Welcome to my birding blog - first launched 12th March 2012...
Late October
Not a lot to report...
Went to Blacktoft on Friday 25th and saw a kestrel on King's Causeway, south-east of Swinefleet. Funnily enough as I sometimes see something good on the narrow road north from the causeway to Whitgift, the camera was already seatbelted to the front seat. I fired a few shots from the driver's seat before it flew away on the breeze.
Blacktoft was very quiet: distant marsh harriers, a few wildfowl and herons. I found this the other day: a reminder of Blacktoft in the summer. Thought it was quite nice...baby avocet playing that game where you try and roll a tiny pebble up and down your bill!
Scramble!! 269 squadron in the air!!
We went to Bolton on Saturday 26th or to be precise to the fabulously named Doffcocker area and to Bob Smithy's pub. Sounds an unlikely birding destination but we weren't alone: one scope in attendance and someone I knew from the Leeds area I think. Eventually we had good views of the four glossy ibises through someone else's scope. In spite of spending some time there and walking through the cow muck/mud of a farmyard I never got really close. They were soon off high and then they would circle round and come in very low somewhere else! Still here's 269 squadron in the air!
A bit like a scene from Jurassic Park, don't you think?
Why 269 squadron? 269th tick of 2013.
Sunday 27th October: touchdown in Hartlepool
Funny old business, birding. I wasn't expecting to get out with Barry again until next week but he got in touch and was free Sunday afternoon. A slav-grebe had been reported at Swillington so we thought we might go there and call in at Fairburn too. However in the early afternoon a glossy ibis popped up at Hartlepool - a lifer for Barry I suspected and a chance [by the sound of the location] of better photographs than the Doffcocker birds.
The satnav got us to Valley Drive and we set off. We had to walk all of 150m before we saw the bird grazing by a flood in a field quite unconcerned by the line of birders who had gathered. As you can see!
Here's one on the Fire Station field at Saltholme in October 2011 just to show a bird in flight a bit closer than at Doffcocker.
Asda used to have a catchline that ran: 'There's more to come!' I hope there is.
More later!
Friday 18th October ff
Common or Pallid? Take your pick!
Friday 18th October
Dark brown it certainly was at 7 a.m. in the dark perched on St. Hilda's church tower.
Taken with my iphone at about 7.45am, this shows exactly where the swift [at time of writing now re-confirmed as a pallid swift after a spell of being suspected as a common] was roosting. The church clock chimes every quarter and the noise from the louvred windows would be deafening to the bird - shown here within the grey oval.
Here's another view: it's a little lighter now.
Just before 8 it took off and gave us great views as it flew around the Headland and still is doing now [Sunday afternoon].
A short walk down to Borough Hall gardens - about 150 metres! - to look for the Western Bonelli's warbler. No need to look really: some birders were already onto it in the young trees across from the putting green. Not a great photo but here it is - it proved difficult to track as it flitted rapidly, moving from tree to tree.
Next stop South Gare to look for the redpolls that had been reported the day before: both mealy and arctic types. We found neither: just lots of reed buntings, goldfinches, chiffchaffs, linnets and... goldcrests!
Well never mind - two year ticks already and there's a siberian stonechat reported at Scalby Mills, Scarborough. Might as well try for it, I decided. However en route and approaching the coast south-east of Redcar I thought I might just pop down to Skinningrove. The road is closed so the best way in is from the steelworks road at the top of the hill. It was quiet and I walked along the rock armour. Robins and dunnocks. I turned back and half way back to the car up popped a black redstart. I spent the next half hour trying to get a photo but failed. Nonetheless, tick number 3!
At Scalby Mills the stonechat had been missing for about three-quarters of an hour. Shortly after I arrived it was relocated across the little valley. Pretty little snowball!
Have I ever had 4 ticks on one day as late in the year as 18th October? Nothing new reported down at Flamborough, I headed for Holbeck car park for lunch and a possible med gull. Not to eat, I mean! One was waiting in the car park...
In fact there were a few of them...
... including this trio on the chimney tops. The left hand bird is clearly an immature bird. When I took the photo I thought the others were black-headed but I've changed my mind. Thought it was time I got a better one!
UK 2013 268
Tuesday 15th October ff
Isabelline adj. /pron: ɪzəˈbɛlɪn/
Siege of Granada 1492
The legend refers to Isabella of Castile and the eight-month siege by Ferdinand II of Aragon starting in April 1491. This siege ended in January 1492 and Isabella was said to have not changed her underwear until the siege ended - hence the colour of her underwear which then gave rise to the colour name isabelline. There are several birds given the descriptor isabelline: the term also refers to very pale palomino or cremello horses.
The dictionaries say it refers to a greyish-yellow colour, though it has also been used as the name for the colour of parchment or sand.
In this case I refer, of course, to the isabelline shrike. The bird in question has been referred to the subspecies larius isabellinus isabellinus or daurian shrike. Anyway it's UK lifer number 396 [ninth this year] and here it is taken between the bungalows on Flamborough Head on Tuesday 15th October.
I returned to Flamborough on Wednesday to find the olive-backed pipit but failed to see it or the bluethroat. Just chiffchaffs and goldcrests. So I went down to Bridlington harbour at high tide.
The turnstones were huddled together on a pontoon. Can you spot the 4 dunlin?
A few allowed a closer look.
As did this very bold herring gull.
