Rediscovering Birding

I've been trying for a willow tit (or "wit" to use a self-crafted shortening which I am trying to get into general usage) for a while now in the county and with the recent confirmed discovery of a pair frequenting Grimsbury Reservoir near Banbury I'd already made a couple of fruitless trips up there. As I mentioned previously on the second occasion they were seen on both days of weekend subsequent to my visit so a revenge outing was surely due. Conveniently I needed to head up that way anyway on an errand so I reasoned that it would be rude not to make another visit to the reservoir and I hoped that it would be third time lucky.

As I walked along the river towards the wood at the north end where the birds were generally seen it was soon clear that it was rather quiet bird-wise. There was not much moving or calling and I pondered what were the influencing factors that made some days and times alive with bird activity and others completely dead. Clearly time of day was an important factor and first thing in the morning is generally good but it was only about 10:30 and there was hardly a bird to be heard. The wits had generally been seen where the river meets the wood or alternatively along the canal bordering the north of the wood so I carefully scoured both these areas but there was hardly a bird to be seen with a brief glimpse of a kingfisher being the highlight. I was determined to spend a little time on trying for this bird so decided to do circuits back and forth between the two locations. After my third iteration I was starting to get tired and a little hungry so I decided to take a brief rest. I sat down along the bank of the canal and "zoned out" for a little, just listening for bird song. A few redwings went over as well as a buzzard being mobbed by a pair of crows. There was precious little to hear when suddenly I was aware of some "lit" (sorry, I'm going to use my new tit abbreviations throughout this blog entry!) calls behind me and I managed to spy a party of six or so in the wood just behind me. They must have been the advanced guard of a mixed tit flock because on the other side of the canal I was suddenly aware of various calling and feeding birds: a few bits and gits were calling and there was something working its way through a tree directly opposite me. I managed to get a decent view and it was either a mit or a wit. I generally feel that for a safe ID one has to hear the call but this bird certainly seemed to be a wit as it was rather a drab brown underneath and with rather dusky flanks compared to a mit which usually looks rather smart. I held my breath waiting for it to call but unfortunately it didn't. I'd held off using any sort of tape luring so far as last time I felt that it had probably been counter-productive but at this junction I played a brief burst of a wit call and immediately got back an answer coming from a little way into the wood on the opposite side of the canal. Could I confirm that the bird that I'd seen in the tree was the same calling bird? No and the call seemed too far off to be the bird that I'd just seen so I still didn't have a confirmed sighting. I waited and the calling wit or wits seemed to be getting nearer and suddenly a black-capped tit appeared on the far side of the canal and flew across into a tree not 10 yards in front of me and gave the wit call - Bingo! I got a good view of it and even managed to note the dull black cap, the pale secondary wing panel and the rather dusky brown flanks and drab appearance. The bird soon flew on into the wood behind me. I decided to head off in that direction as that was the way back to the car anyway and I soon caught up with the feeding flock again within the woods. At one point the wit came within about 5 yards of me as it worked its way through the trees with the other tits and one goldcrest that was part of the flock. They then moved on deeper into the woods where I couldn't follow so I headed back to the car and home.

I was most pleased finally to get my county willow tit though I did have a possible sighting in my garden some time last year: I was in the garden when I heard and saw a black-capped tit which was working its way down the gardens, stopping and calling every few gardens. I couldn't get a very good view of it before it moved on though I did note it had a rather bull-necked appearance. As I'd heard the call I immediately rushed inside to match what I'd heard to my MP3 library of tit calls but foolishly I didn't write down or record what I'd heard before I started playing all the call files and I soon realised that after having played back so many calls I'd completely forgotten what I'd originally heard! However I can remember that it was a loud and strident call but not a "pitchoo" so there was every possibility of it having been a wit, but I'll never know for certain. I now make a point when I have heard something that I want to match against a recording, of either recording my impression of it on my mobile or at least translating it into words to avoid this happening again. I also subsequently made sure that I knew mit and wit calls off by heart from then onwards!

One more tick for both the county and national year lists. I appear to have reached my 230 end of year national target already which is amazing. I'm not going to bother setting a new target but it will be interesting to see what the final total is. For the county list there are a few winter birds which I could still get: merlin (still!), woodcock, Bewick's swan, glaucous gull and given the quality of birding over the last few days who knows what else might turn up.

Oxon 2009 County Year List
189: Willow Tit 12/11/09 Grimsbury Reservoir (county lifer)
Official 188 + 4 sub-species

National 2009 Year List
230: Willow Tit 12/11/09 Grimsbury Reservoir

I didn't get any photos today but there are a few videos left over from the recent fab Farmoor day to post:


Record vid of the red-breasted merganser


The Slavonian Grebe


Snow Bunting

Occasionally really great birding days come along and today turned out to be one of them. It started yesterday afternoon when two snow buntings were reported on the information services as being on Farmoor causeway mid afternoon. I wasn't able to go as I had to ferry various of my offspring about the place but I called my fellow county year lister and he rushed off to secure the tick. The birds stayed until dusk so I decided that I would go first thing the next day and hoped that they would still be there.

Next morning the weather was pretty terrible with low solid grey cloud and persistent drizzle so there was every possibility that the birds weren't going anywhere. I arrived at Farmoor just before 8am and was the first person on the causeway. There was quite a bit of bird movement with a flock of eight oystercatchers flying through shortly followed by another bird which lingered a while and a flock of three small and two larger waders (probably dunlin and something else) also flew over. I didn't have to go too far along the causeway before I found the buntings, happily hopping around feeding on whatever they could find. I was soon joined by a few other birders and we all attempted to photograph the birds in various ways. I soon discovered that digiscoping has its downside in very poor light as you don't have the advantage of a flash at all so I was restricted to videoing and then taking a videograb later. I am more and more discovering how useful a technique this is especially when conditions are difficult such as they were today. Pleased to have connected with the birds I walked the length of the causeway to check that there wasn't anything else around then went and had a brief look for the black redstarts (which I couldn't see though they were later reported again) before heading for home, most pleased with the morning's birding.

Not much more than a record shot of the male snow bunting given the terrible light conditions.

Mid morning I was back at work when I got a call to say that someone had found a pair of Slavonian Grebes on the reservoir. My wife gave me a pitying look as I explained that I had to head back out to Farmoor but some twenty minutes later I was walking down the causeway, noting the buntings which were still there as I walked the full length of the causeway to meet up with my fellow year lister and a companion along the west shore of Farmoor II. The Slavonian grebes were hunting along this shore and after a while moved reasonably close so I once again deployed my video technique and got a reasonably good grab from it this time.

Given the light conditions I'm very pleased with how this digiscoped videograb came out of one of the Slavonian Grebes

Whilst we were there one of the others found a distant red-breasted merganser right out in the middle of Farmoor II. There was no possibility of getting anything even remotely decent in the way of a photo but once more a videograb produced at least a record shot of the bird which appeared to be a male. I didn't stay too long and stopped off for a spot of shopping by way of appeasement for my VLW.

Again just "record shot" quality for the red-breasted merganser which was out in the middle of Farmoor II

I have a self-imposed rule of not coming out to Farmoor more than twice in one day, this being instigated earlier on in the year when I had to go for black tern in the morning and then for a knot in the afternoon only to be told in the evening that there was a grey plover there which I didn't have the energy to go for. So after having made two trips there I was somewhat dreading getting a call to say that anything else had arrived but fortunately I was spared that agony. Nevertheless it had been an amazing day with three county year and indeed for me county life ticks coming within the space of a few hours. Coming on the back of the birds at the weekend as well it makes for a real purple patch for Oxon birding at present. I was also told that my total of nine oystercatchers was a record count for Farmoor and two of the above photos (not the snow bunting) were also used for the Farmoor blog which I was rather chuffed about.

The ticks are moving on nicely. I should also mention that my fellow year lister, who deserves to be named for his achievement (Jason Coppock) has broken the county year list record already with a stunning 195 birds and with six weeks still to go there might even be the possibility of his reaching 200. I should also mention that apparently one shouldn't be counting ruddy shelduck for the year list so my official figure should be one less than the 188 that I am showing below. I am keeping my lists as they are though as I happen to like ruddy shelduck! There are of course still the four sub-species which could retrospectively be promoted via "armchair ticks".

Oxon County Year List 2009
186: Snow Bunting           10/11/09  Farmoor Reservoir (County Lifer)
187: Slavonian Grebe        10/11/09  Farmoor Reservoir (County Lifer)
188: Red-breasted Merganser 10/11/09  Farmoor Reservoir (County Lifer)
Official Count 187 + 4 sub-species

National Year List 2009
229: Slavonian Grebe        10/11/09  Farmoor Reservoir

It's been an exciting few days in the county with the discovery of a county first in the form of a juvenile rose-coloured starling at Forest Hill and also finally a twitchable black redstart after several vague or inaccessible sightings over the last few weeks.

To start with on Friday I went back to Grimsbury Reservoir in Banbury to have another try for the willow tits that had recently been seen there. I'd deliberately chosen a very still day with little wind and also went reasonably early in the morning and there were plenty of birds around along the river there with flocks of mixed tits, goldfinches and siskins to be seen. There was also a female stonechat on the reservoir perimeter fence. However despite my best efforts there was neither sight nor sound of any willow tits either along the river or along the canal. I did meet the original finder of the birds whose local patch it was and he confirmed that the locations where I'd been looking were correct. To rather add insult to injury, on the following two days a pair of willow tits were seen along the river by visiting birders so it looks like I was rather unlucky. I'll just have to make yet another trip there in order to get my tick.

The next day (Saturday) the news broke of a juvenile rose-coloured starling which had apparently been present for three weeks at least in Forest Hill. One of the local residents had sent a photo to the county recorder who had come down and confirmed the bird's ID and put the word out. Shortly after the text hit the phones all the keenest Oxon birders were wandering around the small village of Forest Hill scrutinising every single startling in an attempt to locate the bird. Fortunately someone soon found it and we all converged on one particular road though it had disappeared by the time we all got there. Fortunately it appeared again soon after and I got a rather brief view before I had to leave to fulfill my weekend family shopping obligations. A life and a county tick for me so I was most pleased though rather wishing I could have gotten a photo and a more prolonged view of it. I came back later the same afternoon but by then it was getting rather dark and cold and there were no starlings to be seen at all so I didn't stay long.

