Swansea Scops Owl

I would not have expected to be making yet another national bird sortie so soon after the last one but something as tantalising as a Scops Owl was too good to pass up. Regular readers will remember that in my last post on the Lesser Crested Tern, a Scops Owl had been discovered the evening that I went down to Devon and that I had hoped to snaffle the owl on the way back though in the end it was not to be. Still the Scops had developed a regular pattern of being first seen between 5pm and 6pm each evening and seemed to be about as predictable as these things can be. Contrast this with the one last year at Broadstairs in Kent which, by all accounts, was very random and unpredictable in its appearances and lead to a lot of dippage. Indeed it had been too unpredictable for me to contemplate twitching it but this one had been very reliable so I decided to give it a go. I should say that I have some history with Scops Owl having dipped one at Ryhope in County Durham back in October 2017 when doing a Uni Run for Daughter 1.

With a combination of work and feeling a bit under the weather constraining me, it wasn't until Thursday that I was free to try for it. So it was on Thursday afternoon after lunch at around 1pm I sallied forth on the three hour trip to a suburb on the west side of Swansea called Killay. Once into Wales, the M4 was annoyingly busy - driving this way brought back memories of doing Uni runs for Daughter 2 from when she did her undergraduate degree in Psychology at Swansea. I made it to junciton 47 of the M4 and commenced my descent through various parts of the environs of Swansea until at around 4pm I arrived at Dunvant Road where I found somewhere to park. Then I got tooled up, including my full waterproof gear given the regular showers that I'd been driving through and then headed off to the entrance to the park.

I arrived to find a dozen other birders already assembled including JH, formerly from Oxon though now living in Worcestershire so we had a bit of a catch up. At around 4:30pm a local arrived who had kindly agreed to act in the role of marshal for the twitch to ensure that the various people looking with thermal cameras were coordinated and that the wellfare of the bird was taken into consideration when "lamping" it. The basic plan was that we all waited in a fairly central area of the park which would be within thermal view of the main locations it liked to frequent. Once located we would coordinate some controlled lighting so people could take photos. It all sounded like a very sensible plan - all we needed now was the owl itself. The marshal said that we'd be very unlucky not to see it tonight. I fervently hoped that he was right. 

After that it was a matter of standing around and waiting for it to be found. I had arranged with PL to meet him at the twitch but due to some navigation difficulties he didn't arrive until some time before 5pm (see his account here). I nibbled some snacks and waited. It's at times like these that you realise how essential a thermal imager is becoming these days for many aspects of birding. Being without one, I was left standing around in the dark waiting for someone else to find it.

Waiting in the dark for the owl to show

The same scene but with a much longer exposure. It's amazing how much detail you can get from your phone even in the dark

 

Time passed, we reached 5pm, then 5:30pm. The marshal said that if it got to 6pm and it still hadn't been seen then we'd have to change our plans. 5:45pm came and went and I started to think dark thoughts of dipping. Given how reliable the bird had been up until now, this hadn't really crossed my mind but here I was, standing in the showery dark starting to feel a bit cold and despondent and still no owl. It got to 6pm and the marshal suggested that those with thermals split up and start a wider search of the park away from its main hot spot. Non-thermal people could either wait at the main area or accompany the thermal bearers. I chose to accompany the marshal himself who seemed to know what he was doing whereas PL decided to stay on the main path as he had less suitable footware in the boggy conditions. 

We'd been walking for no more than a couple of minutes when we realised that we were being flashed at with a torch from back where we'd been assembled. That was the agreed signal that the bird had been found and we all hurried back. It turned out that it was sensible tucked away in the more wooded area out of the rain showers, feeding on a small patch of grass by some railings. Quickly we all aseembled around this area and the torch was applied so we could get our first view of the bird. And there it was in all its owly glory: a small grey blob sitting on a branch. Those with big lenses (about a third of the party) went into overdrive trying to take some shots. With my superzoom camera I just tried to take some video though it was hard. By the time the bird had been located in the view finder, the torch was off again. In the end I did manage a few frames of the bird from which I was able to take a videograb.

My best effort for the Scops Owl

 

A superb photo taken at the same time by Jim Hutchins
See his blog post

The Eurasian Scops Owl had a breeding range extending from southern Europe eastwards to southern Siberia and the western Himalayas. It is migratory, wintering in sub-Saharan Africa, so this bird was pretty far off course. It's a little bit smaller than our own Little Owl with little ear tufts. It's a lovely soft grey colour with a slimmer and more upright jizz than Little Owl. It likes to frequent open woodland, parks and gardens so the habitat was on point.

The bird spent about 5 minutes in the original area with us standing around trying to track it in the dark or with thermals while occasionallly being illuminated by a torch. After that it moved northwards along the hedge line and out into the main park to feed. We followed it as best we could, sometimes seeing it in silhouette perched on top of a post or following its progress from listening to those with thermals. PL decided to leave fairly soon after whereas I decided to stick around some more. Now that everyone had seen the bird well, the lamping becamse less frequent to give the bird time to feed. I stayed for a couple more illuminations before deciding that I too had had my fill. 

As I walked back to the car in the dark I reflected on how much fun it had been. The lows of the bird not showing for ages, then the excitment when seeing the torch signal. Then elation of the first sighting of the bird itself, followed by the relaxed enjoyment of trying to track its movements in the dark. All great fun and another shiny new tick under my belt. 

Back at the car, I poured myself some tea and finished off my sandwich that I had started eating while waiting for the bird to show. The Sat Nav was now saying to head through Swansea for the return leg as the traffic had died down by now. Some of this route brought back memories of navigating around the city for Daughter 2 during her time there. Soon I was back on the motorway and heading east in the darkness. With the traffic much lighter now and Radio 4 for company I headed onwards towards home, stopping once en route for a tea and a snack in order to revive me as I started to feel tired. Finally at around 10:30pm I arrived back at Casa Gnome, tired but very pleased with my outing and my revenge tick of a Scops Owl.

