Oxon Baird's Sandpiper - A County First!

I'd just finished a very pleasant Jericho café visit with some friends and was returning back to my old house (I've now moved - see below) to finish off clearing it out ready for it's sale when I thought I'd check up on WhatsApp messages. For some reason I'd left it on silent so when I checked it was a shock to see a message on the news channel of a Baird's Sandpiper at Ardley Lagoon, found by GC. Whilst there have been unprecedented numbers of this Nearctic wader this autumn across the country, it's rare for them to be found so far inland. What's more, this was a county first so it was HUGE news! Never mind clearing out the house, there were more important things at hand. Thankfully, as I am now living somewhere else, I had taken the precaution of bringing all my bird gear with me in the car for just such an eventuality so it was straight into the Gnome-mobile and after setting the coordinates for Ardley Lagoon I set off with some excitement. 

It had been a while since I'd last been to Ardley and I remembered that there was only limited parking in the nearby layby with more about 100 yards down the road. I arrived to see a large number of cars in the more distant layby though with one space left which I quickly snaffled. I grabbed my gear and hurried after another couple of birders who were some way ahead of me, hoping that I could remember how to find the footpath that leads to the viewing point. I needn't have worried, it all came back to me easily enough and I speed walked along the footpath with that nervous excitement that only comes from approaching the moment of truth when you know you have either ticked or dipped. 

I arrived to find a group of Oxon's finest all looking relaxed and chatting as they viewing through gaps in the metal fencing - it was looking like I was in time! I was offered the customary view through someone's scope "for the tick" and I could relax and set up my own gear.

Oxon's finest savouring the county's first Baird's Sandpiper

I'd only ever seen one Baird's before, down in Cornwall when, back in September 2011, I refound one at Hayle Estuary which hadn't been reported several days. The salient features soon came back to me: the scaly back (à la Curlew Sandpiper) the neat breast band and the unfeasibly long wings. I busied myself with taking some phone-scoped images as best I can (I have more or less given up on using my ancient camera for digiscoping these days).

My rather poor phone-scoped images of the Baird's Sandpiper

Per Wikipedia, Baird's sandpiper breeds in the northern tundra from far eastern Siberia to western Greenland. They nest on the ground, usually in dry locations with low vegetation. It is a long-distance migrant, wintering in western and southern South America, from Peru to as far south as Tierra del Fuego. It breeds on barren high arctic coasts and hills, and on migration and in winter, it regularly uses lake shores and sparse grassland at extreme high altitudes (up to 4,700 m) in the Andes. The name Baird's comes from Spencer Fullerton Baird, a 19th-century naturalist and assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

I basked in the genial and relaxed atmosphere that comes with a successful twitch with the bird on constant view. There was much chat and gentle banter as well as the somewhat shaudenfreude-tinged discussion of who was out of county and missing this stonking county first - birding can be a cruel mistress! After about an hour and with a house that still needed clearing, I said my farewells and wandered back to the car and headed back to the old house. This vintage Oxon year just keeps on getting better and better!

The Baird's ended up hanging around for most of the day until late afternoon when it was flushed by a Sparrowhawk. There was one report of it later on that day but no subsequent sign. For those who'd been around that day it had been a golden opportunity to score only Oxon's second Neararctic peep (after White-rumped Sandpiper back in 2005 which had been before my time). 

 

Post Script 

I have referred to selling of my old home above so I guess I should elaborate. After 33 years of marriage, my wife and I are separating. The house had been on the market for quite a while due to the difficult housing market before we finally found a buyer. After a very difficult year and half of living with my ex, I finally moved out to my new rented home in Boars Hill and now that my ex wife had moved out as well it was down to me to finish clearing things out. I am now writing this in October with the house sale having completed and that chapter of my life now closed. Of course this change of location means that it was time to say goodbye to my beloved patch of Port Meadow but after 19 years of birding it, it felt like time to move on and I have left it and the blog in the capable hands of Thomas Miller. I don't think that there is going to be a Boars Hill Birding blog - there is just not enough variety to warrant it but so far I am enjoying wandering through the woods and communing with nature. With Tawny Owl and Nuthatch as garden birds and some superb garden mothing action, it is a refreshing change from living in urban Oxford.

 

 

Oxon Odonata Round-up

We're pretty much heading towards the end of the Odonata season now that we're into September. There have been a few Odo trips that I've been on over the summer which I thought I would amalgamate into a single post. I had a rough aim to try to see all the rarer recent colonist species of the county over the summer and fortunately things worked out pretty well.

