Scotland in June: Orchids & Odonata

My eldest daughter has been very good at generating excuses for some good birding trips over the years. As she is situated up in Durham this has given me some great opportunities for trips to Spurn, Northumberland and southern Scotland and my list of birds from these trips is rather impressive. Indeed it boasts things like Masked Shrike, White-winged Scoter, Black Scoter, Harlequin Duck, Blyth's Pipit, Citrine Wagtail, Pied Wheatear, Penduline Tit, Black-throated Thrush to name just some of the rarer birds. My younger daugher on the other hand hadn't really been pulling her weight in terms of providing me with decent bird trippage. As she'd been to Swansea as an undergraduate there hadn't been much on offer there apart from a few rare plants. Granted her Master's in Edinburgh had provided me with Eastern Black-eared Wheatear and Black Duck but she was still rather behind the offerings of the eldest. Now, however, she was due back up in Scotland this coming autumn to start another Masters course, this time at Aberdeen in Health Psychology. She had been thinking that it might be a good idea to go and have a look around this summer so she could have an idea about what to expect and as I quite fancied a trip up to Scotland myself I readily agreed. The basic plan was to spend a day travelling up, spend a day looking around Aberdeen, then spend some time in the Cairngorms area around Loch Garten before heading home via Durham where we had to drop off something for daughter 1. Naturally, June in Loch Garten offered up some interesting opportunities and I worked out that I should be able finally to get at least some of the northern orchid species on my list as well as trying to see some speciality nothern odonata. So, plenty enough for me to feel motivated for the trip.

We set off on Friday up the M6 towards Scotland. The M6 on a Friday is never a great day for travelling and there were periodic traffic stoppages though never anything too serious. We stopped off at our favourite service station at Tebay on the M6 just before Penrith. For those who are into such things, these services are ranked number two in the UK behind only Gloucester Services (which I've not yet been to). It was great to sit outside at a table eating an iced bun and drinking tea and listen to calling Curlew and Sisken - what's not to like! 

 

The view from the picnic table at Tebay services isn't too shabby!

 

We finally arrived at our overnight stopping location of Stirling in the early evening. After a nice meal we had a wander up to the castle on the hill where there were panoramic views over towards the distant hills.

Stirling Castle viewed from the church viewpoint

Looking west towards the mountains such as Ben Lomand, Ben Vorlich etc

 

The next morning we headed on the further two hours to Aberdeen. I've flown into the city airport in the past but had never actually been into the city at all so it was new for both of us. We passed a pleasant day wandering around the hosipital area where she will be doing her training and around the university campus. I hadn't appreciated just how old the university was but it was established in 1495 and had wonderful old buildings to match. 

Aberdeen University was surprisingly old

Towards late afternoon we were getting tired so we went to our guest house for the night to relax and order some takeaway. After that we decided to head out again to explore the beach that lies between the two rivers: the Dee to the south and the Don to the north. The beach turned out to be a lovely sandy affair with hardly any people around at this time of day. We soon spotted a pod of dolphins quite close in and spent our time tracking them as they made their way slowly north. My daughter took some video on my superzoom camera and I watched them in my scope. I also managed to see all four Tern species hunting actively along the shoreline. Apparently they nest on an island at the mouth of the river Don. Eventually it started to get dark so we headed back to our guesthouse and turned in for the night.

Some video taken by my daughter

The next day we headed off west on the two hour drive to the Loch Garten area. Fortunately, the weather forecast, which had looked a bit iffy a few days ago, was for reasonably sunny conditions with no rain which would mean that there should be no issues with the odonata side of our quests. Indeed this was where we started, with our first stop being the small pond on the approach road to Loch Garten from Boat of Garten. 

The "Northern Damselfly pond" near Boat of Garten

 

Most odonata enthusiasts will know this pond as the go-to place for my first target, Northern Damselfly. It didn't take too long to find either. Northern is know for skulking in amongst the vegetation at the edges of ponds so the boardwalk there is ideally place and there were several individuals on show most of the time. There were a few Common Blues about as well so one did have to be a bit careful but it was all fairly straight-forward. There were a few Large Red Damselflies also in amongst the sedge whilst across the water surface there were loads of Four-spotted Chasers.

