As things are now changing and from tomorrow we are allowed to exercise multiple times a day and drive to a destination I think it's a good time to finish the lockdown series. As I look back on events that unfolded I will always remember these last few weeks and the benefits wildlife gave me whilst feeling low and isolated it has always given me a lift! I hope you enjoyed the posts and we will be blogging as usual throughout the year about our birding and (hopefully) ringing experiences...
Seeing the first Swift of spring is always a magic moment! They are the true acrobats of the sky and an amazing long distance migrant that may not land for over 2 years!
The last week or so has been action packed for birds and birding with settled weather and favourable winds yielding plenty of surprises even for landlocked birders such as myself at the moment. A walk up to our favourite fields above the house presented me with the find of the Spring for me personally! A Blue-headed Wagtail which was sadly all too brief for a photograph as it came out of the same field that I found a Lapland Bunting on January 1st! The habitat in this one particular field is so unspoilt with rare wild flowers and grasses and a healthy population of Skylark and Yellowhammer it is an oasis for birds and a time warp to how things would've looked in the entire area 50 years ago (before intensive farming and early silage cutting).
More Common Whitethroat have arrived in my local area this year having successfully completed their migration in the fine and settled weather, This showy male wasn't best pleased with our presence on his patch!
The high ground above my house is an important area for Skylark which breed in a large uncultivated field, sadly such habitat is very rare to find these days which is a major factor in their alarming decline (over 75% since 1970's)
As we were sat having dinner in the garden on Friday evening I happened to look up in the sky and noticed a group of Red Kite's soaring overhead! This was surely the start of the annual Red Kite influx to Cornwall and the next day huge numbers poured through the county with a record count of over 300 birds recorded from a garden in Marazion! I'm sure many of you reading this may have seen some of these graceful and eye-catching raptors from your own garden or on your local walk and if you haven't yet seen one do keep looking as they are still being reported throughout Cornwall (for a write up on the Red Kite influx it's worth reading this article by CBWPS: https://www.cbwps.org.uk/cbwpsword/sightings/)
Cornwall enjoyed a spectacular arrival of Red Kite with several hundred birds logged across the county! Note the primary moult in this bird ageing it as a 2nd calendar year. All birds I scrutinized were the same age and indicate that as usual they are probably all non breeding birds originating from the successful reintroduced population around the UK.
In a bright sky against the sun or high up in dull light Red Kite can look very dark meaning potential confusion with the much rarer Black Kite. Shape & structure are the best clues to it's identity with Red Kite showing a longer tail with a noticeably deeper notched fork. They have longer/thinner wings and the overall shape is less stocky than a Black Kite.
Even the Noc Mig recording was superb this week with several big groups of Whimbrel over the house plus some Dunlin and most bizarre and amazing of all a substantial flock of Common Tern recorded migrating over the house in the early hours! Noc Mig is changing my understanding of migration and I would never have guessed that Common Tern would migrate well inland through Cornwall at night!
Our resident birds seem to be having a successful breeding season so far thanks to the settled weather I suspect. We have been delighted to see fledged Song Thrush, Blackbird & Mistle Thrush in the garden and we have also glimpsed the odd juvenile Robin. The delightful Dippers which grace the river below our house have also raised their young and we were lucky enough to see two juveniles on VE day busily chasing their parents for food along the riverbank. After a while they began to search for their own food and were already pretty adept at catching prey underwater which is amazing considering they were so young out of the nest. It's worth searching for Dippers and watching their antics as they bob up and down the river. They are the only passerine that has adapted to feed underwater and they achieve this by having specially adapted eye lids which have evolved into a pair of water tight bird goggles!
Adult Dipper
Juvenile Dipper
In the future I have learnt to enjoy the nature that is around me and I will be continuing my photography and walking from home even after lockdown as I feel more familiar with where I live than ever before. I'll never stop going to the coast though as a birder the coast and migration is unmissable for me...