Red-Veined Darter

After my last foray to see this species up at Wroxton Quarry I signed off my blog post by saying "I imagine that they will become increasingly common in the county". How true this turned out to be. After that find up in Banburyshire, there was a large influx at Blenheim Palace up in Woodstock with double digit counts seen on some days and plenty of evidence of ovipositing. Clearly a new colony was being established before our eyes and it seemed positively rude not to pay a visit. So one sunny Sunday morning I headed off and past a somewhat frustrating morning in the company of SB trying to find some. There were a few distant red Darter sp. over the water which were probably them but none of the crippling views that had been reported over the last few days. In the end SB found one that was staying loyal to a particular perch and I managed to get a photo of it settled. Initially both of us were a bit unsure of the ID as, despite the prominent red wing veins, the blue lower half of the eye was very faint and the single diagonal pale thorax stripe wasn't easy to see either. However, back home and looking at the photos the pale pterostigma with the dark border was easy to make out so the ID was secured.

Red-veined Darter

Lesser Emperor 

While I was trying to photograph the Red-veined Darter a Lesser Emperor dropped in briefly before flying off rapidly. They are well established at Blenheim and can often be seen patrolling over the water though usually rather distant. While I didn't get a photo I could at least tick it off my county Odo year list.

 

Southern Migrant Hawker

Another recent colonist of the county is Southern Migrant Hawker. Now well established in various locations I was keen to catch up with this species. In particular I really wanted to see one on my local patch of the Trap Grounds where it hadn't been recorded so far. On one visit towards the end of July I chanced upon a Hawker species that was flying relatively low and slowly along the end of the boardwalk. I was immediately interested as it had really striking blue eyes. In the end I managed to secure the ID as a Southern Migrant Hawker though wasn't able to get a photo. It turned out that ML had seen it the previous day at a slightly different location in the Trap Grounds so it looked like it was lingering. The next day I came back and it had moved to what is known as Tim's Pond where it perched up regularly and I was able to get a photo.

Male Southern Migrant Hawker

A few days later I came across one SMH at the main pond on the Trap Grounds and an ovipositing pair working their way along the stream. Apparently Southern Migrant Hawkers are the only Hawker species where ovipositing is done paired up. With at least three of this species on site, hopefully this means that the will now become established there for next year. Fingers crossed!

 

Willow Emerald

This species has been established for a few years in the county now with my local Trap Grounds being a reliable site. They are usually relatively late there, with early September being the best time. After a few failed attempts when the weather was a bit iffy I finally managed to connect on a sunny Saturday afternoon with a single and a pair in tandem seen. Photos were poor but it was nice to connect with this end of season species.

Willow Emerald

So that rounds off my Oxon Odonata season. I never caught up with Norfolk Hawker in the end though it looks like they are becoming established at Blenheim as well. Still, seeing the rest of them made for a good summer of Odonatoring.

Another Willow Emerald that I found a couple of days later

 

 

 

 

East Anglian Megas: Black-winged Kite, Zitting Cisticola & Hudsonian Godwit

I needed to get away for a couple of days. There are big changes afoot at Casa Gnome which I will blog about in due course but suffice it to say that there has been a lot of stress in the house and a birding trip away was very much needed as balm for the soul. In terms of what to go for, the more or less residential Black-winged Kite over in Norfolk was a long overdue lifer that was basically there for the ticking. I'd held off until now as in the past it hadn't always been that reliable and given how far away it was and how distant the views apparently were, it hadn't been quite enough to tempt me. However, it seemed to have been reliably reported pretty much every morning and and evening for the last couple of weeks so it seemed like the perfect excuse for a weekend outing. I also fancied having another crack at the residential Zitting Cisticola colony. They'd successfully bred again this year and now apparently numbered as many as 11 birds all told. Having struggled so much to see and hear them last year, it would be a good opportunity to try and get better views.

Saturday Afternoon 

As I said above, the Black-winged Kite mainly seemed to be reported first thing in the mornings and in the evening so I decided to head off to Norfolk after lunch on Saturday hoping to connect in the evening session. Available AirBnB's in the area were very thin on the ground so in the end I booked somewhere at Great Yarmouth, about half an hour away. This would mean that if I didn't connect on the Saturday evening I could come back for the morning session on Sunday without too much effort. That was the plan all set up but how would it all play out? 