Four-spotted Chasers were numerous

 

The main diagnostic points for identifying Northern Damselfly from Common Blue is that the S2 mark is in the form of a spear head rather than the round club that Common Blue has. Also, the lower half of the eyes on Northern are green. When viewed side on, there are two small black stripes on the side of the thorax compared to the single stripe of Common Blue. Note that whilst Azure Blue also has two black stripes, this species is not found in this area.

Northern Damselflies in cop

It was hard work getting the autofocus to lock on so I often had to resort to "over-zooming" right in so that the subject filled the frame, as above. You can see the spearhead black mark nicely on S2 here.

In this side on photo you can see the two small black lines on the side of the thorax as well as the green lower half of the eyes

Having quickly achieved my first target, it was time to move onto my next ones. These were a couple of northern orchids that should be in flower at the time, namely Coralroot Orchid and Lesser Twayblades. I'd been told that given how dry a spring it has been up in Scotland (it certainly was noticeably drier there than down south) that there weren't many orchids about this year. Fortunately I'd been given a secret location where both could be found (don't ask - I've been sworn to secrecy!). So it was back in the car and on to the woodland where they were known to be found. It was actually my daughter who first found both the Coralroot and the Lesser Twayblades. The former were dotted around in the more marshy places whereas the latter was only in one clump, marked by a stick. They looked rather thin in the dry conditions but at least I'd finally got to see them.

Above Coralroot and below Lesser Twayblades
both taken with my iPhone so the quality is not great

 

Having achieved all my targets already, we then discussed what to do for the afternoon. In the end we elected to have a picnic on the shores of Loch Morlich and then to walk along the trail around the loch. This was a walk that my daughter had done previously with her friends and which should take a couple of hours or so. Loch Morlich turned out to be the number one inland beach destination for Scotland with hoards of people all along the shoreline having picnics, paddling about and otherwise enjoying the hot sunny conditions. This was very much not my scene though as we continued along the trail we soon left the crowds behind us and it was quiet and peaceful. There was not much in the way of wildlife seen this afternoon apart from a Spotted Flycatcher feeding it's youngster and a calling Crested Tit in the canopy above us as we ate our picnic. It was also rather comical to watch a young family of Goosander hunting in the shallow river that flows out of the loch. The mother would see a fish and then forge through the shallow water in pursuit. As soon as she did this all the youngsters would immediately start doing the same though presumably without an actual fish in their sights. They caused quite a commotion!

The Goosander family learning to hunt

 

You can make out three young Spotted Flycatcher chicks in the nest

 

After our walk we headed back to Boat of Garten where we'd booked into a guesthouse for the evening. We chilled there for a while, then headed into Grantown where the old chinese takeaway was still going. This we ate along the river shoreline. Whereas when I'd visited there in the past I had had the whole place to myself, this time there were half a dozen campervans all parked up along the river. A sign of the times I guess as more people have more leisure time to spend. There was a large patch of Lupins and I managed to find a Chimney Sweeper moth in the tall grass - actually a personal lifer of what is not that rare a species. 

Chimney Sweeper moth skulking in the grass

 

Nootka Lupins growing by the river bank - a wild Lupin species rather than a
garden escape which can be found on shingle banks in Scotland

After dinner we headed to Loch Garten RSPB car park where we parked up and just spent some time chilling by the loch shore watching the sun go down. A calling Cuckoo was the only wildlife of note. Then it was back to the guest house where we collapsed on our beds, tired out after a long day.

We encountered quite a few of this Chickweed Wintergreen in various
forest  locations during our visit to the Loch Garten area

The next day we planned to head down to daughter 1 at Durham to stay the night there. However, the forecast torrential rain turned out not to be as bad as predicted so we decided to head over to the Uath Lochans nature reserve. This was a known hot spot for Northern Emeralds though in the windy and overcast conditions I wasn't holding my breath. The reserve turned out to be a lovely forest with four lochans to walk around on a simple, well-marked trail. There were no odonata over the water but it was very picturesque and we both greatly enjoyed our walk.

