Farlington Marshes & Brownsea Island

After my recent trip to Christchurch Harbour, I had begun to realise that there were some great birding venues down on the south coast and had decided to explore the area further. Accordingly I'd been keeping an eye on sightings in that area with a view to putting together a trip in due course. A green-winged teal down at Farlington Marshes in Hants, in the Hayling Island harbour area seemed like a good starting point and when a ring-billed gull turned up in nearby Gosport I thought that with two target birds this was enough for a trip. In addition I'd been meaning to go to Brownsea Island for some time where spoonbills and curlew sandpipers would be a possibility so this made a total of 4 target birds so hopefully something would stick. It would mean quite a long day but I was game to give it a go.

After a few postponements, a day with reasonable weather and no family commitments meant that I could go on the trip. I got up at 6am and was out of the house by 6:45. The journey to Farlington Marshes was uneventful and I arrived at about 8:15 to find the place deserted. Not knowing the layout I started walking along the west sea wall, noticing lots of bird activity in the bushes (green finches, robins, tits, blackbirds etc.). I soon found a good vantage point to scan the mud flats (it was low tide) and found the following: hundreds of black-tailed godwits, lots of redshank, a single turnstone, quite a few grey plover and curlews, a few shelduck, a lone avocet, plenty of roosting black-headed gulls (which I didn't check for Meds.) and quite a few little egrets. I was pleased with the avocet in particular. After a few hundred yards I saw the end of the "stream" as it's apparently known. The green-winged teal was supposed to frequent this long thin pool with reeds along one side, so I turned off at this point. At the end of the stream was a pool with some wader scrapes and a scan revealed lots of sleeping snipe by the edge of the reeds. The hedge line by the edge of the pool had several stonechats in, flitting back and forth and calling loudly. I started to walk the length of the stream, stopping every few yards to scan all the teal. I wanted to make sure that I saw them from all angles in order to maximise my chances of picking out that all-important vertical white stripe that signified the green-winged teal. In passing I noted plenty of shoveler, normal teal and wigeon, a few common gulls amongst the black-headed, a few redshanks and godwits and some coots and moorhens but no sign of the green-winged teal.

At the north end of the stream I met up with the warden. He said that after some rain, he would expect the birds to disperse so that it could be anywhere on the reserve and to keep a general look-out. With all the reed beds there I also asked about beared tits and he said that there were a few present and in fact he half expected them to be flying about this morning. He also mentioned an osprey that was sitting on a post on the east side of the reserve which I thought that I'd go and take a look at. I told him about the avocet and he was quite interested in this as it was the first one to return for the winter there and had not been seen previously. As I moved off I thought that I heard the "pinging" call of a bearded tit over the roar of the traffic (the motorway is rather close to the north edge of the reserve). I looked over the reed beds and saw some long-tailed birds skimming over the reeds before ducking down again - clearly they must be bearded tits but not a great view. The next moment I got a better glimpse of a lovely male before it too ducked back down. I waited to see if they would reappear but they didn't. A very nice bonus bird to see!

I walked the entire sea wall around the reserve, seeing the osprey sitting on a very distant red post and eating a fish. There were also more of the same waders, with the addition of quite a few pintails and some great crested grebes feeding in the channel itself. A few flyover goldfinches and linnets and plenty of meadow pipits and skylarks were seen. When I got back to the southern end of the stream I thought that I would have one last look for the teal but by this time several other people had arrived, none of whom had seen the bird and there was also some more disturbance with some reed cutting going on and there weren't many birds around. Needless to say there was no sign of the bird. So for the first venue I'd missed my target bird but had picked up a bonus bird in the form of the bearded tits. The osprey and avocet were also nice birds to see so I was well pleased with progress so far. I got back to the car and considered my options: I was running a bit behind schedule and was wondering about whether to try for the ring-billed gull at Gosport or not but decided in the end to go for it.

It took about twenty minutes to get to Gosport as there was a bit of traffic around. I arrived at Walpole lake to find a most unlikely venue. It was basically a small boating lake in a public park and seemed completely deserted. I had read that if the bird wasn't present then it went to the tidal estuary behind the lake so I started to go round it when I noticed a second smaller lake the other side of the first. This seemed to have all the birds on it so I went over to that. The lake was only about 20 or 30 metres across and there were quite a few gulls on it. I sat down on a park bench and scanned the birds. To my amazement I soon picked up on the bird, sitting quite happily in amongst the other gulls, ducks and pigeons that were loafing around. I had a go at some digiscoping shots but I am learning that the autofocus has trouble with predominantly white birds so the results weren't brilliant. It was a good enough view to note the pale iris which confirms it as a ring-billed rather than a common gull. Pleased with connecting with this bird I then set off on the one hour journey for Bournemouth in order to get over to Brownsea Island.