After the rather long and tiring journey with some Sat Nav rerouting due to road closures, finally I pulled up in the main car park at Sea Palling shortly after 5pm. There was a bit of chilly breeze blowing (quite a novelty after the summer that we've been having) so I put on a couple of layers, gathered my birding gear and set off on the 15 minute walk to the fabled double metal gate where one viewed from. I like to do my research carefully before any trip, mindful that there might not be signal at the location so I was well versed in where the gate was and which way to go. On the way I came across a couple of birders with scopes scanning from a double gate. However, it was clearly not the right gate. After informing them of this they gratefully tagged along with me and we got chatting as you do. One was a visiting birder from Flamborough who'd been down in Cornwall for the week and was on the way back home "via" Norfolk having seen the Hudsonian Godwit and the Zitting Cisticolas earlier that day. The other was here to do some stock car racing at Snettisham the next morning and thought he'd come and see the Kite the night before. 

We eventually arrived at the gate to find one other couple there. Ominously they told us that they'd been there for three hours without any sign of the bird. I'd kind of assumed that it would be fairly straight-forward to connect so the prospect of dipping hadn't really entered my head up until now but this news did give me pause for thought. Still we had a couple of hours of daylight ahead of us so it was all eyes peeled to see if we could see it. There was almost immediately a false alarm where the stock car racer excitedly called out what turned out to be one of the many Herring Gulls that were flying about the place. There were also loads of Wood Pigeons everywhere, a couple of Kestrels and a distant Buzzard or two. It was also very hazy so viewing was far from ideal. 

The view from the double gate

About twenty minutes after we'd arrived the original couple gave up and headed off. Just a few minutes after this the stock car bod called out the bird again sitting on top of one of the many trees in the distance. This time it was a the real deal though I didn't really get on it until it moved a short distance to the nearby telegraph wires. 

The Black-winged Kite at last!

The stock car guy then dashed off after the couple that had just left which was very public spirited of him. A few minutes later they all came huffing and puffing back with the bird fortunately still on view. Indeed it was on view constantly for about three quarters of an hour from when it was first seen so we all got really prolonged views.

Happy birders watching the Kite in the golden glow of sunset

And a very nice bird it was too! As the sun got lower in the sky the haze diminished and in the golden glow the bird was very nicely lit. It was always rather distant but one could clearly make out all the salient features and the rather unique "square headed" look to it. One really striking thing was how small it was. At one point it sat right next to a Wood Pigeon where one could see that the it was in fact a bit smaller than the pigeon. 

Size comparison with a Wood Pigeon

The only other birdage of interest was a couple of Green Sandpipers that announced their presence by calling as they flew overhead. Gradually the others left until it was just me with the bird. In the evening glow I spent my time trying (mostly in vain) to take a record shot with my phone camera through the scope though it rather struggled to focus properly. After spending most of the time just looking from its wire vantage point, at one point it did have a brief hover before resettling. Then it took off again and dropped out of sight. The show was over. 

I wandered back in a contented frame of mind back towards the car, stopping briefly to walk up a path through the dunes to take a look at the sea since I was there. In the evening light it looked stunning and with the gentle sound of the waves it was all very peaceful. 

Sea Palling sea scape

Back by the car, I decided to have some fish and chips from the chippy next to the car park, reflecting on my successful first leg of the trip. Then it was back to the car and off to Great Yarmouth to my AirBnB for the night. This turned out to be a lovely quiet and well appointed room. I was rather tired and soon turned in for the night, dreaming of distant kites in the evening sun.

Sunday 

Having already seen the main target, there was no desperate need to get up too early so the next morning, I didn't leave the AirBnB until about 7:30am. I had been toying with the idea of trying for a White-rumped Sandpiper on the way to the Cisticolas at Benacre Broad but as the reports had always been of "distant views" I decided not to bother in the end. Instead I made my way in the morning sunshine along mostly empty roads back to Walberswick, etched in my memory from my trip last year. 

Walberswick tidal scenery

I parked up at the car park, got my gear together and headed off along the familiar walk back to the viewing location. On the way a Whimbrel flew past and landed in one of the pools. Apart from that there were a few Redshank and Turnstones along with some Black-headed Gulls and Lapwing. I arrived to find one birding couple and one solo birder already there with another couple having just arrived before me. The main couple looked like they knew what was going on (it's funny how you can often tell who was worth asking) and they said that there had been up to four birds on show fairly constantly. 

The salt marsh twitch vista

A short while later they picked out a couple of Zitting Cisticolas flying a long way off back towards the car park but I couldn't get on them. They also picked up one showing in a particular patch of reeds fairly regularly but somehow I couldn't get on it. Was this going to be a repeat of last time? Eventually he put my scope on the bird yet I couldn't see anything! Finally I twigged that I needed to refocusing to the reeds a bit nearer than I had been looking and suddenly I had a definite Zitting Cisticola perched on top off a branch in the distance. I watched it with great relief for a couple of minutes before it flew off. In fact the views were pretty good, given the distance and I could clearly make out the salient Cisticola features - so much better than last time when it had been just a zitting silhouette against the sky line.