One of the four lochans - it was too cold and windy for any odonta to be on the wing

Then it was back in the car for the long slog down to Durham. That evening we went for a walk around the local area which in the lovely evening sunlight looked really beautiful. Normally Durham has this somewhat melancholy air to it so it was quite a revelation to see it looking so good. 

The final day was just a long slog back home to Oxford. The first part of the journey was through torrential rain that made driving conditions very tricky so it was hard work. However, by the time we got back to Oxford it was sunny, humid conditions again just as they had been when we had left. It had been a very nice, albeit rather tiring trip up to Scotland. Thanks to daughter 2's new course, I expect that this will be the first of many up there.

Amazing Spring Birding in Oxon

I have six different Oxon birding trips to write about here in what has been an amazing purple patch of spring county birding. I had been thinking that nationally it has been a bit quiet with just one sortie so far this year for the White-crowned Sparrow. So it's been great that the local scene has been more than making up for things.

 

1. Spotted Crake & Night Heron Overture

It all started a few weeks ago on the 29th April when a Spotted Crake was heard singing at Otmoor on Greenaways - the main field along the bridleway that runs east to west across the RSPB reserve. With my VLW and our two daughters away on a grand tour of asia I currently have lots of time on my hands. So I was thinking an evening stroll to Otmoor to take in all the sights and sounds of springtime would be a very pleasant way to pass the time. 

As it happened, this day coincided with a Big Day attempt by bike by BS and TM so they rocked up at Otmoor that evening, completely exhausted, to tick off the Spotted Crake at the end of their day. The Crake duly obliged by singing away as usual. I recorded it on my H4n Pro field recorder.

 

Adam Hartley 4 · Spotted Crake at Otmoor RSPB

There is a side story to this evening which is where it gets interesting. TM was cycling back along the turnoff to the first screen when he thought he saw what looked like a Night Heron through the gap in the hedge. He stopped at the next gap in the hedge but couldn't see it. Given it was twighlight and he was exhausted he it dismissed it from his mind. In fact he only told me all this a couple of days later (see the next section). Back at the Crake listening spot I was chatting away to the two of them while we listened to all the sounds around us. It's a magical time of year with Snipe drumming, reeling Grasshopper Warblers, in fact all the warblers warbling away, Cuckoos were calling and Cranes were trumpeting. It truly was a wonderful soundscape. 

Suddenly we heard a strange call.

"What's that" I asked

It called again.

"It's flying to the right" said TM

It called a total of four times and then that was it. For the combined collective experience of the three of us not to know the call must mean that it's something more unusual. Still with nothing to go and the excitment of the Big Day to dissect, we rather forgot about it.

 

2. Night Heron Vigil

The above conversation ws rather thrown into sharp focus a couple of days later when legendary county rare finder JD took a photo of a small heron flying over the reedbed at Otmoor. To his amazement it turned out to be a Night Heron. 

The Night Heron, courtesy of Jeremy Dexter

 

When the photos were posted on-line, naturally I thought to look up Night Heron call. Crickey, if that didn't sound exactly like what we had heard! I messaged TM and BS. Ben admitted to being too tired to remember what he'd heard but TM agreed that it did sound spot on. BS did say that we might find someone who had inadvertently picked it up on their Spotted Crake audio recording though so far nothing has been forthcoming.

That evening the good and the great of the county assembled at the reedbed of Otmoor to see if the Night Heron would put in another appearance. We passed a pleasant evening chatting and watching the Hobbies, Cranes and Marsh Harriers fly around and listening to the Bitterns booming. Sadly there was no repeat appearance of the Night Heron. 

The Oxon great and the good wating for the Night Heron, courtesy of Tom Bedford

I did get a stern lecture from one of the county birding seniors who told me I couldn't put Night Heron on my list on the basis of what I'd heard two nights ago. He went on to tell me how one time at dusk he had seen a small Heron in silhouette which had almost certainly been a Night Heron but he hadn't counted it. Therefore I shouldn't count my heard-only either!