That evening news came out on the information services that a pair of black redstarts had been at the Farmoor reservoir water treatment works that afternoon. There have been a lot of black redstart sightings throughout the country recently but Oxon up till now had only had a couple this autumn: one only reported after the bird had gone and one where it was on private MOD land so it was great to have a twitchable sighting at last. I couldn't get down there first thing as I had to drop my two daughters off somewhere first so it wasn't until about 10:30 a.m. that L and I turned up. It was dark, windy and drizzly and at first I couldn't find any sign of the birds but eventually I found one and then two of them. They were flitting around the treatment buildings, occasionally hopping up on to the roofs where they could be seen. I even managed some video footage and some digiscoped record shots.

The two juvenile black redstarts on one of the treatment work buildings

one of the black redstarts
A videograb of one of the birds


Some video footage of one of the birds

The next day (Monday) I was dutifully back at work but as lunch-time approached I felt that I needed a little excursion to break up the day. Since I work from home, if I don't get out I can spend the whole day indoors so I thought that I would head back to Forest Hill to see if I could get better views of the starling. The weather was very dull grey and cold so the light was abysmal for photos but I thought that I would give it a go nonetheless. When I arrived I was the only one there but a birder who had travelled up from London soon joined me and after a while the bird returned to the roof tops along the road enabling us to get good views of it sitting on a chimney pot. As predicted, it wasn't great conditions for photographs so the results are little more than record shots but a valuable personal momento nonetheless.

The juvenile rose-coloured starling on a chimney pot

and again

A close up of the second shot which shows it's thick yellow bill and pale brown plumage.

So another couple of year list ticks for both the county and national lists. Both birds are also county lifers for me and the starling is a personal lifer as well so a great couple of days birding.

Oxon Year List 2009
184:  rose-coloured starling 07/11/2009  Forest Hill  (County Lifer)
185:  black redstart 08/11/2009  Farmoor Reservoir (County Lifer)

National Year List 2009
227:  rose-coloured starling 07/11/2009  Forest Hill  (Lifer)
228:  black redstart 08/11/2009  Farmoor Reservoir

This half term we decided that rather than going on a full-blown holiday we would spend a few days up in the Lake District visiting my wife's sister and her family. It was meant to be a chance for the family to explore the area instead of being dragged to the osprey viewpoint every time we are in the area so I didn't even bring my scope with me though of course bins are always de rigeur. The only birding of interest was when one day we went for a visit to St. Bees beach and a walk along the cliffs to a cove to the north of there. I was thinking that it would be an opportunity to put my improving gull skills into practice but it turned out that we saw only a few herring gulls. However there were a few rock pipits and a grey wagtail on the beach area. Up on the cliffs there was a raven calling and flying back and forth. Good numbers of skylarks were flying around in the fields next to the cliff path and a ring-tail hen harrier hunting over the moorland was the highlight. Down on the shingle beach there were more herring gulls loafing around, another pair of rock pipits, quite a few oystercatchers and a single curlew. A peregrine falcon flew over as well, always an impressive sight. On the way back close views of a stonechat were seen. All in all some nice birds to be seen en passant.

Having been introduced to the delights or otherwise of birding at Didcot landfill/Appleford GP I've made two further trips there this week, mainly in order to continue in my quest to master the art of identifying Caspian gulls. As I have admitted previously in this blog I have found the whole herring/yellow-legged/caspian gull issue a bit or a challenge and I am determined to get the hang of it. To that end I have been diligently studying away, looking at photos and reading and re-reading whatever I can find on the internet in order to get it into my head and at last I seem to be making some progress. What has helped is the fact that at Appleford GP (which is the pool behind the level-crossing near the Didcot landfill) one can actually see the gulls at close quarters which is far easier than trying to make out distant blobs in your scope at the Farmoor roost. In the end of course there is no substitute for just looking at loads of gulls and I am pleased to say that after the two trips this week I definitely feel that I am getting there.

Mid week I went up one lunch-time for an extended lunch break and had a look around. Whilst there I thought that I found something which looked promising for one of the two first winter Caspian's that are currently around but it flew off before I was able to get a photo or a definite ID. I also realised that there were still some key identification issues which I wasn't sure on so I went back to my studies.

This Friday, fortified with what I hoped were the key points I went back again for an afternoon session. With the atlantis not having been seen for a couple of days now, visiting birders were getting thin on the ground so it was just myself and a couple of other birds present at the pit. Ian Lewington turned up at the far end and I gave him a quick call to say hello and to ask whether he'd come across any Caspians so far today but he'd just arrived. The chap next to me, who was a local birder whom I recognised from the day the white-winged black tern first turned up at Farmoor, having overheard my conversation pointed out what he thought was a Caspian gull on the far bank. I looked where he was indicating and found a classic adult yellow-legged gull, one could even clearly see it's bright yellow legs. This, and my recent experience of other birders mistaking a yellow-legged gull for a Caspian made me realise that there is a lot of confusion out there about this gull complex. I politely pointed out that it was a yellow-legged gull and just at that moment in front of it I spotted a white-headed gull which looked promising. I went through my mental check list for a first winter Caspian:

• Tertials dark with thick pale tips. A notched pattern on the tertials means herring gull.
• Greater covers dark with pale tips to form a sort of wing bar pattern. At least there was no chequered pattern there which would be a herring gull deal breaker
• Scapulars mid tone grey with small anchors in
• Head clean white with long parallel-sided bill (though the bill wasn't as huge as on some cachinnans) and with a grey "shawl" around it's neck
  
• A "kind" or elegantly aloof facial expression

More importantly it just looked right: somehow all the pouring over photos for hours was paying off and I was starting to acquire some sort of sense of the cachinnans jizz. I called up Ian opposite who had in the mean time found the same bird and he confirmed the ID. I spent the next couple of hours photographing the bird and various other gulls though the usual issues with photographing gulls came to the fore: autofocus on white birds is difficult and in any bright light the white bleaches out the photo if you're not careful (in future I must remember to reduce the exposure in such circumstances). I am finding that the easiest way to get some sort of shot is to video with scope and camera zoomed right in: the autofocus on the video means that some of the frames will be in reasonable enough focus for a videograb to be taken.

The 1st winter Caspian Gull. The pure white head is the most striking aspect but it needs the various other points to clinch the ID. The bright sunshine has rather bleached parts of this still shot.

A close-up still shot though unfortunately once again somewhat bleached out.
A videograb in overcast conditions shows the features better: note how elegant it looks compared to the other rather "brutish" gulls around it.
A first winter common gull on the shore

A first winter greater-black backed gull. Their bills are huge and really stand out from the crowd.

All in all a very enjoyable week getting to grips with gulls. I still have a long way to go: the adult and older immature birds are harder as there are less check points to go on so it comes down more to mantle tone and jizz unless one can get a clear view of the underwing but I fell that I'm definitely making good progress. It's also another tick for the county and national year lists.

Oxon County Year List 2009
183: Caspian Gull  23/10  Appleford GP 

Nationsl Year List 2009
226: Caspian Gull  23/10  Appleford GP 

On Saturday morning I was just contemplating the day ahead when my mobile went. It was Peter Barker on Otmoor saying that he'd just seen a female bearded tit in the reedbed. I thanked him for the update but said that it was probably going to be tricky to get down there, weekends being more devoted to family activities. However, when a few minutes later he rang back to say that nine further bearded tits had just flown in I decided that L needed to get out for some fresh air. I informed my VLW that I was going to take L out for a walk and that I would stop in on the super market do the shopping on the way back. With this double offer of an L-free morning and the shopping to be done she was most pleased with this arrangement! I got everything ready, including some snacks to keep L occupied (a vital part of ensuring a happy birding experience with L) and we set off for Otmoor.

I chose to come in via Noke as they were mending Otmoor Lane though I later realised that the works didn't actually start until Monday so I could have parked at Beckley as usual, not that there is much in it distance-wise. Once at the first screen by the reed bed I got in touch with Peter who said that they were walking along towards the second screen but that they'd not actually heard the birds for some time. I elected to stay at the first screen and did some tape luring from my mobile. Initially I was pretty sure that I heard some "ping" responses but after a while they stopped so I stopped playing the recording. There was not much else around to be seen: the kingfisher flew in and spent a few minutes on his favourite perch before darting off; two green sandpipers and a dunlin were flying around at the back of the channels and there were the usual ducks dotted around the place. When Peter returned we elected to walk along the bank to the south-east corner of the reed bed where the birds were first seen. Normally one can't go along this route but as work is presently being done on the bridleway this way and the diagonal path across Greenaways were open to the public. We walked most of the way towards the diagonal path, straining our ears for "pings" to no avail. As we returned however we heard the distinct call and a female bearded tit flew out out of the reeds and ducked back in again. It flew around and called for several more minutes before it went quiet again. Very pleased to have connected with this lovely little bird I decided that I needed to head off in order to get the shopping done. On the way back a rather dark stonechat was flitting around in the hedgerow and a buzzard was soaring overhead.

Readers of this blog will know that on Tuesday I'd gone to pick up my mother-in-law (and nipped over to see the Brown Shrike at Staines Moor) and she'd been staying with us all week. This afternoon she was due to go home and I nobly offered to drive her back. Whilst there I thought that it would be rude not to pop in to see the Brown Shrike again whilst I was in the neighbourhood. There were not anything like the numbers of visitors this time as previously though there were noticably more family visitors with reluctant wives, children and girlfriends being dragged along to stand around in the cold whilst their men-folk watched the bird. I did some more photography and this time there were no problems with heat haze due to the rather overcast and gloomy conditions which forced me to go up to ISO 800 in order to get any sort of shutter speed at all. I managed one decent shot and a bit of video footage which would have been great had it not been for a branch which partially obscured the bird. Still it was very nice to see this rarity once more.

The brown shrike once more.


Some good quality video footage somewhat spoiled by the branch in the way of the bird.