The Gosport ring-billed gull

I arrived at just before 2pm, which gave me just enough time to find a parking space and buy my ticket before the ferry arrived. On it I met a fellow birder who was consulting for the BBC who were due to start filming Autumn Watch there next week. We had an interesting chat, and he was telling me that Brownsea Island lagoon was the best place to go (which was actually already my intention) and that there were loads of siskins in the woods.

It turned out that the last ferry left at 4pm so I had less than 2 hours in total on the island. Accordingly I hot-footed it over to the lagoon and entered the first of the three hides that overlook the water. What was immediately obvious was that there were a lot of birds to look through. There were literally hundreds of waders covering the water and it was going to take some time to check through them all. From the first hide there were lots of cormorants and black-backed gulls resting on a scrape together with at least 8 little egrets + plenty of black-tailed godwits and redshank. The first hide only gave a view of the corner of the lagoon so I soon departed and made for the second hide. Here I had a good scan around for the spoonbills and I soon found an island which I recognised from photos as being the one that the spoonbills favoured but alas it was empty so that was another target bird miss. Nevertheless I was keen to search through the birds to see if I could turn up some curlew sandpipers and also to take some photos of the birds, some of which were incredibly close to the hide.

A thorough search of the lagoon revealed hundreds of black-tailed godwits and a similar number of avocets. Lots of redshank as well but a much smaller number of greenshank (perhaps a few dozen). There may well have been some spotted redshanks in amongst the redshank but I didn't look too closely. There were also about one hundred dunlin and I searched these carefully for curlew sandpipers but didn't manage to turn any up. There were also plenty of little egrets dotted about the place. Eventually I reckoned that I had searched through all the birds and could relax and take some photos. As the birds were so close I was able to get some great shots though I still had problems with the focusing on the mostly white avocets. Below are the best of my efforts.

A redshank

One of many avocet that overwinter there

A greenshank feeding close to the hide

A video of a feeding avocet

To watch this in high quality, click here and select "Watch in high quality".

A video of a feeding greenshank

To watch this in high quality, click here and select "Watch in high quality".

All too quickly my time was up and I made my way back to catch the ferry. Brownsea Island certainly is a great place I shall definitely return for longer next time so that I can take in more of the Island.

So only one of my target birds was present but I managed to pick up a bonus tick in the form of the bearded tits so another couple of year ticks to add to the list.

2008 Year List
205: bearded tit
206: ring-billed gull

An American Golden Plover on the Meadow

Things have been fairly quiet on my local patch at Port Meadow for several weeks now with the same birds present. We've been lucky to have a flock of at least 30 black-tailed godwits for a while now as well as 5 or 6 ruff and plenty of snipe but there's not been much variety at all. Still it's been a good opportunity to practise my digiscoping and as the birds have been rather confiding I've been rather pleased with my recent efforts.

One of the long-staying black-tailed godwits.

The ruff have been around for a while now.

One of many pied wagtails that are always present on the Meadow.

This morning started out like any other day with my usual session down on the Meadow checking out the birds. The number of golden plover had grown to over 1000 and amongst them I noticed one which stood out because it was unusually pale with a very strong supercilium. I did wonder whether it was a grey plover but it wasn't. Recently in conversation with the county recorded he'd mentioned the possibilities of American Golden Plover and with this in mind and not personally being familiar with the differences I phoned him up and mentioned my sighting. He was intrigued enough to decided come down to the Meadow a bit later so I waited with keen anticipation for him to report back. When I got the call from him, much to my delight, he said that there was indeed an American Golden Plover present but that it was rather a dark bird. I immediately nipped back down there to find the plover flock extremely flighty, going up quite frequently before settling again. Still with some guidance I managed to locate the bird and it did indeed stand out from the flock being smaller and darker than the european goldies. Apparently he'd also seen my bird which was just a pale version of a standard plover so it turned out to be rather fortuitous that he'd happened to find the American Goldie in amongst the flock.