This was pretty much what I saw though much more distant and hazy. Courtesy of Nick Truby

After this connection, suddenly the sightings seemed to dry up. The couple next to me stopped reporting them and soon left. Shortly after this the others started to head back as well. I decided to stay to see if I could get any more views on my own but it seemed to have got rather quiet. In fact despite staying a good half an hour after the others there was not a sniff (that I could detect) of them at all. So either I was just missing them (which was possible) or early morning was the best time for them. I did try to watch the sea briefly but the sun was shining directly into me so everything was in silhouette. I did see a few Common Terns hunting along with a single Little Tern. So I decided to head back, stopping to admire the Whimbrel again on the way back. 

Continuing my costal flora theme from my last visit, here is some Sea Pea

Back at the car I was in two minds whether just to go home or to try for the Hudsonian Godwit at Cattawade on the way back. In the end looking at the map I could see that it would such a minor detour from the route home anyway that it would be positively rude of me not to stop in for a quick look. As it had not yet been reported that day I put out a request for information on the twitching WhatsApp group I belong to and set off on the hour long journey from Walberswick to Cattawade.

I was no more than five minutes from my destination when news came through that it was still present. Hurrah! I got my gear together and hurried on the five minute walk to the viewing area where I met the solo birder from the Walberswick twitch. 

The Cattawade marsh

 

He told me that a local birder had been there and had put him on it but that it was currently out of view (of course!). However, within a few minutes he spotted it skulking at the back and managed to get me on it. There then followed a bout of "spot the Hudwit" as it crept about at the back, often out of sight before it disappeared behind a large earth mound. Suddenly everything went up and started flying around though I couldn't see what had spooked them. Some of the birds seem to head off down the estuary but then I spotted a group dropping back down on the marsh much closer to us and there was the target bird flashing its dark underwing at us as it landed much closer and out in the open. This was more like it! I even attempted some more phone-scoping with a degree of modest success.

 

I had earlier done a bit of revision from my trusty Collins app as to what the salient features were of a Hudsonian Godwit in winter plumage. I knew that the summer plumaged birds are much darker but this was less obvious for winter birds. The hot tip from the app was that the Hudwit had a modestly upturned bill (like a Barwit) and unlike the more straight-billed Blackwits. There were only about half a dozen Black-tailed Godwits about for comparison so at least there weren't hundreds to sift through.

Apart from the star bird and a few Black-tailed Godwits, there were a couple of Greenshank, a few Redshank and some Lapwing. On the estuary behind us were loads of juvenile Shelduck and some Little Egrets. Having had my fill my thoughts now started to turn to home and I wandered back to the car in a contented frame of mind, stopping on the way to admire the local scenery.

More tidal scenery

The Sat Nav was saying about 2hours and 40 minutes back home though it would involve the dreaded M25. In the end, the journey was OK though the traffic was very dense along the M25 and I found the combination of having to concentrate rather hard with the noise of the traffic (through having to have the windows open because the air con is broken) all took their toll and I was mentally exhausted by the time I got onto the M40. So I stopped at the customary Beaconsfield Services (where I usually stop on the way back from Suffolk) for some late lunch and a chance to recover. Then it was back home to Oxford, contemplating my shiny new tick and my two accompanying bonus Megas on what had been a nice three Mega trip. 

 

Oxon Summer Birds

June and July are traditionally a quiet time of year in the birding calendar. Often referred to as the summer doldrums, they offer a chance to rest from birding and indulge in other things like orchids and insects. However, this summer there has a veritable cornucopia of top birdage in Oxon during these two months. Let me list them for you:

Red-necked Phalarope (a few hours at Farmoor - I was tied up and gripped to have missed it)
Red-backed Shrike (one evening at Otmoor - not tried for)
Temminck's Stint (see below)
Ferruginous Duck (or hybrid) (not tried for)
Caspian Tern (untwitchable fly-through)
Long-tailed Shrike (already blogged about)
Montagu's Harrier (see below)

What a list! Indeed it must already be a record breaking year in the county for proper rarities (so nationally Scarce+) with 20 birds now falling into that category. Anyway, I managed to see three of them so thought I would cover the two not already blogged about here in one combined post.

Temminck's Stint 

This was that was found on the evening of the 26th June at Farmoor. With nothing better to do that evening I quite fancied a little outing to see this diminutive wader. In the end it proved to be rather flighty and spent as much time in the air, calling loudly, as on the ground while I was there and flew off before too long. Still it was a beautiful evening and I enjoyed wandering up and down the causeway and was practically the last person to leave.