Another county year list and indeed county life tick from the bearded tit. I also realised that when compiling my list of sub-species last blog entry, I'd made no mention of the recent American White-fronted geese that were at Blenheim a few weeks ago. They were of course another Phil Barnett find and apparently had first been seen as juveniles on Otmoor a few years ago but no one knows where they've been since or what their provenance is. They didn't stay around for long at Blenheim though they may be back. As I've now got white-front goose for the county list from the Greenland birds I don't need to worry about the provenance of these American birds though apparently it is almost unheard of for them to be kept in captivity so they could be genuine vagrants who were blown over here as juveniles and have been stuck ever since, perhaps even migrating up and down on this side of the Atlantic instead (which has been known to happen in such circumstances).

The extended white forehead is one of the key points that marks these birds out as American white-fronts though there is some debate as to which particular sub-species they are.

Oxon County Year List 2009
182  Bearded Tit   17/10/09   Otmoor   (County Lifer)

With the Azorean Yellow-legged gull continuing to be seen at Didcot most days I have had a couple of further attempts to see it. The nature of the location means that there are a large number of places the gull could be at any one time so finding it is tricky at best. For example, it could be on the tip rummaging through the rubbish, in which case one can't see it; it could be washing or resting on the level crossing pool (a good place to see it at close quarters); it could be loafing on any of the fields to the north of the B4016 (where distant views can be had); or it could be on any one of the private pits to the north nearer to Sutton Courtenay. In addition it is probably roosting at Farmoor each evening though it has only been seen there once so it may usually come in rather late. With so many choices and with all the gulls being rather mobile its pot luck as to whether one can see it on any given visit. I heard recently that a top Oxon birder had to make four visits spending a long time each day in order finally to catch up with this rarity. I'd made my first attempt on Sunday where the lack of the Azorean and the persistent drizzle had been more than made up for by the presence of a Baltic gull for just half an hour. This bird hasn't been seen since so I was very lucky to see it.

Most days the Azorean has been reported, mostly early to mid afternoon so on Wednesday I thought that I would have another go at it. I arrived at around 3pm, coming along the B4016 so that I could look out for gull flocks in the fields. There was a rather small flock of about 50 birds in the field closest to the level crossing so I stopped and had a thorough scan. There was one bird which looked interesting but the bill was wrong (the Azorean has very distinctive head streaking and also a rather striking bill with a yellow tip, then a black smudge and a rather discoloured base). I thought that I would try the level crossing pit next and said hello to another birder who was arriving just as I left. Some thirty minutes later as I was on the pit a text came through from Bird Guides saying that the Azorean was on the field that I'd just left. I can only assume that the newly arrived birder hadn't been as careful in checking out the looky-likey gull that was in the field. Meanwhile at the pit I'd been told that a competent birder had identified a 4th winter caspian gull that had been there for some time. Some of the other birders there put me on to what they thought was the bird and I dutifully took some video footage which included a perfect wing flap so I got footage of the underwing. This would enable me to confirm the caspian identity when I got home. I must admit that whilst the bird did look rather striking compared to the other non lesser-black backed gulls it didn't scream caspian to me though I freely admit that the whole herring/yellow-legged/caspain issue still leaves me somewhat floundering. I am pretty confident picking out adult yellow-leggeds by their clean heads and dark mantles once all the other gulls have streaked heads and when there are lots of others to compare the colour against and I think that I can now pick out a first winter caspian but the other ages still cause a lot of puzzlement. I think that I just need to see a lot more of them so that I can get a handle on the jizz. Anyway, once I got home I sent the shot to Ian Lewington who immediately e-mailed back saying that it was a classic yellow-legged gull pattern! So much for the authority of the other birds but at least it means that they struggle with picking out Caspians as much as I do.  I am determined to get to grips with these identification issues and intend to make more visits to Didcot in order further to hone my gull skills. Anyway, despite staying until nearly dark there was no sign of the Azorean gull and it was another miss for me.

A perfect underwing shot revealing a yellow-legged gull rather than a caspian!

For yellow-legged gull identification (taken from "Scottish Birds Records Committee criteria for identification of Yellowlegged Gull Larus michahellis"):

What should be noted involves the extent of black in the primaries with, for Yellow-legged Gull, much black from P10-6 (where P10 is the outer primary feather) and, crucially, a prominent thick sub-terminal black band in P5. The P10-5 primary feathers should show small apical white spots, with P10 having a subterminal white mirror, which is sometimes present in P9, although very much smaller. This wing
pattern excludes the argentatus subspecies of Herring Gull and Herring/Lesser Black-backed hybrids, which show either much reduced black in the outer primaries because of larger white apical spots and mirrors, grey/white tongues, and/or no black or a weak band in P5, mostly restricted to the outer web.

All of this can be perfectly seen on the underwing shot above.

The next day I was intending to take a break from gull hunting and dutifully do a full day's work. However at around 4pm a message came on the pager saying that the Azorean was back on the level crossing pit. As I'd reached a reasonable stopping point with my work anyway I told my VLW that I was nipping out and promised to be back by 6pm for dinner. Some thirty minutes later I pulled up at the pit only to be told that the bird and also a first winter caspian had both left about ten minutes ago (it's that ten minute dip for me again!). I was remarkably philosophical about it and decided to head over to the fields to see if I could find it. Fortunately the gulls were loafing in the nearest field to the level crossing so I pulled in at a lay bay and had a thorough scan but there was no sign of it. I therefore decided to return to the pit and was just getting out of the car to press the level crossing barrier button when a birder who was there scanning the same flock that I'd just been looking at piped up that the Azorean was there! I parked and set up as quickly as possible and indeed there it was. Puzzled that I'd missed it I was relived to be told that it had just at that minute flown in. I spent some time watching it and doing some digiscoped videoing though the light was poor and the bird was a long way away. However the key identification points could be made out even at that distance: the strongly head streaking was confined and well demarkated to make a sort of hood á lá black-headed gull though very dark grey in colour; there was no streaking on the breast at all and the streaking colour is far darker than on any of the other gulls; the mantle colour is a shade lighter than the graellsii lesser-black backed but darker than a michahellis yellow legged; the bill has a striking yellow tip, then a black smudge and a rather non-descript base; the bird is structurely rather large compared to the other lesser-black backed gulls.


A couple of rubbish videograb record shots. You can see the lighter mantle tone, the striking head streaking which is well demarkated, the large size and the interesting bill pattern.

The bird ended up staying until 5:45pm apparently though I had to leave at half past in order to get back in time for dinner as promised.

I was most pleased finally to have caught up with this rare gull. Like the other two rare sub-species this year (American Black Tern and Baltic Gull) there is the possibility of a split in the future and it's a genuine mega for the country with only one other record (Martin Elliott's bird at Sennen in Cornwall) in Britain though there have been a few in Ireland.

No official BOU ticks for the year lists but there are now three rare sub-species which ought to be acknowledged:

Sub-species List
American Black Tern (Chlidonias niger surinamensis )
Baltic Gull (larus fuscus fuscus)
Azorean Yellow-legged Gull (larus michahellis atlantis)

Last week I may have had some bad luck on the bird front, missing the buff-breasted sandpiper, glossy ibis and caspian gull all by relatively small amounts of time. Well this week I had some good luck in the form of a rather strange series of events. My VLW had been thinking of inviting her mother over to stay for a few days and as she lives in Stanwell (next to Staines) my VLW had asked whether there were any birds in the vicinity that I might want to see en route to picking her up. Accordingly I had been thinking of stopping off at the London WWT centre in Barnes for the long-staying spotted crake but that bird upped and left a few days ago which left me casting around for something to go and see. Two days ago a red-backed shrike was reported at Staines Moor, which is literally five minutes away from my mother-in-law's house so that would be an ideal target. I therefore had my fingers crossed that it would stay around two more days until the pick-up. Late the next day to my surprise the shrike was "upgraded" to a brown shrike so what had been a nice little bird to see had suddenly become a mega rarity. Of course this made it all much more exciting but on the other hand I had been looking forward to a quiet yomp across the moor in search of the shrike. There was no chance of any sort of quiet birding experience with such a rarity and I knew that if it stayed until the next day it would be a massive twitch.

The bird did indeed stay and after having dropped my VLW and L off at her mother's, I set off the short distance to Staines Moor. To get to the actual location of the bird involved a walk of about 20 minutes along the side of the King George VI reservoir to get to a concrete foot bridge where at least a hundred birders were paying homage to the rare shrike. The bird showed very well sitting on top of hawthorn bushes at frequent intervals as shrikes do. It was a cracking bird, with faint vermiculation down its flanks, a lovely uniform warm brown on the top of the head and all down its back and tail, a black mask pattern and pale grey underparts. Whilst the light was perfect and it was a hot sunny day, unfortunately there was lots of heat haze which made photography rather problematic. I managed a number of shots but none of them was brilliant. Still one can't complain too much when looking at something as rare as this. Apparently the brown shrike breeds across central and eastern Asia and is migratory, wintering south to India, southeast Asia and Indonesia so it was a long way from home.

You can get a sense of the heat haze from this photo

Probably the best shot quality-wise but for some reason the bird looks very grey instead of the warm brown colour that it actually was.

A videograb shot in which you can see the faint vermiculation on the flank and breast

Another videograb shot



Given the heat haze, some reasonable quality video footage

A shot of just some of the massed hoards all come to see the brown shrike

It was also amazing to note how many people I knew there. Now I expect that seasoned twitchers are used to seeing the same old faces on twitches but for me this was certainly by far the largest twitch that I'd been on so it was a new experience for me. I was pleased to meet three people from Oxon whom I knew as well as a Beds. birder whom I'd met on my unsuccessful Cambridgeshire foray. I also saw the anonymous wryneck "flusher" and had a brief chat with Lee Evans. Since the bird was showing so well it was a friendly and good natured experience all round, apart from one poor chap who had walked in from a different part of the moor and found himself on the wrong side of the river with a hoard of angry twitchers yelling out that he was going to flush the bird. He beat a hasty retreat.

