The Durham Run - Redcar King Eider

I kicked off this year's out of county birding rather gently with a run back up to Durham to take Daughter #1 back up there where she is currently finishing off her PhD. As usual I had a good look around to see what might be on offer in the North East whilst I was up there but there was nothing to tempt me apart from the long staying 2nd winter King Eider at Redcar. So rather than busting a gut to get up there early doors, instead we had a more leisurely departure from Oxford at sometime after 10 am, arriving after 2pm where after lunch we went for a walk along the River Wear to look for Dippers. Unfortunately the river was too flooded and their favoured area was too fast and deep. There were a few Goosander on the river and the moonrise over the river was rather spectaclular.

Moorise over the River Wear

The next day I was up and out of the house by 8am and a little before 9am I was pulling up along the Redcar seafront. Unfortunately the weather was blowing a gale and lashing down with rain - not exactly ideal! I made an attempt to scope from the roadside and managed to locate the Eider flock at least but the flock was so far away and the scope shaking wind made it difficult to make anything out. PC, whom I knew from the internet to be one of the top listers in the country, turned up and I filled him in on my findings. I decided to go down onto the shoreline to try to get closer, at the expense of the elevation of course. It was still pretty hopeless. 

The view of the sea from Redcar sea front

 

PC came over to say that he'd managed to see the bird and to check if I'd seen it - that was considerate of him! In the end I retired to the car where I realised that I could set up my scope and have a clear line of sight to the Eider flock. Sheltered from the wind and rain finally I started to get views good enough to make out the birds though this was at 60x magnification and even then they were tiny specks. Eventually I picked out the bird and had clear enough views to be positive about what I was looking at. Result!

 

By far the best photo of the bird I've seen, taken by Damian Money (c) (@damian_money on Twitter)

This was my third King Eider: my first was the long staying individual at the Ythan estuary up in Scotland and my second was a distant bird in Cornwall that I really had to work for. 

 

A reminder of the Ythan bird that I managed to see at my second attempt

This had taken me until midday so now it was time to pack up, and head off home. I stopped en route to buy a sandwich and to eat it in the carpark and with a friend's podcast to listen to on the way back I arrived back in Oxford sometime after 4pm for a celebratory cup of tea. It had been a low key but satisfactory start to the new birding year.

 

 

 

2022 End of Year Review

So here we are with the fashionably late end of year review for 2022. On reflection it's been a pretty good year all round. As usual I've broken it down into patch, county and national birding.

 

Port Meadow Patch

As usual, I've done an in depth review of the patch year which you can see here. To give an executive summary, we ended the year on 137 strict BOU species + 1 extra (Red-breasted Goose). This compares well with the previous record breaking year which ended up on 136 + 4 extra. So depending on how strict you are, this could be considered as a record breaking year. In the end there were no outstanding "national level" rares. Rather it was a number of "good county birds" that made up the excitement. This included the following shortlist for the Port Meadow Bird of the Year award. The record counts in brackets are for the patch.

Siberian Chiffchaff (first record)
Little Tern (second record)
Arctic Tern (first record for several years)
Water Pipit (second record)
Rock Pipit (fourth record)
Yellow-browed Warbler (fourth record)
Hawfinch (second record)

In the end I gave the Bird of the Year Award to the Water Pipit, partly because it was a personal patch tick.

The Water Pipit (BotY) was poorly photographed so here's the more photogenic Siberian Chiffchaff, which came a close second in the awards

 

County Birding

The county year was an interesting one. There were three county firsts in the end: a Pallas's Warbler in January at Abingdon sewage works, the amazing Common Nighthawk in Wantage in September and a single-observer no access Red-flanked Bluetail at an undisclosed site. If you include half a dozen different Yellow-browed Warblers across the county (including on Port Meadow) then it was a pretty decent year.

No prizes for guessing the county Bird of the Year Award!

Apart from the Pallas's and the Nighthawk (which were both county ticks) there was one other county level trip to discuss, a trip in the autumn to Balscote Quarry NR up near Banbury in order to upgrade my heard-only Dartford Warbler county tick to a full blown tick. So with 2.5 county ticks it was a pretty decent year. 

As usual I will wrap up the county birding section with the traditional Gnome Studios video review.

 

The Traditional Gnome Studios Review of 2022

 

National Birding

Nationally it was an unusually good year for me. I've gotten used to getting less than half a dozen national lifers a year now so to end up with 8 (albeit two being "heard only") was pretty good. In chronological order we have:

1. A trip to see the Eastbourne American Robin in February. This was quite a national Mega, with the last twitchable one having been back in 2010. With a side order of a Hume's Warbler and a Hooded Crow it made for a great day out in what is usually a very quiet month.

The American Robin performed well on the day I was there

2 & 3. The first of two two tick days happened in May with a trip to Kent to see the Eleonora's Falcon with a bonus (albeit heard only) Sardinian Warbler. With a Late Spider Orchid plant tick as well it was a good day out.

The Eleonora's Falcon at Worth Marshes

4 & 5. July provided the second two tick day with a trip up to the North East, ostensibly to take my daughter back to Durham but really to finally see the Bempton Black-browed Albatross along with the Turkestan (or Red-tailed) Shrike. After giving me a bit of a run-around in the end I got nice views of "Bempton Bertie" as he flew in towards the cliffs. The Shrike was very obliging as well.

The Black-browed Albatross

The Turkestan Shrike

6.  A national first gull less than two hours from home was too good to miss so along with everyone else I went to pay homage to the Cape Gull at Grafham Water. And very obliging it was too!

The Cape Gull at Grafham Water

7. This was the Common Nighthawk that I mentioned above in the Oxon section. Quite unbelievable!

8. Finally there was the Eastbourne Radde's Warbler. I managed to cock things up by going a day too late when there was a ferocious storm but somehow managed to salvage a hear-only tick from this.

So all in all it was a pretty good year nationally for me. This does leave the tricky matter of the national Bird of the Year award. It might be a bit controversial given the list of strong contenders but despite it being very much last year's bird for everyone else, I'm going to give it to the Albatross. There was just something about seeing it that trumps everything else. I know other people have said this in previous years - I'm just a bit late to the party!

There wasn't much in the way of other stuff this year apart from the LS Orchid and my annual trip to look at Honey Buzzards in the New Forest so that wraps it up. Thanks to all my regular readers for their continued support in bothering to read my rambling birding chronicles. I know it's a bit late now but a happy bird filled new year!