A few other birders started to arrive and I was just getting my digiscoping gear set up when a sparrow hawk flew over and put the entire flock up again. When they settled again some five minutes later we all started to scan for the bird but despite our efforts it could not be seen and to my knowledge it wasn't see again after that. This was rather unlukcy because the vast majority of the birds stayed put on the Meadow and our rarity must have been one of the few that decided to leave. Still fingers crossed that it might turn up again tomorrow.

I have since learnt that one of the key diagnostics for ID'ing an American Golden Plover is the long primary projection: 4 or even 5 primary tips visible beyond the tertials and wing-tips projecting beyond the tail. The county recorder managed to check this out on the bird in question today. A smaller primary projection could instead mean a Pacific Golden Plover. A key feature for both vagrant plovers is that the underwing is a dark grey rather than white, something which was noticable on the Meadow bird today.

A record shot of the American Golden Plover © Nic Hallam

Another tick for the year list.

2008 Year List
204: American Golden Plover

A Day's Birding at Christchurch Harbour

I'd been suffering from the lack of interesting birds in Oxfordshire recently. Whilst I am still diligently working away at my patch (see Port Meadow Birding), there's not been much new to see there or elsewhere in Oxon and I was champing at the bit to go somewhere new to see something a bit different. I'd recently discovered the great CHOG web-site with daily updates of sightings at Christchurch harbour. In particular I was taken with the fact that both curlew sandpiper and bar-tailed godwits were being seen at Stanpit marsh fairly regularly which were two waders I was keen to see. The barwits, I needed for my year list, and curlew sandpipers were ones that I couldn't remember whether I'd seen during my previous boyhood birding so were officially "unseen" on my life list. Added to that, firecrests had recently been seen at Hengistbury head as well as plenty of recent vagrants (Richard's pipits, penduline tit) and good sea-watching possibilities (grey phalarope, red-throated diver, long-tailed skuas) it seemed like a great all-round venue for a day's birding. I reckoned that it would take 2 hours to get there which was a lot better than the nearly 3 hours that it takes to get to Portland so I decided that a trip down there was in order.

Whilst I had made up my mind on the location, there was still the small matter of tides and weather. The harbour itself has two birding venues on either side of the harbour itself: Stanpit Marsh is good for waders, whereas Hengistbury Head was mainly scrub land and sea watching at the end though both sides offered views of the harbour itself. The best time for the marsh was 1 to 3 hours before high tide where the mud is visible but the birds aren't too far out. Therefore there was a certain amount of viewing tidetables and weather forecasts before finally deciding to go. With a date finally chosen I awoke at 6am and was out of the door by 6:45 heading off down the A34 towards Dorset. The journey itself took 2 hours plus a bit of extra time for some traffic delays but at around 9am I pulled up at the Hengistbury Head car park and paid the fee using my mobile phone which I'd not done before but which was very convenient as you could top it up without having to return to the car. I then set off to explore the Head.

The Head was an interesting mix of scrub land, with a small wood half way along, an old harbour lagoon and at the end some beach huts behind which the locals shelter when they go sea watching. As I wandered, loads of meadow pipits and linnets were flying overhead. The scrub bushes held plenty of warblers and tits and a local field was full of stonechats. I met up with a couple of local birders for whom this was their local patch. They said that not much was around today but one had seen a ring ouzel earlier on and a spoonbill had flown over earlier and a little gull had been in the harbour. I asked about firecrests and both had said that they'd not seen or heard any that day. Nevertheless I listened and looked carefully as I went through the firecrest-favoured woodland section and turned up quite a few goldcrests but alas no fires. The old dock held about 15 redshanks and a few little egrets but nothing more exotic. I arrived at the sea shore and did only a few minutes watching (enough to see a great crested grebe on the sea) before deciding that I needed to head back. The reason for this was that one of the locals had pointed out that it was an unusually high tide today so that the optimal viewing times at Stanpit Marsh would be earlier than normal. This had rather messed up my plans but rather than rushing like a lunatic over there I decided to head back at a leisurely pace, take in the local birds and I'd just have to view the waders as they roosted on the marsh at high tide. I had my packed lunch on the sea shore and then headed over to the other side of the harbour to investigate the marsh.