Apparently a great grey shrike was also around that morning though it had not been seen for at least an hour when I arrived. Other birds of note were a pair of sparrowhawks, a kestrel, a pair of stonechats and a couple of ring-necked parakeets seen on the drive into Stanwell.


Another year and indeed life tick thanks to this genuine mega rarity.

National Year List 2009
225: Brown Shrike 13/10/09  Staines Moor (Lifer)

A couple of local excursions to report on: on Friday morning I got a call to say that a Brent goose was on Farmoor Reservoir. Fortunately for me I wasn't doing anything special and could leave my work for a while so I was able to get down there almost immediately. The bird was right in the middle of Farmoor II to start with and was rather wary. While we were watching it it flew up and did a number of circuits before eventually settling on Farmoor I. Apparently it stayed until mid afternoon before departing. Brent geese are by no means common county birds so I was most pleased to pick this up for my county year and indeed county life list.

As the bird was so far away I had to be content with a digiscoped videograb record shot which didn't come out too badly.

Whilst I'd been off chasing wrynecks and Brent geese during the week of course there was much hoohaa in the county about the Azorean Gull down at Didcot. Finally on Sunday I was free to go and see if I could find it but by all accounts it was not an easy bird to locate as it (and all the other gulls there) were highly mobile and there were lots of places that it could be, many of which were inaccessible. Still I thought I'd have a go and at least I could see if I could catch up with the two first winter Caspian gulls which were around as well. Also, I'd only birded the area once before and had found it rather difficult so I wanted to get better acquainted with the location and it's various access and viewing points.

I arrived to find a persistent drizzle which didn't abate the whole time I was there. I initially checked out the fields to the north of the minor B road where a number of gulls were loafing but there was no sign of it. Indeed no sightings had come across the pagers at all that day so it wasn't looking that promising. I next made my way over to the Appleford GP, the small pool just beyond the level crossing there. Here were half a dozen or so hardy birders patiently waiting to see if the vagrant gull would turn up. Ian Lewington, gull guru and finder of the bird turned up and pointed out that there was a Baltic Gull in amongst the fifty odd gulls that were at present gracing the pool. Once he had told us what to look for: a very small, very black-and-white lesser black back gull with a clean head and very long primaries, it was fairly straight-forward to pick out and it did indeed really stand out from the others.

A digiscoped videograb record shot of the Baltic Gull

And again, this time with a standard lesser black-backed for comparison. Note the very black wing colour, the small size, the clean and delicate head and the extraordinary long primary projection.

Unfortunately the Azorean Gull never turned up though Ian did locate it later in the afternoon in a private pit further north. I also managed to miss one of the first winter Caspian Gulls by about ten minutes (a consistent theme with birds for me in the last week!) but I was very pleased the the Baltic gull by way of compenstation for a rather damp and frustrating afternoon. Baltic Gulls (larus fuscus fuscus) are currently a sub-species of the lesser black-backed gull though apparently they are ripe for splitting and have already been split in the Netherlands. This means that it's not a tick at present but an armchair one may be due in the future. In terms of identification, although in general there is apparently some overlap with l. f. intermedius it was a very striking bird and Ian was very confident about it.

Just one more tick for the county list in the form of the Brent goose which was a most welcome addition. Having already achieved my year target, I feel that all birds now are bonuses.

Oxon County List 2009
181  Brent Goose   09/10/09   Farmoor Reservoir     (County Lifer)

This week has been quite a mixed bag as far as birding is concerned. It had been two weeks since my last day excursion to Malvern for the snow bunting so I felt that I was due another outing. I had noticed that up in Cambridgeshire there had been a buff-breasted sandpiper and a glossy ibis at Diddington Pit as well as a curlew sandpiper at nearby Grafham and since these were all birds that I still needed I felt that three target birds should be enough for at least one of them still to be around. Accordingly I did my homework on routes and site access etc the night before and the next day, after dropping  my daughters off at school (it was raining and they were feeling feeble) I headed north to Cambridgeshire.

I'd not been birding to this area previously so it was interesting to venture into new territory and it took about one and three quarter hours from Oxford before I was turning up at the small village of Diddington. A short walk across a field found the partially flooded former gravel pit: It wasn't exactly scenic though there seemed to be plenty of birds about. I made my way over to another couple of birders in order to get the low down and was informed that the sandpiper had been seen on and off during the morning but that about ten minutes earlier thirteen golden plover had flown in and fourteen birds had flown out so it was possible that the sandpiper had gone with them. Myself and another birder elected to walk round to the other side of the pit to see if we could see it but to no avail so it appeared that it had indeed flown. There was also no sign of the ibis though from previous day's reports it appeared that it came and went and was quite mobile. A good look around the pit revealed plenty of teal, mallards and coots, a few pintail and pochards, several little egrets, a couple of greenshank, one ringed plover, one kingfisher and one snipe. With no joy from my target birds, after a while I decided to head over to have a brief look at nearby Grafham; perhaps when I returned later one or both birds would have returned.

I decided that I would have a look around the lagoons on the south side of Grafham and along the reservoir shoreline there where the curlew sandpiper had been seen the previous day. The lagoons were an interesting place, though hard to view as they were surrounded by fencing and small bushes. I did manage to find four rather flighty green sandpipers there which were nice to see. There was nothing along the reservoir shoreline to speak of so I soon made my way back to Diddington. There, some new birders had arrived though unfortunately no new birds. I enjoyed a chat with one of them who knew me from my Port Meadow Birding blog which he said that he enjoyed. Disappointed with not having connected with any of my target birds I headed back towards Oxford. I later learnt that both the sandpiper and the ibis turned up within a couple of hours of my departure which rather added insult to injury.

On the way back I got a call from a fellow county year lister saying that Phil Barnett, the most conscientious of patch birders and a prolific rarity finder, had come up trumps again in the form of five Greenland white-fronted geese at Blenheim, his new chosen patch. As it wouldn't be too far from where I was heading on my way home I decided to make a brief detour there though I couldn't be too long as I'd received some shopping instructions from my VLW which needed to be acted on in reasonably good time. I quickly parked near the free gate at the bottom of the hill in Woodstock and hurried around to the large feral goose flock which apparently had attracted in these wild geese. A couple of quick photos and I had to head off again, very much a "tick and run". I met Lee Evans just arriving as I was leaving and apparently he later gave his seal of approval to the authenticity of the birds which were firsts for Oxfordshire (the Greenland sub species that is). Although one can't count the Greenland sub species as a separate tick, I needed white-fronted goose for the county year list (and indeed county life list) so I was pleased to have salvaged something from the day. The birds were gone the next day, adding further weight to their wild credentials.


One of the five Greenland white-fronted geese.

The next day I was quietly working away when just before 4 pm word came out of a wryneck near Newport Pagnall in Bucks. Now wryneck is a bird that I've always wanted to see but they usually appear on the coast and inland birds are comparatively few and far between so I knew that I couldn't pass up the opportunity when one came along. A bit of negotiation with my VLW who pointed out that I would miss her lovely roast dinner that she was cooking and I headed off. It turned out to be a bit of a nightmare journey, absolutely teaming with rain and with lots of heavy rush hour traffic so what should have taken just over an hour took and hour and a half instead. The directions were also rather vague: I had to look for some allotments near a bend on the road from Newport Pagnall to the village of Lathbury. I found the bend and saw an allotment-like area over a wall and went to have a look. However as I wandered around I gradually realised that this was actually someone's garden! I wandered down the road a fair way, looking for the spot but with no luck. As I returned I found a fellow birder also looking for the location. We found a local and asked after the allotments and were directed to the other side of the road where one had to go on a footpath through a field for about 100 yards so not visible from the road at all. We finally arrived to find that the bird hadn't been seen since early afternoon a good two and a half hours ago. Although it wasn't raining it was now getting rather dark but I decided to wander around a bit in a half-hearted attempt to see if I could see anything. Needless to say I couldn't and after a while it was getting too dark to see and I headed home. It was a long and rather depressing journey back, having dipped once more on what had turned out to be a wasted few hours. That is of course how birding goes sometimes but as I am relatively new to twitching I was perhaps not as philosophical about it as more seasoned birders probably are.

The next day was gloriously sunny and calm, in sharp contrast to the previous day's dismal weather. On the information services I was soon greeted with news that the bird had been showing well first thing in the morning till at least 8am. This left me with a dilemma: did I risk another long journey there with a strong possibility of dipping once again or did I stay at home in which case I might have to endure the torment of reading about it showing well throughout the day. In the end I decided to do a few hours work and then to set off at around 11:30am so that I was in effect taking an extended lunch break (well that's how I justified it to myself). My long suffering VLW just shook her head pityingly and went into town. The journey there was much more like it with glorious sunshine and clear roads so that it took a little over an hour, as it should do. I also knew exactly where to go and I pulled into a hardstanding where everyone else had parked. As I was getting ready a returning birder gave me an update: apparently it had been seen briefly about an hour and a half ago but not since. I was by now starting to get that sinking feeling that it might be yet another wild goose chase but I got my gear together and set off nonetheless. There was a crowd of perhaps a dozen birders there starting intently at the scrub area and chatting away about recent twitches. Although I'd read about them I'd not been on any previous twitches where one had to stare at a piece of terrain for hours waiting for a bird to show so it was a new experience for me. I had a brief walk around the back to see if I could see anything but in the end I resigned myself to joining in with the staring at the bramble thicket.

After about an hour someone cracked and decided to "go in". They wandered around a bit and we all watched intently, disapproving of course of his actions but at the same time hoping that they would work. No luck and we went back to staring. A short time later someone else cracked and went in. I was just positioning myself to get a better view when a cry when up as apparently something had flown out from the grass into the nearby trees. I'd missed seeing the actual bird and there was much debate as to whether it might have been the wryneck or not. We all rushed over to get a better view of where the bird seemed to have flown to. The "flusher" wandered around very close to the tree to the annoyance of several seasoned birders: apparently if you flush a wryneck you need to retreat and it will usually come right back down again to where it was. Anyway, we all stared at the bushes for a while when the cry went up that the bird was showing. It took an agonising thirty seconds and some frantic questioning before I finally managed to ascertain where everyone was watching and managed to see the bird for myself: it was hopping around in bush and then moved to an adjacent leafless bush where it showed extremely well for about thirty seconds before it flew off back into the scrub. Everyone there, not least myself, was extremely delighted to have got their sighting and most of us soon made our way back home. I later learnt that it showed again briefly almost immediately after that but not thereafter that day.

