Arctic Fudge

As you will have noticed from the lack of posts on this blog, apart from regular visits to my local patch at Port Meadow, I've not been out birding much of late. It's all down to the weather of course, this horrible grey bone-chilling coldness that's sitting over the country at present, keeping the spring out. Nevertheless, spring vagrants had started to battle their way to our shores despite the weather: the first trickle of migrants had started with the odd Wheatear, a few Sand Martins, a Black Redstart and a Ring Ouzel appearing in the county. In the country the first overshoots had started to arrive  with a Red-rumped Swallow and a Hoopoe (that subsequently died) on the Scilly, a Bluethroat and a Kentish Plover (the latter a bogey bird for me) down at Portland. So, despite the weather, things were actually starting to kick off. 

It was with this backdrop that news broke on Monday morning, via the Badger Text Alert, of a possible Ferruginous Duck on Otmoor that had been found by one of the wardens. The warden had been adamant about the ID but had only seen it briefly. Team Badger set off to investigate. Myself, I'm a bit more of a lazy twitcher: unless it's close by or on my patch I'll wait until someone else (often Badger) has checked it out first before setting off. Of course this will mean that I'll miss a proportion of birds but as my twitching brownies points are limited I have to be selective. A couple of hours go by, I'm staring out of my office window at the freezing coldness and hoping that the bird isn't found or it turns out to be a Tufted Duck or something. No such luck: Badger called to say that it was a Fudge Duck but it was very elusive, skulking around in the reeds. "Oh, and it's absolutely freezing out here", he added. Bugger! Now, I don't actually need Fudge Duck for my county list thanks to a sighting that I had a few years ago on Port Meadow. Now, it's not on any official records so perhaps it's time that I tell the story and perhaps actually submit the record. It was the autumn of 2007 and I'd only just taken up birding again. I was down on Port Meadow by Burgess Field gate looking through all the ducks with my ancient binoculars that were all I had back then. Whilst I watched a duck flew in, landed close by and started swimming actively through the other ducks. I remember it to be a really striking bright mahogany colour, not like anything that I'd seen before. I had just enough experience to think that it might be a Ferruginous Duck though I'd never seen one. It stayed for less than ten minutes before flying off. Back then I didn't know anything about reporting sightings etc so it just quietly went on my list. With hindsight I never checked anything like the undertail coverts or the nail on the bill etc so I didn't rule out any hybrid possibilities but at the time to my inexperienced eye it looked just like the one in my new Collins bird book when I got back home to check. Since then I've seen others out of county but that sighting has stayed on my county list. With that "unofficial" tick hanging over me I felt that perhaps I should make an effort as an "insurance tick" against my then-inexperienced ID. Thus it was that I packed my gear into the car, put on as many layers as I could physically wear and set off for Otmoor. Of course the bird was right by the second screen, as far away as possible and by the time I'd yomped over there I was actually feeling quite warm in all my layers and had to unzip my coat. En route I'd seen a lovely Barn Owl sleeping out on a post behind the feeders though Peter Barker later informed me that it had been there all morning so perhaps wasn't too well. I met several people coming back from the duck including Dave Doherty, Bark and Paul Greenaway, all who had successfully seen the bird.

 The car park Barn Owl - not looking well

Up by the second screen I found Terry Sherlock, Badger, Roger Wyatt and an unidentified birder all huddling behind the screen and looking cold. It turned out that the bird had been seen three times in total: twice in the last channel before the second screen and once in front of the screen though it had flushed when the rest of the gang had rushed up to see it. I joined them in staring at the water by the second screen for a while with the wind blasting straight into the screen and through the viewing gaps in an unforgiving manner. Unlike Farmoor and Port Meadow, Otmoor is full of hiding places for birds and it could be skulking anywhere in the reeds and with this wind would probably want to remain hidden away in their shelter. It was a Herculean task - I wondered just why I'd bothered to come out.

Terry, Badger and an unknown birder

After a while Roger went for a walk to warm up. I chatted to Badger about this and that and then Roger hurried back to ask if we'd seen the bird as he'd just flushed it from close by. Doh! we'd been too busy chatting and had missed it. I blamed the cold for my lack of concentration. A short time later I was getting too frozen so decided to go for a stroll to warm up and Roger joined me. We went to stare at the channel again where it had been seen most often. Of course viewing was difficult and restricted and one had to move around to see different parts of the curving channel. Roger told me that actually he'd flushed the bird from a smaller side tributary between us and the screen. At that point the unidentified birder came towards us and flushed a duck from the same tributary. He then rushed up to say that that had in fact been the Fudge Duck and this did indeed tally with what I'd seen in flight. We managed to see it in the channel briefly and Roger rattled off a few shots though it's back was to us, it was distant and it quickly swam out of view. We called over Badger and Terry and we all stood around, chatting and staring at the channel. Now that I'd actually seen the bird I was more relaxed but also starting to think about home, food and warmth. Paul Chandler came and joined the throng. The duck showed no immediate sign of reappearing and so I decided to head back to the car, meeting the Wickster and Peter Law coming the other way en route. I nipped in to the New Hide to scan Ashgrave for the White-fronted Geese but couldn't see them. Apparently there is a hidden section of the field where lots of the birds congregate so they almost certainly were there but out of sight. Back by the feeders the Barn Owl was still there, poor thing! I reached the sanctuary of the car and sped off home, happy to be out of the cold.

 

Thank heavens for Badger (c) and his digiscoping - here's what all the fuss was about

I later learnt that the bird wasn't seen again that day after my sighting so I'd been lucky and with my unofficial tick now backed up with a proper (albeit brief) sighting I could relax. Let's hope it sticks around and is more co-operative so that those who want to can get to see it. For myself, I hope that the next one of what is a rare bird in the county is found in warmer conditions with easier viewing.

A Brief Trip Down to Cornwall

Once again below is an amalgamation of my posts from my Pendeen Birding blog with some minor additions for a more Oxon-centric audience.


