Mega (Store) Twitching

With Christmas safely out of the way and having decided that I wasn't going to restart work until next week, I found myself with a quiet and mercifully empty week in my diary. The whole maelstrom of over-indulgence, visiting relatives and having people come to our place had rather taken its toll and I was looking forward to some quiet time: there was a wholesome New Year's Day walk booked up but apart from that this week was all free. Naturally I thought that one final outing to round off the year would be a good way to unwind and there seemed to be some interesting things happening down on the south coast so I decided on a New Year's Eve sortie. I spoke to my VLW who said that she needed some items from Ikea so I hatched a plan that would involve the Southampton branch of this store. I then phoned up the Wickster who confessed that he still needed Ikea on his life list (the Southampton store would just be a year tick for me) and he was therefore keen to come along. In order to pad out the day we looked around for something else to visit en route and it turned out that Portland was on the way (certainly by my way of reckoning) so we might as well have a look in there where apparently there was some rare auk about. I suggested that we might also pop into Gosport to see the Ring-billed Gull there as that was quite close to Southampton as well. With the weather forecast for howling gales at Portland first thing but easing off later in the day we decided to eschew an early start and thus it was that I picked Tom up at the relatively civilised time of 8:15 a.m. and we headed off to get him his Ikea life tick.

The roads were wonderfully empty as we sped southwards in the Gnome mobile. I'd set up my RBA account to receive bird news of the Portland Brunnich's Guillemot but my phone was ominously silent as we travelled along. We hypothesised that the bad weather probably meant that it was sheltering in amongst the boats out of sight though with the Ikea twitch the main event of the day we were fairly relaxed about the lack of news of course. After a while we hit a wall of torrential rain and strong wind - clearly the bad weather that had now moved on from the coast. With it also came a "still present" text message, backing up my theory on the bird, and we both relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the journey.

After a quick pit stop at Ferrybridge to use the facilities it was straight on to the huge (and free!) car park by Portland Castle at the south end of Portland Harbour. The car park was literally just a few yards from the water's edge where we soon found a relatively modest count of a few dozen birders tracking the movements of the target auk. When we arrived it was over to our left by the marina and as we hurried over we could see the bird in the distance porning it a few yards from the bank. We got there just as the bird started to move off along the bank and we tracked it as it swam quite large distances underwater before bobbing up, always close in to the bank. It turned out that it had a regular circuit that it would take, starting on the far west side of the marina (where it was basically out of sight) and working its way eastwards through the marina, out of the inner sea wall of the marina towards the castle and towards the Aqua Hotel. It was often really close to the bank, too close for scoping, and I set about photographing it with my superzoom camera. It was a cute little thing, looking very much like a Guillemot though of course without the extensive white on the cheeks and throat. In fact this bird hardly had any white about the head, lacking most of the white throat area of a winter plumaged bird apart from a small area beneath the bill. The white gape line was noticeable and it had darker (more Razorbill-like) colouring than the brown of a Guillemot. The bill was also shorter and stubbier than its commoner cousin. At close quarters auks always look somewhat comical as they float around on their tummies. To me they look like a fat man laying face down on a lilo who hasn't got the strength to lift his head up but just paddles around with his feet which are dangling down in the water. Of course once they dive down its a different matter and they are transformed in to sleek fast hunters of small fish.

One couldn't ask for better views of the Brunnich's Guillemot

Some video, thankfully stabilised by youTube as I didn't use a tripod

After a while the bird moved out a bit to negotiate a pipe that was extending out into the water so we took the opportunity to scan the open harbour from here. Now the Wickster, is a hardcore county birder and does a county year list each year. This year he came top in the county with a creditable 185 from what has been a rather poor year county-wise. This does tend to mean that he doesn't get out of the county much otherwise and that therefore his national year list was rather low. He reckoned that he was still a few short of the 200 mark and was keen to mop up a few year ticks so he was giving the harbour a thorough grilling. We managed to turn up all three Diver species, the resident Black Guillemot (which was quite close in), quite a few Razorbills, lots of Red-breasted Mergansers and a single female Eider duck. Tom also managed to winkle out a Common Guillemot in the distance which he also needed. Including the Brunnich's he managed eight year ticks in total.

After a while with a rain shower threatening I went back to the car for some shelter and a snack whilst Tom continued to scour the harbour. On my return I wandered over to the marina where the Brunnich's had last been seen. There I met up with Wayne Bull, Phil Brown and another county birder (who's name I don't know) who'd all come down to pay homage to the auk. The star bird was on the far side of the marina but after a while worked its way back to our side where once again it gave crippling close-in views. Tom and I followed it for a while until it moved further out to shelter from the weather behind a boat. We both agreed that we'd had our fill and after another brief scan of the harbour by the castle we headed back to the car.

The next stop was a brief tick and run for a first winter Glossy Ibis which had taken up residence nearby on the east side of the Radipole marshes. Neither of us wanted to spend much time with this bird and we couldn't be bothered to put on our boots so we stood at the end of the asphalt and scoped it distantly. We could seen Wayne Bull in the distance who had got much closer where he was rewarded with some decent photos (see here) though I was content with a distant record shot and Tom was happy to add another bird to his year list total.