I didn't manage a photo of the wryneck but fortunately someone else did. This is when the bird was in the bare shrub and showing at its best © Andy Whitney (I recommend Andy's excellent blog)

So it had been a week with a lot of driving around after birds and with multiple dipping but an eventual success with the wryneck whose life tick I feel was well and truly earned. There was of course the bonus Blenheim geese county life tick which gets my county year list up to 180 which I feel is a creditable tally for the year although not putting the county record of 193 under too much threat.

National Year List 2009
224  wryneck                          08/10/09  Lathbury, Bucks (Lifer)

Oxon Year List 2009
180  (Greenland) white-fronted goose  06/10/09  Blenheim (County Lifer)

On Saturday I got a text saying that a pair of rock pipits were about on Farmoor causeway. Of course once again I was busy all day but I was more confident that they might still be around the next day and indeed on Sunday I got another text saying that there were five there first thing that morning. Finally at around 11am I was free to get down there, taking L along with me. L actually quite likes going there as he's really into boats at the moment. The prospect of some good boating action together with some biscuits and crisps to keep him going means that he's usually a fairly willing companion.

The weather was quite nice after the previous day's strong winds but, as usual for a Sunday, it was busy along the causeway as well as on Farmoor II with all the boats and wind surfers. About half way along the causeway I saw a flock of five pipits buzzing around ahead of me and sure enough three of them were rock pipits, the other two being meadows. They were a bit flighty and there was no chance of a photo at that point. Still there was an obliging dunlin along the shore line which allowed me to take some close photos. In fact he was a little too close: digiscoping seems to struggle if the bird is too near but one or two of the shots came out reasonably well. There was also a female/juvenile wheatear along the causeway and I managed to get one clear shot of it with a nice background which came out quite well.

The obliging dunlin

The dunlin, even closer up though its not a classic portrait

The one good shot of the wheatear with a nice uniform background.

On the way back the rock pipits had returned and were better behaved feeding by the wooden sailing observation huts. I managed at least a reasonably focussed record shot of one of them.  Having the meadow pipits there as well gave a good comparison between the two though I didn't manage a side-by-side photo.

A record shot of one of the three rock pipits.

Oxon County List 2009

179      Rock Pipit         4/10/2009          Farmoor Reservoir

I'd been getting rather "twitchy" in recent days, wanting to get out and see something. I could tell this as I was constantly scouring Bird Guides and looking enviously at all the interesting birds that were turning up in places like Cornwall. I therefore decided that I was overdue for one of my birding outings and this week I should head off somewhere for at least part of the day. The next question was where to go so researching on Bird Guides for birds that were staying put there seemed to be two candidates: a spotted crake at the London Wetland Centre in Barnes and a snow bunting on the Worcestershire Beacon in the Malvern Hills. The crake might involve several hours of sitting in a hide waiting for it to show whereas the bunting was supposedly on the very top of the Beacon by the toposcope there. Such pin-point accuracy in a bird location was appealing and the idea of driving for an hour and a half, climbing a hill for half an hour all to see if a bird was on top was a quirky idea that I found rather attractive. Coupled with that was the fact that I could pop into Slimbridge whilst I was in the area to see what was around.

So it was that yesterday I took L into nursery and then headed west along the A40. We've recently bought a new car which is most comfortable and with a more powerful engine so it's no longer a question of trying to coax it to go at higher speeds with it shaking away as it used to. Consequently it was a most enjoyable drive down there. As I was approaching the Malvern Hills which are most striking, standing as they do as an eight mile range of peaks in an otherwise completely flat landscape, I could see the Worcestershire Beacon, which is the highest peak at the northern end of the range. It was a bit odd to wonder whether a small sparrow-sized bird might be perched up there right at the top or whether it had moved on. The navigation became a bit fiddly towards the end but I had done my homework thoroughly before hand and even had a print-out road map to hand so I managed to find the location without any problem. However when I got to the car park it turned out that there was a £2 fee and I had absolutely no change. Not wanting to waste time heading off in search of a shop to get change I opted instead to risk it: in the worst case I would have to pay the £20 fine if I were caught.

I found the path and headed up along the ridge towards the the peak. It was interesting to see the bird life there: meadow pipits everywhere and hirundines hawking for insects in all directions. There were also quite a few corvids around and I looked out carefully for ravens but to my eye (and I admit to struggling a bit with this unless they are calling) they all looked like carrion crows. A falcon called loudly and I soon spotted a juvenile kestrel in a bush. A few skylarks were flying overhead, calling as they passed. This spot must be great for watching migrants as its the highest spot for miles around.

Suddenly I was at the top and could see the trig point and the toposcope so the bird was supposed to be here. I started looking around and then I spotted a couple of people with binoculars looking at something. This looked encouraging so I went over and there it was, the snow bunting, hopping around a couple of metres away. It was a most confiding bird and was happily searching around for seeds in amongst the rocks. It appeared to have no problems finding food and was munching away contentedly. I immediately set about taking some digiscoped images of the bird as well as some video footage. Some more birders arrived yet the bird remained completely unphased. I was told that snow buntings are becoming an annual event on the Beacon. It's just a shame that there are no comparable hills in Oxfordshire as it would be great to enjoy this little bird closer to home. Having got my fill of the bunting I headed back down the hill, mindful of the lack of parking permit. I arrived back down to find the car mercifully ticket-free and just as I was setting off again the ticket warden turned up so I had been very lucky on that front.






The most confiding snow bunting on the top of Worcestershire Beacon

A view of Malvern from the hill top

Next, on to Slimbridge where I was hoping that I might find a curlew sandpiper or at least a little stint both of which I needed for my year list. A quick look at the sightings log reveals no sandpipers but a little stint was present so I headed over to the Zeiss hide and had a good scan around at all the waders whilst eating my packed lunch. There were plenty of teal, 3 spotted redshank, a couple of dozen redshank, a male and two female-type ruff, one greenshank, twenty odd dunlin, a similar number of black-tailed godwit and a single little stint in amongst the dunlin. I next headed over to Holden Tower and the hides where there was very little to be seen apart from one green sandpiper on the Tack Piece. The Summer Walkway was open and as I'd never been on this before I decided to walk down to the estuary to see what was about. The Mid Point "hide" turned out to be an old minibus so I just stood in front of it instead. There were just a few gulls, some curlew and a couple of little egrets out on the mud but it had been interesting to get out there for a look anyway. After that I decided that I'd had enough for the day and headed for home, the return journey being uneventful.

A couple of ticks for the year list and snow bunting was in fact a life tick for me. That takes me up to 222 for the year list which equals last year's headline total though I did retrospectively give myself one other tick which was a puffin at Crail. I'd not been sure about it at the time but having seen more puffin since then I am now positive about the ID. This means that last year's total was 223 so I should be able to beat that comfortably this year and have a mental target of 230 for this year.

National Year List 2009
221: snow bunting 23/09/09  Worcestershire Beacon (Lifer)
222: little stint 23/09/09  Slimbridge

Who'd have thought that I would end up doing two blog entries so close together but Phil Barnett, the most dedicated of Oxon patch workers came up trumps yet again at Blenheim Palace (his new chosen patch) with a juvenile Sabine's Gull. He texted me the afternoon of the morning that I'd gone to Otmoor to see the great white egret. As I mentioned in my previous entry I am currently using a Streetcar Pay-as-you-go service until we get the new car and I'd manage to secure the last available car slot for the day for the Otmoor trip so I was stuck car-less as the news broke. I was thinking that I was going to have to let it go when I got a text from my fellow county year lister (JCo) saying that he was currently watching the bird from the main bridge at Blenheim. At this point I cracked and started looking up bus timetables. Fortunately there is a good service which goes from Oxford to Woodstock and which stops only a couple of minutes run from the front door so I gathered together my gear, told my VLW I was off again (she gave me a pitying look) and ran for the bus stop. Bus travelling has come on since my day and you can now text a number to see when the next one is due and I had one minute to spare. Some twenty minutes later I was in Woodstock and walking towards the main bridge. A minor hiccup in having to pay £10 to get into the grounds but there was no time for dallying here so I paid up and got to the bridge. The bird was with half a dozen black-headed gulls on the lake west of the bridge and once I'd seen it I could relax and take it in. This was in fact a life tick for me and although I was familiar with the plumage from the text books it was a different experience altogether to see it for real. In flight its wonderful wing pattern and delicate forked tail were a delight to behold. I spent about an hour and a half all told watching it and trying to digiscope it in poor light and a strong wind so the final results were strictly record shot quality videograbs only.


Videograb record shots of the juvenile Sabine's Gull at Blenheim Palace.

Another tick for both the county and national year lists. It's a real purple patch for Oxon birding at present with American Wigeon, Great White Egret and Sabine's Gull all present in the county on the same day. I may have been lucky with the egret because at the time of writing it hasn't been reported as having been seen again since about half an hour after I left Otmoor though the other two birds are currently still about.

Oxon Year List 2009
177  Sabine's Gull 15/09/2009  Blenheim Palace (County Lifer)

National Year List 2009
220  Sabine's Gull 15/09/2009  Blenheim Palace (Lifer)

It's been a rather frustrating couple of weeks for me with my county year list taking a bit of a setback from some missed birds. Still in the end I managed to connect with a good couple of birds which made up for it.

There had been a rather elusive spotted redshank on Otmoor for about a week, found by Otmoor expert Phil Barnett initially on the Pill which then seemed to spent most of its time on the Flood Field there. I went for a Sunday morning trip to the Pill to look for it in the company of a fellow birder and also L my three-year old son. We managed to see a whinchat in Saunders Field and to flush about 20 teal and three greenshanks from the Pill but alas no spotted red.

