Pics

A few pics from ringing this morning

Cyprus day 2 - Ringing

Ringing with Mike and Richard today.

Despite breezy conditions we managed to process 104 birds in just a few hours.

Blackcap made up the bulk of the catch but there was a nice supporting cast including wood, sardinian, reed and sedge warblers, corn bunting, whinchat, lesser and common whitethroats and pied fly.

There was even time for a short ringing demo for a group of Dutch birdwatchers who turned up halfway through the morning

Around the site were a couple of ortolan bunting, golden oriole, hoopoe, lots of serin and tree pipit.

A great morning and massive thanks to Richard and Mike for their help. 

Cyprus day 1 - the travelling

The first day of any trip is always a long one with all the travelling and time difference. Thankfully the 2 hour difference to Cyprus isn't too bad.

The birding started while we were still sat on the tarmac at Gatwick  with 2 peregrines hunting pigeons over the terminal buildings!

Straightforward flight got us to Paphos on time and we were soon on the road to our villa at Coral Bay. Birding started straight away with male redstart and whinchat over the road in front of us.

The villa is in a great location right on the coast surrounded by scrubby vegetation.

Despite a brisk wind a quick boot around the area produced a nice selection of birds.
Loads of house with a few Spanish sparrows, crested larks and sardinian warblers were most evident, 2 tawny pipits, 6 short toed larks, wryneck, male whinchat, black eared & northern wheatears and a few feldegg wagtails although none would land.

A nice little start to the trip

South-West road trip

Although family live a long way from Norfolk, it does give us a good opportunity to sneak in a spot of birding on patches old and new. This recent trip was no different with a new site visited in Dorset and an old favorite in Somerset.

First stop on our trip was Canford Heath on the edge of Poole for Dartford warblers. Although they are resident in Norfolk, it is always nice to see them in good numbers on the Dorset heaths. 
The dark foggy weather put pay to any chances of seeing any reptiles but the birds did perform. A walk round a large part of the heath produced 3 male Dartford warblers and 5 pairs of stonechats. It was interesting the see at least one of the male darties in the company of a pair off chats, presumably feeding together in a small 'flock'. A singing chiffchaff on the edge of he housing estate was the only sign that spring is around the corner.

Friday was much better, bright and breezy, for a look around part of Poole harbour in the company of Shaun Robson and Terry Elborn. 
The long staying lesser yellowlegs and green-winged teal were on the agenda for the day along with visiting the new reserve at Lychett Fields. Despite being seen the day before, we couldn't find the yellowlegs amongst the feeding redshank although good numbers of blackwits and a couple of greenshank were about.
As we arrived at Lychett Fields, a female marsh harrier had spooked all the teal but thankfully the didn't go far and the drake green-winged teal was soon located. After a spot of displaying it went to sleep!
Although there were not many birds, it was good to look at the habitat and talk to Shaun about the ideas behind the habitat design. The tidally flooded grassland with the ridge and furrow, to me, looked similar to that a Ryan's Field at Marizion in Cornwall. My first swallow of the summer put in a brief appearance but I managed to miss the sand martin.
A quick look around Canford Heath saw a couple of new darties, both singing males, but it was too breezy for much else.

The journey across the border into Somerset produced plentiful buzzard sightings and even a couple of flyover sand martins just over the border. Apart from adding a calling med gull and green woodpecker to my sisters new house list, much of the day was spent holiday planning and being a climbing frame to my two nieces!

Sunday had an unexpected bonus. Not only did we manage to get out with my other two nieces, we went to one of my old haunts for a walk. I have seen much talked about all the great work that has been happening at Steart Marshes so it was good to get a glimpse of it. The site used to be one of my regular sites (saw a fantastic Wilson's phal there) but it had been over 20 years since my last visit. I was very impressed by the developments but didn't really have time to do it justice.  The highlight was a single LRP but the strong wind and low tide probably didn't help the birding.

All in all, a good few days combining family and birding.

Roosting waders and spring sunshine

Having had the car checked over at the garage I decided to check the coast between Heacham and Hunstanton for early spring migrants.

Having heard about the recent purple sand at Hunstanton I thought I'd have a good chance of seeing a few waders as the tide was high.
Sadly I'd forgotten how disturbed this part of the coast is and a combination of people and high water meant that there were very few birds about.

I did find a small flock that was rather approachable and allowed good views. I did manage to pick out a few colour ringed turnstones but it was only possible to get a bunch of incomplete combinations. Very nice to get close views and get a few phonescoped shots.

The field on the inland side of the inner seawall on the way back towards Heacham looked very good for an early wheatear but it wasn't to be. Plenty of feeding pipits and wagtails around the horse paddocks and several territorial reed bunting.

The ploughed fields beyond the golf course produced 61 golden plover and 180 curlew. I managed to read 6 colour flag combinations on the curlew before 2 red kites flushed them!

Surprisingly no chiffchaff but a gorgeous in the spring sunshine ☺

From (nearly) Russia with love

Blimey a blog post, not done one of these for a while!

Making the most of calm conditions and a decent break at Christmas I managed to open my mist nets on several occasions. 

At the end of December there were good numbers of starlings about in the garden and I hoped that we might catch a few. Normally they are very clever and manage to evade the nets but I was catching a few.

Rachael was extracting a bird that was already ringed and assumed to be one of the birds we had caught here in the past so it was quite a shock when she said that it was wearing a Lithuanian ring! The bird was processed, photographed, released and the details were submitted to the BTO.

It was good to get the details back quickly and find out more about the bird.

It was caught on the Baltic Coast, north of Gdansk at the Ventes Ragas Ornithological Station in June 2016 before heading 1361km west and ending up in my garden.

A pretty cool record and my best control (someone else's bird) by a mile.

Great Knot!!

Today was 'just another'day' until lunchtime.

Spent the morning dodging the crowds strimming along the west bank path but headed back a bit earlier for lunch as it was getting busier.
I was sat at my desk when Chris Booth rang from the west bank saying he had a great knot on the fresh marsh!!

The phone went down rather quickly and I headed out to find him. When I got to him I was greeted with 'it is one'.

Sure enough, through his scope was a very smart looking summer plumage great knot, I couldn't believe my eyes!

My thoughts then turned to mega bird, lots of people and how do we manage the twitch. Made several calls and got the news out.

It took a little while but people started to arrive but it was never too crazy. Everyone was well behaved and the carpark coped nicely with the increase in visitors.

I managed to get back out in better light and get some really nice views although the piccies aren't great.

What a great find by Chris who has been ploughing though the gulls and waders for months now. Not a bad retirement present for him.

Only the 5th record for the UK and obviously the 1st for Titchwell. My 270th species for the reserve