A distant record shot of the Glossy Ibis

Then it was back to the car for the long slog back to Southampton and the superstore highlight of the day. As mentioned above, I was keen to do a modest detour for the wintering Ring-billed Gull at Walpole boating lake in Gosport. I'd seen the same bird a few years ago but now as a more experienced laridophile I was keen to re-visit it. Just as we pulled up all the gulls seem to fly up into the air and to circle around overhead. We couldn't work out what had put them up but we couldn't see the target Gull anywhere so realised that we'd have to look for it and headed over to the tidal creek at the back of the park. Tom confessed that he was actually glad to have to look for a bird and that he'd been finding it a bit dull to have the Brunnich's and the Ibis so easy to find. I don't know - you give someone a Mega on a plate and all they do is complain! Over by the creek we found a Redshank, a Little Grebe, lots of Black-headed Gulls, a Med Gull and quite a few Brent Geese. There were a couple of Gulls of about the right size for Ring-billed though without scopes it was hard to tell so we decided to head back to car via the ponds and to get the scopes if necessary. Fortunately, on the way back Tom picked out the Ring-billed Gull back in the middle of the boating lake, no doubt refreshed from having had a little fly-around.

I was keen to study it closely in order to aid with one of my ambitions of finding one on Port Meadow in amongst the gull roost. The first thing that I noticed was that the mantle shade was a bit darker than I expected. It was certainly darker than the Black-headed Gulls next to it though not as dark as the Common Gulls that were also present. However, whilst these latter species were dainty and cute, there was nothing cute about the Ring-billed, with its thick chunky bill and strikingly pale eye (a diagnostic feature) it had a rather menacing look about it. It had a large white mirror on the underside of the primaries and what was a fairly pronounced white tertial crescent for this species - usually this feature is rather muted. All in all it was great to have an opportunity to get a feel for the jizz of this species at such close quarters.

Finally, it was on to the main event. A half hour drive saw us on the main through-road in down town Southampton where we soon spied the blue and gold colouring that instantly identifies an Ikea store. Tom had texted his girl friend asking if she wanted anything from Ikea and she'd sent back a large list of unpronounceable Swedish words. Tom certainly got an opportunity to earn his tick for this visit with lots of searching involved trying to track down the items on his list, none of which were keen to give themselves up too easily. By contrast my list was relatively simple and I soon managed to get all my ticks. Having finally found everything, we had a reviving cup of tea before loading up the boot with our booty and climbing back into the Gnome mobile. On the way back we basked in the warm glow of a successful outing: we had a boot full of Swedish storage solutions, and more importantly we'd both loaded up on that most valuable of commodities namely Brownie Points. Oh, and we had seen some nice birds today as well. Tom had managed to add 10 year ticks to take him easily over the 200 mark and I'd enjoyed some mega auk porn and some good Gull jizz. What more could you ask for to round off the year?

Gnome Goes North

Regular readers of this blog will have noticed that I don't do much birding in the north of the country - of course this is obviously because of my self-imposed restriction on how far I'm prepared to travel. This year, apart from my trip to Scotland the furthest north that I've gone on a trip has been just north of Stoke for the Caspian Tern. There is therefore a whole chunk of the country which I've never visited and this does of course mean that all sorts of goodies pass me by. As it had been a few weeks since my last birding trip I was naturally starting to get "those urges" again and was therefore casting around for things to see. The most obvious birds were the Parrot Crossbills at Budby in Nottinghamshire which were just about within striking distance though apparently they were best seen in the morning so it would mean an early start, something I'm not usually that keen on. I therefore contemplated my usual tactic in such circumstance of going up the previous night and staying somewhere cheap and cheerful so that I could get an early start the next day. There was another factor to consider of course, that being the weather. With very strong winds forecast for Wednesday and for the whole of next week it looked like Thursday and Friday were the only two possible days. In the end I decided to head up on Wednesday night despite the terrible forecast for that evening and to spend Thursday chasing the Crossbills. So after dinner with my family and despite my VLW's warning that she'd never contemplate driving with such a bad forecast, I put my gear into the Gnome mobile and set off. After all "how bad could the weather be" I thought.

The answer was "pretty terrible". The rain was constant and torrential. That coupled with strong and very blustery winds made for tricky driving conditions. Fortunately there were not many other cars about that time of night and everyone was sensibly driving more slowly but one had to concentrate hard the whole time. To avoid distractions with the Sat Nav I had carefully memorised the route: M40, then across the M69 past Coventry, one stop north on the M1 and then the A46 northwards. I'd not been on the A46 before and was keen to see what it was like. It turned out to be a great little road: a nice dual carriageway with very little traffic on it. As I worked my way northwards I wondered what the scenery was like though in the darkness I had no idea. Towards the end of the journey the constant rain turned into a sudden cloud burst that completely overwhelmed the wipers and I could not see anything ahead of me. I had to slow to a crawl but fortunately there was no other traffic about and in a minute it had passed. Finally after about two and a half hours I arrived at my B&B, a very nice farm house situated just a few minutes to the north of Budby village and very reasonably priced. Tired after my difficult drive I soon settled down for the night, wondering what the next day would bring.