About a week later I decided that I would go for a serious run all around Otmoor to look for the bird, an endeavour which I decided to christen the "Otmoor Challenge": start at the car park, run through the Saunders Field, check out the Pill (no birds at all), on through 100 Acre to the Joseph Stone, head towards Oddington (two whinchat, a lesser whitethroat and juv. whitethroat). Check out the Flood Field (7 little egrets, 2 grey herons, 3 lesser whitethroat, 1 whinchat, 2 hobbies). On towards Oddington, turn south along the river Ray towards Noke (1 buzzard), back east along the bridleway. Visit the two screens ( lots of aerial black-headed gulls, 1 kinfisher and 1 heron at first screen, canada geese and lapwings at second), then back to the bridleway and the car park, checking out the feeders (reed bunting, great tits etc). Total time 2 hours 15 minutes and two very sore knees so I was hobbling and walking it by the end. In hindsight it was rather too far a distance to run without building up to it a bit more and disappointingly the spotted redshank seemed to have left the reserve but at least I got to cover a lot of ground in one go. I don't know whether I'll do the Otmoor Challenge again anytime soon but it's there as a challenge for anyone else who wants to have a go.

Two Sunday's ago I got a call to say that a manx shearwater was out in the middle of Farmoor I. Now these birds do turn up inland periodically and indeed one (perhaps the same one) had been seen at Draycote Reservoir in Warkshire the previous day. Unfortunately I'd arranged to go out for the afternoon with my VLW (very lovely wife) and L and was unable to get down to see the bird. Needless to say it was nowhere to be seen the next morning. That would have been a county life tick for me so I was rather disappointed to have missed that one.

The following weekend and this time it was a little stint that turned up at Farmoor on the Saturday. This time we were having a belated celebration of our younger daughter's birthday and once again I wasn't able to get out at all. I did nip down there the next morning with L but once again it was nowhere to be seen.

Having missed three birds on the trot, I was starting to realised just how dedicated one has to be to do a serious county year list and that with family committments it wasn't really possible to see every passing vagrant. To add to all the problems of going out to see these birds, we are at present "between cars". That is to say, our old car has failed its MOT and our new one isn't ready for delivery yet. To fill the gap we have been using the Streetcar service where you book a car as you need it and pay by the hour. When a twitchable bird turns up this leads to added complications of whether a car is free and whether I can justify the cost to my VLW of hiring a car yet again to go and see "some bird" as she puts it.

When later that day I got a call to say an eclipse drake American Wigeon had been found on Sonning Eye GP, once again I wasn't able to respond immediately but I was a bit more optimistic that this bird might stay a bit longer. The next morning I booked the car for a three hour slot and headed down to Sonning Eye GP which took a surprising length of time (about an hour) to get to from Oxford. Fortunately I found the vagrant duck quite quickly and spent an hour digiscoping away happily. The bird was initially quite close in and the light reasonable so the shots didn't turn out too bad. This was a county life tick for me so I was most pleased to have connected with it. I am told that the previous county sighting was in 1995 so it's been a fair while since one was seen.



The patch of white that you can see here are some of the bird's underwing feathers that are out of place after the bird had stretched its wings. Shortly afterward it managed to sort them out again and the white patch disappeared.

The American Wigeon at Sonning Eye GP

Having got back from my Sonning trip that morning I then received a call that afternoon to say that a Great White Egret was around at Otmoor. I'd managed to miss the bird earlier in the year at Otmoor by about half an hour so this was a chance to catch up with it for the county year list. However the Streetcar wasn't free that afternoon and anyway even I balked at hiring the car out again for the afternoon so I had to follow the various sightings on OxonBird and Bird Guides and hope that it would stay till the following day.

Overnight news was good in that it had appeared to go to roost in the reedbed by the first screen and when a sighting appeared on Bird Guides first thing the next morning I decided to make a foray down there. I chose to take L along with me to earn some brownie points with my VLW and he could probably do with getting some fresh air as well. We arrived at Otmoor to find it was rather breezy and looking a bit desolate. There was no immediate sign of any egrets and I was starting to realise how hard it could be to find the bird if it chose to remain hidden. The bird had been showing on and off over Greenaways the previous day but had been seen on the Closes first thing so it could really be anywhere. I decided to walk towards the first screen keeping a keen lookout for any large white birds flying about. I did see very brief sightings of a white bird in the distance by the reedbed but they were only for fractions of a second and it was hard to tell whether it was a little egrets or its larger and rarer cousin. As I approached the first screen a large white bird seemed to land in the reedbed but once again it was a very brief sighting and still inconclusive. I had just arrived at the first screen and was chatting to a photographer there when the egret broke cover from the reeds, flew along the channel before heading up and around towards Big Otmoor. This time I had a clear view of its yellow beak and also its long trailing legs so it was definitely the right bird. Pleased to have seen it I had a brief look around the first screen which held a few snipe and a hunting kingfisher and made a brief trip to the second screen where there were a few winter teal, wigeon and shoveler starting to congregate. As I returned back to the car the egret put in another appearance and flew back across Greenaways and landed in a ditch to be lost from view once again.

So another couple of ticks for the national and county year lists which are continuing to "tick along" nicely though the two missed easy birds at Farmoor are rather annoying.

National Year List 2009
218 American Wigeon    14/09/2009    Sonning Eye GP
219 Great White Egret  15/09/2009    Otmoor


Oxon County Year List 2009
175 American Wigeon    14/09/2009    Sonning Eye GP (COUNTY LIFE TICK)
176 Great White Egret  15/09/2009    Otmoor

On Thursday afternoon I got a call on the grapevine to say that dedicated Oxon birder Phil Barnett (who found both the marsh warbler and the spoonbill at Otmoor this year) had come up trumps again in the form of a grey phalarope at Blenheim Palace lake. Within a couple of hours I had nipped down there and managed immediately to find the bird thanks to some directions from Phil and set about trying to digiscope it. Phalaropes are always hard to digiscope as they never stop moving but I did manage a couple of passable shots. Apparently only four birders managed to see the bird which was gone by the late evening.


The Blenheim grey phalarope

A tick for both my county and national year lists.

Oxon County Year List 2009
174:  grey phalarope     Blenheim Palace  03/09/09

National Year List 2009
217:  grey phalarope     Blenheim Palace  03/09/09

Around about lunch time on Friday 28th August the word was put out that a juvenile white-winged black tern was on Farmoor. Needing no further prompting I set off there post haste and on arrival I soon met up with dedicated Oxon birder Phil Barnett. At the top of the car park embankment we had a good scan around Farmoor II and having picked out the bird at the far end we decided to walk along the causeway to get a closer view. At this point the heavens opened so we beat a hasty retreat to the hide at the top of the reservoir where we met up with Alan Brampton the finder of the bird as well as another county birder. We had just found it in the company of one adult and two juvenile black terns when they all four flew over to Farmoor I and settled on the barley bales in the middle of the reservoir. We therefore trooped back along the causeway where I was just about to take a digiscoped shot when they all set off again. We watched from the causeway for a while as all four birds hunted in the middle of Farmoor II before noticing that a fifth bird had arrived. I set off to go home at this point pleased with another county year tick.

Early evening, word was put out by Ian Lewington that the fifth tern that had arrived was in fact a great rarity in the form of an American black-tern. Apparently Ian had taken some video of the white-winged black tern and had noticed another tern that was in shot for some of the time which wasn't a usual European black tern. Having done all the checks he was confident in identifying it as an American tern. I spoke to a fellow county lister and we decided that it would be a good idea to nip back to the reservoir to have a look for ourselves. The reason was partly that whilst we'd both seen all five terns and therefore the ABT we hadn't actually picked it out in situ. We both admitted that we weren't going to deny ourselves the tick should we not see it again but that it would feel better if we could actually pick it out. It was virtually dark by the time we arrived and raced around to the Lower Whitely Farm end in order to be as fast as possible. We raced up the embankment and soon were watching all five terns. We were just able to pick out the adult black tern and the WWBT and it was possible to make out that of the three remainging juveniles one was definitely darker along the flanks. As it got darker, three of the terns flew progressively higher and higher until they were lost from view though we weren't able to tell which three they were.

The next day found the WWBT and ABT still present on the reservoir so it had obviously been the three EBT's that had left that evening. Fortunately these two remaining birds seemed quite pally and have stuck around since, being joined fairly quickly by another juvenile European black tern making a wonderful trio of terns and offering great comparisons between them all.

I chose to go back on the very windy and overcast Sunday in order to try and take some digiscoped photos. Conditions were pretty terrible which explains the poor quality of my personal record shots.

The juvenile American Black-tern on the left and the juvenile White-winged Black-tern on the right in this poor quality digiscoped videograb.


Here is the video footage from which the grab was taken, again the quality is very poor.

For the best photographs that you're ever likely to see of these birds it's worth looking at Nic Hallams Farmoor Birding web-site.


Oxon County Year List 2009
The white-winged black tern is a county year (and county life) tick for me though I saw the adult bird at Staines reservoir earlier in the year so it's not a national year tick. The American black tern is currently classified as a sub-species of the black tern: Chlidonias niger surinamensis and so is not technically a tick though it's apparently ripe for a split soon so an armchair tick could well be in the offing. Even so it's the rarest bird that I've ever seen in the UK with only a couple of previous sightings in this country with a couple more in Ireland.

173 White-winged black tern  28/08/2009 Farmoor Reservoir  (County Lifer)

I've been dutifully birding away in the county during the wilderness months of June and July. This year it seems to have been particularly tough, partly because the flood waters on my local patch, Port Meadow, have completely dried up. Nevertheless I've managed a few ticks for the county year list recently so I thought that I would do a blog update to cover these.

Waders are my favourite birds which is why I like Port Meadow so much. When I was getting extreme wader withdrawal symptoms I would head over to Radley GP's where good numbers of green sandpipers have been coming through. I love these little birds and can always happily spend time watching them. Unfortunately they were on the far side of the ash pit but I did manage some rather blurry video footage of some of them.


Green Sandpiper at Radley GP. In the audio you can hear my three year old son chatting away to me about some caterpillars.