In terms of whether I'm counting it or not, I've had a chat with TM. It wouldn't look good if only one of us counted it and he is a bit more conservative than me so for now it's not on my official published county list. However, I do keep a personal list which has various additions. By way of digression (but who doesn't love to chat about lists), I feel that the official record keeping bodies in the UK do a lamentable job. So my additions to my official list are:

Ruddy Shelduck: the flock of 9 birds at Blenheim was clearly part of the feral continental Cat C flock

Snow Goose: the Farmoor birds are self sustaining in my book as they've been around for years

Falcated Teal: the Farmoor bird was the wariest bird there and was part of an influx of carrier Mallard.

Red-breasted Goose: the two Otmoor birds, they were part of a general goose influx with appropriate carrier species

Great Bustard: a bit more controversial perhaps but at some point you've got to start counting release scheme birds and if you can't tell how many generations in it is, then you might as well start counting them immediately.

So the Night Heron has gone onto my private list as a worthy heard-only addition.

 

3. Otmoor Black-winged Stilt 

I rarely go to Otmoor. In fact I can pass whole birding years without visiting the reserve but I went for a third time in as many weeks when a Black-winged Stilt turned up there. This was not a county bird that I needed having seen one at Pit 60 back in April 2012 but they are always such good looking birds that it would be rude not to try for it. The only trouble was I only had a small window to see it between client therapy appointments. Still it seemed to be settled on Big Otmoor having returned after initially being seen for one evening only a few days prior. It had spent much of the morning there so it had to be worth a shot. Sadly I arrived to find everyone marching contentedly back along the bridleway which is never a good sign. 

At the Stilt location there was no sign of it. I didn't have too long free so frantically searched for it. A cryptic message came through on the county WhatsApp about it at the north end of "the scrape". Which scape? Big Otmoor is full of them! Anyway, I was saved at the eleventh hour by PL who called me to say that he had it further west towards Noke. I just had time to rush over there, take a terrible record shot and then head off home. Still it was nice to have seen another Black-winged Stilt in the county. I guess they are only going to get commoner as climate change continues.

A rubbish record shot of the Stilt

Some video footage courtesy of Badger

A great photo of the bird by Pete Milligan

4. Temminck's Stint

The Port Meadow regulars have been speculating about Temminck's Stint turning up on the Meadow in May. Sadly it wasn't to be (so far at least) but one did turn up one evening at Farmoor along the causeway. Again with nothing to do after dinner in the absence of my VLW I headed out to have a look. And very nice it was too! It's been a few years since I've seen one and this one gave excellent views. It was remarkable how birdless Farmoor was. Apart from the Stint on the causeway there was virtually nothing there. Sad times!

The Temminck's Stint was very obliging when being filmed

5. Montague's Harrier

The same evening as the Temminck's Stint had turned up, the Otmoor warden had seen a "probable" Montague's Harrier fly over the reedbed at Otmoor. Many of us had been around long enough to have seen Monty's when they bred in the county (sadly no longer). What had county listers nervous though was the possbility of it being a Pallid Harrier instead.  I really didn't fancy spending hours on Otmoor on the off chance of it flying through again so I was really hoping it was going to be a Monty's

The next morning it flew through Greenaways again, giving some great views and some great photos for those there. This confirmed it as a first summer Monty's so there was no need to panic. Still I found myself with a couple of hours spare between client therapy sessions so I decided to have a wander down there (a fourth visit to Otmoor this year already!!). There I passed a couple of pleasant hours not seeing much of anything and certainly not seeing a Monty's but enjoying watching the Hobbies fly about in the sunshine. It wasn't seen again that day.

A great photo of the Monty's courtesy of Joe Downing

6. Golden Oriole

I was just getting back to the car at Otmoor when MC posting an amazing video of a Golden Oriole singing out of sight in the middle of nowhere near Witney. 

Singing Golden Oriole courtesy of Mick Cunningham

He'd just stopped to relieve himself by the roadside and happened to have stumbled on a singing Oriole - what are the chances!!?? This put me in a bit of a dilemma. I'd already been out birding today and I had a client session this afternoon which often went on for a long time for this client. I also had a meal to cook this evening which was going to take a bit of time. I could cancel my client session but the Oriole seemed a bit vague and uncertain. After some deliberation I decided not to rush off to Witney. In the end it turned out that had I gone I would have heard the bird (which sang regularly) and would have got a brief flight view. Gah! That was birding though. However, access was very limited and had subsequently been withdrawn altogether so it was a difficult call whether still to try for it or not.