 

 

 

 

Exe Estuary Lesser Crested Tern

With it now being well into December, I had been thinking that that was it for the year as far as national birding was concerned. So when news of a "yellow-billed" Tern dropped on Wednesday at around midday my ears certainly pricked up. Could there be one last hurrah for the year? Now, the trouble with yellow-billed Terns is that they are very hard to identify (see my handy guide at the end of this post). This bird was intially being reported as a Royal or West African Crested Tern and it was only a few hours later that the ID was firmed up to Lesser Crested Tern. Anyway, it didn't really matter to me - any one of these yellow-billed Terns apart from Elegant (see here for an account of seeing the one at Pagham Harbour) would be a lifer for me. So, the next question was "what to do about it?". Now, my youger daughter was wanting to have the house to herself on Saturday to host a "Friends Giving" party for all her friends and she wanted me and my wife out of the house. This would be the perfect opportunity for me to head down to the Exe Estuary and to stay over somewhere on Saturday night. I hatched a plan accordingly and watched developments in Devon that week with keen interest, hoping that the bird would stay. The Tern did indeed do the decent thing and decided that the Exe was to its liking. It seemed to like Dawlish Warren the most and was pretty much a dead cert first thing in the morning where it would loaf around on a buoy for long periods. "If the bird stays then this is going to be fairly easy" I was thinking to myself as I tracked the news each day leading up to Saturday. Had I learned nothing about jinxing from all my years of birding? It would turn out to be far harder than I was expecting.

Come Saturday and I have a few errands first thing so it wasn't until about 9:30am that I set off on the three hour slog down to Devon. Unusually the bird had been seen first thing but then had disappeared. That was a break from its usual pattern and started me fretting somewhat. News dropped from Bird Guides about the Lesser Crested Tern. "Surely that will be confirmation that it's still there" I thought. But no, it was "no sign since 7:30am" - not what I wanted to hear. I followed the route down towards the South West that was so familiar from my Cornwall days, trying to recalibrate my expectations for this trip and to come to terms with the fact that I might actually dip. For much of the journey down there was just stoney silence from Bird Guides. Finally on the M5 towards Devon news came that it was on a pontoon at the Turf Hotel, a Tern location that I'd not hitherto heard of. However, it didn't stay there long and soon disappeared again. Next it was distantly viewable from some beach I'd never heard of that was on the east side of the estuary rather than the usual west side. Hmmn, the bird was certainly not sticking to the script at all and I was not sure what to do. As I got closer to the junction 30 turn off, the news was now "no further sign". So in the end I decided to go to the Exeter Services, that being equidistant between the east and west sides of the estuary, to eat my packed lunch and to await developments. 

I was just finishing my lunch when more welcome news dropped: "showing distantly from Starcross railway platform". I needed no further prompting, set the Sat Nav accordingly and raced off.  At this point Google Maps in its infinite wisdom saw fit to take me on a really tortuous route down the A38, and then on some single track road through somewhere called Kenn before rejoining the main road south. While I'm sure I probably saved a minute or so, the anxiety it caused from fretting about where on earth I was being taken probably cost me at least a minute off my lifespan! Anyway, about 20 minutes later I rocked up at the Starcross car park. I grabbed just my bins and scope and hurried along the path. I was expecting to go to the railway platform itself some 200 yards away but almost immediately I came across some birders on the other side of a path across the railway track, entered via a kissing gate. They seemed to be scoping something intently so I hurried across to be given some instructions:

"See the blue buoy?" (thankfully there was only one)

"From that drop down to the nearby red buoy at around 8 o'clock" (got that)

"and it's immediately behind that on the far sand bank"

I had been thinking he was going to say on the nearer sandbank but no, it was the incredibly distant one. However, the sun was shining behind us and I could make out some distant Oystercatchers and a single small white bird. It then turned its head and I could make out its yellow bill and black rear half of its head. Bingo - it was in the bag! All the tension from this morning evaporated and I could relax, safe in the knowledge that this was to be a successful trip. After a few minutes I decided to head back to get my coat and walking boots so I could go down the steps onto the beach, thereby being out of the really strong wind that was making viewing at such a distance even more difficult. So I went back, got the rest of my stuff and returned. However, duing those few minutes the Tern had decided to move on and was now in flight. I tracked it along with the others as it flew relatively close over some nearby fishing boats before heading south down the estuary. Wow - that had been a close thing! I had really only just made it by a few minutes.

I didn't manage any photos from my initial view so here is one courtesy of Ewan Urquhart

"It's probably going back to its old haunts from the previous days at the south end of the estuary" I thought. I headed back to the car and decided that I would probably go to Dawlish Warren to set up camp there. I reprogrammed the Sat Nav and set off south, passing through some pretty villages and a lovely small harbour with a picturesque thatched pub. News dropped that the bird was on show distantly from the Cockwood Steps. This had been a location that had featured regularly in previous days as an alternative viewing location. In previous days, it had always been more distant from Cockwood than the Warren so I decided to stick to my plan. I duly arrived at the Dawlish Warren car park, paid a (rather hefty) fee for parking and set off along with a few other birders with the same idea. We weren't entirely sure where to go but soon met a young local birder who, along with his father, guided us on our way.

It turned out that the bird hide, from which sightings had generally been reported was now closed. While it was possible to walk along the north border of the Warren to view from near the hide, our guide suggested going out to the Point instead where it would be a bit more sheltered. The walk was through some pleasant scrub area (known as Greenland Lake for some reason) and I kept my eyes out for Cirl Buntings though without any luck. It turned out to be a good half an hour all the way to the Point and when we got there it was still blowing a gale. We found shelter as best we could and scoped the estuary. One of the others soon picked out the bird, very distantly all the way across the estuary, rather close to the Cockwood side. We tracked it as it flew around occasionally or loafed on the sand though views were so distant that I couldn't even see the yellow bill from this range so I had to rely on younger eyes to tell me which bird it was. I realised that I had made a tactical blunder in coming round to this side and I should have gone to Cockwood steps where not only would the bird have been much closer but it would also be completely sheltered down on the beach under the sea wall. Oh well!