Despite having already seen a spotted flycatcher this year in the county I was keen to see them again and when I was offered the chance to photograph a pair that were nesting in someone's private garden in Kingston Lisle I jumped at the chance. I only had my digiscoping gear as usual so I had to wait for the right opportunity but I managed quite a decent shot in the end even if I say so myself

Kingston Lisle spotted flycatcher

Common redstart has been a county bird which so far during my two years of active Oxon birding has eluded me so when one turned up at Farmoor I was keen to find it. I went down as soon as I was able a couple of days after it was first found  but it was nowhere to be found. I then had to go away on holiday and so assumed that I'd missed the bird but on my return I was pleased to discover that it was still around and frequenting the same hedge. I therefore decide to go on a lunch-time run back to Farmoor to see if I could find it. I met up with a fellow birder who'd seen it some five minutes previously and even pointed out to me its favourite bush but despite watching this location for a good twenty minutes it didn't show. Eventually I had to leave in the company of one of the Farmoor regulars and as we walked back along the path low and behold there was the redstart further along the hedge flashing its red tail away. It was a shame that I didn't have my digiscoping gear with me but it was very nice finally to get this for my county life as well as county year list.

All birders deserve a bit of luck and I freely admit to getting a good portion of this recently when I was out on a family outing one Sunday. We'd gone for tea with some friends in the Wytham village post office and then wandered down to Wytham Mill to mess about down by the river. The kids were wading in the stream and I'd just wandered down to see how they were getting on when on the way back I saw a large long-winged bird coming towards me. Initially I thought that it was a large gull but as it got nearer I could see the tell-tale extended primaries of a raptor. It was quite close by now, perhaps 75 yards flying low over the trees and I could clearly see from its colouring and markings that it was in fact an osprey. These are hard birds to find in the county as they don't seem to hang around at all even at Farmoor and one generally has to be lucky in catching a fly-over. This spring I'd missed one that flew over Port Meadow about one hour after I'd left there but that's the luck of the draw with these things. This all meant that I was most pleased to have seen this bird which was another county life tick for me. This bird seemed to be following the river south and the spring bird had been following the river north so perhaps this is a common tactic for migrating ospreys.

With a crossbill irruption occurring throughout the country I was keen to catch up with these birds within the county. I was told that Bagley Wood was a good spot to try for them and it's not too far to go so I went and applied for a permit (from St. John's College Bursar's secretary). Armed with this I got up early one morning and went and loitered within the wood just near the entrance opposite the sawmill where a fellow county year lister had seen a couple of birds a few days earlier. However I didn't manage to see any though I did see three juvenile hobbies and managed a digiscoped photo of one of them.

Juvenile hobby at Bagley Wood

Another county year lister then managed a flock of at least 30 a few days after that so I decided to try again. He gave me detailed instructions of a hot spot to try so a few days later I again got up early and wandered further into the wood to the favoured location. There was nothing there when I first arrived but it was rather early so I decided to have a bit of a wander around and then to return later. I had several sightings of roe deer and found a juvenile buzzard squawking away demanding to be fed. There were also quite a few marsh tits "pitchooing" away at various places. I retraced my steps and returned to the hot spot to find several finches flying away and making quite a soft "jip" sound, almost chaffinch-like though these birds were too large for chaffinches. I was expecting the familiar very harsh "jip jip" call but nevertheless these were definitely crossbills. One of them conveniently stayed put at the top of a tree and allowed me to get quite close and indulge in a digiscoping session. The bright sunlight and the relative proximity of the bird meant that I was able to get some good shots. You can see that the bird is clearly a juvenile still with some soft downy feathers.

The confiding juvenile crossbill...

...and again even closer up.


So three county year list ticks to add to the list which is a bit of a relief as things had got rather bogged down recently with no ticks for far too long. In fact all three birds are actually county lifers though since I've only been birding actively in the county for two years there are quite a few of the relatively common birds that I still need to get.

2009 County Year List
170 Common Redstart  11/08/2009 Farmoor Reservoir  (County Lifer)
171 Osprey           23/08/2009 Wytham Mill        (County Lifer)
172 Crossbill        25/08/2009 Bagley Wood        (County Lifer)

Our summer family holiday this year was yet another in the long line of holidays going to the far flung corners of this country. This time it was to the Isle of Mull as we have always liked the rugged beauty of the west coast of Scotland. We'd booked a cottage right by the sea at a location called Grasspoint which is a point on the south east corner of the island looking out across the Sound of Mull back towards the mainland.

As usual we broke up the long journey north by stopping off in the Lake District to stay with relatives and we decided this year to go a day early and actually to spend a day in the Lakes. It was rather late in the year to see the ospreys at Bassenthwaite as they'd already flown the nest and could be anywhere on the lake and surrounding area but on a family walk through the pine forests up to the upper viewing point  we were lucky to find one of the birds back on the nest, presumably a juvenile waiting to be fed. I managed a distant digiscoped photo.

Osprey at view point at Bassenthwaite Lake, Cumbria

I did manage one other evening walk up to the lower viewpoint where the nest is not actually visible but there is a partial view of the Lake. From here there were lots of stock doves flying over and coal tits, greenfinches and chaffinches visiting the feeders. I also saw a distant peregrine fly over the lake being mobbed by a lapwing. A red squirrel, a speciality of the area, was also seen near the feeders.

The journey up to the Isle of Mull was largely uneventful though on the ferry I did manage to see a few black guillemots which are know to nest at Oban from where the ferry departs. The cottage itself turned out to be functional but rather shabby and a bit damp. However this was more than made up for by its fantastic location overlooking the mouth of Loch Don and out to sea with a small jetty a few yards away. There were large hills in the distance across the Loch and also behind the cottage and several small island out in front of us on the far side of the Loch mouth as well as a distant lighthouse. Within a couple of hours of arriving I'd spotted my first white-tailed sea eagle sitting on a ridge behind us before it flew off out into the Sound of Mull. There were also a pair of knot on one of the islands opposite the house, which apparently are somewhat uncommon passage waders for Mull.

As this was a family rather than a birding holiday I tended to get up before everyone else and just wander around Grasspoint to see what I could find and this worked out rather well. Amongst the resident birds around Grasspoint were three oystercatchers that worked their way along the shore line. A walk along the loch shore would often result in the sightings of common sandpiper and curlew and on one occasion there was a party of 4 ringed plover waiting out the high tide.

Out in the loch itself one could often find a black guillemot or two and on the islands opposite there were shags and cormorants as well as a rather fat seal that spent most of its time asleep. Out in the sound were the usual sea birds including guillemots and razorbills flying in their hurried straight lines low over the water; manx shearwaters skimming gracefully over the waves and kittiwakes with their distinctive "ink-dipped" wing tips.

The surrounding habitat was grass and scrub land and hosted a variety of birds. There were large numbers of meadow pipits around the house and a rock pipit or two would put in an occasional appearance. There was a small grove of trees near the house in which a family of willow warblers and a whitethroat or two seemed to live. Across the grassland hen harriers could often be seen hunting and there was a family of buzzards which we regularly encountered on the drive down to the house. Finches such as linnets, chaffinches, goldfinches and greenfinches would regularly fly overhead or be seen sitting on the wires. One of the highlights for me was a couple of sightings of a twite right by the house. I managed really good close views though unfortunately not for long enough to take a photo. On another occasion there was a whinchat sitting on the fence next to the house.

One of the juvenile willow warblers at Grasspoint

One of the members of the buzzard family on post on road to Grasspoint


A rock pipit right by the house


One-legged oystercatcher at Grasspoint


Oystercatcher at Grasspoint

One of the highlights of Grasspoint was the regular sightings of white-tailed sea eagles. They would often sit on the islands on the opposite side of the Loch. In fact several of the island's many wildlife tours would often come down to Grasspoint in order to give the tour goers sightings of the eagles

A White-tailed Sea Eagle drying its wings on one of the islands

A White-tailed Sea Eagle in its favourite perch

As well as a wide variety of bird life there were plenty of mammals to see in the water. I often saw porpoises in the area and once a dolphin as well as the smaller common seal. I once caught a glimpse of what might have been an otter across the estuary though apparently previous house guests had regular sightings close to the house.

A common seal at Grasspoint

One morning there was a fantastic basking shark swimming really close to the shore just in front of the jetty. I raced around there and managed a digiscoped shot of its huge dorsal fin cutting the water.

Basking Shark at Grasspoint

Apart from the regular birds there were plenty of occasional sightings to keep me interested.  Arctic terns nest on the islands to the west of Mull and they could sometimes be seen hunting out in the Sound of Mull from Grasspoint. On one rather misty occasion I was able to watch for about ten minutes a distant arctic skua harrying all the passing sea birds. On one occasion a red-throated diver was hunting close to the point and I was able to get a reasonable digiscoped record shot of it.

Red-throated diver at Grasspoint

Away from the great birding at Grasspoint, during the day we went on various trips. We were very lucky with the weather and there was only really one day which was too wet to do much other than a drive around the island. On that day we chose a tour along Loch Scridain and Loch na Keal. By the former we were very lucky to get absolutely stunning views of an otter right by the road side on the loch shore. Along the lochs there were typically eider and red-breasted mergansers on the water and wheatears flitting along the shoreline. Grey herons were seen everywhere hunting along the water's edge. I also managed to see a common scoter in Loch Scridain, which apparently isn't that common a visitor to the island.

On a couple of occasions we took the scenic driver down to Loch Buie where the children enjoyed messing about on the beach shore. The first time down there we were lucky enough to spot a pair of huge golden eagles soaring high up in the hills along the roadside. The completely dwarfed the ravens and buzzards that were flying nearby. At Loch Buie itself there were a variety of gulls on the sand at low tide, including lesser and greater black-backed and common gulls. There were also a couple of the subtly-patterned juvenile common gulls present which are always a pleasure to see at this time of year. There were quite a few ravens here and I heard the distinctive trill of a lesser redpoll though couldn't see it. In the water itself were the usual mergansers and eiders and oystercatchers were everywhere along the shore.

