warblers but not enough to want to do anything about it. However, the sudden jump in Blyth's Reed Warblers records has been something that has picqued my interest. This species has been on my wanted list for a few years now: mysterious skulking birds which can only be identified by experts unless they are singing males and with only one or two records per year they would be a highly sought after life tick. That's all changed this year with dozens of records in the last couple of months mostly along the east coast. Most of them have still been rather skulking and most have been discovered through their song so there's probably an equal number of undiscovered females out there. Whilst most have done the usual "arrive exhausted, spend a day or two recouperating and then leave" routine, one bird up in Lincolnshire decided that he liked it so much that he set up territory. For the past week or so (at the time of writing) he's been belting out his song at point blank range in a desperate attempt to attract a mate. Given the numbers arriving in this country it's not altogether impossible that he might find one though the odds are of course heavily stacked against him. Still, a nailed down showy Blyth's was too good an opportunity to miss. I still hadn't really decided to go for it but just happened to mention to my daughter that if she wanted to head up to Edinburgh anytime soon to retrieve her stuff (which is stranded in her student room there at present) then that would be good. She replied that she wasn't allowed to do this just yet but a friend of hers in Doncaster has something that she needed. Now Doncaster happened to be rather near to my target bird so I didn't take much persuading to run this errand for her. So on Monday morning I waited until there was news of the bird's continued presence (which came soon enough - the bird was an early riser!). Then it was a matter of seeing if I could the day off at short notice from work. This was duly agreed upon and so shortly after 9 a.m. I was on the road.

My sat nav app was suggesting that rather than slogging up the M1, then cutting across the M180 instead to take the scenic route via the A46 and A15 past Lincoln. As this wasn't a route that I was that familiar with I thought that I'd give it a try. This turned out to be a nice, reasonably quiet way of getting there and with Radio 4 for company the miles slipped away. I'd left Oxford in bright sunshine but after a while I hit a wall of dull murk. To be honest I was quite pleased about this. The one concern I had was that I'd read reports of the bird stopping singing late morning and becoming much more skulking. My guess was that this might happen sooner the hotter it was so a bit of murk might help in this respect. Eventually I reached the turn off from the A15 and started to see signs for Far Ings Nature Reserve. The iconic Humber bridge hove into view - I was nearly there at last!

The Humber bridge

I parked up at the Ness End Farm, the Lincs WT centre, got tooled up and hurried up the road. As I went I met several other birders coming the other way. I'd forgotten how friendly people are up north - they all wanted to stop and chat. I obliged as much as was polite given that I'd yet to see the  bird though they all said that it was singing continuously. Eventually I reached the twitch area which basically consisted of a couple of Hawthorn bushes next to a ditch by the side of a single track road.

Staking out the two Hawthorn bushes

I could hear the bird singing away immediately so my concern about it stopping and skulking had proved unfounded. My main concern was the number of people there. This was my first proper out of county twitch since the pandemic and with a dozen birders crammed in a small space any kind of social distancing was going to be difficult. To start with I hung back and used my scope. After a few mnutes of singing hidden away my target bird flew up into a bare branch at the back of the larger Hawthorn where it continued to sing away and I was able to get my first view.

 

This seemed to be what a number of the present birders (mostly camera toting) seemed to want and after it soon ducked down into the ditch again a good half dozen of them left leaving a much more manageable number behind and I felt safe enough to move closer and to start to wield my superzoom camera. The bird was quiet for no more than a few minutes at a time though would often sing for prolonged periods out of view, sometimes down in the ditch. I'd listened to a number of recordings so knew what to expect though I must admit that I was truly entranced by it's lovely song. It would methodically and deliberately repeat each phrase a number of times and throw in lots of mimicry. It was fun to play "spot the impersonation" and this bird had quite a repertoire.