The marsh consisted of peninsula jutting out into the harbour itself, with mud banks to the south of it. At high tide the birds roost on the marsh itself, often well hidden in the grass or feed at the very edge of the marsh where some mud is still exposed. As I arrived there was plenty of bird activity and I soon picked out a continental blackbird in the bushes (distinguishable by its black beak). Just past the new nature reserve centre a sparrow hawk flew very low over the grass and pounced on a victim (a starling I think) before making off to devour it in the trees. As I explored, I soon came across an inlet with a variety of birds within it feeding along its shore line. At the end were a dozen or so dunlin and I soon spied something a bit different: it was roughly dunlin-like but a bit larger than the other birds with an fairly even-toned grey back, no underbelly markings and a slight grey smudge of a breast band. In addition it had a longer bill and longer legs than the surrounding dunlin. At this point I got rather excited and started thinking of curlew sandpipers. In fact it was only when I got home and did more research that I came to the conclusion that this was actual an adult dunlin in winter plumage. Typically a curlew sandpiper in this country will have a patterned back and only rarely is it seen in the full winter plumage. Without the diagnostic white rump I wasn't going to claim a rarely-seen plumage type. It just goes to show how variable dunlin can be and how careful one has to be before assuming that it's something else.

It seemed that most of the waders were in or around this creek so I settle down and took stock. There were loads of black-tailed godwits roosting in the grass, a couple of knot, two spotted redshank, plenty of curlew, around 15 or so common redshank and a few oystercatchers all milling around, feeding or roosting. They were not too far away and despite the abysmal light conditions I had a go at digiscoping and I was pleasantly surprised at the results after I finished post-processing them even though I had to go up to ISO 400 to get any kind of decent shutter speed. The best of the bunch are displayed below.

A curlew on the marsh

Two feeding knot

A spotted redshank and two redshank, making a nice comparison

Oystercatchers resting at high tide

In addition to the birds in the creek, out in the harbour there was a sand spit and an island. On the spit there were three distant godwits which on closer inspection turned out to be bar-tailed. I was most pleased about this as these were one of my target birds. I had a quick wander around the rest of the marsh but it seemed that the choice spot was my creek so I spent a bit longer there before making my way back to the car park. There I had a brief panic as I couldn't find my car keys before locating them in a different pocket from usual. The journey home was uneventful.

That evening I read up on the CHOG web-site that a pair of lapland buntings had been seen to fly over as well as a few interesting birds from sea watching. My impression is that there is a small but dedicated team of experienced birders who work the patch and report back so far more was picked up than I saw that day. Nevertheless I enjoyed my trip down to Christchurch and will certainly be back again.

One more tick for the year list though ticks are much harder to come by these days. I've been thinking of what I still need from my list and one section which is woefully under represented is geese so perhaps a trip to Norfolk this autumn or winter is called for. I could also benefit from doing some more sea watching as there are quite a few ticks there that I still need.

2008 Year List
203: bar-tailed godwit

Seeking a Richard's Pipit

It's been another week of no major birding trips though I am planning one for the next few days (more on that in due course). There have been the usual daily trips to Port Meadow to check out my local patch and a few more digiscoping efforts. The golden plover have made a welcome return to the Meadow and their numbers are now increasing.

Golden Plover on the Meadow

In addition there have been unusually large numbers of black-tailed godwits, with a peak count of 40 birds, perhaps a county record!

Black-tailed Godwit

There have been plenty of ruff still around and I was quite pleased with the shot below, taken in the mist and at a reasonable distance.

A ruff in the mist

Throughout the winter months the Meadow has masses of wigeon around and they are already there in numbers.

Wigeon

As well as my daily trips to the Meadow at the weekend we went en famille to the White Horse at Uffington to take advantage of the Indian summer weather. On the way there my eldest daughter K pointed out a soaring buzzard. I pulled over and spent several minutes studying it before concluding that it was a juvenile pale morph common buzzard rather than a honey buzzard. Once on the hill there were loads of migrants in evidence with plenty of meadow pipits and skylarks on the summit. Nearby there was a farm field which had a flock of at least 200 birds, from a distance I would guess a mixed flock consisting of linnets, gold finches and meadow pipits. There was also a single wheatear along the edge of the field, a hovering kestral overhead and another common buzzard. Unfortunately I didn't have that long to look around as K, fully embracing her new role as a teenager, was getting fed up and wanted to go home.