After thinking about it, I decided to postpone my more elaborate meal plan and just to serve up some pizza instead for my son and I. After dinner I would head down to see if I could at least hear it which would be a heard-only county tick for me. After all, for a Golden Oriole, that was probably the best that one could reasonably hope for anyway. I duly turned up at a little after 7pm, parked on the verge with a few other cars and then walked a couple of hundred yards down the road to where four other county birders were. It turned out that there had been no sight nor sound of it since about 4:30 pm so it wasn't looking good. Still it was a nice evening and we all started chatting about birding matters. It was no more than five minutes since I'd arrived however when we heard the distinctive flutey call of the Golden Oriole singing a few hundred yards away but on the opposite side of the road from where we were expecting it. I'd actually got to hear it! I couldn't believe my luck!

We all hurried back up the road near to where I had parked. Here there was a gap in the hedge were we could stand in the edge of the field and listen. It was singing nearly continuously and we managed to narrow it down to a lone Oak tree on the opposite side of the field. So we had all heard it and with it pinned down in the tree there was a chance we would get a flight view at some point. We all listened and enjoyed the singing Oriole as a few more birders turned up. Only SNT had his scope out. The rest of us thought it was a thankless task to try and see an Oriole in the tree at that distance - after all they are skulky bastards at the best of times. Suddenly SNT announced that he had it in the tree! Holy crap! Sure enough as he let each of us view it through his scope, there it was. I hurried back to the car and retrieved my scope. Fortunately the bird seemed settled in the one location and I was soon able to get on it and take some video footage.

Actual video footage of an Oxon Golden Oriole! Who would have thought it?

It spent quite some time just sitting there and singing, in fact "porning it" by Golden Oriole standards! Eventually it got a bit restless and moved from its spot. Then it suddenly took flight and flew across the field towards us and back over the road to the trees on the other side. This was our cue to leave and we all headed off, very happy to have got such a great county tick. To be honest, this was one that I didn't think I would ever get so it was amazingly good fortune that it all worked out as well as it did. Also, in hindsight, waiting until after dinner had actually turned out to be the best option.

So that concludes an amazing sequence of half a dozen great county birds. I never saw the Monty's but the others I either saw or at least heard (in my book at least!). Living in an inland county such as Oxon is often a thankless task on the birding front but when it does go well, it is all the sweeter for it!

Seaford White-crowned Sparrow

Last Saturday (the 22nd) a Mega grade rarity in the form of a White-crowned Sparrow was found in East Sussex at Seaford. This immediately piqued my interest as it was something that I "needed" for the UK and it was also well within my self-imposed driving range limit for going on a twitch. It also brought back fond memories of my twitch to the White-throated Sparrow nearby at Barcombe Cross back in April 2021. That bird was fairly reliable, turning up every forty minutes or so to feed on seed that had been put out for it. This bird on the other hand was being reported as very elusive and I had no appetite to go and spend all day search the dense undergrowth in the hope of getting lucky. Rather, I like my twitches to have a high chance of success. 

For this bird, I did wonder if locals there were going to resort to seed in order to try to improve the reliability and sure enough on Thursday it started to be reported regularly as "coming to seed" and "showing well". This was more like it! I did contemplate going for it on Friday but I had a therapy client that afternoon and didn't want to put myself under too much pressure so in the end I decided to go on Saturday. However, this was going to be the first weekend of it showing well so there would be hoards of people all with the same idea. So, I decided that I would have to be there uncharacteristically early for me at dawn. As I'm really not a "get up in the middle of the night to drive to a twitch" kind of person, at the last minute I booked an AirBnB in Seaford and headed off straight after dinner on Friday evening. The journey there was uneventful and I turned up at my lodgings for the night shortly after 10pm. After a brief unwind from the journey I was in bed by 11pm, ready to spring into action at first light tomorrow.