The next day dawned clear and sunny as promised with only a moderate breeze. I left the B&B at around 8am and five minutes later pulled up in the cul-de-sac that comprises the southern half of Budby village. As I was tooling up another car arrived which turned out to be a couple of birders from Humberside. As we walked along the track together I naturally asked them about their star bird, the first winter Ivory Gull on the Humber estuary. They'd been to see it twice already and told me how it was almost always on view but occasionally it would come in to feed on the fish that have been left out for it where it would show down to a matter of fifteen yards or so. I was suitably envious.

 

The gateway to the heathland...

...and the heathland itself with scattered conifer trees

After about half a mile we came to the start of the heathland area where the Parrot Crossbills were usually seen. The heathland itself was mostly heather with scattered trees including coniferous ones that the Crossbills frequented. It turned out that my two companions didn't know where to go at all so we relied on my rather sketchy knowledge gleaned from pouring over maps, RBA reports and asking Ewan who'd visited a few days earlier. We went along the main track across the heath and after a while came to a crossroads with a couple of cattle grids on either side. I thought that the birds were frequenting the puddles just to the west of this area and there were some good trees nearby to back that up. As we stood around my northern friends gripped me off with some crippling photos of the Ivory Gull on the back of their camera. The sun had not yet reached us but we were in a sheltered hollow so out of the wind. It was remarkably quiet with just a few Chaffinches calling occasionally to break the silence - definitely no Crossbills to be heard though. After a while another birder turned up who confirmed that he'd seen the birds a few days earlier where we were standing. We waited around a bit. Another birder arrived who seemed to know my northern friends. He'd been before too but said that the birds often showed along the path on the other side of the crossroads where there was a pool. He also said that whilst the birds called in flight, once they settle in a tree to start feeding they were completely silent and were very hard to spot. We decided to head over to the other side to check out the pool - at least we'd be in the sunshine on that side I thought. We had just got back to the crossroads when we heard the distinctive "jipping" of Crossbills. Two of them flew low over us and then joined up with a flock of a further dozen before the whole flock circled back round and headed off to the east where we were headed. What was most noticeable was that their call was distinctively different from Common Crossbills: to my ears it was much more tinny sounding as if being played through very poor speakers with the bass turned right down. On this alone I was happy to ID them as the Parrot Crossbills though the fact that there were fourteen of them (the correct flock count for the Parrots) and that RBA hadn't been reporting any Commons at all at the site both helped in this respect!

We headed east scanning the surrounding trees and soon spotted them in the distance sitting on the bare branches of a deciduous tree by the hidden pool. As we drew nearer they flew up into the tops of a rather small neighbouring conifer tree and we hurried into position to start taking photos, me with my didiscoping gear. In the bright sunshine it was easy to see all the ID points: the bull-necked appearance and the very deep bills were obvious even to the naked eye. After a short while they flew to another tree nearby to the left of us and we hurriedly changed position, taking a few more snaps before they gradually melted away down into the depths of the trees to start feeding. It was amazing how quickly the entire flock of fourteen became invisible with just the occasional glimpse of one as it moved around in the depths of the trees. As predicted, they were indeed totally silent. In fact so invisible were they that one birder (the first to join us) assumed that they'd gone and went off back to the other area.

Digiscoped Parrot Crossbills

As I stood in the warm sunshine waiting to see if they would re-appear I took stock of the situation. It was now 9:30 a.m. and I'd pretty quickly achieved as good a view of the birds as I was likely to get. They might well appear again after their feed but by all accounts they could often be rather elusive so it wasn't guaranteed. My thoughts started to turn towards a cheeky foray north for the Ivory Gull which had come up as "still present" that morning on RBA. If I set off now I could be there by midday I reasoned. Of course there was going to be a long four hour drive back home at the end but to see an Ivory Gull it would be worth it. I gave in, said my farewells to my fellow birders and hurried back towards the car.

On the way back whom should I meet but Ian Kendall, from October Cornwall birding fame. It's a funny coincidence as the last Crossbill twitch I went on for the Two-barreds, I'd met up with Dave Chown whom I also knew from my Cornish adventures. Anyway, Ian told me how after Cornwall he'd had a very poor autumn, having missed the Porthgwarra Hermit Thrush through being on a course, dipping the Mourning Dove on Rhum and not having enough money for the Cape May Warbler. He was there not to see the Parrot Crossbills, but instead to look for the Great Grey Shrike which had been reported recently and which he still needed for his year list (he was on 295). I told him that there'd been no sign of it so far and gave him the Parrot location should he be interested. We parted company and I headed on to the car. There I de-tooled, set the Sat Nav coordinates for Patrington Haven which I "just happened" to have programmed in the day before on the off-chance that I'd get the Parrots early and would have time of the Gull. The official ETA was in two hours but I reckoned that the Sat Nav was being overly pessimistic and that one and three quarters was going to be more likely. I fired up the Gnome mobile, pointed her northwards and set off.

The journey proved uneventful and it was indeed an hour and three quarters later, at around 11:45 am that I pulled up by a long line of cars on the single-track road that led to Outstray Farm on the north bank of the Humber estuary. The last leg of the journey after Hull had been rather long and tedious but I was there now. Just as I arrived a message came through on RBA that the Ivory Gull was "feeding on fish by the pumping station". This was the hoped for holy grail of Ivory Gull viewing as my northern Crossbill chums had told me. Would it stay there long enough for me to get to it I wondered as I hurriedly got my stuff together and yomped down the path.