Finally an old friend, the long-staying feral barnacle goose. The men from the fishing boat offices were feeding it grain.
264UK - isabelline font colour. Sort of dirty knicker colour in fifteenth century Spain. Who'd believe that, then?
13th October 2013
Rain and shine!
Covenham reservoir: early morning Sunday 13th October
We set off very early as I planned/hoped to squeeze in a trip into wettest Lincolshire together with a day at Spurn. It could all go horribly wrong so easily.
Arrived Covenham reservoir car park by just after 8am. Car park partially flooded, blowing a gale, pouring down. Never fair weather birders, we set off with the rain on our backs. Soon our backs and the backs of our legs were soaking. We carried on towards the south-west corner of the reservoir. I spotted a lone dunlin. Barry saw ringed plovers and wagtails and then he cleverly spotted the grey phalarope we had come to see bouncing along in the foam and waves barely a yard from the side of the reservoir, seeking some shelter [but finding little] from the storm.
Photo © Barry Bishop using water filled camera!!
We headed back without looking for the long-tailed duck that had also been reported. This time we had the rain in our faces and we soaked our fronts thoroughly. If we had swum back we wouldn't have been a lot wetter - or so it felt.
We drove north towards the Humber and bit by bit we began to dry out just a smidgin. The rain too slowly abated and as we approached Kilnsea the skies brightened and the rain cleared away and, remarkably, stayed away for the rest of the day.
Siskin were feeding in the alders at the Crown & Anchor car park.
Chiffchaffs and willow warblers were busily feeding in the bushes round Cliff Farm [plus the great spotted woodpeckers]. Here's a chiffchaff.
A dusky warbler near Cliff Farm proved elusive [birding for 'I can't find it'] but it was announced that another dusky would soon be released at Church Field. We paid our pounds and lined up in the field with the sun beating down on us: it was if we were the washing hung out to dry. And dry we did. We got warm. We saw roe deer, ring ouzel, brambling, redwing, great grey shrike and a dusky warbler up close.
I thought Barry might get an easy tick in the Canal Scrape hide. It was bursting at the seams! Scarcely had I sat down when one of many robins about popped up on the barbed wire beside me.
However there were upto five jacks present along with a dunlin unusually not on a beach or on mud but investigating the vegetation...spot the dunlin!
Eventually the jack snipes edged forwards to give clearer views. Bobbing away, of course.
One began to come a little more out into the open. Not your typical cypto-snipe behviour!!
In front of us!
We also saw 2 hawfinch at Kew Villa and great views later on of a great grey shrike at Sammy's Point where we sought a little bunting but a dog had seen it off.
Earlier we strolled down to the narrows in search of a Pallas's warbler: no sign but we found a mealy redpoll.
3 ticks for the day. 263 UK
That's more like it!
7th-11th October 2013
You know how some cricketers just can't find their form and keep getting out for a duck?....
Suppose I feel a bit that way at the moment. Feeling blue! The birds are all right but I'm just never in quite the right place for the cream. Just keep getting the semi-skimmed! Some tennis players get a new trainer to sort them out: a bit like Murray and Lendl. Perhaps I should advertise for a local birder to go out with and improve my birding or just be my eyes and ears. I know the year is running down now but October should be good - we've had some easterlies. Just tired of going out on my own day after day and seeing so little.
For instance I went to Spurn on Monday 7th. Saw a sparrowhawk at Canal Scrape. Everything else had [quite naturally] disappeared. Not easy to catch in flight: I was lucky.
Down at the Point [the road was open for once!] I saw brent geese and a brambling. Here are the geese.
By the pilot pier starlings were lining up for a photo-shoot.
On Tuesday 8th I popped down to Fairburn in the afternoon but there was little to see. I watched the black-headed gulls as family after family ignored the signs asking people not to feed bread to the birds. If they really mean it they should get one of the staff who spend their time nattering in the shop to monitor what goes on ... Last time I was in there I had to wait several minutes to pay for a bar of chocolate whilst two members of staff chatted away in front of me. They have a skill at making you feel invisible at Fairburn.
On the way down the walkway to the feeding station I saw a big fat wasp watching me!
Anyway, here are the gulls. Even such common birds can lead to nice images.
The naked eye doesn't realise just how flexible birds' wings are. At least my eyes don't!
A cygnet sailed serenely by.
Scraping by
Dateline Thursday 10th October: decent seawatch produced a Leach's petrel along the shoreline. It spent several minutes in front of us beating up into the wind as it headed north. A really good bird, it brightened the day immensely. [Only tick this month so far] Pomarine skua, arctics and bonxies also added to the mix. As did manx shearwaters [just a few] and about 16 sooty shearwaters. Amazing. Firecrest at the churchyard along with lots of chiffchaffs. No photos that day.
Friday 11th back again rather late in the day: case of no room at the inn at the seawatch hut. I tried outside but the wind was unbearable. A few fieldfare coming in but hundreds of redwing everywhere. Back to Canal Scrape where we had ring ouzels again, brambling, willow warbler, goldcrests and more jack snipe and dunlins. Cue dunlins.
A woodcock flew by as did many gannets blown up the Humber. As the tide receded large groups of waders could be seen including these knot. Nice image.
Finally on what I might call ''wryneck mound' by the Crown & Anchor car park, just on the road bend a great-spotted woodpecker caught my eye strolling along the footpath. The woodpecker was strolling along I mean, not me!
Oh well, I'll keep trying.
261 UK 2013