Local Birds

This month there have been a couple of local birds that I've gone to see. Normally I am very focused on my local Port Meadow patch so it's actually not that often that get out elsewhere in the county. Usually, therefore, it has to be either a county tick or at least something reasonably rare to get me in the car. I don't know if it's just a case of getting fed up with the extended lockdown and the lack of variety but I made two sorties out into the wider county this month.

The first was to Letcombe Regis where one of the Salisbury Plain Release Scheme Great Bustards has taken up residence. So one Saturday morning earlier this month I drove down to the village where I found that the bird was visible from the end of a cul de sac. It was rarther distant whilst I was there though someone else told me that it had been showing down to thirty yards, which would have been a wonderful sight. Indeed, even at a distance it was an impressive bird and I passed a pleasant forty minutes or so admiring it from a distance. This was a first winter male so it was at least a bird that had been born in the wild. I don't know if his parents had both been original released birds or if either were themselves wild bred but it does make it more interesting than going to see a bird which has just been released. I don't know how many generations have to pass before release scheme birds are deemed tickable and frankly I don't really care. As regular readers know, whilst I do keep a strict BOU list, I also keep an extended Gnome Rarities Committee List and on that basis, this is a county tick.

The second outing was to see a pair of Ring-necked Ducks that had been found at Radley Gravel Pits. Thanks to a group of four that turned up at Pit 60 a few years back, this wasn't a county tick but as Radley was only twenty minutes away and I fancied a bit of an outing I thought I would go and take a look. I ended up going quite late on in the day after most people had come and gone already and as a result there were only a few others there when I arrived. The birds were on show constantly albeit at a bit of a distance so my photos weren't that great.

There has been a bit of an influx of this American duck species this season and it was good that Oxon was getting in on the action. However, the drake subsequently disgraced itself by revealing it was ringed which could well mean that it is consigned to the escapee bin. As before, though, Gnome listing is more tolerant of this kind of thing and it certainly counted as a nice year tick in my books.

Durham Post Lockdown Exodus

At the start of December with Lockdown II coming to an end my eldest daughter and I made plans about getting her home for Christmas. The Universities were doing their best to avoid accusations of exporting Covid into people's homes by having a rigorous double testing regime and with one negative test already under her belt, it looked like all would be good for my coming to fetch her back at the end of term. She was due to take her second test on the morning that I was coming to get her but given that she lived out from college and was being careful anyway I decided to risk it and set off anyway. I duly got the "all clear" phone call about two hours into the journey. 

As always, I looked around for some decent birds to drop in on en route but at this time of year it was unlikely to be anything too exciting so in the end my first port of call was a mere ten minutes off the M1 at Nosterfield NR in Yorkshire where a Lesser Yellowlegs was overwintering. Whilst I'd seen quite a few of these before (and indeed even found one once on my home Port Meadow patch) this would in fact be the first one for the Durham Run (Oh god - not another list!). To be honest my thinking was more along the lines of it not being too much of a detour and it highly likely to be easily twitched rather than anything to do with listing. The first viewing screen was a mere 30 yards from where I parked the car and so it was that on a crisp, cold but sunny morning I found myself scanning through the myriad of birds on the shallow lake. There were loads of ducks, lots of Lapwing, and handful of Dunlin and quite a few Redshank to be seen but despite giving everything a thorough grilling I couldn't initially find the bird in question. In the end I remembered that it was often reported from the Tadfield hide which was on the other side of the lake. A brisk five minutes or so later I found myself at the screen outside the hide, which was closed due to Covid restrictions. There was a viewing hole in the screen itself outside the hide but the hole was so high up that it was hard for me to see through it all. I could manage bins but it was just too high for my scope. There were only two birds on view down at this end: one was a Redshank and the other was the Lesser Yellowlegs itself. It was working its way along the shore closer and closer and I cursed the fact that I couldn't take any digiscoping photos due to the height issue. In the end I hurried back to the car to get my superzoom camera but by the time I got back it had move around to a spot midway between the two viewing points so was rather distant where ever I viewed from. So I gave up on any thoughts of a photograph and after some more scope views I retreated to the warmth of the car for some lunch and some tea from the flask

Nosterfield NR

With nothing else of particular note to tempt me for my second bird of the day I chose something more for the surrounding scenery rather than anything else. I opted for a lone Snow Bunting that was on a moorland hilltop near Stang Top. Interestingly, this was located between Hope Moor and Booze Moor, which to me pretty much summed up the second lockdown! The narrow winding road climbed through the forested area of The Stang before bursting out onto wide open moorland and some stunning scenery. The Bunting was meant to be pretty close to the county border between Durham and Yorkshire and I found a car park right next to the county boundary sign with one other car and one other person who was clearly a birder. He turned out to be a local who had just seen the Bunting flying along the road as he'd driven up. He informed me that, rather uncharacteristically for a Snow Bunting, it was a rather unapproachable bird that would flush easily when any car went by. We started down the road together and soon spotted it in the distance gathering grit by the side of the road. I took a couple of photos though it wasn't very approachable and a passing car soon afterward pushed it down the road and then away off over the moor. So my snaps were rather "record shotty".

Rubbish Snow Bunting Snaps

There were lots of  Red Grouse calling so I asked my companion if there were any local spots for Black Grouse. He told me of a nearby spot where it was possible to spot them in the distance so I went to take a look. However, despite grilling the area thoroughly I couldn't find any of them. Not that I particularly minded - I was just enjoying the stunning scenery. I really love moorland countryside - there's just something about the bleak remoteness which speaks to me. I tried to capture some of this on my iPhone though the results are less than stunning.

Some mediocre landscape photos that don't do the scenery the justice that it deserves

 

At least the Red Grouse were more cooperative

I had tenatively planned a third stop-off but I'd run out of daylight so in the end I went back to the car for some more tea and just sat there, taking in the scenery. I did one final walk along the roadside to see if the Bunting had come back but it was getting dark and cold now and I had no luck. So in the end I headed back to the car and set the coordinates for Durham. Then, with Radio 4 for company, it was back onto the M1 and into the rushhour traffic before arriving at my daughter's house just before dinner. The evening was passed in catching up, eating take-away, going for a walk and watching TV before hitting my bed, tired from my long day. 

The next day we didn't bother getting up particularly early but headed off sometime around 9 am. I decided to stop off at what would have been yesterday's third bird location, just a ten minute detour to Bishop Middleham where a Long-tailed Duck had been frequenting a small roadside lake. I left my daughter in the car whilst I walked toward the viewing point only to find that a car swerved across the road and pulled up next to me. Feeling suddenly rather vulnerable, I waited while they lowered the window whereupon I found myself being questioned by a small but rather scruffy man with a huge black eye who wanted to know directions to somewhere. I told him I had no idea and hurried on but he left his car on the wrong side of the road whilst he tried to find directions on his phone. From a distance I could see cars coming upon him suddenly on the wrong side of the road and having to break to avoid him - it was so dangerous! Eventually he must have found his location because he sped off up the road leaving me to the ducks. Sadly, there was no joy there with a miscellaneous collection of the usual stuff on the pond but clearly no Long-tailed Duck. A call on my mobile from my daughter who was getting cold, dragged me away and we were soon back on the road heading south in light traffic. The journey home was uneventful and we arrived back at Casa Gnome early afternoon for a late lunch. So a very low key trip up north but now at least the entire Gnome family was reunited in the ancestral home once again.