Sunday 24th Ham Wall RSPB, St John's Ford & Rosenannon Downs

It seems like far too long since I was last down in Cornwall. Even though from a distance things seem rather quiet down there I still miss the great birding and anyway it can't be any quieter than it is back in Oxon of late.With a few bookings coming up in the cottage in March I needed to come back down to meet up with the builder to discuss a couple of small projects, basically some minor weatherproofing jobs that needed to be done. It would also be an opportunity for me to do some cosmetic work on some of the damp patches that we still have at present. In the days leading up to my arrival I'd been keeping a weather eye on what birds were down in Cornwall as well as looking out for anything good that I might like to drop in on en route (which is a very flexible concept in my book). The Pied-billed Grebe at Ham Wall RSPB in Somerset had conveniently stayed around for a while now and was only a short detour from the motorway so I marked that down for starters. In addition there were quite a few birds around that I still needed for my fledgling Cornish list which I was keen to try for. To start with there was a drake Green-winged Teal at St John's ford near Torpoint which looked tempting and I thought that I'd stop off at Wacker Quay to look for Avocets whilst I was going that way. If I had time I was wondering about seeking out some Cirl Buntings and there was also the possibility of Short-eared Owls at Rosenannon Downs over towards St Columb Major. So plenty to play for just in getting down to Pendeen.

I set off at around 8:15 on Sunday morning and with the roads nice and clear I arrived at Ham Wall at around 10:45 a.m. I was just getting tooled up when I met a posse of Oxford birders just returning from paying homage to the Grebe themselves. Apparently, in the absence of "enforcer" Bark who normally ensure that everyone is present and correct, the Otmoor Massive had snuck off to more productive counties! Not only was the Badger Birding Crew present, namely Badger, Andy Last and Elemen Terry (though sans "Two Eyes" who was duck hunting on Uist) but also Klackers and his wife Shirley were there and Steve Jennings had been and gone already. A sad indictment of Oxon birding in February unfortunately.

Myself and Klackers at Ham Wall with the Gnome-mobile 

in the background (c) Badger

We chatted for a while and then the BBC headed off to Exeter to look for Cirl Buntings whilst I set off to find the Grebe. Ham Wall is basically a large bank of reed beds and pools on either side of a central path with viewing platforms and hides placed along the route.  It was still very chilly with a really biting cold wind so I was wrapped up really warm. I walked as briskly as I could towards the second viewing platform with Glastonbuy Tor in the distance watching over proceedings. As I hurried along I heard my first Cetti's Warbler of the year calling from within the reeds, sadly it's become a rather rare sound in Oxfordshire after the recent harsh winters. There were only half a dozen or so birders at the second screen but the Grebe was on show when I arrived and someone soon got me onto it. Unfortunately it was rather distant and it insisted on loitering right at the back of the open water but despite the near-continual tripod-shakingily bitter wind I was able to make out all the salient features. A Marsh Harrier floated by in the distance and there was the usual mix of Wigeon, Teal, Shoveler and Little Grebes dotted around the place. Presently the Pied-billed Grebe disappeared from view for about ten minutes before it turned up again and I watched it until I started feeling too cold. After that it was a brisk yomp back to the car and back on to the motorway towards Cornwall.

Given how far away the bird was and how much the tripod was shaking

 this rubbish record shot is actually a pretty good achievement!

Peter Law got a better shot of the Grebe a few days earlier (c) Peter Law

I took the A38 rather than the A30 at the fork after Exeter and headed towards the Plymouth area where a lot of my target birds were located. I had been wondering about nipping in for the Lesser Yellowlegs at Ernesettle (on the Devon side of the Tamar) but in the end decided that I didn't really have time if I wanted to see some of my Cornish targets so I chose to give it a miss. Instead I headed towards Torpoint and St John's ford with the Green-winged Teal in mind. I did stop off for a few minutes at Wacker Quay where I found some birders already set up by the "viewing gap" - they kindly let me take a look at the Spoonbill they were watching so I didn't even need to get my scope out. Unfortunately there were no Avocet there today (still a Cornish tick for me) which I'd been hoping for, though of course a Spoonbill is always nice to see. I soon arrived at St John's ford which is an interesting little spot. The single-track road passes through a narrow ford at the west end of St John's Lake (it's interesting how the tidal creeks and side channels of the Tamar are called "Lakes"). Either side of the narrow road was very soft and deep mud so one had to be careful where one trod. The tide was rather low when I arrived though it had turned and was on the way in again. Some of the birds could be viewed by the parking area but the Green-winged Teal had usually been reported over towards the sewage outlet further around. To view this area one had to walk along the bottom of a field and peer awkwardly through a thin strip of trees. As I started along this path I met up with a couple of lady birders. It turned out that this was their third attempt at the Teal so they were keen to find it. Another birder also arrived but between the four of us we couldn't see it anywhere. There were plenty of Teal, Wigeon, Redshank, Shelduck, Little Egrets and Curlew all enjoying the mud and right over in the distance towards Torpoint there was a flock of several hundred small waders that I presumed were Dunlin. There's always something very atmospheric about such places and the haunting calls of the Curlew only added to the charm of the location: in nice warm weather I could happily spend hours birding here. After a while we started to head back towards the ford to take another look down at that end. I set up my scope to view down the Lake where the incoming water was smoothing out the nooks, crannies and hiding places for a Teal so surely the bird would have to be seen at some point. A Grey Wagtail flew by, calling to announce its presence. I kept on scanning and sure enough I soon spotted the Green-winged Teal in the distance near the Sewage outlet dabbling away quite happily. I called over the others and we all enjoyed our rather distant views for a while before he swam out of sight behind the sewage outlet wall. Whilst we could probably seen him again if we walked back along the field I felt that I'd seen enough and time was marching on. As I made my way back to the car a Nuthatch called loudly from in the wooded hillside on the opposite side of the river. Time to head off for my next target.

Another very distant record shot

It was now well after 3pm and I was running out of daylight. I had thought about nipping down to Rame Head for a look round but in the end decided to give that a miss and instead to press on towards the Penwith peninsula and instead to stop off at Rosenannon Downs, located between Wadebridge and St Columb Major. There had been reports of large Lapland Bunting flocks, Harriers and Short-eared Owls there in recent weeks and I was particularly keen to see if I could catch up with the Owls which would be Cornish ticks for me. I'd already coded the location up in my trusty Sat. Nav app and it took me safely there where I arrived in good time at around 4:30pm. 

