What are the chances of that...

After spending the morning birding on the reserve last Sunday, I bumped into Mark Golley and Graham Etherington who were visiting in search of the long tailed skua.

We got talking about birds (as you do) and in particular the colour ringed godwits that were about when I mentioned that I had managed to read a ring combination on a spotted redshank that had been close to the path.
Mark was very interested to know the combination as he had also read one last year. I didn't have the record in my notebook but I passed it on to him later in the day.

Mark emailed on Monday and amazingly it turned out to be the SAME bird! Mark had seen it on July 1st 2013 and my sighting was on July 12 this year.
Turns out the bird was ringed as an adult on July 2nd 2008 in Castricum in Holland.

Although we know that birds pass though the same sites every year, it is always great to get the proof

What a day!

For once I actually got a day where a large chunk of it was spent outside.
First up was an early morning WeBS count. Nothing special but it was nice to be counting waders. 16 spotshank, 70+ dunlin, green, common and wood sands and 12 spoonbill.

I hadn't been back in the office when Dave radioed to say there was a spotted crake showing well from Island Hide. A dash down the path and a wait of 20mins the bird showed well. A cracking adult out in the open. A couple of water rails in the area was nice for comparison.

Middle part of the day was spent on the inevitable paperwork until the 'other' Dave called in to say a skua with a long tail had been seen on the beach. Before I had really had chance to get my bins ready he was radioing again to say it was over the fresh marsh.
Its been a long time since I have run down the path but I legged it until I could see the saltmarsh to see the bird very distantly. A futher dash to Island Hide and the bird flew straight towards the path almost going over our heads onto the lagoons before heading towards the sea. Such a stunning bird with its massive tail and graceful flight. My 1st ever adult and what a bird.

Back out for more after work. The skua was spending all of its time with a group of 16 Arctics and it was great to watch the different flight and jizz of the bird.
Rounded of the day with a flyover turtle dove and more of the crake.

One of those 'red letter' days

Looking awesome

Following the skua debacle from yesterday, I decided to get in to the reserve early this morning. Partly to look for the skua but also to beat the crowds.
Unsurprisingly the carpark was empty at 5 so I had the reserve to myself. Stopped off in Island Hide to shelter from a shower and had a nice colour ringed blackwit  which was close enough to read, a surprise juv water rail feeding along the reed edge and a juv med gull.
Counted the waders ftom the main path and headed to the beach. Managed to get half drowned by another shower before looking at the sea. Loads of terns moving but only a single fulmar of note.

Headed back to Parrinder Hide to look through the waders. Wader levels are peachy at the moment and decent numbers are already on the move. Dunlin numbers are building nicely with the odd curlew sand and little stint in recent days. Blackwit and avocets have been touching 300 each most days and there are loads of ruff about now.
The undoubted stars of the place at the moment are the incredibly showy wood sands. This morning, one of them was feeding within 5m of Parrinder Hide. Much of the time it was too close to phobescope but I did manage a couple of shots.

A walk around Choseley produced a good number of yellowhammer and skylark singing, a family of grey partridge and a couple of marsh harrier. Lots of butterflies and 6-spot burnet moths about too

Phonescoping

I have to say that I am really impressed with the results I have been getting recently. I know they are not as good as digiscoping and nowhere near the quality of a DSLR but for use on social media or the occasional blog I am very pleased

After finding it tricky at first I seem to have got the hang of it. No use of any adapters just held up against the eyepiece.
As with any photography it has its limitations. The subject needs to be pretty close and the light needs to be good to get a decent shot but you can get good enough images if that rare happens to drop in. Who doesn't carry a mobile these days anyway...

These shots are all from the last few days at Titchwell. The garganey was only 8-10m from the path.
The Temminck's stint takes my yearlist to 156

Perfect Timing

After an interesting day ringing at Holme yesterday I offered to go back this morning and help Sophie and Gary with whatever they needed (twitch control, extracting birds etc).
By the time I arrived, Sophie had already caught a few birds including the subalpine warbler from yesterday.
Rain was close by so I helped close down all the nets before having a closer look to see if we could ID it to race. An internet search for pics and a few tweets later and it was looking like a western.

I did manage to get a few quick shots in the ringing room but the light wasn't great!

A great end to the weekend :-)

Birthday Birding

With all the cracking photos online recently of the two barred crossbills and the fact I had dipped on it earlier in the winter, I decided to take a trip over to the Brecks for a birthday outing. 

Dave was up for a trip out so he picked me up early and we were at Lynford by 07:30. Conditions on the journey were not very promising with heavy rain but by the time we had got there it had cleared up.

Things go off to a good start as we picked up a couple of singing firecrests before we had got all of our gear out of the car. One of them showed well moving about the birches singing. We walked up to the walled garden to find that the large wooden gates that had been allowing the drinking pools to be viewed were closed. We looked through the gaps but no birds were about so we went in search of them.

A group of 40+ crossbills flew over us and appeared to land in the tall trees close to us. We only managed to locate a small part of the group but that amazingly contained a male two barred crossbill! The birds were pretty flighty and soon moved off into some pines. Not sure how many crossbills there have been at the site recently but its is the largest numbers I have seen for a while. At least 70 birds were feeding the tree tops but they were too difficult to see and check through. 3 singing bramblings were also in the trees close by.

We lucked in too at the paddocks. We hadn't been there long when we heard 'tick tick' and 5 hawfinches flew in over our heads and landed in the tops of the tall trees. Sadly they didn't perch for long and flew off out of sight.

While attempting to phonescope some perched crossbills, another 2 hawfinches following by and another single went over while we were watching the 'crossbill pool' in the walled garden. Still no sign of any crossbills coming in to drink so we went in search of more firecrests but only managed a few siskins.

Getting back to the main track, we stopped talking to another birder when a group of crossbills dropped into the tall trees again. At least 30 birds were in this group including the controversial wing-barred crossbill sp and at least a couple of juv commons.

Not the best photo you will ever see!!

A quick look along the river at Santon Downham failed to produce lesser spot (when does it ever...?) but we did have a couple of marsh tit, nuthatch and a kingfisher.

We rounded off the trip with 4 buzzard, 3 red kite, sparrowhawk and a female goshawk on the way home to complete an awesome mornings birding.

Very very crappy phonescope shot of the best birthday bird of the day

Bluebells

With the strong cold winds on the coast, we decided to have an afternoon walk around Foxley Wood NWT reserve in the hope of finding some warmer conditions. We were not the only ones but at least the wood is big enough to take a few people.

There were good numbers of butterflies on the wing with good numbers of orange tip, peacocks and small torts plus a few brimstone and comma. There were also a few birds; willow warblers and chiffchaffs were singing well and we had good views of a feeding marsh tit.

The real highlight was the bluebells in the older parts of the wood. A very spectacular sight and the first time I have seen such a showing since working in the west.











Hazel coppicing








 









 

Bugle

Early purple orchid

Wood anemone

Bee fly