On the way back I got a text from a birding colleague saying that somone had found a Richard's Pipit on Otmoor. As soon as I was able I called him back to find out the details. Apparently it had only been seen by the one person but as he was "Mr. Otmoor", practically living on the reserve and also a birder of huge experience, there was no doubt that the sighting was genuine. Unfortunately it was getting dark by this time and the family wanted feeding so I was going to have to wait until tomorrow before having a look for the bird.

The next day dawned with a thick mist which meant that I could have a lie in, get our two year old son L up, dressed and fed all before the mist had cleared. I generously offered to take L off my VLW's (very lovely wife) hands for a few hours and L and I set off for Otmoor. Although the mist was clearing elsewhere, when I arrived at Otmoor it was still quite thick. I put L in his all-terrain push chair and we set off. The bird had been seen on the Pill Ground, which is an area of the reserve that I'd not been to before. When I got to the field it was distinctly boggy and having to drag L and his buggy through the bog was hard going. It was quite atmospheric though, with snipe periodically flying up and calling in the mist. Eventually we made it to the next field where there was a convenient bridge over a stream. I had a look around, seeing a couple of stonechat and a distant silhouetted bird in the hedgerow which could have been a redstart. I was looking down the stream when I saw a bird half way along. "Go on, be a water rail" I said to myself as I raised my bins to my eyes, and lo and behold it was. I reached for my digiscoping gear to try and take a photo but it slunk off before I could. Other birds of note were a couple of hobbies, a (common) buzzard, a few golden plover and a calling cetti's warbler.

By this time it was getting on so we headed back through the bog towards the car. There I met up with some fellow birders who'd heard a mysterious pipit fly overhead. I got out my mobile with the Bird Guides bird calls on it and played them Richard's and also tree. One of the guys reckoned it was a tree pipit but I later heard that another was more inclinded toward the Richard's. Anyway, I didn't get to see or hear it - it was always a long shot but I'd enjoyed a pleasant, if muddy and wet, morning on Otmoor.

The water rail was another year tick. It was also one of my target birds that I'd still not actually seen yet this year, the others being lesser redpoll, jack snipe, merlin and willow tit. The jack snipe I should get around Oxford or Abingdon somewhere, the merlin at Otmoor and I'm planning a return trip to Combe in Berkshire for the Willow tit. I am also very keen to catch up with bar-tailed godwit and curlew sandpiper and am therefore planning a few trips to suitable areas for these two waders.

2008 year list
202: water rail.

A "Possible", a Hen Harrier, and a Ferruginous Duck

This weekend I had my two year old son L for most of the day whilst my VLW (very lovely wife) helped our younger daughter B with her homework. I'd been meaning to get up onto the hills to look for migrants for some time and the recent honey buzzard influx was an added incentive so I decided that I would see if I could get L up Quainton Hill in Bucks. The journey takes about 25 minutes or so from Oxford and I parked on the village green and got L loaded into his all-terrain push-chair. I wasn't sure what the terrain would be like and was contemplating that I would have to leave the chair somewhere at some point to continue on foot but this turned out to be sooner than expected as the first gate onto the footpath was a narrow kissing gate and would have involved taking L and all the gear off the pushchair and folding it up again to get it through so I decided that we'd have to proceed on foot from the start. We therefore set off at a suitably slow pace up the hill, which gave me plenty of opportunity to scan the hedges for migrants. I was particularly looking out for redstarts and whinchats but all I could find were willow warblers and chiffchaffs with mipits flying overhead. L was grumbling a bit at climbing what was quite a steep hill for him and he needed a bit of coaxing and bribery with the promise of some biscuits on the summit. He made it up to the top of the ridge where we sat down and I gave him his snacks to keep him quiet whilst I set up my scope and scanned the hills. After a while I spotted a large raptor in the distance and quite low down. Unfortunately it was side on and it never gave me a decent view but I could see that it had rather a long tail and I did wonder whether I'd missed a honey buzzard. Still, on such a pleasant early autumn afternoon it was great to get up to such a lovely location.

The next morning I was due to catch up with a fellow Oxford birder S with whom I go out birding from time to time. Because I had L in tow with me once more we decided to give Otmoor a visit which was fairly child friendly and where L could walk if needs be. The weather was absolutely gorgeous with warm sun and hardly a breath of wind. It was interesting to see all the digging going on there with two huge fields in the process of being dug up to make wader scrapes and eventually a hide overlooking them both. This did mean that the normally very productive Ash Grove field was out of action but there was still plenty to look at. There were lots of birds leading up to and by the feeders with warblers everywhere and a variety of finches as well as reed buntings and yellow hammers. Two rather smart greater spotted woodpeckers were flying around and at least one was feeding on the feeders. Once on the main path there was surprisingly little bird action in the hedge but S managed to find a distant stonechat in the main field which was nice to see and the first of the autumn season for me. I was keen for a whinchat but despite close scrutinity of the fields and posts therein I couldn't seem to find one.