The view from Dawlish Warren Point across the estuary to Cockwood in the distance

Dawlish Warren landscape

We all eventually decided to give it up as a bad job and headed back on the half hour slog to the car park. It was getting late but I decided to head over to Cockwood to see if the bird was still on show there. After all, it was on the way to my AirBnB for the night anyway so there was nothing to lose by doing this. I parked up in the layby which was suspiciously empty and reviewed my Bird Guides messages. Gah! The Tern had apparently flown off 15 minutes ago. On well, I thought I would go and take a look at this site anyway. After all it might come back and at least I would complete the set of viewing sites! Down the steps on the beach it was wonderfully sheltered. With just a few birders left and it getting late, it was very peaceful and I really enjoyed a chance to relax finally after a day of rushing around. There was a party of four Red-breasted Mergansers hunting close in on the water and distant flocks of Brent Geese spread around the bay over towards Dawlish. Greenshank, Oystercatchers and Redshank were dotted about the place and I looked through the loafing gulls to see if I could turn up a Caspian (I couldn't). Gradually more and more people left until I was the last one there. I reflected on my day: it had been successful for sure though the views could have been better. I'd seen some gripping photos on WhatsApp from the Cockwood side where the bird had at times been very close indeed. Still, I had my shiny tick under the belt and I had tomorrow morning to try to get better views before heading back home. All in all, not too bad.

The view from the beach by Cockwood steps

I returned to the car and set the coordinates for my AirBnb which was located on the south side of Exeter only 20 minutes away. It turned out to be a simple but comfortable affair though on a rather noisy main road. I headed over to a nearby supermarket for provisions before settling in for the evening in the B&B. Soon after, news broke of a Scops Owl that had been found in a park in Swansea. This did get me thinking that, should be it found roosting tomorrow, it would make the perfect on-the-way-home bonus bird. However, the weather forecast for tomorrow for the whole of Wales and indeed also the South West where I was, was horrendous with strong winds and driving rain so any self respecting owl would probably want to be tucked well out of sight. I would have to just see how tomorrow would play out and settled down for the night, enjoying the restful sleep of someone who had already connected with their target bird. 

I awoke the next morning after a reasonable sleep to find the weather forecast had proven accurate. This would make hunting for the Tern rather problematic and I didn't really fancy braving the elements in all that. So instead I decided to head over to Broadsands at first light to see if I could catch up with some Cirl Buntings after my failure at the start of the year when coming back from the Booted Eagle. As I drove through the half light of dawn the weather was as atrocious as predicted with strong winds and driving rain. I was starting to wonder if the entire morning was going to be a write off at this rate.

I headed down to the usual lower car park and, after some on-line guidance from a friendly birding WhatsApp group, I settled down to try to winkle out some Cirls. Such was the weather that I decided to set up the scope in the back seat of the car and to watch from there as otherwise it would have been hopeless. This way I could at least scope the hedges and the ground in front of them, though with the car window open I was getting lots of rain coming in and onto my scope lens. Given the strong winds the only birds that were around were some Wood Pigeons and Carrion Crows. After a while I did notice a flock of smaller birds flying around near the seeded area though the wind was making them very skittish. Eventually I managed to see them well enough to identify them as Chaffinches. They soon gave it up as a bad job and disappeared.

After a while I decided to move further away so that rather than viewing along the hedge line I was viewing more perpendicular to it. This way I could stand a better chance of actually peering into the hedge a little. I eventually spotted a small streaky brown bird in the hedge which turned out to be a female House Sparrow. A flock of them soon descended and rapidly worked their way over the seeded area but they too were very skittish and kept retreating. A Sparrowhawk shot over the area, no doubt used to finding lots of prey around that area but this morning there were no birds to be had. 

The more distant view across the car park from my car window, trying to peer into the hedges on the far side

 

I poured myself a cup of tea from the flask and started thinking about when to give up. It had been about an hour now and I was starting to think that the weather had defeated me. Was I destined not to see a Cirl Bunting once again? Just then I noticed a bit of movement at the bottom of the hedge and shifted my scope to view that area. Bingo! There was the stripy headed beauty that is a male Cirl Bunting. There were four birds in total, two males and two females and I watched them for several minutes as they worked their way over the seeds before they too fled back to the protection of the hedges at the next big gust of wind. 

Pleased with my success I packed away my gear and pondered what to do next. There was no news on the Tern still and the Owl had come back as "no sign" that morning. So I started to think about maybe just heading home and set the Sat Nav accordingly. Some 10 minutes into this journey back towards the Exe estuary area, news broke that the Tern was back at the Turf Hotel pontoon at the end of the Exeter Canal where it meets the River Exe. It had been seen at this location yesterday morning briefly while I'd been driving down but was a site that I'd hitherto not visited. It was right on the route back home anyway so it seemed like a no brainer to try for it before heading home and I adjusted the Sat Nav accordingly. 

Some 20 minutes later I was following a couple of other birders' cars down a narrow single track road towards the parking area. At one point we all had to manoeuvre to let someone through coming the other way and in doing so one of my front wheels went into a ditch. Thank heavens for the all wheel drive of the Gnome-mobile to get me out again. Phew! That wasn't the end of it: towards the end of the road, we had to drive through some deep flood water for about 30 yards before finally arriving at the small car park, which thankfully wasn't too full yet. I found a parking space, tooled up with all my waterproofs and followed my fellow birders off on the path.

It turned out to be about a 20 minute walk along a tarmacked path that ran parallel to but below the canal. In the fields next to us were Exeminster Marshes with plenty of Geese (mostly Brents) and some calling Redshank. I hurried on, all too aware that the Tern had a tendancy to suddenly fly off and could do so at any moment. I was just rounding the final bend when some birders started coming back the other way and news broke on WhatsApp that the bird had indeed flown off! Gah - so close! 

The pontoon - providing a good roosting spot at high tide

Given I had walked all that way I thought I would at least go and see the now ternless pontoon and made my way over to the group of other birders who were still there. They were mostly standing around aimlessly though a few were actively scanning the water. It was pretty much high tide presently and there were not really any sand banks on which the bird could rest and nor were there many buoys in sight - it was all just water. Suddenly someone picked up the Tern flying back towards us before it landed back down on the pontoon again. What joy! There it was in all its terny glory and only about 150 yards away, so not the distant speck of yesterday afternoon. I set about trying to take some digiscoped video though the wind was still very strong and shook the scope mercilessly.