I had set an alarm for 5am but in the event I woke up at some time around 4:30am and decided to get up and press on. So it was that a little after 5:30am I rocked up at the car park, pleased to find that there were only 10 other cars there before me. It was very pleasant getting tooled up and heading off in the early light of dawn. There were birds singing all around and it was very peaceful and beautiful. I said to myself that I really must get up at sunrise more often: it's such a beautiful time of day!

Dawn at Seaford Head

After a 10 minute walk down to Hope Gap I soon came across the twitch arena. This was a gap between two extensive clumps of scrub into which a dozen or so birders were crammed, all peering intently up the gentle slope to a seeded area less than 20 yards away. There was just room for me to slot into the small crown and get a reasonable view of what was going on. After a quick enquiry I was informed that the bird had been seen this morning so it all should be straight-forward. And indeed within about 5 minutes I had had my first glimpse of it skulking around. The basic pattern was that it was coming to the seed every 20 minutes or so. It would initially perch in the surrounding bushes, where it would give its best views, before dropping down to feed on the ground where it was usually partially obscured by the various plants that were growing there. I remembered last summer in Canada seeing this species in a variety of different urban and parkland locations in Vancouver - it was good to see it again, albeit in very different circumstances. Anyway, the bird here was obliging enough and over a number of its visits to the seeded area I managed to get some reasonable video footage of it. 

 

A compilation of my best bits of video footage

The twitch arena - the bird would appear in the scrub in the centre of the picture

 

While waiting for it to put in an appearance, it was a pleasure to listen to the various other birds singing all around us. There was a close-by Cetti's, a number of Whitethroats and a Willow Warbler or two. Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs were also around as well as a variety of thrushes and finches. It's such a wonderful time of year where we can enjoy all the bird song! As people had had their fill and left, so one was able to be promoted up the twitch line and I was able to get marginally better views. However, my fears about the crowds proved justified. More and more people turned up and found themselves stuck at the back of the crowd, not really able to see at all. By the time I left the dozen or so people at the start had swollen to getting on for 50 - I was glad to be out of there by that stage! 

Twitchers crammed in the gap. This was before numbers got too large

I decided to have a wander down to the end of the little valley to take a look at the sea. Away from the crowds it was a lovely bit of habitat filled with various singing warblers. Down by the sea itself there were some Fulmars soaring around the chalk cliffs and a Rock Pipit and a Curlew on the shoreline. A quick sea watch in the company of a couple of other post-twitch visitors revealed some passing Common Scoter, a few Sandwich Terns and some Gannets. The sound of the sea was very relaxing and I spent quite some time just relaxing and listening to it.

The sea from the bottom of Hope Gap

 

Eventually it was time to head back home. As I passed the twitch site again there were now so many people that some were reduced to trying to scope the Sparrow from back on the main path. I thanked my stars that I'd decided to come at first light. I headed back to the car park which was now absolutely heaving. There I detooled and fired up the Gnome-mobile for the drive back home. The Saturday traffic was busy but I arrived back home late morning for a welcome celebratory cup of tea. It had been a very successful twitch.

As a footnote, that was the last day the bird was seen. Thankfully I didn't decide to go on Sunday instead as that would have been most gutting! There is something rather satisfying about seeing a bird on the last day. Somehow much better than seeing one early on which then goes on to stay for months. Either way, it was good to get my first national list tick of the year after my nasty dip at the start of the month.

Oxfordshire Giant Orchids & a Durham Dip

I've got a bit behind with my Gnome blogging as this actually happened back in March. In order to catch up I've also combined it with a low key trip up to Durham.

It just shows how out of the orchid loop I am that the first I heard about the Oxfordshire Giant Orchids (which must surely be common knowledge by now) was through reading about them on EU's blog. To be honest, I didn't even know that Giant Orchid was "a thing" as I'm not really a hardcore enthusiast. Still I do keep and work on a British orchid list and here was something to go and see at a time when it was generally rather quiet so it would be rude not to go. I therefore arranged to meet up with EU at the undisclosed location one morning as he was keen to go back for another visit. I arrived to find PL and a friend of EU's also in tow so the four of us duly set off on a leisurely 10 minute stroll to the orchid site.