Going towards the first screen with L now walking and chatting quietly to himself, we met with Peter Barker, the reserve warden, who informed us that there had been two possible honey buzards there yesterday and that the marsh harrier was probably still about. As we spoke I saw something gliding just about the field of view low over the reeds which could have been it but it disappeared before I could be certain. At the first screen there was little to see on the water though apparently a red crested pochard had been seen earlier. Overhead there were dozens of snipe flying around everywhere, landing in the reeds and then flying up again. There must have been at least 100 birds around in total. A pair of beautiful kingfishers gave a good view from a close distance by the hide and a well-hidden water rail was squealing in the reed bed.

Ambling on towards the second screen there were loads of tits, reed buntings and warblers skulking in the hedge row, the latter being mostly willow warblers and chiffchaffs but we had a possible garden warbler as well. At the second screen there was again not much of interest on the water itself but overhead there were several kesterls and hobbies and a red kite as well as a couple of buzzards which were closely scrutinised but however hard we squinted they still looked like commons.

Heading back towards the car with L once more installed in his buggy, S spotted a distant thermalling raptor. Getting the bins onto it revealed another red kite and what we first took to be hobbies close by but closer inspection showed that one of them was too large and was showing a white rump. Getting the scopes on it revealed a lovely ringtail hen harrier - a very nice bird and a great end to a pleasant morning's birding.

A couple of days later I was just contemplating going downstairs to lunch (I work from home) when I thought to give Bird Guides a quick check. Low and behold there was a Ferruginous duck reported at Calvert in Bucks only about 40 minutes previously. Given how close the location was this was a classic lunch-time twitch so I threw together some sandwiches, gave my VLW a quick call and set off on the journey. Some 25 mintues later I pulled up by the reassurringly full car park and trotted the few yards down to the first hide. Fortunately it held quite a few birders all busy watching a lovely adult drake ferruginous duck. It was in the company of a dozen or so pochards and whilst it had its head down for much of the time, it would keep a wary eye open the whole time and occasionally wake up and swim rather rapidly back to re-join the pochard group. I had a go at digiscoping it though it was rather distant and uncooperative with its posture. The results are little more than record shots really but it was all good practice.

The Calvert Ferruginous Duck

Lee Evans, of UK 400 Club fame, was present and pointed out the key factors that showed it was pure bred and not a hybrid: just the nail on the beak black rather than a band, a "pearly" white eye, and very clean white under-tail coverts. Apparently this was only the second Ferruginous Duck sighting in the country this year. The fact that it had flown in with the pochards was also a good sign that it was not an escapee though one can never be sure of provenance. A nice lunch-time twitch for what is a very handsome duck and a nice year tick also.

2008 Year List:
201: Ferruginous Duck

A Knot on the Meadow

I'm still dutifully going down to my local patch, Port Meadow, each morning to see what's about and recording my sightings in my other blog: Port Meadow Birding. Recently the rain has extended the flood area a lot and has hidden the wonderful mud that makes Port Meadow so attractive to passing waders so there's not been so much wader activity and what little there is is also further away and consequently harder to see and to digiscope. Because of this yesterday I put my wellies on and resolved to walk along the west side of the floods to get closer to the north end of the floods where the birds seemed to be hanging out. I was hoping to digiscope some golden plover which had been present for the last few days.

There are lots of lapwings present on the Meadow currently.

Having walked to my chosen viewing spot I was scanning the north of the floods and seeing the ever-present lapwings, teal, wigeon, shoveler and gadwall and managing to locate a flock of 11 golden plover. I then spotted something to the right of the golden plover, sleeping with its head tucked it and half hidden behind some grass in an altogether uncooperative manner. It's colouring was different from the plover though given what little I could see there was little chance of ID'ing it unless it moved. Fortunately it decided to lift its head up, revealing quite a stout straight bill of about one head length in size (a very useful measure that I use when assessing waders) before going back to sleep. This was enough for me to see that it had rather a prominent light grey/brown supercilium with a dark crown, dark grey/brown upper parts and a paler buff front. As far as size was concerned it was defintely larger than a nearby dunlin that was skulking around and perhaps slightly smaller than the golden plover. I started to set up the digiscoping gear in the hope that it would show itself more clearly all the while going through the possible waders that it could be. As I was fiddling around the bird popped its head up and flew a few yards into some even thicker grass where it was completely hidden. Fortunately I was able to see the scaly grey back, the perhaps slightly rufous buff front with the white undertail section and also to notice its rather plump appearance. All this was enough for me to nail it down as a knot.