Occasionally it would fly up onto a bare Hawthorn bush where it was much more easily viewable and then everyone would pap away like crazy. The rest of the time it would skulk around out of  sight though with a bit of observering you could often see the reeds moving as it worked its way through the ditch and thus work out what angle to view from. So a number of times I'd manage to find an angle to view it from and would start taking some shots. The first time I did this some photo birder came and stood literally right next to me in his desperation to get a shot. I really couldn't understand  it - it wasn't like the bird  had been skulking away for hours. I told him in no uncertain terms that he was standing too close to me and that there was plenty of time to see the bird and he backed off apologetically. I just can't understand this craziness that besets photographers in situations like this. They seem so desperate for that money shot that all reason and etiquette goes out the window when they see their target.

I passed about an hour and a half in this way, enjoying listening to the bird and following it as it alternated between singing on an exposed branch and then skulking around in the ditch. By the end I felt that I'd well and truly seen a Blyth's Reed Warble and could head back for home content. I wandered back to the car in a peaceful frame of mind, stopping only to admire a Pyramidal Orchid standing all alone in an otherwise closely cropped lawn.

On the way back to the car I spotted this single Pyramidal Orchid that someone had carefully mown all around to leave it standing on its own

Back at the car I did contemplate going for the Rose-colourd Starling about an hour further northwards at Collingham in Yorkshire but there had been no news on it since first thing this morning. Whilst it was probably still there, after some deliberation in the end I decided to head back for home instead. I had to stop off briefly to pick up something for my daughter (thus making it an official errand rather than just some random twitch) but apart from that my journey back home was uneventful and I arrived back at Casa Gnome late afternoon for my customary celebratory cup of tea and a catch-up with my VLW.

Addendum: ID Breakdown

My interest in the whole identification headache for the Reed, Marsh, Blyth's complex was picqued recently by a great blog post by Gavin Haig on Not Quite Scilly - see here. In it he went into all sorts of detail regarding the recent Beer Head Blyth's, which was most educational as up until now all that sort of stuff about emarginations of P4 had completely gone over my head. I felt pretty confident that I could successfully identify a singing male from these three species without any difficulty but I was suprised at how tricky the Beer Head bird's song was (see here) - I would certainly have struggled. But what would happen if I came across a non-singing bird, would I be able to do it? Maybe it was time I finally got to grips with the differences. Accordingly and largely for my own benefit (though in passing I hope that this is also useful to others) here's the Gnome Guide to Reed, Marsh and Blyth's.

Feature	Reed	Marsh	Blyth's
Head	super stops at eye, eye ring stronger than super, dark lower bill	super stops at eye, eyering same as super, yellow lower bill	super extends beyond eye, eyering same as super, yellow lower bill
Flanks	rufous tinge	yellow tinge all over underside	dark grey tinge
Rump	warmer brown rump than mantle and tail	rump concolourous with mantle and tail	rump concolourous with mantle and tail
Primary Projection	70-100% 7-8 tips beyond tertials	100%, 7-8 tips beyond tertials, pale tips	55-70%, 6-7 tips beyond tertials
Emargination	P3, little P4	P3, little P4	P3, P4, little P5
Tertials	tertials shorter than secondaries	tertials extend beyond secondary tips	tertials shorter than secondaries

So, let's look at some photos  to illustrate all of the above.

Blyth's (courtesy of Ewan Urquhart)
supercilium extends beyond eye,
no contrast between eye ring and super,
yellowish lower bill

Reed Warbler (courtesy of Nick Truby)
supercilum largely stops at eye
eye ring stands out compared to super
dark lower bill

Marsh warbler (courtesy of Roger Wyatt)
super stops at eye
no eye ring contrast with super
yellow lower bill

Reed Warbler, courtesy of Roger Wyatt
rump a warmer brown than mantle & tail
rufous tinge to flanks

Marsh Warbler courtesy of Roger Wyatt
hint of yellow to underside

Blyth's courtesy of Ewan Urquhart
Short primary projection ~ 50%
strong emargination P3, P4, hint on P5
Short tertials don't reach secondaries

Reed Warbler courtesy of Roger Wyatt
Primary projection ~ 75%
strong emargination P3, hint on P4

I've certainly learnt a lot from putting all this together and now feel that with a half decent photo of a  bird in the field I'd be able to nail the ID. I just have to go and find something now!