As I went I met a large mass of satisfied birders coming the other way which was not a good sign and I hoped that it didn't mean that the bird had finished with its fish lunch and moved off again. I heard various gripping comments such as "you couldn't really ask for better views..." as I hurried along. I kept being asked whether I had any fish in the plastic bag that I was carrying though it only held my lunch that I'd bought from a petrol station en route. In the distance I could see the pumping station but there didn't seem to be many birders near it and I started to realise that I'd missed the Ivory Gull porn fest. Finally after a twenty minute slog I arrived to discover that the bird was about 150 yards out on the shoreline having a post-feed wash. I set up my scope and had a good look at the bird. It had a strange pigeon-shaped head, almost pure white feathering all over except from the usual black dots along the leading edge of the wings. The dusky markings about its head were modest and the dark bill seemed to have a paler tip to it. The jizz was very strange for a gull, and in some respects it almost looked like a large white dove instead. I set about trying to digiscope it though the fact that it was an all-white bird at a distance in bright sunlight and in a very strong wind meant that it wasn't at all easy. What's more it was constantly on the move as it kept on compulsively washing itself so in the end I just held the shutter down and hoped that a few of the hundreds of shots that I took might come out OK. I also took some video footage though I was very much relying on the youTube image stabilisation function to salvage something from the shaking blur that I could see in the view finder.

Given the conditions I'm very pleased with how these shots came out

 

To appreciate just how good the youTube image stabilisation function is,

take a look at the unstabilised footage here. It's a miracle how well it works.

After a while and with the Gull  still vigorously washing away (it must have been a very messy meal) I took a break from grilling it in order to look around at the surroundings. The vast expanse of the Humber estuary stretched away in front of us with a salt marsh to our right and a large reedbed behind us. On the estuary there were hundreds of wading birds including Golden Plover, Godwits, Redshank, Curlew and Dunlin as well as lots of Shelduck. It looked at great spot though it could benefit from a hide I thought as the continuous wind started to wear me down. Behind us someone spotted a male Hen Harrier working its way over the reedbed and we all got nice albeit distant views. A few Little Egrets were flying around and one could hear the occasional distant Curlew cry. All in all it was a wonderfully bleak setting in which to watch an Ivory Gull. I munched on my lunch as I 'scoped the Gull washing away for a total of at least fifty minutes before it finally went on to preening itself vigorously, which wasn't much better from a photographic point of view.

The view across the Humber. You can just see the Ivory Gull as 

a white blob on the shoreline roughly in line with the distant tower

The salt marsh to our right

Gradually more people arrived to pay homage to the Ivory Gull which showed no sign of finishing its cleaning routine. With a long return journey ahead of me I started to think about the time which was by now marching on. I'd told my VLW that I'd be back my 6pm and it was now about 1:30 pm. Time was always going to have been tight on this cheeky bonus twitch and the chances of it coinciding with a porn session were always going to be slim at best. Reluctantly I realised that I would have to settle for my perfectly reasonable but not crippling views. I packed up my gear and started on the long slog back to the car where I de-tooled, fired up the Gnome mobile and pointed the her south. I felt confident that I could navigate my way back home sans Sat Nav and headed off towards the maelstrom of traffic that is the M1. The travelling gods were kind to me and there were no major hold-ups though the traffic was heavy at times. Thus it was that at a little before 6 pm I arrived back home at Chateau Gnome, tired but very pleased with my northern foray and having seen some great birds.

Farmoor Mega Scoter!

Twice already this autumn I have blogged about some rarity (at least at the county level) that has turned up at Farmoor. First of course it was the Red-necked Grebe and soon after that was the Arctic Skua. There's no doubt that the concrete basin is having a good autumn as far as county listing is concerned. Today however it pushed it into a different league with what is by all ways of measuring it a county Mega. 

It was around noon when it all kicked off. I was staring vacantly at my computer screen and starting to think about lunch when I was woken from my reverie by the familiar "boing" of an incoming text. "More spam messages I suppose" I thought but no it turned out to be a Badger text: "Velvet Scoter currently on F2 per Dave Daniels" it read. It took a few second for this to sink in. Yes, it clearly says "Velvet" rather than "Common". Velvet Scoter was a monstrous rarity in the county with the last sighting being from the 1990's! I started to gather my wits and my birding gear together. Badger called to check that I'd got the message - he was already on his way. I left a note for my VLW and hurried out the door with all my birding clobber.

I arrived at Farmoor to find Dai and Badger scoping something in the distance. Fortunately that something turned out to be the Velvet Scoter - result! It was right out in the middle from where we were watching though drifting in towards the causeway slowly. Bark, Oz, Lew, The Wickster & The Law all turned up and we moved en masse along the causeway to get better views even though this meant that we were now looking into the winter sunshine. It was at this moment that Lew's ancient scope chose to disassemble itself so he had to get down to the fiddly business of trying to sort it out in the chilly wind on the causeway. Apparently it had done this once before about ten years ago so he knew what he was doing. Two-Eyes, the Paranoid One and Elementerry arrived shortly afterwards to join the throng. 