I'd been warned to bring along a stick as the orchids were sited on a very steep bank. This turned out to be no exaggeration - it was remarkably steep! There was one obvious large plant quite close to the path so we all started by admiring that one.

The largest Giant Orchid specimen - you can get a sense of the steepness of the bank from this shot!

The same plant from a less "artistic" angle

 

After that I went off to rumage around and see how many others I could find. It was hard work negotiating the steep and treacherous slope and I was thankful that I'd brought a sturdy stick with me. After much searching the final tally was 4 blooms and 5 rosettes in total, all much smaller than the large first one we'd been admiring.

 

The other blooms were smaller and less spectacular than the largest one. This is a typical example

Apparently the orchids were first found last year by a local and were the first for Britain. They are fairly common on the continent where they can grown up to a metre tall but the largest one here was a fraction of that size. They are very early flowering for the orchid family and normally finish flowering by the end of March though these one were just getting underway so were late this year. It was good to get another orchid tick under my belt that was so close to home! Let's hope that they flourish in their new found home.

 

Durham Dipping

I also want to blog about a recent trip up to Durham to fetch my eldest daughter back for Easter. She wanted me to bring the car in order to take some of her stuff back. She's been living there in the same house for a couple of years and has now accumulated more than one car journey's worth of stuff which she's going to need to bring home at some point.

Having cast around for something to twitch, the obvious candidate was the long-staying Richardson's Cackling Goose what was about half an hour away from Durham. It had been frequenting the same field for a couple of weeks and looked pretty nailed down. The only trouble was that it was now April, the time when Pink-footed Geese (the carrier species in this case) think about departing. So it was a nervous wait in the days leading up to my trip. Still the day before my journey it was still there. Surely it could hang on one more day, couldn't it?

The short answer is that, no, it couldn't. The day of my trip coincided with a sudden change in the weather which warmed up and the chilly prevailing northerly winds finally abating. Of course the geese took the opportunity to head off overnight with this change in conditions and there was not a single goose to be found at all. I failed to find any on the day of my trip up to Durham and even checked again the next day but all to no avail. 

Instead, with there having been a general clear-out of all birding interest in the area there was not much compensatory birdage to be had at all. Accordingly, I decided to explore some of the Northumberland sea locations that I'd long read about in RBA news alerts but had never actually visited. So on the first day I went to Seaton Sluice and had a wander about. The second day I went to St. Mary's Island and had a pootle around there. It was nice seeing these locations in the lovely sunny weather and I made the best of it though, if I'm honest, this dip still really smarts as I write this. But that's birding I suppose.

Anyway, below are some photos from the trip.

Seaton Sluice

Spring Starflower growing on the clifftop at Seaton Sluice

Seaton Sluice Eider

Drake Mandarin on the River Wear in Durham

St. Mary's Island

Distant & blurry Purple Sandpipers at St. Mary's Island

So that's twice now I've dipped Richard's Cackling Goose. I dare say I'll eventually catch up with it but it is fast being elevated to the status of bogey bird. 

It seems that my eldest daughter might stay up in the North East to do a post doc which will mean a few more years of visiting the area. Hopefully this will mean some more good birds as well.

Farmoor Lesser Scaup (& an American Wigeon Bonus)

On Thursday at just before 4pm news broke on the Oxon birding grapevine of a "possible" male Lesser Scaup at Farmoor. I inwardly cursed when I read this: Lesser Scaup was a bird that I still needed for my county list but the "possible" bit meant that it might end up all being for naught. I'd been badly burnt a few years back in 2017 when a "Lesser Scaup" at Farmoor had turned out to be a hybrid Lesser x Greater Scaup. From this experienced I'd learnt that it can be a bit of a minefield sifting the pure Lesser Scaup from various hybrid combinations and I guess that was why there was the "possible" prefix. Still I wasn't doing anything and these days there is plenty of light until 6pm so I finished my cup of tea, threw my birding gear into the Gnome-mobile and headed off through the rush-hour traffic towards Farmoor. Google was recommending the Swinford Toll Bridge route to the reservoir as the fastest due to the traffic and in a little under half an hour I was pulling up at the car park, tooling up and yomping off down the causeway.