A phone-scoped image of the Lesser Crested Tern in all its glory

 
...and some rather shaky disgiscoped video footage

The bird did have another little fly around briefly before resettling on the pontoon. There were also some Oystercatchers, a few Black-headed Gulls and some Dunlin around. I watched it for quite a while - this very much felt like a fitting climax to the weekend's birding proceeding with the most prolonged and settled views of the trip so I spent a while taking it all in. Eventually I felt it was time to head back so retraced my steps in a much more relaxed frame of mind than when I'd been hurrying anxiously towards the bird. 

Birders enjoying great views of the Tern in the pouring rain

The end of the Exeter canal

Back at the car park it was carnage! Birders were still trying to get in while others were trying to leave and for a while the whole car park was literally grid locked. Someone managed to reverse into another parked car and leave a mark which the owner wasn't too happy about. Eventually with a bit of orchestrated shuffling around of cars, those who wanted to could leave and the newcomers could park. I headed back down the single track road and back to the main road. 

I made a quick pit stop at the Exeter services to buy some lunch and then it was back on the M5 for the long slog home. I kept an eye on the bird news in case the Scops Owl should be found but there was no sign of it as I journied north so I committed to heading home and back to Casa Gnome, arriving back mid afternoon for a most welcome celebratory cup of tea. It had been a very successful trip with multiple sightings of the rare Lesser Crested Tern and some lovely bonus Cirl Buntings to boot. What a grand weekend adventure!

 

A fabulous photo of the Lesser Crested Tern, taken by Ewan Urquhart from a boat. 
See his great blog here

The Gnome Cut-out-and-Keep Guide to Yellow-billed Terns

There are five yellow-billed Tern species which are all confusingly similar. Royal, Elegant, West African Crested, Greater Crester and Lesser Crested. It is a testament to how confusing they are that even this bird, arguably the easiest to identify, was misidentified for several hours. LCT has a grey rump which distinguishes it from the others. Royal, GCT and WACT are all larger. Apart from that it is down to nuances of bill structure and wing colour.

Royal Tern

This is a larger Tern with a chunky bill - think yellow-billed Caspian Tern. It is found on both coasts of Central and South America as well as the the east coast and the Gulf of Mexico of the USA

Elegant Tern

A medium sized yellow-billed Tern. It is found on the west coast of the USA and Mexico in the summer and migrates south to the west coast of South America in the winter. Some vagrant birds have made it over to Europe where they have bred with the locals to produce hybrid off-spring. The Pagham Harbour bird I saw was a (pure) European Elegant Tern that had hopped over from a colony in France.

Greater Crested Tern

A larger yellow-billed Tern. It is widely spread from the east coast of Africa though the Middle East and Asia all the way to Australasia. There are five subspecies 

West African Crested Tern
The third of the three larger yellow-billed Terns, formerly thought to be conspecific with Royal until DNA evidence revealed it was actually closer to Lesser Crested. As the name suggests, it is found along the west coast of Africa

Lesser Crested Tern

Breeds in subtropical coastal parts of the world mainly from the Red Sea across the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific, and Australia, with a significant population on the southern coast of the Mediterranean on two islands off the Libyan coast. 

 

 

 

Calshot Boat-tailed Grackle

On Sunday, news dropped on the bird news services of a Great-tailed Grackle down in Hampshire. Now I consider Hants to be sufficiently close that I am prepared to go for more speculative twitches and am less strict about requiring my chance of connecting to be very high. Not that that seemed to be an issue with this bird as it was showing down to a few feet in a car park by the Solent in Calshot. There was of course the thorny question of "was it tickable". Now, by strict BOU standards it was never going to be accepted. Grackles are not really migratory so this bird was almost certainly ship-assisted, with it's proximity to a major shipping port underlining that point. All this meant that had this bird been any distance away, such as the one in Wales last year, then I would not have contemplated it. But this one was relatively close and also I am more and more finding myself departing from BOU listing rules, as I have written about in previous posts. So was I going to see it? I decided I couldn't be bothered to go that afternoon but as I had a fairly free day on Monday, I would go and see it after I finished my morning client session. That fact alone gave me a personal measure of how I was loosening my adherence to strict BOU standards. The truth was also that it had been a while since my last outing and I quite fancied a fairly easy, fairly short distance twitch. That, as much as anything else, tipped the balance and I made my plans for the next day.

Overnight, the bird identification was changed to Boat-tailed Grackle which didn't really make much difference to me as I'd not seen either before. This did, however, prompt me to do some research on the various Grackle species in the US which was very educational - see the end of this post. Anyway, the bird was still there and after my client session finished, at around 11:15 a.m. I got my gear together and headed off on the journey down to Calshot in Hants. With the Sat Nav saying 1 hour 50 minutes, it was a fairly straight-forward journey without any issues. Just as I got to the village of Calshot itself, I passed a row of houses that looked strangely familiar. Suddenly I twigged: I'd been there for the Spanish Sparrow back in 2012 - I thought the name Calshot sounded familiar! Anyway, today's target was right on the coast along a thin peninsula of land that jutted out into the Solent. With cheap car parking at the Calshot Activity Centre right next to the bird it was all pretty straight-forward. 

I got out of the car to find it very breezy and, having encountered frequent showers on the way down, I decided to dress up warm and even put on my waterproof trousers and my walking boots. Then it was a walk of no more than 100 yards to Calshot Castle where, rounding the corner I was greeting with a gaggle of birders crowded around one end of a picnic table with the oblivious Grackle at the other end, trying to get into an unopened supermarket sandwich packet.

The Boat-tailed Grackle contemplating how to open a Tescos sandwich

The crowd paying homage to the Grackle, who seems untroubled by his audience

To say the bird was approachable was an understatement. You could get as close as you liked, though it was wary enough to not take things out of peoples' (well, LGRE's) hand when offered. It would feed off bits of bread which it would wash down with rainwater trapped in tarpaulin puddles on the cover of a nearby boat and generally looked pretty happy. I took a variety of photos before it seemed to get tired and skulked off for a nap behind some wire fencing where there was a lot of stored containers, effectively out of sight. 