 Rosenannon Downs

There were several birders already installed there so I went over to join them. They'd seen a Merlin so far but little else of note. Downland habitats are another area with a wonderfully atmospheric feel to them, it's the silence that is most striking to me. However, although the wind seemed to have died down it was very cold and standing around until dark was going to be a bit of an ordeal. There didn't seem to be much to look at either though a couple of the others thought that they saw a Harrier in the distance just above the skyline briefly though I couldn't get on it.  A few large flocks of Starlings went over, their wing beats making an eerie sound in the quiet. A couple of Reed Buntings were calling in the trees behind us and a Yellowhammer turned up and gave us a few renditions of its song. We watched and waited. A Buzzard flew over us. More watching in the cold silence. A lady birder turned up who was a regular for the area. She told us that the top left-hand corner was often where the owls were seen so thereafter I concentrated on this spot. Sure enough just as it was getting dark I spotted a Short-eared Owl sitting on top of a small Hawthorn bush. As we watched a Fox trotted up behind it, presumably stalking it though the Owl spotted it and flapped silently off. As it got darker a Tawny Owl started to call distantly. Finally just at last light a Woodcock flapped over, a nice end to a quiet session. Nevertheless, I'd managed to see my target Short-eared Owl so it had been a successful trip.

By now it was after 6pm and I still had a way to go to get to the cottage. I gave my VLW a quick call so that she wouldn't be wondering where I was and then headed back towards the A30 and on towards Pendeen. It had been a long day, but a successful one with some nice birds seen en route. I arrived at a little after 8pm, booted up the Cottage and had something to eat and a celebratory beer - it had been an enjoyable start to my visit to Cornwall.

Monday 25th February: Hayle, Stithians & Marazion

As I was intending only to have one full day down in Cornwall before heading back home I knew that today was going to be a busy one! I had to do all my chores for the cottage, meet up with the builder to discuss some work and also try to cram in as much birding as possible into the one day. Accordingly, before it was light I was heading out the door and over towards Hayle where my first birds of the day were to be looked for. Just as I was leaving Pendeen heading for Penzance I spotted a lovely Barn Owl hunting by the chimney ruins - a very nice start to the day. The reason for my early start was that I wanted to look for Jack Snipe over at Copperhouse Creek and had been told that I had to get there before the dog walkers arrived. Fortunately the tide was in my favour and it was just about still covering the reedy east corner when I pulled up so there was no possibilty of any prior doggy intervention. I realised that I probably should have brought wellies rather than just my walking boots but it turned out that the mud was only an inch or two deep before one hit gravel so I was going to be all right, albeit rather muddy. I spent the next hour or so tramping around looking for that tell-tale underfoot flush but all the birds were Common Snipe that sped off before I got anywhere near them. Oh well, another time. The weather was actually really nice first thing with some sunshine and none of that biting north easterly wind that was so chilling. The estuary was full of the usual birds but a Greenshank caught my eye as being more noteworthy for this time of year. I had a quick look for the Water Pipit on the salt marsh on the other side of the road but couldn't see any sign of it. A calling Blackbird in Phillack was giving a reasonable impersonation of a Rosefinch which had me going enough to go and check just to be on the safe side. One's got to check these things out even if they usually end up being nothing. Oh well, on to the next location.

A Little Egret in the morning sunlight

Next stop was just around the corner at the Hayle estuary to look for some Yellow-legged Gulls. Now Cornish readers may not really be aware of this but back home in Oxford I'm known for being a bit of a gull addict and regularly spent my evenings checking out the gull roost on my local patch of Port Meadow, and delighting in picking out Caspian Gulls and Yellow-legged Gulls from the throng. In fact we had a real purple patch on the Meadow at the start of the month with two Glaucous Gulls, an Iceland Gull, countless Yellow-legged Gulls and four different Caspian Gulls all in the space of two weeks. Back in Cornwall there are not usually the same gulling opportunities. Sure there were Med Gulls to pick out from the Black-headed's but one was not faced with a flock of thousands to sift through like back home. Even here on the Hayle estuary there were probably only a couple of hundred gulls or so to look through. Yellow-legged Gull is much rarer down here than in Oxon where I can reasonably expect at least one in most evenings - in fact here it would be a Cornish tick for me. There were supposed to be two or three of them about at present: an adult, a third winter and a first winter. I parked up at the Jet Wash and set about scanning through the birds. By this time it was still sunny (a bad thing for gulls as it's hard to judge the mantle colours) and to make matters worse the tripod-shaking bitter wind was back. However with only relatively few birds about to search through it didn't take me too long to find at least the adult and the third winter. One fact which makes gulling easier down here in Cornwall is the absence of argentatus Herring Gulls. Back in Oxon we get a mix of both types and everything in between but here they are all pure "British" Herring Gulls and consequently much more uniform in appearance which makes something different much easier to pick out. The third winter was rather advanced with hardly any brown streaks left in it though the absence of almost any white apical marks in its long dark primaries was rather a give-away. The adult bird really stood out from the argenteus Herring Gulls as well with it's strikingly dark mantle and very long primaries though its legs only had a pale yellow hint to them at this time of year.

The adult bird

I next moved on to the river bridge to see what was about with four Grey Plover and a few Bar-tailed Godwits being the only waders of note. I could only spot three Mediterranean Gulls in amongst the smaller gulls (two adults and a first winter). As the light was still very good I spent a little time taking a few snaps with the Super-zoom camera. After that it was time to head back to the cottage to get on with my chores for the morning and to meet up with the builder.

Hayle Oystercatcher

I managed to get all my work at the cottage done fairly quickly and the meeting with the builder was surprisingly brief so I soon found myself with some free time on my hands. I therefore decided to head east to Stithians Reservoir to see if I could catch up with the Brambling that had been regularly visiting the feeders there for some time now. I arrived to find John St Ledger in the hide watching the feeders and I soon managed to add Brambling to my Cornish list. There were at least two birds coming regularly to the feeders or feeding on the ground below along with at least 30 Chaffinch, some House Sparrows, a few Reed Buntings and a very secretive Water Rail skulking around under the feeders that would scurry off at the slightest noise, so I wasn't able to get a photo of it at all. I munched on my packed lunch and enjoyed the coming and goings of all the birds for about an hour.