The bird itself was an adult female with a nice white wing stripe and some white markings on its cheek and the back of its head. I tried to take some digiscoped photos though it was diving actively about 200 yards out and partially into the sun so it wasn't easy. In the end by cranking up the exposure and doing a fair amount of Photoshop tweaking I did manage to take a few that came out ok. 

Lew ruefully commented on the passing of a great county blocker that only the most senior county birders had on their lists - it was indeed a most welcome grip-back for the younger generation. There was much banter and joviality amongst the assembled crowd though quite a few people had to get back to work including me so some of us soon headed off. As we retraced our steps more county birders were streaming towards the causeway to pay homage to this county Mega.

 

Happy County Birders!

What a great interruption to the working day and yet another stonking county bird from Farmoor. This site has now provided me with three county ticks this autumn. What will it turn up next?

Addendum

I got an e-mail later on from an out-of-county birder called Ray Reedman. Apparently he and a couple of chums had originally found the Scoter between 10:30 and 11am that morning though due to technical difficulties they hadn't been able to report the news on Going Birding. Fortunately, Dave Daniels independently found it anyway and got the news out. Well done Dave!

Gloucester Cross-bars

With the success of my last Blitzkrieg twitch for the Dusky Warbler now just a distant but happy memory I was starting to hanker after more hot out of county twitching action. The only game in town at present seemed to be exotic Crossbills and I'd been tracking the various sightings of Two-barred and Parrots at various locations in the southern half of the country for some time now. After my dip a couple of months ago at Lynford Arboretum I felt that it would be useful to have reinforcements: two sets of eyes and ears would be better than one and at least I'd have someone to talk to whilst hanging around waiting for the bird to appear. Tom Wickens ("The Wickster") still needed Two-barred so we pencilled in a trip though a combination of Wickster commitments and Gnome illness meant that it was quite a while before we were both finally free to make a sortie. In the end we found ourselves both free on Tuesday of this week and so a plan was hatched. After some discussion it was decided that the near record breaking flock in the Forest of Dean was probably the best option to try for though from reading around on the web it appeared that they were by no means easy. Still, nothing ventured and I felt in need of a trip anyway if only to get out of the house for a few hours (one of the perils of being a home-worker). Thus it was that I picked Tom up bright and early from the centre of Oxford and we headed west along the A40, most thankful that we were going against the commuting tide as the traffic jam seemed to go on for ever at that time of morning.

We made good time in bright sunshine that lit up the beautiful frosty countryside and a little after 9am we arrived at the Speech House car park. Unfortunately as we'd approached the Forest we'd noticed an ominous wall of cloud ahead and sure enough the sunshine soon gave way to dark and gloomy greyness which stayed with us all day. We quickly tooled up in the car park and yomped off along the Gloucestershire Way toward the Crossbill area. I'd been doing my homework and there seemed to be two key areas: the Western Hemlocks at the start of the gravel path had been the main location on the pager and on the Gloster Birder web-site for some time though I'd noticed that over the last few days there'd been no reports from there. Instead sightings seemed to be coming from the east side of the clearfell near the Crabtree Hill summit. We soon came to the Hemlock spot where a few birders were camped out. They'd been there for about an hour with no luck at all. Tom and I surveyed the scene: the track was dwarfed at this point by some very large trees (presumably the Hemlocks) and one had to crane one's neck to see the tops of them where a large number (100+ at times) of Siskins together with a few Redpolls were hanging out though there were no Crossbills to be seen at all. The deep shade from the trees and the neck craning meant that it was a rather uncomfortable and cold place to stand around at for any length of time and both Tom and I didn't really fancy it. Instead we decided to have a yomp around the whole area first to get the lie of the land and to warm up properly before starting a stake-out. Accordingly we set off up the path where the trees soon gave way to the clearfell area, a large aread of scrub, grass and a few isolated trees.

The Clearfell from the top of Crabtree Hill - looking 
grey and  bleak in the overcast conditions

We wandered up to the top of Crabtree Hill to get a feel for the area. We met a couple of birders who'd been watching the Great Grey Shrike that had been reported there on and off for the last week or so though there was no sign of it at present. Whilst wandering around we bumped into Dave Chown, whom I knew from my regular autumn Cornwall trips and whom I'd last seen in Pendeen churchyard with his wife in October. We had a natter and exchanged mobile numbers in case either of use found anything. After wandering around a bit we decided to head back to Base Camp by the Hemlocks with nothing to show for our efforts apart from several fly-over Redpolls and few very distant heard-only Crossbill flight calls.

Back at the Hemlock Base Camp (where there'd apparently still been no joy), despite our resolve to stick it out neither Tom nor I could stomach more than about ten minutes there. Instead after a quick snack we decided to head back out for another circuit. This became the pattern for the visit: we'd go for a walk around the clearfell then back to Base Camp where there'd still been no sightings. We'd put in a token few minutes and then we'd decide that we'd rather be walking than craning our necks. After about our second circuit we met a birder who'd been at Base Camp and who'd actually seen a Two-barred there though apparently a Sparrowhawk had flushed it and all the Siskins before anyone else could get on it. Well, at least there was one of them still around so it wasn't a completely hopeless situation though both Tom and I were feeling rather deflated now by our conspicuous lack of success in seeing anything at all really. We decided to go a bit more off piste and so tried a different track though it too was fruitless. As we headed back towards the Clearfell we bumped into a couple of people who turned out to be there for a spot of Mammal watching (mammal'ers? animal'ers?). They'd seen some Wild Boar and had been looking for a white Deer there. Apparently though they'd seen the Two-barreds at Base Camp first thing that morning (about 7:30am they said). Perhaps first light was the best time to see them we pondered. The two animal'ers went on ahead but then started gesticulating to us - it turned out that they'd found the Shrike sitting on top of a tree by the north end of the Clearfell. We hurried to join them and got nice views of it at a medium distance. I felt relieved finally to have seen something noteworthy and took a few digiscoped shots for posterity.