There are a healthy population of Roe Deer around my house but you need to get up very early to see them
It isn't just birds which have caught our interest over the lockdown and it has been amazing to see the variety of nature that visit our garden and the surrounding farmland around the house.....
Brown Trout rely on camouflage to avoid capture from Heron's and other predators and their cryptic colours and spots certainly help achieve this, can you spot it in the picture?
Earlier on in lockdown I bought a trail camera for only £50 and each night me and Libbie take it turns to place it somewhere around the garden or the farm next door and it's been amazing to record the different animals which pass it at night! Basically the camera works on movement so if anything goes past it's sight it will trigger 20 seconds of video and with the night vision it has it really is amazing value and great fun to look through the next day. Seeing these Roe Deer behaving naturally in the wild and also these two Wood Mice without them being disturbed is really captivating as it offers a glimpse into their lives.
Our 'pet' rabbit (known in the family as Reggie!)
I've also recorded foxes and hedgehog's overnight on my sound recorder and both noctule and pipistrelle bat. Plenty of rabbit's have also found the garden to their liking and have so far managed to avoid the dog!
Common Toad is best looked for at night as they roam about searching for insects
Our garden pond at night is full of Newts, Frogs and Toads and we've even seen a Grass Snake briefly sunbathing but sadly no photo!
I've never seen the point in mothing before now but I've been ignorant to these fascinating creatures. (Species photographed are: top Angle Shades, left Small Phoenix and right Muslin Moth)
We have also taken an interest in Moth's and set the trap each night and wait in anticipation to see what gets attracted to the light. The only thing is that our trap consists of an outdoor porch light and a fishing net! But it works well enough for us to learn them slowly and we have so far seen seventeen species including Fox Glove Pug, Least Black Arches and Ruddy Streak. All of the moths have really intricate and often stunning patterns and some of them have fascinating origins such as the Ruddy Streak which is an escapee originally from Australia!
Never an easy Butterfly to photograph, it has been a very good spring for Holly Blue with numerous sightings
Butterflies have been out in force especially over the weekend and we spotted the first Wall Brown of the year taking the overall tally to … species since lockdown. Sunday's warm weather also brought out the first Dragonfly of the year with this stunning Beautiful Demoiselle.
Beautiful Demoiselle
This was supposed to be a blog post without birds but I can't help it they will always be top of the tree for me and they have been the highlight of the week for me as usual! An early morning walk brought me the gift of a singing Cuckoo ,the first one I've heard near to home for many years! Swallow's, House Martins and even a Sand Martin have flown through the garden during the day whilst at night I recorded an Oystercatcher (first for the garden!) and more groups of Whimbrel, Little Grebe, Coot and Moorhen. Probably the most unexpected bird though was a Woodcock that flew over on 28th April calling as the sun set. Probably just a late migrant as I don't think they breed in Cornwall I only recognised the call after hearing them frequently in Lithuania last Spring. So the surprises that nature can give are still just on the doorstep and learning about the Mammals, Moths , Reptiles and Amphibians has been a great distraction and certainly something that wouldn't happen in normal life and yet I'm glad that it has.
It is nearly May and I am sure with some certainty that if I wasn’t confined to my property and local daily exercise schedule that something rare somewhere in the southern half of Britain would be luring me in its general direction and the “Twitch” would be on.
In my early days as a birder it was impressed on me that twitching a rarity should be shunned and there was no fun in it apart from the growth of a pointless list! Sadly, I lived that life for more years than I should have, and the consequence has been that I have missed some truly great birds due to stubbornness! Thankfully now I am not so easily led, or pig headed and in recent years I have travelled about to see some of the natural worlds most elegant and beautiful avian wonders. But what is the point in twitching? Is my sole purpose to build an endless list in the vain hope that one day I can use it as some metaphorical truncheon to beat any young up and coming bird nerd into submission? Or is there deeper value and meaning to seeing a new and rare bird? Well I think so! As somebody who is reasonably proficient at general birding, I tend to do OK for odd and rare records each year helped by the fact that I live in the surprisingly under watched Cornwall. So why leave the picturesque oasis of home to see birds when the chances are you will find something half decent nearby? Well, simply put for the novelty and learning opportunities.