The Temminck's Stint during a brief time when it was on the ground

The start of the summer Yellow-legged Gull influx

The second was a 1st summer Montagu's Harrier that spent about a week up on the downs at Churn. Now, it has been quite a few years since I last saw this species: all the way back when they used to breed at an undisclosed site in the county. So it seemed like a good opportunity to reacquaint myself with this rare Harrier. With the evening proving generally to be the most reliable I headed up one Friday evening shortly after it was first discovered where in the company of a number of local birders I whiled away a very pleasant evening up on the Downs while waiting for a showing. After some brief glimpses of it in the distance, eventually it put on a wonderful show, quartering back and forth in front of us over the fields. With bonus Corn Buntings and a Whinchat it was a wonderful way to pass an evening.

All photos of the Monty's courtesy of Thomas Miller

 

 

Long-tailed Shrike

I'm sure that all birders with even a passing awareness of the national birding scene know about the presence of a Long-tailed Shrike on the Glos/Oxon border. However, for the full story of what has been an amazing unfolding of events, one has to go a bit further back to the 5th of July when one was found on some farmland up in Crail, Fife in Scotland. This was only the second ever for Britain and the first mainland bird. Cue a mass twitch for Serious Twitchers. As a less serious twitcher it had of course been too far and with no other trips on the horizon there was not even the opportunity to bend the definition of en route to well past breaking point. So I watched with passing interested as the great and the good of the twitching world went to pay homage. In the end it didn't stay very long, last being seen on the 8th July. That was that, I presumed.

However, that was not in fact that for on the 18th of July belated news surfaced of another Long-tailed Shrike which had been staying no distance at all away in Gloucestershire from the 8th to the 16th but "no sign since". Of course there was a certain amount of gnashing of teeth and "why weren't we told" from the birding community. Some ultra-keen locals decided to look for it anyway and after some heroic leg work from some on the morning after news broke, it was turned up back at it's original location. Cue a mass twitch for everyone who hadn't gone to Crail or who needed it for their Gloucestershire list. 

Now the Oxon birding community had soon cottoned on to the fact that the reported Shrike location was only a couple of hundred yards from the Oxon border so there might be added incentive to pay a visit. Not that I personally needed any extra incentives. Here was a 3rd only for Britain less than three quarters of an hour's drive from my front door - what's not to like? I say 3rd for Britain, as there was apparently an overlap in dates for the Crail bird and the Glos. bird so it wasn't the same bird relocating. Subsequent photo comparisons seem to confirm this as a different bird.

On my part, the only difficulty standing between me and a tick was that I had a client call booked for late morning just after the news of its continued presence broke. There was a certain amount of determined focusing on my client's needs and ignoring of any WhatsApp messages on my part as I purposefully blocked out any thoughts of twitching for the duration of the session. After the end as I caught up on early county reports it seems that the bird had been on show the whole time but had carefully stayed away from the Oxon border. 

So, with the afternoon to myself, after lunch I fired up the Gnome-mobile and headed off on the 40 minute drive past Burford and just over the border into Gloucestershire. I don't usually like doing first day twitches because of the crowds but this was too big a bird to miss so I parked up in a layby and walked past various twitchers' cars abandoned on the verges and hurried towards the twitch site. The steady stream of news from various channels had been positive all afternoon so I was pretty confident of connecting. I arrived to find literally hundreds of amassed twitchers all along the road all staring through their scopes and bins in the distance. It was quite a sight! 

Above and below, twitching mayhem, courtesy of Peter Law

 

I chose to stand by the start of the footpath where a marshal in a high-vis jacket helpfully pointed out the bird in the distance on top of a patch of brambles. So I immediately connected - tick!

"Is that over the border in Oxfordshire?", I enquired

"No, no. The border is that wall over there", came the marshal's reply.

Hmmm, it didn't seem that far from the wall and was obviously much closer that it had been this morning. There seemed to me to be a real chance that it might cross over at some point. 

You can just see the county boundary hedgerow in the distance, courtesy of Peter Law

So in the heat of the afternoon I diligently watched the heat-hazy blob that was the mega rare Long-tailed Shrike, perversely willing it to move further away from me. Eventually it hopped up into a bush that seemed to be to be across the border. 

"I'm having that!" I said to fellow Oxon birders GC and IE who were standing nearby. They concurred with this claim that it was indeed across the border. For a little while after that it flirted with the border, sitting in a hedge that straddled the two counties before finally perching on a post that was on the county boundary itself. 