One of the most memorable days on the holiday was when we decided to go on a boat trip to Staffa and the Treshnish Islands. The boat was supposed to land on both these islands where there were sea bird colonies including nesting puffins, though it was rather late in the season for them and most would have left by now. Unfortunately the day we chose for this trip it was very windy and indeed the boat skipper warned us that it would be "very choppy out there even by his standards". Foolishly we didn't take the warning and decided to go anyway. It turned out to be far more choppy than anyone had expected and most of us, especially myself were violently ill for most of the journey. It was far too rough to land on any of the islands but we did see Staffa and Fingle's Cave in spectacularly rough conditions. We even managed to see three puffins on the sea as well as a close view of a manx shearwater and a few passing auks and arctic terns. I was so ill though that I had to go to bed for the rest of the afternoon to sleep it off. A most memorable outing!

Scotch Argus butterfly: these are not found in England at all but are plentiful on the island

The highlight of the holiday was a visit to the beautiful island of Iona. This involved a drive out through the Ross of Mull to Fionnphort from where the ferry to Iona departed. The scenery was noticably more rugged on this part of the island though with fewer hills. At one point on the journey we saw a large pod of porpoises quite close in to the shore. On the island itself I had been hoping at least to hear a corncrake but it was too late in the season and there were none to be heard. There was a bonus in the form of a great skua soaring high over the monastary where we were having our picnic lunch. After lunch we decided on a walk across to the other side of the island to the poetically named Bay at the Back of the Ocean. It was a beautifully hot day and my younger daughter even got slightly sun-burned. At the bay itself there were about 20 ringed plover, 10 dunlin and a single turnstone feeding along the shoreline. A few eider duck were bobbing about in the water close to the shore. As we headed back a couple of wheatear flitted ahead of us in the grass. We stopped off in a bar for a cup of tea and some cake and sat by the waters edge looking out across the Sound of Iona where a large pod of dolphins and porpoises were leaping and rolling for some time, a wonderful end to a great day.

Great Skua soaring over Iona © David Ryan

Sadly the holiday came to an end all too quickly but I was most pleased to have seen such an interesting variety of different birds. Grasspoint turned out to be a wonderful place to stay and fitted in perfectly with the family holiday, offering as it did an opportunity for varied and interesting early morning birding before the rest of the family were awake.

Common Gull at Grasspoint

I was anticipating a few year and life ticks on this holiday but managed more than I was expecting. I was pleased to get both eagles and also the twite (which was a lifer for me) but the two skua were nice bonuses.  It was also good to get closer views of puffins albeit under rather challenging circumstances. I would very much like to return to this wonderful part of the country earlier in the season in order to see the puffins nesting and at least to hear a corncrake. As a point of interest, seeing golden eagle means that there are no birds left that I saw only as a boy during the youthful phase of my birding, before the "wilderness years". Effectively I've now seen everything during the two years of "birding phase-two". Not sure how important this is but I thought that I would mention it.

National Year List 2009
210    osprey                 01/08/2009    Bassenthwaite, Cumbria
211    white-tailed sea eagle 02/08/2009    Isle of Mull (LIFER)
212    eider                  03/08/2009    Isle of Mull
213    twite                  04/08/2009    Isle of Mull (LIFER)
214    arctic skua            04/08/2009    Isle of Mull
215    golden eagle           06/08/2009    Isle of Mull
216    great skua             07/08/2009    Iona, Isle of Mull

Roseate tern has been one of my target birds for this year that I really wanted to see. The best place is a small island off the coast of Northumberland but that's quite a journey from Oxford so I had been keeping an eye on nearer sightings, looking for something twitchable. I had noticed several reports of a pair of Roseates at Brownsea Island and I did wonder whether they might be breeding there. This suspicion was confirmed when a recent Bird Guides report mentioned two adults and a juvenile. I needed no further encouragement and planned a trip down there.

The two hour journey was uneventful and I soon found myself at 09:30am waiting for the first ferry to take me across to the island. Whilst waiting I watched the common and sandwich terns passing by. It was interesting to notice the differences with the sandwich terns which were of course bigger but flew with a less elegant flight, looking more "angular" and also surprisingly much paler compared to the commons.

Once over on the island I made my way towards the hides. There was someone from the Dorset Wildlife Trust collecting ticket money for the hides and I asked about the whereabouts of the roseate terns and was told to go to the Mac Hide and to look across to the far side for a small green box where they were nesting. Armed with this information I duely made my way to the hide and started scanning. A scan of the far side revealed quite a large number of tern shelters, some of them like miniature roofs and others boxes. There were only a couple of terns loitering over there and neither of them were roseates. After another couple of scans to make sure I started to wonder whether this was going to be a massive dip and decided to see what else was about. There was a very large (several hundred) flock of black-tailed godwits and good numbers of redshank with a few greenshank for good measure. There were also about 20 or so dunlin sprinkled about the place as were a dozen or so avocets. Carefully scanning the far bank revealed a pair of ringed plover and also two adult Mediterranean Gulls in amongst the other gulls along the far lagoon wall.

At this point a couple entered the hide and were asking about the roseate tern. I told them what I knew and decided that it was about time to have another scan. Almost immediately I found an adult bird sitting on top of one of the green boxes and the juvenile would occasionally pop out from inside the box to see if there was any food on offer. The birds were along way away and there was a fair bit of heat haze but it was sunny so my digiscoping efforts didn't come out too badly, especially after a bit of post processing.

The adult roseate tern

With the juvenile roseate tern out of its box

Very pleased with having connected with this elegant tern I eventually made my way to the other hide in order to take some photos. The godwits were obligingly close as were the avocets and I spent a good hour digiscoping and videoing away. One of the highlights was a juvenile peregrine which I first picked up flying in the distance over the back of the lagoon before it changed direction and swooped low over the lagoon straight towards the hide scattering the waders in all directions. It didn't manage to catch anything but it was most exciting.

Feeding avocet
Avocet in classic pose. Black and white birds are harder to get the autofocus to lock in on so I was pleased that these came out so well.

Posing black-tailed godwit

A feeding black-tailed godwit

One of the common terns that were nesting in front of the hide.


Some video of one of the black-tailed godwits feeding in front of the hide

This bird was perched on this post whilst I was waiting for the return ferry. I just used the camera on its own (no digiscoping) as the bird was only a yard or two away from me. I love the slightly menacing feel to this shot and the interesting perspective of having the bird so close with the house in the background.

It was about a year ago that I first went to Brownsea and it's pleasing to see how my digiscoping has progressed since then with some photos that I can be most pleased with. Of course Brownsea is a photographer's paradise with normally distant waders being amazingly close.

Another tick for the year list and in fact a lifer for me. I've now managed to see all five breeding terns as well as black and black-winged terns this year.

National Year List 2009
209 Roseate Tern     Brownsea Island, Dorset

As regular readers (if there are any!) may know, after a many wilderness years as a non birder, I have only comparatively recently taken up birding again. There are not many birds left on my life list that I have only seen as a boy with lesser spotted woodpecker, golden eagle and honey buzzard being the only ones and I managed to see the woodpecker earlier on this year. I'd been meaning to "re-do" honey buzzard for some time and when a fellow birder told me of a location in the New Forest where they could be seen I decided to nip down there one morning. The weather was still very hot so I decided to make it a relatively early visit though the buzzards aren't usually soaring until it's warmed up a bit. On the morning that I'd chosen, our three year old son decided to wake us up at 5am so I got up did a bit of work that had to be done first thing and was ready and out the door just after 6am. The journey down took just a little over an hour and by 7:30am I was in the New Forest area. I had decided to visit a know hot-spot for wood warblers first to see if I could see one of these delightful warblers. The location was a wood by a small stream and clearing where they were known to frequent though I was wondering whether it might now be a little late for them to be singing. As I got out of the car and collected my gear together I heard the unmistakable call of a party of crossbills flying overhead though I couldn't see them. I wandered down to the clearing where there were loads of young chaffinches flying around, a spotted flycatcher was seen with a beak full of insects and there were countless tits calling in the trees. I heard another crossbill calling and this time saw a lovely red male fly over and settle briefly in a tree though not long enough for a photo. I decided to go for an amble parallel to the stream to see if I could hear any wood warblers but despite walking for a good twenty minutes not a single one was heard so I suspect that my fears about it being too late in the year were correct. I did manage to hear and briefly see a lesser spotted woodpecker, deep within the woods. As time was marching on I retraced my steps and just as I was getting into the car another male crossbill flew over and perched briefly on the top of a nearby tree.

I was not able to take any bird photos on my trip but I thought that this shot captured the atmosphere of part of the wood rather well. I saw the lesser spotted woodpecker not too far from this spot.

I decided to take the scenic route to the honey buzzard location across the open heathland area of the New Forest. I was keeping an eye out for birds such as dartford warblers as I went along when I spotted a pipit by the road side. Judging by its rather confiding nature as it sat unperturbed a few metres from the car, it was probably a juvenile and it stayed out in the open for long enough for me to get a good view of the finer streaking on the low breast that signifies a tree pipit as opposed to a meadow pipit. I had the car window open and I could hear several adults singing from nearby so it was obviously a tree pipit hot spot.

I soon arrived at the buzzard location and encamped in the shade of a convenient tree. Whilst waiting I could hear some "hueet" calls which turned out to be a couple of redstarts, either juveniles or females, flitting around some distant bushes. After some time of scanning away I spotted a raptor flying low over some trees some distance away. It flew into a tree and I was able to get my scope onto it and to see that it was in fact a lovely male honey buzzard: it's streaked white breast and grey hooded head showing well despite the distance. I managed to see it as it flew off and noted the distinctive lined pattern of the underwing. Later on a buzzard took to the air and started soaring but it looked to me more like a common buzzard than a honey and the shape of the bird didn't strike me as particularly different from a common buzzard.

I had been toying with the idea of nipping off to another spot that was a know dartford warbler hot spot but as time was marching on I decided to head for home. The journey back was uneventful and I arrived back in time for lunch. It had been a nice little morning's trip with a few new year ticks to add to the list.

National Year List 2009
205    crossbill                   02/07/2009    New Forest, Hants
206    tree pipit                   02/07/2009    New Forest, Hants
207    common redstart   02/07/2009    New Forest, Hants
208    honey buzzard         02/07/2009    New Forest, Hants