The Grackle with Calshot Castle in the background

 

 

This was a cue for myself (and lots of others) to head to the Activity Centre café for a drink and something to eat. After that, I went back to check on the bird which was still asleep so I had a little wander around. There were a few gulls along the shoreline including a Med Gull and a couple of Oystercatchers. The location looked ideal for Black Redstart but I couldn't see any on any of the buildings. Calshot Castle, complete with its own little moat, was a very interesting building that was worth taking a look at. This is one of the things that I like about birding: it randomly takes you to places that you would never otherwise go and visit and I do admit to a great fondness for rather windswept and desolate locations such as this.

Calshot Castle complete with a little moat

 

After a while the Grackle woke up and started moving about again, offering more point blank photo opportunities. I contentedly took some more shots before deciding that it was time to head off again. So it was back to the Gnome mobile (after paying the £2 for parking) and then back home to Casa Gnome, arriving back just after 4pm, very pleased with my little sortie. 

Grackle Info

So what about Grackles in general and the thorny question of to tick or not to tick? So here's my executive summary of these birds. They are divided into Common Grakle, with Purple and Bronze sub-species, and the larger Great-tailed and Boat-tailed Grackles. Grackles don't really migrate much though Common and Great-tailed do tend to move further south in the winter. Common covers much of the US, though is not really seen in the western states; Great-tailed covers much of the south-west and central area whereas Boat-tailed is only seen along the eastern and southern coasts, usually very close to the coast apart from the Florida peninsula where it is seen inland. In terms of ID, Common is smaller and therefore easily identified on that basis. Great-tailed and Boat-tailed are hard to distinguish with the differing head shape being the main feature: Great-tailed has a much flatter head whereas there is more of an angle between Boat-tailed's forehead and the bill. There is some eye colour differences amongst some of the Boat-tailed subspecies which can help separate the two where they overlap in distribution. This is why it was that only when photos were seen by US birders was the ID firmed up from Great-tailed to Boat-tailed. So the fact that this Boat-tailed Grackle was hugging the coast line literally 50 yards from the shoreline was typical for this species.

 

Listing Info 

In terms of listing, the rule for the BOU seems to be that if a bird is probably ship assisted and it doesn't normally migrate then it's not accepted. Birds that are probably ship-assisted but which do normally migrate a reasonable distance, usually get the benefit of the doubt. In my own time I've seen Dark-eyed Junco, White-throated and White-crowned Sparrow all suspiciously near large ports on the south coast and it's highly likely that they at least travelled some of the way by ship. So this rule is somewhat arbitrary but if you are going to have rules about what to count then this is as good a rule as any. 

Now, as I have stated in previous posts, I am becoming increasingly disenchanted with BOU listing criteria and have been thinking more and more about my own personal listing criteria. The tipping point for me has been this move to the new AviList definition of species, which no doubt makes sense from a scientific point of view but just seems to me to mean that I'm haemorrhaging ticks. I thought about it and reaslised that using species to define what to tick is a somewhat arbitrary rule, albeit one that makes for a reasonable starting point. From an "end user" point of view, I am not in any way motivated by science. What I am looking for is an excuse to go on a birding outing where there is a good chance of seeing something new so I can satisfy my "collecting" itch, and where I get to enjoy nature and to visit all sorts of interesting places. I am of course free to decide for myself what I am going to tick. So personally, it was more than worth the trip down to see the Boat-tailed Grackle and I am more than happy to include it on my extended personal birding list.

Yet Another Oxon Mega: Farmoor Twite!

In my last blog post I wondered whether there might be yet another rarity in Oxfordshire before the year was out. That thought has turned out to be rather prescient as indeed there has been some further top drawer Oxon birding action just in the last week. What's more the county rare bird finding machine that is JD has struck not just once but in fact twice in the space of 24 hours. What a year he's having!

It all started on Wednesday when mid-afternoon JD reported a Pectoral Sandpiper on Pit 60 from the Langley Hide. You may remember (see here) that this is the same site where he found the wonderful Marsh Sandpiper a couple of months earlier.  As I had already seen several Pectoral Sandpipers in the county, on my own Port Meadow patch no less, I was not desperate to see this bird and didn’t bother to drop everything and go when the news broke. A few keen birders did do so and managed to get some pretty decent views of it. Still I was interested enough that the next morning I got up early to rendezvous with JC and CM at the site. However, despite our best efforts it was nowhere to be seen and must have moved on in the night. There were a noteworthy 20+ Great White Egrets there which is an amazing count for Oxon though not really sufficient compensation. Somewhat disappointed with the lack of Pec Sand, I headed back home and got on with my day

However, JD struck yet again that day. I was midway through a client session at the time and made the mistake of checking a WhatsApp message during the session when news broke that he’d only gone and found a couple of Twite at Farmoor Reservoir. Total inner turmoil on my part as this was a real county Mega with the last definite county sighting being three birds briefly on the causeway at Farmoor way back in 2007. It was certainly a much needed county rarity for my list. I then had to sweat it out for another half an hour, trying to give my client my undivided attention before the session came to a natural end. At that point I grabbed my gear, bundled into the Gnome-mobile and headed off to Farmoor as fast as I could. This turned out to be not very fast at all. It was prime rush hour with loads of people all leaving Oxford at the same time. Every red light was against me and the traffic was heavy on the A34. There were even road works just before Farmoor village itself. Such torment! I finally pulled up in the car park at Farmoor and raced up the slope towards the causeway. I’d decided to travel light with just my bins and superzoom camera and my running shoes rather than my usual walking boots. I half ran, half walked along the causeway into a really strong headwind towards the far end. In this distance I could see a small handful of birders half way along the west shore of F1 (the smaller of the two reservoirs), hopefully still watching the pair of Twite. 

As I got within 100 yards they seemed to be start dispersing.

"Oh no! Had the birds gone???" 