 Brambling is one of my favourite finches

After that I nipped over the road to check out the main reservoir where there was supposed to be a juvenile Long-tailed Duck about. In the hide I met Alex Mckechnie though he'd not see any sign of it. Back on the causeway road I found a couple of other birders who apparently had seen it briefly about twenty minutes ago with some Tufted Ducks though I couldn't find it at all. The biting wind was still making things difficult so I didn't stay too long before heading off for somewhere more sheltered.

Whilst I was in the neighbourhood I thought that I would drop in on the juvenile Whooper Swan which had been spending some time on Croft Pascoe after having originally been found on the Helston boating lake. Clearly lost it had decided to stick around at Croft Pascoe for a while where at least there was plenty for it to eat. It looked rather forlorn on its own - let's hope that it manages to find its way north to meet up with others of its own kind in the spring.

The lonely juvenile Whooper Swan

After that I wondered what to do next. I contemplated looking for the mixed Bunting flock (Lapland and Snow) on Treen Common but the prospect of spending more time out in the wind wasn't that appealing. Instead I opted for the shelter of Marazion where the sea was relatively and calm and I would be out of the wind. A scan of the bay to the west of the Mount found only a couple of Great Northern Divers so I moved to Marazion itself and found a nice little viewing spot in the form of a tiny public garden right next to the Godolphin Hotel that allowed me to view the bay to the east of the Mount. To start with there was a large flock of waders directly below me all seeking shelter from the high tide and gorging themselves on the invertebrates in the exposed sea weed that had been washed up against the wall. There must have been at least 50 Sanderling, 30 Turnstone and about 20 Dunlin as well as a Rock Pipit and a single Knot. It was a delight to watch the birds scampering about at such close quarters. Out in the bay a couple of huge rafts of roosting gulls were assembling: the big gulls were way over in the distance but close by was the small gull roost and in amongst the hoard of at least a thousand Black-headed Gulls I found twelve Med. Gulls (ten adults, a second winter and a first winter). I had been hoping for some Black or Red-throated Divers but there were none to be seen. 

After a while it started to get dark so I headed back to the cottage for something to eat and to get on with my evening chores. It had been an enjoyable if rather low-key day's birding.

Tuesday 26th February: Homeward Bound

Today I was heading back home already, the end of an all too brief visit. Before I could leave though I had lots to do in the cottage first: some final finishing off of my touching up work and cleaning up after myself to a standard fit for our first guests in a couple of weeks time. Thus it wasn't until nearly midday that I finally left the cottage and headed on up the A30.

Of course I was going to stop off somewhere en route but given the lateness of my departure I opted for just one brief detour. I'd been given some details of where to look for the release scheme Cirl Buntings so decided to go and take a look. I'd been given a couple of locations to try but when I arrived at the first one I wasn't exactly sure where to go. I wandered around a bit and found a couple of bird feeders outside a house but they were empty - were they supposed to be the feeders that the Cirl would come to? I checked out a few nearby fields but there was nothing very promising and it was blowing a real gale so any sensible Bunting would be well hunkered down. I wandered back to where I'd parked. In a nearby thicket of bramble a few House Sparrows were chirping away noisily though they were impossible to see in the denseness of the cover. I wandered down a footpath a little and found a stubble field though its only occupants were half a dozen Skylarks. Defeated I headed back towards the car. I'd just got back to the bramble thicket when I spotted something moving on its edges: a Cirl Bunting! It crept deeper into the brambles before I could get my camera out but at least I'd had a reward for my efforts.

I went on to the second location which was in a little hamlet and had another wander around. There were plenty of Chaffinches around everywhere and some birds coming to some feeders but no sign of any Cirls. With time marching on, a sighting already in the bag and the first signs of a cold starting to take hold within me (I blame standing around on Rosenannon Downs for hours in the freezing cold!) I didn't linger but headed back home to Oxford, arriving early evening.

With no photo of the Cirl Bunting I offer instead some 

Hayle estuary Teal from yesterday

Looking back it had been quite a productive little visit despite the quietness of the time of year. That's the advantage of having a county list to work on: it gives you something to go for even when all is quiet. I'd managed to add four ticks to my list as well as the release scheme Cirl Bunting, namely: Green-winged Teal, Short-eared Owl, Yellow-legged Gull and Brambling. Of course after a while I'll have got all the easy Cornish ticks and it will become progressively harder to find stuff that I still need but for now it was keeping me happy. With spring now just around the corner I couldn't wait to come back down to my favourite part of the country.

Golden Revenge

February is a quiet month in the birding calendar: in January you run around getting your patch or national year ticks, snapping up everything that's around. However, come February you've done all that and there often seems little to do but wait until the spring arrives. I have certainly been feeling like this of late - the county seems suddenly bereft of birds and even my beloved Patch at Port Meadow has gone very quiet which has left me rather kicking my heels. It was for these reasons that recently I'd been casting around for ideas for a birding trip. The only point of interest on my radar was the Pied-billed Grebe down in Somerset but I was hoping to see that en route to Cornwall as I need to pop down there in the next couple of weeks to sort out some things with the cottage. Thus it was that I started thinking about a revenge trip to Norfolk to see if I could finally catch up with one of my bogey birds, namely the elusive (though it feels to me more like "mythical") Golden Pheasant. On just about every trip I've made to Norfolk I've stopped off at the Wolferton Triangle and stared with increasing despair at the mass of Rhododendrons hoping that one of these wretched birds would actually show itself. It's funny but I've now started to develop a Pavlovian association between Rhododendrons and a feeling of failure! I was therefore most keen to put this bird to rest so that I wouldn't have to undergo the curb-crawl of frustration any more. My thoughts hadn't really got much further than a vague idea about this but over the weekend the Badger Birding Crew had gone on a trip down to Norfolk and they'd managed to score a pair of the bastard birds (see Ewan's excellent write-up here). Right that was it, I'd had to go! Badger helpfully pointed out that of late they were being reported every day on RBA and not just at first light so it really did look like now would be a great time to make a concerted effort. Thus it was that I hatched my plan. Badger et al. had gone for a four o'clock start in order to arrive at Wolferton. Having tried that in the past I was somewhat reluctant - I know I can't really call myself a hard-core birder if I wimp out of an early start and three hour drive before daybreak but the fact is that if I do that then I just feel really tired all day and it rather spoils the enjoyment for me (which I have to remind myself is after all what it's all about). Thus it was that I decided on my usual tactics of driving up the previous night and staying in a local B&B. and this way I didn't have to drive both ways in one day as well. A bit of consultation on the internet (how we managed before the internet I'll never know) and I soon found plenty of B&B's in Dersingham, literally no more than five minutes away from Wolferton. I picked out Ashdene House which had great reviews on TripAdvisor and booked in. After an uneventful drive up after dinner on Tuesday night I installed myself in what turned out to be a pleasant enough B&B and looked forward to the following day's birding.