"It seems to be on the back half of the post - so at least half in Oxon!"

Then it finally flew about ten yards further away and picked up something off the ground before returning to the post. There was now no doubt at all! Both a national lifer and an Oxon tick - get in!!! I put the news out on the county WhatsApp about the boundary crossing event. This rather set the cat amongst the pigeons as the Oxon twitchers who'd come and gone that morning would now have to come back for their Oxon tick. I then carried on admiring the Shrike through my bins and scope as best I could in the heat haze.

Above and below, some photos that were representative of my views, courtesy of Ewan Urquhart

 

By way of some background information, the Long-tailed Shrike is found across Asia from Kazakhstan to New Guinea where it mainly inhabits scrub and open land. Many of the temperate zone populations are migratory, moving south in winter while those in the tropics tend to be sedentary although they may make short distance movements. Prior to the Crail bird the only previous record was one on South Uist in November 2000 where a chartered boat famously broke down and the twitchers on board had to be rescued. So it was a proper rarity. 

In terms of which of the nine recognised subspecies it was, I can do no better than to quote a Bird Guides article:

"The thin black mask of the Fife bird, narrowing across the forehead, with a grey crown and nape transitioning into a rufous-brown back and mantle makes it a close match for a bird of the migratory erythronotus subspecies. This is the expected taxon in Europe, breeding across Central Asia before migrating to the Indian plains for the winter." 

It was clear that I wasn't going to get any better views and with the haze I didn't even attempt a photo of any kind. Instead I watched it as it actively hunted along the dry field edges, burnt brown by the on-going heatwave. It seemed to be finding plenty of prey, no doubt largely due to the organic stewardship of the fields by the conservation friendly farmer. With so many people around I kept bumping into fellow Oxonians so there was much of the usual banter and mutual back slapping that comes with a successful twitch. Eventually I decided that I'd had my fill and headed back to the car, very pleased with my double lifer/county tick though somewhat disappointed with the hazy views. I vowed to come back again once the crowds died down.

Courtesy of Ewan Urquhart

The bird duly stuck around, seemingly completely happy with its chosen patch and was on show pretty much constantly for the whole week. Gradually numbers dwindled so on the following Sunday, a week after I'd first seen it, I decided to pay a late afternoon visit where the heat haze would be less of an issue. Car parking had been arranged by the farmer who owned the fields, largely to keep cars off the verges during the harvest period when combine harvesters had to be moved around the different fields along the narrow country lanes. So I parked up in the field along with just ten other cars, paid my fiver to the attendant and ambled along the road back to the original footpath. The incessant heatwave had baked all the grass and flowers brown with just the more deeply rooted hawthorns and other shrubs able to stay green. So it was rather a strange, alien landscape to walk amongst. 

Farmland landscape on the way to the Shrike

At the twitch site instead of the huge masses there was just a small group of about a dozen or so people up past the county boundary post so I went over to join them. 

Much more modest crowds this afternoon

It was very breezy today and in the stiff wind the Shrike had decided to shelter on the leeward side of a large bramble bush. Fortunately this was on the Oxon side though this didn't matter so much now that I already had my county tick. What did matter was the bird was much closer, about 30 yards away and was pretty stationary so I was able to enjoy prolonged scope views and even to take some Superzoom record shots.

Above and below, my best efforts

 

Some rather wobbly, hand-held video footage of the bird 

 

I stayed with the bird for about an hour and a half as it periodically made a sortie to catch something to eat before returning to its sheltered perch. Finally, after having been stationary for a long period of time it suddenly flew up over the hedge and down into the scrub on the ground on the far side of the wall. We hurried over to that side but could not see it anywhere. Indeed despite hanging around for about 15 minutes there was still no sign of it so people started to drift away. Having had my fill, I too chose to head back to the car, with my walk back graced by a Weasel that ran across the road in front of me. Then it was back to the Gnome-mobile and the drive back home to Casa Gnome in a very contently frame of mind, having had wonderful second views of a fabulous county and national rarity. I wonder how long it might stick around for. 

Western Reef Heron in North Wales

I'm sure all birders with any kind of knowledge of national birding news are all aware of the recent discovery of a Western Reef Heron in North Wales. It was found on Sunday on a river estuary in Wales just west of Caernarfon and proceeded to delight  all comers for the whole week before disappearing on Saturday for a few days. At the time of writing, it has now just been rediscovered a bit further east near Llandudno. As a first for Britain its discovery of course got hardcore twitchers slavering at the lips and many dropped everything on the news and raced over to Wales to see it that day. Myself, I was a bit more ambivalent about it. Sure it would be nice to see but it was four hours away and I didn't really fancy such a long drive on the off chance. It generally takes me a few days to work up my twitching juices and I like to see if it establishes a pattern of some kind and can generally be considered to be "reliable". So I made no immediate plans. However, as I mentioned in my previous post, my son and I finally agreed a date for fetching his stuff back from York Uni with him going up by train in order to pack and then me coming to pick all his stuff up. So it seemed not too much of a stretch to go up to York "via" North Wales and also the Yorkshire Dales. I've already blogged about the Yorkshire Dales part of the trip in my previous post so here is the North Wales part. 