The report had stated the west end of Farmoor 2, the far end from the car park of the larger of the two reservoirs at Farmoor so I hurried along as quickly as I could. I was worried about when the gate might shut - a sign attached to the broken entrance barrier stated 5pm which was only over 30 minutes from when I arrived but I was on a mission and so chose to risk it. Still my mind couldn't help but go over the possibility of getting locked in as I slogged along the concrete path to the far end. There was one other birder ahead of me and by the time I reached the far end I'd caught up with him. It turned out to be JT and we joined forces in our search.

There was no obvious sign of it at the west end so we decided to walk the entire perimeter of F2 - a total distance of 3.8km according to Google maps. As we walked we both remarked on the almost total absense of any Tufted Duck. I am used to seeing hundreds of them overwintering on the reservoir so it was strange to see the place so empty. Eventually in the south east corner we spotted half a dozen of them though there was no nearctic interloper amongst them. Almost back where were started, about 200 yards before the entrance ramp we spotted a few more and bingo - there it was in amongst them!

 

Some rather back-lit video of the bird in the dying light

As the light was fading we set about taking some video and putting the news out. It was also a chance to give the bird a good grilling. From my bitter hybrid experience I'd learnt that there were four main factors to look out for: the head shape, the nail on the bill, the size of the vermiculations and the wing bar. This had a narrow black nail confined to the tip of its bill (as it should do). The vermiculations were also rather coarse - I remembered that this stood out for the hybrid bird last time which had had very fine vermiculations. The head shape had the peak past the crown as well - tick!. We didn't get to see the wing bar (the bold part of which should be confined to the inner half of the wing) but everything else was spot on. We watched as the bird literally swam off into the sunset with its Tufty friends before I decided to head off home. Fortunately the gate was still open and the parking barrier wasn't working so there wasn't a fee to pay - hurrah!

The Lesser Scaup & Friends

The bird did the decent thing and stayed on, enabling the wing bar to be confirmed by others as well. There is some speculation that this might be the Staine's Reservoir bird relocating as that had disappeared a few days earlier. Either way, it was a most welcome grip-back tick for the county.

This excellent photo (courtesy of Ewan Urquhart above and below).
shows the narrow black nail, the head shape and the coarse vermiculations...

...and the wing flap shows the bold wing bar is confined to the inner wing.

Otmoor American Wigeon

As well as this "rare" nearctic duck there was a slightly commoner (only a "scarce") one gracing the county with its presence, namely the drake American Wigeon at Otmoor. This bird, now thought to be the Somerset Shapwick Heath bird, had been seen on Port Meadow one evening by TM before disappearing again and then turning up on the Flood Field at the north end of Otmoor. There it has stayed ever since giving distant views. As I'd already seen a couple in the county and it wasn't on my patch I was in no hurry but it stuck around so this Sunday morning with the rest of the family busy doing other stuff, I finally decided to pay a visit.

I parked up at Oddington and after a pleasant 15 minute walk along the bridleway I arrived at the Flood Field. There was one other person on site, a visiting London birder trying to scope through the hedge. He'd seen it a while ago but was not presently on it. So I went back to the main viewing area just past the kissing gate where in a few minutes I managed to find it. I'd trained myself to know what to look for in case it turned up on Port Meadow again and the continuous pink/brown flanks of the american bird really stood out compared to the pink and grey two-toned flanks of the eurasian birds. It was literally as far away as was possible from where we were viewing so my video efforts were strictly record shot quality.

Some very distant video footage of the drake American Wigeon

While we were watching the bird an Otter swam right past it in the water. This was my first ever Otter sighting in Oxfordshire, despite its increasing presence in the county. One of the highlights of the trip was seeing all the birds go up as a Marsh Harrier went over, harrying them relentlessly. There were thousands of Lapwing and Golden Plover - I don't think I've ever seen so many Lapwing together in one place. It was a marvellous spectacle!

This shot doesn't really do justice to the spectacle of so many
Golden Plover and Lapwing all flying around at once

After a while I headed back home, pleased to have added a third Oxon American Wigeon sighting to my records as well having enjoyed the spectacle of so many wintering birds on the Otmoor floods. It had been a good morning out!

 

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!