I was up before the lark and in place at Wolferton just as it was starting to get light at about 6:45. The recent RBA reports had all been for the southern section so parked up perhaps two thirds of the way towards the apex of the triangle and settled down to wait. It was a cold and rather gloomy start to the day and without the car engine on (I assumed that this would deter the birds) it was cold enough for me to put on some extra layers. In the company of Radio 4 I watched and waited. There were quite a few small birds hopping about on the margins, mostly Blackbirds, Tits and Robins. Another car turned up and positioned itself on the apex looking back towards me. Time passed. I noticed a Blackbird in my rear-view mirror on the other side of the road. More time passed. At around 7:30 I noticed a very yellow blob moving behind the Blackbird in the rear-view mirror - that looked promising! I turned round and Halleluja there was a Golden Pheasant picking it's way along the margins in the gloom. I carefully opened the car window and leant out just enough to shoot some video footage. They truly were stunning birds to look at, a real riot of colours. Interestingly, their golden headdress combined with their black faces and throats really imparted an ancient Egyptian look to them. Apart from the ridiculously long tail, the body itself was smaller than a Common Pheasant, something which I'd not been expecting. The wings were a deep irridescent blue, with beautiful deep red underparts and a sprout of red alongside the greenish tail - all in all they were a marvel to behold. Incidentally, the black throats on these birds have been a point of contention, with some people postulating that they might be Lady A. hybrids though Martin Garner thinks (see here) that actually they are mutant pure-bred birds reverting back to the obscurus sub-species. Anyway, it foraged happily for a couple of minutes and then disappeared again. Elated at my success I could now relax and try and get some more views. I turned the car around so that it was facing the other way and waited to see if he would come out again. Another car turned up facing me and about five minutes later out came the pheasant again and walked across the road literally right in front of the other car to the obvious delight of the occupants before disappearing into the undergrowth. I decided to spend a little while longer to see if I could get any more views but at around 8:30 I started to feel hungry and decided to head back to the B&B for my well-earned full English breakfast and to bask in the glory of my revenge tick.

A videograb of the Golden Pheasant

..and some video footage. It's a shame it was so gloomy

Whilst enjoying my breakfast I contemplated what to do next. Although I had the whole of Norfolk at my disposal, the truth was that even Norfolk was rather quiet at present. There were one or two Rough-legged Buzzards knocking about, Snow Buntings at Salthouse and an elusive juvenile White-tailed Eagle in the Dersingham area but somehow none of those really appealed. I also wanted to get back home reasonably early so decided to concentrate just on the really good stuff. Thus it was that my second and final destination of the day was Thetford for the Black-bellied Dipper which was over-wintering in the area. About an hour later I pulled up in the car park by the Three Nuns Bridges on the south side of Thetford. As I got out of the car a birder and his son were just packing up. I enquired about the Dipper only to be told that he'd seen no sign of it in the hour that he'd been present. Bugger, I thought. Still as I was here I'd might as well have a look round. At the very least I could stretch my legs before the long journey back home. I got tooled up and set off for an explore.

It was rather an interesting little area with the Great Ouse and the River Thet running parallel to each other through two old stone bridges. In between was a small, fast-running stream, a tributory of the River Thet. From the pager directions I knew that the bird wasn't on the Ouse so I wandered over the metal footbridge and in to the muddy field behind. There was no one else about to give any clues to where the bird might be so I decided to follow my nose. The River Thet on the other side of the field was relatively deep and slow flowing, not really Dipper habitat so that left the small stream. I decided to follow this to see how far it went and although usually the bird was being reported as being east of the main bridge, today I found it on the west side, about 100 yards above the bridge. Over the next hour I watched it as it worked its way up and down the stream though in the end it spent most of its time back on the east side. It was a pretty confiding bird and one could easily see the all-dark belly, lacking the usual chestnut band below the white bib which our birds have. There are actually 13 or 14 sub-species of Dipper (Cinclus cinclus) though in this country the usual ones that one comes across are c.c. hibernicus in Ireland and western Scotland, and c.c. gularis everywhere else in the country. The Black-bellied c.c. cinclus sub-species breeds in northern Scandinavia but then migrates south in the winter, normally to Finland, southern Sweden and western Germany. Occasionally one will make it over the channel as this one had. Anyway, I had the bird to myself for a good period of time before other people started turning up and I decided to leave. A quick walk along the river Thet found some nice accompanying birds: a Lesser Redpoll, several Siskins, a couple of Marsh Tits and a Treecreeper which were all nice to see.

I used the youTube image stabliser function to get rid of the camera shake which is why the screen area is hopping around all over the place. I really should get a tripod!

Time was marching on so I headed back to the car, fired up the Gnome-mobile and set the Sat Nav for home. It had been an enjoyable February interlude in Norfolk and thank heavens I won't have to put in more hours staring at Rhododenron bushes at Wolferton in the future! Revenge is sweet.

Take Your Birding Where You Can Get It!

I've not been out for a major birding outing for a while now. I've been working away on my patch at Port Meadow and have been enjoying some good gullage there but apart from that there's been little to report. Weekends are generally tied up with family stuff so I don't get much chance to go birding. However, I'm always alert to the possibility of sneaking in a bijou spotette of birding and this weekend just such an opportunity presented itself.