Going all that way, I wanted to give myself plenty of time to see the Heron in case it went missing for a while. It had two places it generally liked to hang out: either the Y Foryd estuary or the river mouth by Caernarfon castle although sometimes it would go AWOL for a while. So, to give myself a good chance of seeing it, I decided to stay overnight in Wales and then to head onto the Dales the next day at some point depending on how things went with the Heron. I left the house on Thursday morning at around 8am in torrential rain which persisted the entire length of the journey. The M6 is not a nice motorway to drive on at the best of times and it was not fun at all in all that rain. The Heron had been reported up until 11am on Bird Guides as still being present on the estuary but there was no news after that. About twenty minutes away from the estuary, I put out a request on the Twitchers WhatsApp asking for news to be told that there had been nothing since the 11am report. Nevertheless, I was reasonably optimistic - it had been hanging out all week and was still around that day. What's more I had done my research and knew of all the locations where it had been seen so I should be OK. I pressed on with some excitement now that I was so close to my destination. The final stretch was along a single track country road past a village called Saron down some windy roads to the estuary. Finally I came within sight of one of the regular viewing spots, a few hundred metres north of the bird hide by a couple of houses where a side river joined the main one. There I was met with the encouraging sight of some twitchers' cars and also some half a dozen twitchers with their scopes trained on the estuary. That certainly looked promising! Just to be sure, I raced up to them and had a peek through the scope "for the tick". There was the Western Reef Heron, rather distant but quite unmistakable. Then it was back to the car to get my own gear and to set up for watching the bird. 

My first views were rather distant of it working its way along the estuary shoreline

There were remarkably few people there, no more than 10 people. While it was no longer raining, it had been all morning there so I guess people hadn't lingered after seeing it earlier on. To be honest, I far preferred it this way. Huge twitching crowds are no fun at all and just detract from the experience so this was much better. The bird was about 100 metres away feeding actively along the estuary shoreline. Constantly on the move, it seemed to be getting plenty to eat. Also present were a couple of Little Egrets, a Goosander, various Curlew and some loafing gulls. Right in the distance at the mouth of the estuary were a few drake Eider - still recognisable despite the distance.

Just a handful of twitchers

The Western Reef Heron (Egretta gularis), also called the Western Reef Egret, is a medium-sized heron found in southern Europe, Africa and parts of Asia. It has a mainly coastal distribution and occurs in several plumage forms: a slaty-grey plumage; a white form which can look very similar to the little egret; and a black form with a white throat, E. g. gularis, found in West Africa. Our bird was the latter subspecies which was, in my opinion, the most attractive of the three. Certainly with its striking dark feathers contrasting with the white throat patch it made for a handsome bird.

I settled down to watch the star bird while munching on my packed lunch. I tried taking some digiscoped video though in the end settled for some phone-scoped shots though without a proper adaptor it was a rather hit and miss process. I got chatting to the birder next to me who was from Norfolk and who had been down here for a few days already. Our conversation turned to the evolution of birding equipment away from scopes and towards cameras. He was very much in the camera camp and spent some time trying to persuade me that it was the way to go. To be fair, I can see how things are moving that way. What can be done with cameras these days with their built in AI auto-focus is pretty amazing and many IDs these days only come about because of photographs - the recent Black Kite at Otmoor was very much a case in point. Still, so far I have resisted getting a camera though who knows how long this might last.

My best phonescoped efforts of the day

After a while I decided to go for a little walk along the estuary, partly to walk off the four hours driving in the pouring rain and partly just to enjoy the scenery. I am more and more finding that I am enjoying the scenery of the places that I go to as much as the bird I've come for. The Black Stork in Suffolk was a case in point, again tidal salt marsh habitat - I just love the vast emptiness of it! With the place to myself I enjoyed ambling along the shoreline, listening to the calls of the Curlew and doing a bit of botanising.