A distant record shot of some of the nearby golden plover which I took whilst waiting for the knot to show itself.

This was a nice bird to see for Oxfordshire as only a few are seen each year on the autumn passage and nearly always at Farmoor reservoir. It was also a first for me for the Meadow as well as another year tick which brings up my 200 total.

2008 year list:
200: red knot.

Chasing Phalaropes

Recently there's been a large number of grey phalaropes seen about the country and, being in land-locked Oxfordshire, it was rather frustrating to see all the sightings appear around the coast on Bird Guides. So when a pair of birds, an adult and a juvenile, turned up in Bucks at at Western Turville reservoir I contemplated going over to see them. Though the adult flew away the same day, the juvenile hung around and was reported as being seen the next day so I thought that a lunch-time trip over there was in order. I finished off a piece of work and headed for the door, pausing only to bundle my birding gear in the car. I'd been to Western Turville before and set off into what became a torrential downpour.

It was still pouring with rain when I arrived at the reservoir so I put on my full waterproof gear and set off the short distance to the reservoir dam wall where the bird had been reported as being located. When I arrived there were no birders present (an ominously bad sign) and a quick scan revealed no sign of the bird. Given how confiding they are it was unlikely that it was hiding so it looked like it had gone. As I stood in the pouring rain contemplating this ignominious dipping out, there was a clap of thunder and the rain doubled in intensity and couldn't help but think that someone up there was adding insult to injury! I got home and checked the various internet sources that I had only to discover that the bird had flown about an hour before I arrived. Not only that but due to the highly efficient manner in which the Bucks birding community sends updates, it had been reported on the news group as having flown before I set off so had I had the common sense to check for updates before departing it would have saved me a journey and a thorough soaking!

However, I soon got an opportunity to make up for this when next morning I got a text from a local birding pal that a grey phal had been seen at Farmoor reservoir. Whereas Bucks reports everything via their yahoo news group, Oxford seems to be more of a clique when it comes to birding news with text messages sent round to the "inner circle" but less public reporting. Fortunately, thanks to this contact I was often able to pick up the news and, although the initial report was also on Bird Guides, he was able to confirm via text that the bird was still present mid morning so I arranged my work so that I could nip out to Farmoor at lunch time to maximise my chances of connecting with this bird.

I arrived at lunch time, at the same time as another birder from Swindon, and we walked together to the west end of the causeway where the bird had been reported. We were fortunate enough to meet Mr. Farmoor himself (Nic Hallam - www.farmoor-birding.com) who told us exactly where the bird was. He also pointed out a leucistic house martin that was flying around which looked like some amazing ghost martin with pale brown feathers where it should be blue. The phalarope itself was sheltering behind the pump station inlet on Farmoor II, being buffeted by quite strong waves in a strong wind. Even though the bird was only a few metres away it was bobbing up and down so much that it was rather difficult to take any decent photos though I did manage this rather blurry one just holding the camer in my hand with no use of the scope at all.

The Farmoor Phalarope bobbing in the waves, taken using a hand-held camera in windy conditions

As it turned out the bird was rather a long stayer and was still present till at least Sunday evening. I went back there on Sunday afternoon with my two year old son, L and in much better conditions I managed to take the shot below, again without a scope. As the bird was constantly moving it was very difficult to photograph using traditional digiscoping methods though, as Nic Hallam mentions in his blog, this must be one of the most photographed phalaropes of all time with countless excellent shots up on Bird Guides taken from point blank range with huge lenses.

The Phalarope again in calmer conditions

There was also a very confiding dunlin on the causeway who was more cooperative in standing still whilst I digiscoped it.

An obliging dunlin.

I was pleased to connect with this enchanting grey phalarope and with the recent red-necked in Gloucestershire that just leaves the Wilson's still outstanding. It's one more tick for the year list with 200 surely within my grasp now.

199: grey phalarope