My heart started to sink as they seemed to be packing up. This was the worse possible outcome of all: missing the birds by a matter of literally minutes. I could not believe it! With resignation I finally got close enough to ask what was happening. The birds had apparently just flown though not that far and had come down again about 100 yards further west along the path. 

"Was there yet hope yet???"

I made my tentative way along the path with a couple of other birders seeing if we could relocate them. Fortunately one of my companions spotted them roughly where he'd seen him come down feeding away on the margins just where the the grass was overhanging the tarmaced path. At last I got my first glimpse of this county mega and I could start to relax and actually enjoy them.

The two Twite, taken earlier in the day in brighter conditions courtesy of Jeremy Dexter

 

I say enjoy them but the light was appalling, it was windy as anything and it was starting to rain heavily. The birds were quite mobile as well: moving around back and forth across the path and into the longer grass poking the head up occasionally. I tried to take some photos though given all this it was hard work. After about 10 minutes they flew a short distance again and seemed to come down on the actual reservoir shoreline rather than on the path. After a bit of searching we managed to find them though they were tucked up right under the wavewall feeding away in a clump of daisies and it was hard to get clear views. More people turned up including Oxon Big Year lister CM with his two kids in their push chair. It reminded me of times in the past when I'd dragged my son L around to see various birds. I remember taking him to Farmoor to see a Bonaparte's Gull where he fell over and bumped his head, and also dragging a heavy push chair across the bog that is the Pill on Otmoor in the vain search for a Richard's Pipit. Happy memories!

Above and below, courtesy of Ewan Urquhart

 

Suddenly the birds flew off somewhere and nobody saw what direction they went. At that moment BS, the current Oxon Big Year leader turned up, having been stuck in traffic. Was he going to dip? The Oxon Big Year has been a very interesting contest to follow from the sidelines. I had done one way back in the day with JC and TW when JC broke the county record with 199 (+American Black Tern subspecies). I finished second with a creditable 197 (+ABT). Having done one I'd vowed never again and so was just enjoying the contest from the sidelines. BS was sitting on 190 (with a few things counted that we didn't back then) but needed his Twite. There was a bit of scratching of heads trying to work out where they'd gone. I told the group that the people who'd "handed over" to me when I'd arrived had mentioned that the birds had come back three times to the same spot, about 100 yards along the west shore so I suggested we head back there. As was started to walk that way news popped up on the WhatsApp channel that they were indeed back there. We all hurried over there and had another good look at them as they skulked about in the margins and BS managed to get his year tick.

I've included decent photos of the birds taken earlier on by better photographers with better equipment but this shows the reality of the situation. Drenched birders in gloomy half light watching tiny brown birds in amongst the thick grass!

 

By this stage I was started to get wet and cold and my camera lens was covered in rain. It was definitely time to head back. I hurried back at a brisk walk in the company of BS. I couldn't help but think how the mad dash in the appalling weather had made for a thoroughly enjoyable and dramatic twitch. Of course I could afford to think this given I'd manage to connect and, had I dipped, I might have felt very differently. But, after all the drama and tension, I had the warm glow of a great county tick - one that I didn't ever think I'd get given how rare they are. Back in the car park I cranked the heating on to warm up a bit and to dry out. Then it was back into the maelstrom of the rush hour and back home to Casa Gnome for a well deserved cup of reviving tea.  

Another from the finder Jeremy Dexter

 

As a footnote, it's worth just mentioning JD's amazing run of top draw county finds this year: Marsh Sandpiper, Bluethroat, Pectoral Sandpiper and Twite as well as a bonus Wood Warbler in the spring. What a year he is having and what a vintage county year this is turning out to be with Savi's Warbler and Red-footed Falcon being additional top county birds. I've had four county ticks this year already. Dare I hope for one more before the year is out? You never know!

Autumn Magic: Otmoor Bluethroat

What a vintage year this is turning out to be for Oxon. Usually as a land-locked county about as far as one can get from the sea we have to be content with picking up scraps of the occasional rarities and it's easily possible to go a whole year without any sniff of a county tick. However, this year we've already had Red-footed Falcon, Savi's Warbler, Marsh Sandpiper and Manx Shearwater and even a Honey Buzzard that was twitched by a few dedicated county birders. Surely there couldn't be any more this year? Well, it turned out that there was more to come. 

There was a certain sense of dejá vu to proceedings when county rarity finding machine JD messaged the local WhatsApp group to say that he thought he had a Bluethroat at the second screen at Otmoor. He was the same finder who initiated the last major twitch with the the Standlake Marsh Sandpiper. Once again, this wasn't twitchable on the day it was found, with only half an hour of daylight left once the ID had been firmed up . With it taking getting on for an hour from door to the second screen once the long 1.5 mile walk was factored in, there was no point in dropping everything so myself, no doubt along with the great and the good of the county, all feverishly started making our plans for the next day. Personally I had no meetings to worry about for the next morning so planned to be there at first light. 

Thus it was that I was up at the ungoldly hour of 5:20 a.m. and driving through the dark deserted streets of Oxford on the twenty minute journey to the car park at Otmoor. Here I found half a dozen other cars all parked up and other twitchers getting ready in the darkness. I found myself in the company of SM as we walked quickly along the paths in the darkness before eventually arriving at the second screen - about as far from the car park on the reserve as it's possible to get. There were about half a dozen others already there and in the half light I found a spot to set up my scope and join in the vigil. 

The view from the second screen looking towards the distant reedbed

We were looking out onto a pool of water surrounded on three sides by reeds. Last night JD had reported that it had been seen on and off in one particular area of the reedbed, working its way in and out of the base of the reeds. Now this species is notorious for often being really tricky to see with it's preferred reedbed habitat often making viewing extremely difficult. However, JD's account of it being seen regularly was reassurring. So it was just a question of whether it was still there. We were about to find out.