Sea Beet

 

Lovely tidal landscape

After a while I headed back to the Heron and spent some more time watching it as it worked its way around different parts of the estuary. Some birders left and others arrived but there were never many around. At one point the bird got quite close along the shoreline but an over enthusiastic mother of a young twitcher got too close while waving a picnic blanket around and the bird flew off to a safer distance. My Norfolk birder friend was not at all amused! He'd waited all day for the bird to come closer so he could get his frame-filling shot only to have it flushed so quickly and carelessly. This is, incidentally, one reason why I hesitate about getting a good camera: it's very easy to see how one can become obsessed with getting a better picture all the time. With my crappy photographic gear, I'm pleased if I can just get any photo of the bird at all. Still, each to their own.

Another birder turned up, asking if there bird was here. Apparently he'd been waiting all day (!!!) further up the estuary without any luck. I was somewhat bemused by this as the bird news services had all been very clear with their pin drops as to exactly where the bird was. I wondered if perhaps he was just going on free headline-only news from the front page of Bird Guides and only had "Y Foryd" to go on - it was a big estuary if you didn't know where to look. Anyway, I let him look through my scope so at least he got to see it in the end.

Gradually the tide crept in and the light started to fade. Eventually the bird hopped onto a little grass island and settle down, largely hidden behind a large tuft of grass. It was about 6pm by this stage and I decided that it was time to head off to my AirBnB for the night. 

The scenic side river near the houses

So I went back to the car and headed first off to Caernafon to Tescos to by some food for the night before heading off to the village of Waunfawr, in the foothills of Snowdonia. My accommodation turned out to be a nice little house tucked away in a small village amidst rolling hills by the start of the Nantle Ridge. My hostess was out for the evening so I rustled up some dinner before retiring to my room for the evening. I was very tired after a long day and soon fell asleep, dreaming of exotic herons  and empty tidal landscapes. 

The next morning I actually met my hostess and in the end we had quite a long chat over breakfast. It was good to learn about her passion for the local landscape and also her love of poetry and the Welsh language. The Heron had already come through on the news services as still present at the same place but having spent so long watching it I was in no particular hurry. Eventually I headed off back along the windy Welsh roads towards the same place as yesterday. 

Navelwort growing on the stone walls along the lane from my AirBnB
- I know this plant well from Cornwall but I don't think I've seen it in flower before

There were many more cars along the road this morning so I parked up and headed towards a much larger crowd to ask about the Heron. They said that it was down the other end hidden in a gully. I soon noticed just how windy it was - it was blowing a real gale down the length of the estuary and not at all pleasant. Still I was here so I thought I'd go and at least try to see the bird again. I walked the few hundred yards back down the estuary to another twitching crowd at the other end of the section of road that tracked the estuary shore. 

Crowds of twitchers, looking for a Heron in the strong wind

Here I was told more precisely where the bird was hiding and after a little while it did a little fly up and down into a neighbouring gully so I got to see it again. Still, the crowds, the wind and the difficulty in seeing the bird all rather detracted from the experience and I wasn't really feeling it. Eventually, as the tide started to fall, the bird did move further north back to where I'd been watching it the day before and, with it at least being much sunnier today, I was able to take some more phonescoped pictures. But I didn't linger too long and soon wandered back to my car. 

In the brighter light I was able to get some acceptable phonescoped shots

 

More tidal inlet porn

I decided to take a little drive along the northern half of the estuary to see what it was like. This was where the bird spent some of its time on the day of its discovery. However, this area was far less scenic than the spot I had been and the wind was very troublesome so in the end I gave it up as a bad job. 

I did have one more activity planned in Wales before I headed off to the Yorkshire Dales for the evening and that was to do some hill walking up to an old stone circle called Cefn Coch Circle (literally red ridge circle if I can remember my smattering of welsh correctly), known locally as the Druid's Circle. This was located at Penmaenmawr some half an hour away in the direction I was heading anyway so it all fitted in nicely. After turning off the main road, I found myself driving up a tiny narrow road that rose steeply up towards the hillside. There was a parking area half way up where I stopped and got ready for my walk. 

The view from the parking spot. It was incredibly windy here

 

The walk itself was a fairly gentle affair up some rolling hills along a rough track. In a little more than half an hour I arrived at the stone circle which was a rather sad and neglected affair compared to the ones at e.g. Cornwall. Still I spent some time marvelling at the ancient history of it and found a convenient spot for my lunch out of the wind with a nice view. It was all very pleasant. 

Above and below, all that remains of Cefn Coch Circle

Then it was back down to the car and off towards the Yorkshire Dales which I have already blogged about in my previous post. The Welsh part of my trip had been very successful and enjoyable. I had a shiny new tick to my name and had spent a very enjoyable time in the ancient landscape of north Wales. I couldn't ask for more!