The Great Grey Shrike - at least we'd finally seen something!

After a short while the Shrike flew off out of view so we made our way back to the top of Crabtree Hill. There we met up with Dave and his companion again - they'd apparently just had a flock of six Crossbills that had flown over them a few minutes earlier. Their call had been much softer and they were both pretty sure that they had been the Two-barred though neither had been able to see a clinching wing-bar in the brief underneath views that they'd got. We took stock of the sitation: after some three hours we'd managed to see the Shrike and a couple of Common Crossbills. There had been to our knowledge three separate Two-barred sightings: one at first light and one mid morning, both at Base Camp and a flock of six "almost certains" along the tarmac road. Both Tom and I were starting to flag and to feel that this twitch was slipping away from us. I was feeling hungry by this time and the cold was starting to get to me. We decided on a power yomp back to Base Camp to warm up and then to put in a good session there before heading home.

Back at Base Camp, having at least warmed up en route we found a gathering of about a dozen birders including one who'd sensibly brought along a chair though he didn't seem to spend much time actually looking up at the trees, letting the others do the work. There was a lot of good natured banter going on and it was quite a pleasant atmosphere. This time Tom and I stuck it out for getting on for half an hour before deciding on one final circuit before heading off home in defeat. In retrospect we both agreed that we were each a bit reluctant to bite the bullet and "call it" - had either of us been there solo we'd probably have left earlier. Still, between us we decided on a final throw of the dice though mentally both of us had already given up on the day and were basically going through the motions.

We decided to concentrate on the tarmac road section along the east side of the clearfell and trudged off towards it. There we slowly covered the few hundred yard length up to the top of the hill once more though predictably without success. A quick scan for the Shrike but there was again no sign of it - it clearly had somewhere else that it was going in addition to the clearing. So we turned around for the final descent to Base Camp and then the long gloomy drive home of failure. About half way back down the tarmac road we both heard the unmistakable calling of Crossbills and moments later a flock of about ten burst into view and flew across the road and out of sight on the other side. There'd been a lot of swearing from us during out brief view as we'd both known that we had but moments to get a clinching view. Sadly we'd failed as neither of us had seen sufficient to be certain of a wing bar from our underview sightings. We did both later remark on how pale they looked from underneath though. Down the road we could seen three birders looking at something in the trees where the birds had gone to and then one started to gesture to us. "Run" I yelled and down we sped, covering the fifty yards in a matter of moments. We came to the clearing and, not wishing to flush the birds, cautiously peered round the end tree. There in the trees were some Crossbills. "There's two in the top of that tree!" I exclaimed, pointing. Bingo! Two cracking male Two-barred Crossbills were in the top of the trees, filling our bins with all their Cross-bar wonderfulness. They were stunning birds with a bright, almost raspberry-pink colouring and unmistakable huge great wing-bars. Really special looking birds! We both drank our fill for the ten or so seconds that they were on view before suddenly they dropped down out of sight. A quick scan around revealed that all the birds were now out of sight and a short while later the flock exploded out of the trees again and back across the road where they'd just come from, followed a few moments later by a straggler female. It had all been over remarkably quickly though we'd had excellent views of our two males during that time. 

At this point Dave and his companion turned up. They'd been on the road as well though at the other end from us. Instead of running they'd walked towards the area (in order not to flush the birds apparently) and consequently hadn't seen anything apart from the final departure - once again not getting views that they were happy to tick. There then followed a debate on what one can tick in such situations. Others has clearly seen the birds well enough to be certain of the ID but not they themselves. Dave's companion (I never got his name) espoused the theory that you can only tick it if you would have been sure of the ID had you seen it on your own and by that criteria they weren't happy enough. They decided to hang around on the off chance that they might fly out again. Tom and I kept them company for a while, neither of us still quite believing how we'd managed to snatch a successful tick from the jaws of certain failure.

After a while with no further sign we decided to head off back to the car, feeling rather sorry for Dave and his buddy who'd put in a long day like us and had been seconds off seeing the birds well enough. Still that's birding for you. Tom and I headed back down the road with a renewed spring in our step. We both felt that we'd been very lucky to have scored as we did on our last throw of the dice. I pondered that that was the second time this year that running for a bird had made the difference between success and failure (the first being the Otmoor Wryneck). Back at Base Camp we passed on our success to the Base Campers there, trying not to be too smug about it all. Having had no luck at all by the Hemlocks they all decided en masse to try the tarmac road instead and they all left. Meanwhile we headed back to the car park via a brief detour to the Lodge which was a known hot-spot for Hawfinches though we didn't have any luck during the few minutes we lingered. We didn't care though, we'd seen our Cross-bars and were flushed with success. The car journey home was a contented and uneventful one. The Wickster indulged in a celebratory nap and I had a few flapjacks to keep my energy levels up. We both felt that we'd really earned our tick.