In the dawn gloom it was hard to make much out but we all peered intently at the base of the reeds, trying to find our target bird. The distances weren't helpful, with it being at least 100 yards to the back of the pool and it wasn't easy to make much out in the murk. Some 30 minutes or so passed and the crowd was just starting to get a bit restless when eagled eyed Uber Birder TM announced that he thought he had it right at the back. The trouble was that there were so few landmarks and we all scrambled to get on it. Things like "behind the cluster of white feathers", "next to the sleeping Snipe", "working it's way left" were bandied about as we all did our best. Eventually I was able to get on it, just making out its pale breast as it moved surprisingly rapidly amongst the reeds and along the shore. With confirmation from a second person, news was put out and soon after everyone else managed to get on it. Even with multiple directions it was often difficult to connect and there were times when I couldn't see it despite the person right next to me being on it and giving directions. Gradually however, it worked it's way left and nearer and as the light got better we all started to get better views. After showing regularly from about 7:10 a.m. onwards, at about 7:40 a.m. it worked it's way right into the corner where there was a  hidden channel that couldn't be viewed.

 

 

Video courtesy of Jason Coppock 

 

Photo courtesy of Gareth Cashburn

 

Happy Oxon birders, having seen the Bluethroat!

As a first winter male, this bird didn't have its blue throat yet so it wasn't possible to pin it down to subspecies. In fact, after reading up on it more, there are more than just the White-spotted and Red-spotted subspecies as it's a fairly widely distributed chat.  Indeed it can be found right across Europe and Asia and even has a foothold in Western Alaska. It is migratory and winters in the Iberian Peninsula, the northern half of Africa and also southern Asia. Whilst this bird was clearly a bit lost, with climate change we can no doubt start to expect more Bluethroats in the years to come. After all, the Slimbridge bird had now been visiting for the last five years.

Photo courtesy of Nick Truby

While waiting for the return of the star bird, there were a other few bits and pieces around to look at. A Water Rail was right out in the open and a Great White Egret was feeding in the pool along with a few Little Egrets and a Grey Heron. There were a few Teal, Gadwall and Mallards on the water, a couple of Kingfishers buzzing around, a Ringed Plover on the island in front of the hide and a Marsh Harrier sitting in a tree at the back. It was all very agreeable. 

 

Photo, taken the next day by Richard Stevens

More people started to arrive though to be honest I was somewhat surprised that there hadn't been more at first light. TM left first - it was literally his last day in Oxford (what a wonderful parting gift!) and he had to get on with moving out. With the bird not having been seen for about half an hour and, starting to feel rather tired after my early start, I decided to head back home soon after. I ambled contentedly back along the paths, enjoying the autumnal hedgerow scenery before eventually getting back to the car and heading back to Casa Gnome via Summertown for some shopping. 

The bird eventually reappeared and showed on and off throughout the day. Indeed, at the time of writing this, it was still around the following day. I wonder how long it might end up staying? In any event it was yet another a great county bird this year. Could there possibly be even more before the year is out? Given events so far one can't rule it out!

Autumn Uni Run: Burbage Moor Dotterel

It's that time of year again when I have to take one of my offspring back to University somewhere. These days it's my son up to York University where he is starting his second year of his Maths degree. As always, in the days leading up to the trip I kept a keen eye on any twitchable goodies that might even vaguely be considered en route but with prevailing strong south westerly winds the North East was looking very deserted on that front. In the end a bout of illness postponed the trip for a day so it wasn't until Tuesday that I felt well enough to sally forth. During a quick scan the previous evening for what had been about I noticed a long staying juvenile Dotterel on Burbage Moor just to the south west of Sheffield. Now, this seemed like a reasonable low key candidate: it had been there for several days so if it was reported again that morning there was a high chance it would be around all day; it wasn't too far out of my way and also it would involve a little walk up in some lovely moorland landscape in the Peak Distrct. What's not to like? After having missed a day of work from my illness and in the absence of anything more substantial to twitch and, I decided to return the same day rather than stay overnight so as to not miss any more days of work. So, that was the plan.

We set off from Oxford just after 10am and after an uneventful journey north along the M1 we turned up at my son's student digs for the year. It turned out to be a substantial Victorian house on one of the main arteries into the city. We unloaded all his gear and said our goodbyes and then I was on my way. It was about one and three quarter hours to Burbage Moor, back down the M1 and then off towards and through Sheffield, a city I'd not been to before. The centre reminded me of Newcastle in many respects and there were some nice leafy suburbs that I was taken through before emerging out onto a higher road that lead up to the Peak District moorland. I had a brief moment of concern when the route took me through the "Clean Air Zone" of Sheffield and said that I had to pay on-line. However, when I later looked this up it turned out that this didn't apply to my car - phew!

I duly arrived at the RBA-suggested parking spot where there about ten or so other cars parked. I got tooled up in my walking boots, bins and camera (no scope required for this judging by the crippling photos that I'd seen on-line) and headed up the sloping path that lead past a farm house and up onto the moorland. I kept my eyes and ears open for birdage on the way but apart from a Pied Wagtail and a Mipit there was nothing. Still, the weather was sunny with no sign of any rain clouds that had plagued the morning's journey and I was enjoying the landscape and being able to stretch my legs. After about 10 minutes or so I arrived at the twitch spot with about 10 other birders all hanging around, many with large lenses and a few with scopes. It was a funny location that looked suspiciously man made given how neatly circular it was. It was about 20 metres across with a bit of a crater inside that was holding some recent rainwater. Around the sides it sloped down a metre or so to the level of the surrounding grass. This grass only lasted a few metres before giving way to the moorland heather that otherwise dominated the scenery.

Google Maps Screenshot - the Dotterel was on the right-hand side of the bare patch. You can just see outlines of other circles to the right of this one. I've no idea what they are for.

 

 

The twitch location, showing the weird "crater" area the bird was frequenting

I asked a fellow twitcher about the bird and had it pointed out to me, lurking behind the raised area in the surrounding grass. It was wandering about a lot, sometimes up onto the crater where we all papped away like crazy and sometimes out of sight on the far side of the crater. When in the hinterland, it could sometimes be viewed by going to one side and looking across at an angle. It was all very relaxed and pleasant - just the low stress twitch that I was after. I took some photos with my superzoom but found that it was often rather difficult for the autofocus to lock on so quite a few came out blurry. However, so close was the bird that even I managed some acceptable photos of this obliging bird.