On Saturday a family trip to London was mooted: my VLW and our younger daughter wanted to go shopping and L, our 6 year old son, didn't want to be left out so I offered to take him to some museums which he might like. We had been thinking of the Imperial War Museum which we've been told all young boys love but according to their web-site it was closed for refurbishment at present so we decided to try the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs. A quick preparatory look on the map revealed that Hyde Park was very close by where of course there are a couple of over-wintering female Bearded Tits in residence. Thus was hatched a plan for some opportunistic birding. 

We decided to have our picnic lunch in the park before visiting the museums and so we walked up from High Street Kensington. It was great to see and hear all the Ring-necked Parakeets calling away noisily within the park grounds. I know that they are viewed as pests in some quarters but I think that they're wonderful, lending a real tone of the exotic to the urban landscape.

The Bearded Tits were apparently located in a small reedbed right next to the Diana Memorial fountain on the south side of the Serpantine. When we got there L spent a happy half an hour running around and jumping over the fountain whilst I enjoyed seeing the Beardies at point blank range in what is a pretty tiny reedbed, being no more than a couple of metres deep and perhaps twenty metres long. They seemed completely oblivious to the people passing by and were busy feeding away on the reed heads. It was comical to watch them as they worked their way up the reeds until their weight proved too much for the stem which would suddenly bend over and the bird would disappear out of sight. I spent some time trying to photograph them with my Super zoom though they were tricky little things as they were continually on the move.

After a while L grew restless so we finished off our food and headed to the museums. The Natural History Museum had a huge queue by the entrance and they were only letting people in every few minutes which looked ominous. Inside it was absolutely heaving and altogether very unpleasant. There was a half hour queue to see the dinosaurs and L said that he didn't want to see them anyway so after a brief wander around some (mostly rather lame) volcano exhibits we left and went to the Science Museum instead where L amused himself for a while. When he'd had enough we headed back to the park for an ice cream and a wander around the Serpentine to clear our heads after the crowds. There was a surprising variety of birds on the water with Tufted Duck, Pochard, Shoveler, Red-crested Pochard, Egyptian Goose, Great-crested Grebe and Gadwall all seen as well as plenty of Black-headed Gulls with a few Herring and Common Gulls thrown in as well. It's great to have these park oases right within the centre of London. By this time L was getting tired so we wandered back to the tube and home to Oxford. It had been an enjoyable day trip with a bit of opportunistic birding thrown in to boot.

Berkshire Sprite

Berkshire seems to be having a real purple patch at the moment. Last month it was the Buff-bellied Pipit, and then unbelievably a second one joined the first one. This month they had a Yellow-browed Warbler at Moor Green Lakes NR - not quite in the same league as a BPP but at this time of year for an inland site, it was nevertheless impressive. Add to this a supporting cast of various Divers, a Long-tailed Duck and a Red-necked Grebe all at at Queen Mother's Reservoir and it makes for a good period. All good stuff but apart from the Pipit which I'd already seen, not enough to tempt me out of God's Own County. However, on Sunday the Warbler was "upgraded" (i.e. re-identified from photos) from a Yellow-browed to a Pallas's Warbler (it seems that people don't bother with the full "Leaf" or "Yellow-browed" bit in the name any more) which is yet another amazing find for an inland county. Anyway, this was enough to tempt me off my rather Christmas-be-larded derrière to go and take a look. Judging from past RBA reports, it seemed that the morning was best but with yesterday's forecast for snow and rain all morning I decided to wait a day until today to have a go for it. Thus is was that this morning at around 8 a.m. I was scraping ice off the Gnome-mobile and setting the Sat Nav co-ordinates for Moor Green Lakes NR, before plunging into the torrent of rush-hour traffic south along the A34. I arrived some time after 9 a.m. after an uneventful journey to find several other cars in the rather small car park. The people in the car next to me were just getting ready as well and one of enquired whether I was after anything special, which rather puzzled me as I would have thought that it was rather obvious. Anyway, it turned out that they'd not heard about the Pallas's Warbler and were just there to take a look around though they didn't seem that interested in looking for it and were more keen on the Mistle Thrush in the adjacent paddock - each to their own. Some ten minutes later I was at the Blackwater River where I met up with a few other birders and we all headed west along the river to the conveyor belt bridge as apparently in recent days it had been seen to the west of this landmark. It was a rather cold and cloudy start with and fairly birdless. After a while we came across a Long-tailed Tit flock and watched with keen interest - apparently the bird was always associating with a flock such as this though it wasn't in this one. At that point I got an RBA text reporting the bird as still present at the western most end of the stretch. I hurried off in this direction where I soon met up with Mike McKee (who found the the Buff-bellied Pipits at QMR) and it turned out that it was he who'd reported the bird again that morning. He was hurrying the other way after the flock with the target bird in and so I tagged along with him. We soon caught up with the flock and I had my first fleeting glimpse of the star attraction. Fortunately after that it wasn't too hard to keep track of where it was and we followed the bird all the way back to the conveyor belt bridge before the flock turned around and went back the other way along the river. Periodically one would get a view of it and sometimes it even came down and worked its way along the bank on the ground, thereby giving some excellent if brief views. Mike was trying to get a photo and he did indeed manage a few record shots with his DSLR but with my slower super-zoom I didn't even bother trying but instead just enjoyed watching the bird.

It wasn't hard to see why it had been mis-identified as a Yellow-browed for so long: the crown stripe was rather subdued and during the whole time I was there I never saw the pale yellow rump. Given how hard it was to photograph it wasn't until some ten days after it was first discovered that someone got a photo good enough to ID it for what it really was. However, even without the crown stripe or rump, the supercilium was striking with the more intense yellow colour between the eye and the bill as well as extending all the way onto the nape along with the strong black eye strike. With the benefit of the correct ID it wasn't too hard to pick out the salient features in the field.

What a stunner! This is by far the best photo that I've seen of this bird 

anywhere on the internet and is a real achievement given how hard it was to take 

any kind of shot of it. Not taken by me of course but by Dave Perrett (c)

The River Blackwater - the bird spends most of it's time along 

the far side which is Hants, the near side being Berks. 

Mike McKee and Chris Heard looking for it in the copse

 Warbler Twitchers

After a couple of hours it had worked its way all the way back to the west end of the river by the road where it was first found. By this time I'd had my fill of this gorgeous little bird and decided to wend my way back home, please to have spent some time with this cracking little sprite.