A male Two-barred Crossbill is a thing of beauty. Here's a reminder taken 

by Alan Dalton (c). See his excellent blog here

Addendum

Back home that evening I got an e-mail from Mark Ribbons, who'd been part of the Base Camp throng. It turned out that after we steered them all to the tarmac road, a flock of nine Two-barred came back again and everyone got excellent views which was great to hear. That clearly seems to be the tactic of choice for this site at present. I also got a text from Dave Chown to say that he too saw these birds so everyone came away happy in the end.

Farmoor Strikes Again!

Farmoor is having a great autumn in terms of good county birds. It's already scored four Bonxies, a Gannet, a Slavonian Grebe and the recent Red-necked Grebe that I twitched a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday it struck again in the form of a juvenile Arctic Skua. The first I heard of it was when I was hanging around whilst my daughter had her Tae Qwon Do class. A Badger text came through saying that an Arctic Skua "was still present at dusk" at Farmoor. "Still present?" I pondered - that was the first that I'd heard of it. It turned out that Barry Hudson had found it at around 4pm but hadn't been sure of the exact ID so didn't want to put it out until his photographs had been checked. Meanwhile Nic Hallam had independently stumbled across it on the causeway as he was driving back from his nightly gulling session. Barry had thought that it didn't look that well so there was a realistic prospect that it might well linger tomorrow morning. A dawn start beckoned. I made arrangements to sleep in the spare room so as not to disturb my VLW and set the alarm for 6am.

The next morning I pulled up along Lower Whitely Farm lane at about 6:45am just as Ewan Urquhart was arriving. It was most interesting to see the Reservoir "waking up" with gulls streaming off it and calling noisily. Most of the gulls had of course gone by the time we could see properly and the ones that were left were speeding off as we watched. I quietly hoped that the bird was indeed unwell and would linger - that's what county listing does to you, it turns you into a bit of an uncaring monster! We scanned away but couldn't pick it out. I heard rustling in the bushes and Peter Law, Andy Last and Barry Batchelor all appeared and set up their scopes. Shortly after that Ewan said "I think I've got it" and indeed he had. Right on the opposite shore of the reservoir, hard up against the causeway was a small dark blob. However, it was a small dark blob with a distinctive high-riding rear end and as the light improved we could all make it out as the Skua. Shortly after that it flew off low and dropped down out of sight onto F1. 

Ewan and I decided to drive round to the other side whilst the others elected to stay put. We nipped back onto the road and down a side road in Farmoor where we finally emerged on the north west corner of F1. There was no immediate sign of it and we got a call from the others that it was back on F2! We decided to head over to the causeway where we found it back on the water. By walking down a little way we were able to get some pretty decent views of it in the end.

Grounded juvenile Skuas can be quite tricky to ID so I'd done a bit of reading up last night. It seems that the bill is quite a good diagnostic pointer: Arctic has a slender bill with only the tip dark; Long-tailed has a fairly short bill which is about half black and Poms have a much heavier black-tipped bill. The bill on this bird was noticeably slim, looking almost out of proportion with the rest of the bird and just the tip was black so definitely an Arctic.

After a while it flew off and started harrying the gulls. It was amazing how what looked like a very docile and indeed perhaps moribund bird suddenly shot to life, twisting and turning as it chased a couple of gulls with amazing speed. It didn't persist very long though and soon settled back on F1 with a rather inelegant splash.

By this time I decided that I needed to get back home to work and headed back, leaving Ewan to continue admiring the Skua. As I headed along the west bank of F1 I spotted the bird flying towards me and was treated to some great views as it literally flew low right over me. It made a dart for a Meadow Pipit that was flitting about and then carried on with its circuit of the reservoir. I could see why it's likened to a falcon in flight, definitely not the steady and deliberate flight of a Pom.

Back in the car I negotiated the painful rush hour traffic back into Oxford and the last I heard it had flown off at 8:45 to the North West. A great bird, a personal county tick and definitely well worth the early start.

Dusky Delights

It's been three weeks now since I got back from Cornwall, a decently long enough period without any major excursions. I've been checking out the Patch each day and of course there was the quick dash down to Farmoor yesterday to see the Red-necked Grebe but in general I've been keeping my head down and accruing Brownie Points to make up for the ones that I spent on my Cornish trip. Naturally after such a length of time my twitching urges have re-surfaced once more so by the middle of this week I was casting around for something within striking distance to go and see. I had been thinking about a trip over to Kent for the Parrot and Two-barred Crossbills but the Great Storm of last week seems to have blown them all away as there have been no consistent reports since then. Thus it was that on Friday afternoon when a Dusky Warbler was found in the West Midlands at Marsh Lane NR (only about an hour's drive from Oxford) I keenly marked it down as a possible trip. Looking at the weather forecast for the following few days it was going to get rather dodgy by Saturday afternoon with rain and strong winds so somehow I managed to blag a Saturday morning excursion rather than the usual supermarket visit for the family food shop. Thus it was that after dropping my VLW and our son off for his Saturday morning tennis at around 9am I pointed the Gnome-mobile north and headed up the M40. 