After a while I decided to head off for a little wander on the moors. I was hoping to score something interesting like a Grouse or maybe even a Merlin but in the event I only saw a few Mipits. Still it was nice to take in the vast emptiness of the moors and to empty my mind of any thoughts.

Above and below the "wild and windy" moors

I headed back for one last look at the Dotterel and the started to wander back down to the car. There I detooled and set the Sat Nav for home, about two and three quarter hours away. To start with I had the benefit of driving through the gentle rolling countyside of the Peak District before rejoining the horror that is the M1. I stopped off at a service station for dinner (which was pretty horrible) and eventually got back to Casa Gnome about about 8:45 pm. A low key but successful Uni Run trip with a nice bird and some lovely scenery. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oxon Mega: Standlake Marsh Sandpiper

I was just sitting in bed, unwinding after a busy day and idely scrolling on my phone when a message pinged in the Oxon birding WhatsApp chat. JD had apparently photographed a distant wader from the hide at Pit 60 in Standlake that morning. It wasn't until the evening when he looked through them that he starting wondering if the bird was actually a Marsh Sandpiper rather than a Greenshank as he had originally assumed. He shared the photos and after some discussion, the consensus was clearly in favour of Marsh Sandpiper. After all, there was a photo of it looking dwarfed by a Snipe so the size was immediately apparent. By the time the chat had died down it was after 11pm - way past my bedtime! I looked up what time sunrise was - 6:11 a.m. Oh well, it looked like I was going to be up early tomorrow!

The next morning I awoke at 4:30 a.m. and dozed until about 5:30 before realising that I was a bit late if I was going to be there at first light. So I rushed around as quietly as possible (so as not to wake anyone else) and was out the door shortly after 6 a.m. It was pouring with rain and consequently very dark and gloomy as I sped along the roads towards Standlake with just early commuters for company. En route news came through firstly of the bird still being present and secondly to confirm that everyone there did indeed agree that it was a Marsh Sandpiper. So it was game on! Arriving at Standlake, I parked up, donned all my waterproof gear and hurried down the path on the long slog to the east hide where the bird was to be viewed from. It wasn't particularly cold, just wet and in all my waterproof gear I soon got hot and sweaty. No time to worry about that now - there was a twitch on! En route to help pass the time I counted eight singing or calling Chiffchaff and one singing Willow Warbler. The slog seemed to go for ever until finally  I arrived, breathless and sweaty at the hide door and knocked (it was a key holder hide and I didn't have one) and was soon let in. 

Any doubts that I had were soon put to rest: yes, the bird was still there and someone immediately let me look through their scope "for the tick" and I could relax. There were five other people there before me and I found somewhere to sit, set up my scope and was soon on the bird. It was rather distant though its pallor stood out in the gloom and it was rather easy to pick up. I did try some digiscoping but the distance and light made it all but useless so I just contented myself with watching it. It was constantly on the move, shifting from bay to bay, constantly seeking out food. It's delicate bill and diminutive size made it look more like a Phalorope than a Greenshank, something I remember noting the only other time I saw one, in Gloucestershire back in 2014.

A representative view showing how distant it typically was, courtesy of Ewan Urquhart

The bird was generally hugging the southern shore which was lined with reeds but which had various bays dotted along it, at which the bird was feeding actively. Also present were a couple of Black-tailed Godwits, a Water Rail and a Common Sandpiper. It seemed to be unsure of where it preferred to feed as it was constantly trying new places. It would often have a little fly about before settling on the next location and was generally very active.

Flight shot courtesy of Ewan Urquhart

At one stage it briefly dropped in on a spit which was only about 40 yards from where we were. At that point the hide went into overdrive with everyone trying their best to photograph it while at the same time making "ooh yeah, that's it!", "come on, come closer!", "phwoar, look at that!" type of comments. Someone standing outside the hide door and listening would have been forgiven for thinking something altogether different was going on. I managed to botch my photo attempts during this brief "porning it" frenzy so below is the best effort of TM who was quicker off the mark.

 

Above and below, phonescoped courtesy of Thomas Miller

After that, it tried the north shore a bit, exploring all the nooks and crannies on that side before eventually returning to the favoured southern shore were it spent the rest of the time while I was there. With the bird easy to at least see even if it was too distant to photograph, the atmosphere was very genial and it soon turned to the usual friendly banter. People came and went, we reminisced about past county birds and generally talked the kind of rubbish that goes on at these events - and very enjoyable it was too!

Hot Hide Action (me in the middle with my trademark cap) courtesy of Ewan Urquhart

 

DL, in the hide was busy doing an eBird day list and we all got interested in what else was about. There were a couple of Great White Egrets, various assorted ducks including the much persecuted Duck That Must Not Be Named, the two Godwits, the Common Sandpiper and various Warblers which were being picked out at remarkable distances as they appeared in the reedbed near where the Marsh Sandpiper happened to be.

The Marsh Sandpiper (Tringa stagnatilis) is a small wader that breeds in open grassy steppe and taiga wetlands from easternmost Europe to the Russian Far East. The majority of birds winter in Africa and India, with some migrating to Southeast Asia and Australia. They prefer to winter on fresh water wetlands such as swamps and lakes and are usually seen singly or in small groups. In terms of their UK rarity value, they were pretty rare with 146 records between 1950 and 2022. Scanning through the recent records there seem to be a few each year though in some years they are not recorded at all. From an Oxon perspective, there has only been one previous record which was a bird that was found in August 2007 in Abingdon before relocating to Farmoor the next day and then disappearing. So certainly a proper county Mega! With two birds in the country at the time, this was thought to be the one relocating from Devon

As I had a client session at 10 a.m. I eventually had to tear myself away so I walked back to the car in the company of a couple of other birders who were leaving at the same time. Then it was back towards Oxford and Casa Gnome with a great county Mega safely tucked into my belt. The bird briefly disappeared mid morning when a Marsh Harrier flushed it but was back again fairly soon. It stayed for the rest of the day but was gone the next morning. Despite that, the memory of a great bird will linger on for some time to come.