Cornwall for the New Year

Another summary of my posts on Pendeen Birding from a quiet few days down in Cornwall to see the New Year in.

Sunday 30th December
I'm back down in Cornwall to see the New Year in with my family. It was a bit of a last minute decision but we did it last year so there are the seeds of a new tradition emerging. The weather forecast wasn't that great but we thought that we'd give it a go anyway. Normally when I'm travelling on my own I like to leave nice and early but with the inertia of the whole family to deal with it took ages to get ready to go. A detour to buy some food for the journey and the need to buy some new car windscreen wipers meant that we didn't actually leave Oxford until 12:30 and the usual heavier Saturday traffic on the way down meant that we didn't arrive until well after dark some five hours later. I'd tentatively suggested that perhaps we might like to stop off en route to look at a Green-winged Teal near Torpoint but for some reason the rest of the family weren't interested. It was blowing a howling gale at the cottage when we finally arrived but with some warm food inside us we soon settled in.

Sunday had the best forecast for the next few days so I thought that I'd take the opportunity to check out the local birds of interest. Not that there was much of particular note about but there was an over-wintering Sub-alpine Warbler at St. Just, a Black-necked Grebe in Newlyn harbour and a Ring-billed Gull had been reported along the sea-front at Penzance between Jubilee Pool and Wherrytown. I didn't feel motivated to get up particularly early for these birds and instead had a nice lie in. At around 10 o'clock with my two daughters wanting to do some revision for their forthcoming exams and my VLW and her brother happily chatting away I thought that I'd nip out to do some shopping in St Just where I could at the same time have a look for the Sub-alp. As I drove away from the cottage I had a lovely view of a large Peregrine that flew low past the car.

I was just setting off from the main car park at St Just when I bumped into a couple of local birders whom I'd met before but whose names I didn't know. They knew where to go for the Warbler and kindly showed me the way. As we walked down they informed me that it was a very difficult bird to see: one of them had seen it once for 5 seconds, the other chap hadn't seen it at all in seven visits totalling about 10 hours of searching. I began to reasses my chances of seeing this bird - I already had it for the county anyway so it wasn't that urgent but this was sounding like a needle in a haystack job. It turned out that there were two main areas to search: the back gardens of Princess Street and the front gardens of the next road. My two guides kindly walked around the circuit for me pointing out all the hot spots. One of these was the back garden of a local birder where it was most often see because it was the most closely watched but on our circuit there was no sign of it at all. My two companions seemed happy enough with this one lap and walked off whilst I decided to give it half an hour on my own. I walked slowly down the back of Princess Street peering into all the likely spots though it seemed a pretty hopeless task. I just arrived at the local birder's garden when I saw something moving in the tree that hung out of the back of the garden. A second or two later I got a proper view and blow me if it wasn't the Sub-alpine Warbler itself. It was a cute little thing, looking pretty much like a whitethroat though with a pinkish flush from below its white throat extending down all the underparts, with rather plain grey-brown upper parts. There was a slightly scruffy air to it, presumably because of it being a first winter. It sat there happily in the tree whilst I scrabbled for my camera but before I could even get it out it of the case it slipped off into the garden. Amazing! Since I'd left my two guides it had been no more than a few minutes, a great piece of luck given how long others had tried to see it. I didn't bother hanging around after that but walked back into St Just to do the shopping before heading back. 

 The back gardens of Princess Street - not your typical Sub-alpine

 habitat but it was nicely sheltered from the wind

On the way home I nipped into Kenidjack to check up on the reported Siberian Chiffchaff that had been hanging around the sewage works. There I met up with my two companions from earlier to whom I relayed my good news regarding the Sub-alp. The poor chap who'd still not seen it was remarkably gracious despite the monster grip-off. The Sibe Chiffy was easy to find as it was feeding actively around the settling pool with three normal Chiffies. I spent some time trying to photograph them though they were very mobile and I had to shoot them through the wire fencing. After a while I decided that I had to get back to the cottage and headed home.

 

Chiffies - the Sibe above and a normal below

After a hearty lunch we all decided to head off for an outing. Given the strong winds were blowing from the south-west we decided to head over to the other side of the peninsula where it should be more sheltered. Some of our party wanted to go shopping in Penzance and the rest of us decided to have a wander around Newlyn harbour. We parked at Tolcarne beach where I met up with Brian Field who'd come looking for the reported Ring-billed Gull. We had a good look around though there were only a couple of adult Common Gulls around and a sub-adult Herring Gull with a rather ringed bill. Two adult Mediterranean Gulls were loafing around with the Black-headed Gulls but that was about it.

 Common Gull

 Med Gull

After a while we headed over to the harbour where the rest of the party borrowed my cameras and set about photographing the various boats whilst I had a look at the birds with Brian and a couple of other birders who were down from Newquay for the day. We soon came across two juvenile Great Northern Divers which were showing very nicely close in near some of the moored ships. Further in the harbour we found another Great Northern Diver and finally the Black-necked Grebe itself. Brian got a text from Mush saying that yesterday's Ring-billed Gull had been re-identified from photographs as just a Common Gull so at least I didn't need to worry about trying to find it,

Great Northern Divers and the Black-necked Grebe

By this time the others had had enough so we headed back to the car and rendezvous'd with the shopping party  in a café for some brownies and hot chocolate. After this we nipped over to Marazion in the last gasps of daylight to walk along the beach to the playground. There we messed around on the zip wire in the dark for a while before heading back to the cottage. It had been a very successful day and I'd managed to catch up with some nice local birds.

Monday  31st December

It rained for much of the day so I wasn't able to get out for more than a brief walk where a Stonechat was the only highlight. In the afternoon we had a wander around Penzance and visited Morrab Gardens where a Blackcap and a Grey Wagtail were the only birds of note.