In a little over an hour I pulled up at the rather full car park at Marsh Lane NR, paid my £4 to the gatekeeper for non-member's access to the reserve and hurried up the road to join the assembled throng of birders who were all lined up in one corner of a rather small neighbouring field. It turned out that the bird had been showing on and off all morning in one general location but apparently views were often very fleeting. I was treated to an example of this almost immediately when it soon flitted around one a pair of pollarded Willows that it seemed to favour. One could see something moving but it would have been hard to ID it as a Dusky Warbler without prior knowledge. Shortly after that it went rather quiet for about three quarters of an hour. All around me the hum of conversation grew progressively louder as people who had already got decent views turned their attention to chatting rather that staking out the undergrowth. I must admit that I found myself getting rather wound up by the noise as I couldn't really hear whether the bird was calling. A few Siskins were flying about and Skylarks would pass over periodically. The odd Chaffinch and Goldfinch were also knocking about in the hedgerow. I watched and waited quietly for the bird to reappear. Fortunately after a while the chatterers mostly left and then the bird called a few times briefly below one of the neighbouring Willows. Shortly after that I got a brief view of it flying across a gap - a definite view of the size and colour and that coupled with the distinctive call was much closer to a definitive ID. It showed very briefly and called a few more times as it worked its way along the hedge and then seemed to disappear in the end hedge for a while.

After a period I thought that I heard it calling again in the other corner of the field and made my way over there. Another birder was heading there at the same time and I presumed that he'd heard it too but it turned out that he was just going over on spec. It didn't call again and I started to wander off only for the other chap to start staring intently through his bins and I hurried back over again. It turned out that the Dusky Warbler had re-appeared and was finally showing well in a couple of sheltered pollarded Willows. Indeed it remained within these two small trees for a good ten minutes giving excellent views for almost the entire time. As I'd been nearby at the time I was right at the front of the hurriedly assembled twitch phalanx and got great views of the bird less than twenty yards away. It was a gorgeous little thing with its dark brown upper parts, strong pale supercilium and rather greyish underparts. It regularly flicked its wings as it hunted around in the trees, often concentrating on the "knuckle" of the pollarded area. As it was constantly moving I was content to spend my time just watching it rather than trying to photograph it.

A Twitch Shot, all lined up in the corner watching the Dusky Warbler

A superb shot of the bird taken by Chris Bromley (c)

After a while it was getting time for me to head back to the car as I'd promised my VLW that I'd be back for lunch so as the first few drops of rain started to fall I hurried back to the car and pointed the Gnome-mobile towards home. As I raced back down the M40 I savoured the warm glow of a successful twitch - it had been great to get such good views of what is normally a very skulking species, definitely four hours well spent!

Farmoor Grebe Revenge

Amongst the many lists that I keep one is my Oxon County Grip List. This is the list of birds that I have missed over the years which would have been county ticks for me had I been around to get them. For them to go on the list the bird has to be reasonably twitchable so obviously a single-observer sighting doesn't count. Mercifully, this list is rather small and comprises: Manx Shearwater, Red-necked Grebe, Purple Sandpiper, Citrine Wagtail (which we don't talk about), Red-throated Diver (though this only hung around for about an hour so wasn't very twitchable) and Sandwich Tern. The latter is my county bogey bird - often just a fly-through at Farmoor though there have been a couple recently (Pit 60 and Grimsbury Reservoir) that have stayed for twitchable lengths of time though the news was never put out. Anyway, all these birds, whilst being fairly common or garden nationally have somehow eluded me within the county. So when Dai John phoned me this morning saying that he had a Red-necked Grebe at Farmoor I didn't hang around at all but threw my gear into the Gnome-mobile and headed off to the concrete basin. As I drove my thoughts went back to the last one which had been found three years ago in October 2010 whilst I'd been down in Cornwall. The one before that was 2006 so this species is definitely a good bird for the county and I was keen to make up for my miss.

As Dai had found it on the south side of F2 I parked up along the Lower Whitely Farm road to save time (and money) and soon found myself looking at a Grebe though it turned out to be the long-staying Slavonian. A quick call to Dai ascertained that the Red-necked had moved round to the west bank of F2 so it was a 10 minute yomp around to that side before I arrived, out of breath to find Dai and Terry Sherlock watching the bird. And what a cracker it was too - I set about taking some digiscoped photos of it.

The Red-necked Grebe

After a while I decided to walk around to the causeway to pay my respects to the male Long-tailed Duck that was hanging out by the hide - it had been around for several days now. As he was going that way Dai kindly gave me lift which saved a good ten minute slog - Farmoor is just so big compared to Port Meadow. The Duck was diving away quite close in-shore so I took some snaps with the super-zoom.

The Long-tailed Duck

On the way back to where I parked I managed to find a Common Sandpiper near the car park, the first for a few weeks on Farmoor apparently.

Common Sandpiper

Then it was back home to bask in the glory of a revenge tick and ceremoniously to cross Red-necked Grebe off my Oxon County Grip List.

Farmoor is having a real purple patch at present what with Long-tailed Duck, Gannet, two or three separate Bonxie records, and now the complete set of the rarer Grebes. What will turn up next?