We decided to see the New Year in in style, first going to the Star at St Just where we'd heard there would be a DJ though in the end it was too crowded for any dancing. Next on to the Radjel in Pendeen for a drink and the girls had a game of pool. After that we headed over to Marazion to count down to the New Year on the beach and to watch the various fireworks going off in Penzance and Marazion.  We arrived at about 10 minutes to midnight at Marazion and I parked looking out onto the sea and briefly flicked my headlights onto full beam so we could see what the tide was doing. At this point the camper van next to us also flicked their beams briefly on. It was then that I realised that we may have inadvertently stumbled into the local dogging hot-spot! We beat a hasty retreat and parked somewhere else. Finally back to the cottage to open the champagne and to discuss the year past and the year ahead.

The cross on the top of St. Michael's Mount from the beach at midnight

Tuesday 1st January
This morning there was a nice north westerly wind and it was quite sunny so I thought that I'd pop down to the Watch for an hour's session. There was quite a lot of movement close in with a good passage of auks and kittiwakes - at one stage they were passing at a rate of about 100 birds per minute. The highlight was a couple of Balearic Shearwaters, one on the sea and one passing through.

In the afternoon we headed over to St Ives so the girls could do some shopping. The boys went for a walk around the island instead. On the sea there was the same steady passage of auks and kittiwakes but nothing of note.

St . Ives Island

Wednesday 2nd January

Today was taken up with packing and stopping off to catch up with my VLW's niece who lives "up-county" so there wasn't any time for the Torpoint Green-winged Teal, nor the Black Guillemot that had been reported in Carbis Bay.

One thing that I've enjoyed is working on my Cornish list - it gives me something to go for even out of season when I come down. Had I been on my own this time I would have had a go for the Torpoint Green-winged Teal, the Short-eared Owls at Men-an-Tol and the Black Guillemot at Carbis Bay but unfortunately I wasn't able to this time. Still I had one good day's birding and seeing the Sub-alpine Warbler so easily was a real bonus. I'm hoping to come down again fairly soon as the cottage still needs some weather-proofing. With any lucky I'll have a chance to chase down some more Cornish ticks then.

That Was 2012 That Was

So it's that time again when one looks back at the last birding year, a chance to reflect on what I saw, what I missed etc. The first thing that struck me as I looked back at the entries for the last year is how much I enjoy reading my blog! I'm not boasting about the (frankly dubious) quality of my scribblings, what I mean is that it's a great way for me to reminisce and reading back over past entries brings back to me all the highs and lows of my past birding year. It's also a way for me to see just how I've progressed - I'm still very new to all this having started in the autumn of 2007 and my beginner's enthusiasm is now (I hope) starting to be tempered with a bit more experience and perhaps occasionally some actual ID skill. Personally I very much treat my blog as my own birding diary which a few other people just happen to read as well

My birding tends to follow a pretty regular pattern these days: on a daily basis I'm down on Port Meadow checking out the patch. I'll also nip out locally within the county for good birds, particularly if they're county ticks for me. About once a month on average I'll go for a full-on twitch somewhere and in addition a few times a year I'll go to Cornwall. There have been some good birds in each of these four categories over the last year.

Starting with the Patch, it was a rather strange year with all the rain ensuring that the floods were there all year round (always an important factor for attracting good birds) but somehow that extra special bird just seemed to elude us. Normally we'll get things like a Temminck's Stint or a Spoonbill in May but it It wasn't until November in fact that it finally came up trumps when I found an American Golden Plover. After that it seemed to pick up with four different Caspian Gulls and an Iceland Gull and we ended the year with 134 ticks for the Patch, which is a good year.

The Port Meadow Bird of the Year - American Golden Plover (c) Badger

One of the four different Caspian Gulls on the patch this autumn

The county had a pretty good year with a real purple patch in the spring. January saw some unseasonal birds in the form of a Temminck's Stint and a Grey Phalarope. It all kicked off in the spring with a Black-winged Stilt, a Dotterel, a Pied Flycatcher and four White Storks all appearing in the county. May added another cracking county bird in the form of a Red-rumped Swallow - a bird that I was very pleased to catch up with as they can be so hard to twitch. June added a heard-only Corncrake embedded deep in the fields of Otmoor. After that the county went rather quiet until the last couple of months when the American Golden Plover turned up and then in December the gorgeous drake Falcated Duck at Farmoor.

My personal county Bird of the Year - the Farmoor Red-rumped Swallow (c) Nic Hallam

The Farmoor Falcated Duck

As far as my out of county twitches have been concerned, looking back on the list I managed to see quite a few nice birds this year. In January there was the Hampshire double of the Spanish Sparrow and the Dark-eyed Junco. February saw the fabulous Common Yellowthroat in a very unlikely location in a field in Wales. In May I went to see the Blagdon Lake Squacco Heron and the gorgeous Cream-coloured Courser in Herefordshire. September was a good month with my trip to Norfolk for the Booted and the Barred Warblers, the Rainham Baillon's Crake and the Lodmoor Short-billed Dowitcher. In November I went to the Pits of Desolation in Staffordshire for the White-rumped Sandpiper and December hosted the dash to Queen Mother's Reservoir for the wonderful Buff-bellied Pipit.

The Stunning Common Yellowthroat (c) Richard Stonier

The Blagdon Lake Squacco Heron

Despite several trips to Cornwall, only two of them produced noteworthy birds. In spring there was my trip in May where I found a Night Heron in Kenidjack, as well as seeing a Hoopoe at Brew Pool and the female Blue-winged Teal at Walamsey Sanctuary. In October I had the first of what I hope will be many autumn trips to Cornwall in future for some full-on family-free birding where I was rewarded with the wonderful Paddyfield Warbler and the Olive-backed Pipit on my doorstep.

The Paddyfield Warbler

The Olive-backed Pipit (c) B. Rankine

The only other point of note from reading through the blog was the increasing interest in insects. There were quite a few butterfly trips (such as seeing my first Black Hairstreak) as well as my first tentative steps into the murky world of moths and even a dragonfly hunting trip. I'm sure that I will continue to look at these wonderful creatures in the year ahead.

A Frosted Orange - this year I took my first tentative steps into the murky world of moths

So, do I have any conclusions to draw from this past year or any predictions for the year ahead? Not really, it's been a good year and I hope that next year is more of the same. In terms of my bird of the year it has to be the wonderful Cream-coloured Courser - what a stunner that was!

The Cream-coloured Courser - my Bird of the Year 2012