Let’s face it there are not many people who don’t like seeing and experiencing something new! I find twitching can bring out a huge range of emotions reminiscent of a Christmas or Birthday morning! Anticipation, trepidation, jubilation and defeat are all regular feelings when heading for or departing a twitch. How many legal or safe alternatives are out there that allow for such a range of feelings? But perhaps more importantly the learning value and opportunity of seeing something in the field offers so much more than reading about a species and viewing pictures. We have all heard the term “jizz” and the fact that sometimes you just know you have stumbled across something with "Wow" factor before evaluating the finer details of the bird. This gut reaction does not come from knowing everything about possible rarities that could turn up on your patch but from a more extensive experience of the local birds that inhabit an area and just knowing it was unlikely to be one of them. So, seeing a rare bird and having the opportunity to familiarise yourself with its general traits and appearance will only add to this bank of subconscious information in my opinion!
Looking back over the last six months I have had some real twitching luck and the lock down period has given me the opportunity to revisit some of these jubilant experiences. So, without further ado here are some of the recent highlights.
Black-throated Thrush – Whipsnade Zoo – 22nd of December 2019.
I am sure that for the die-hard rare bird enthusiast out there this bird may be best left in the archives due to its immense popularity at the time and the number of pictures that did the rounds. No doubt some people got sick of seeing it! However, I can’t help myself. It was a long drive to Whipsnade Zoo and back home in the same day in fact 540 miles. So, a little more appreciation and admiration for this show stopping stunner is warrant and just I think.
There were a couple of reasons to make such a long drive for
one bird, which is not normally mine and Bob’s style. We tend to wait for two
or three targets in order to justify the expense and effort. Firstly, the
Thrush was an unmistakable male with a grey back, white belly, and a
pitch-black throat and chest, exactly how we wanted to see the species. Secondly, it had
been around awhile and seemed settled so the risk of it departing was perhaps
better than normal odds? Long story short we were one of the first cars on site that morning and waited patiently in the entrance cue for around 30 minutes. Thankfully, once inside the zoo we didn't have to wait quite as long for fantastic views of this handsome bird! Well worth the effort and trip.
The following day I did some reading and found out that in the past 120 years only
around 90 individuals had been seen in the UK and few of them had offered such
great views and the cooperation that this individual had presented us! To put
it into perspective of how far off course this bird was, it is normally found breeding
from the extreme east of Europe to Western Siberia and north-west Mongolia. Add
to that the wintering range extends from the Middle East to eastern Burma. So,
at the end of December it was around 5000 miles north-west of where it should
be! Now surely that deserves some sort of accolade?
Ross’s Gull – Plymouth – 14th of March 2020
Now I must confess I first went up to Plymouth after work on
the 13th of March and did briefly see it for all of 5 seconds before
it sailed off upriver and was sadly not relocated again that evening. The view was almost
to poor to count it and I left a little narked and frustrated! The hour drive
home gave me plenty of time to mull it over and concoct a plan for the
following morning.
Shortly after dawn at around 8 am I was stood in the same
spot hoping and praying the little beauty hadn’t departed over night and that I
was going to get a better view of it that morning. I waited patiently with no
sign but was happy admiring the local Great Northern Divers and Red-breasted
Mergansers from my vantage point. After an hour I was starting to get that
sinking feeling in my stomach that I wasn’t in luck. I thought it best to check the internet
and see if any local news had come out. Sure enough about 15 minutes earlier a
tweet had gone out and it was showing well about 1.5 miles further up river!
Now Plymouth is just like any other city between 8 and 9 am and there was
traffic everywhere. It took me the best part of 20 minutes to navigate and
battle through the local bustle. I am thankful though that it waited for me and
on arrival to the recommended car park I could see it from the far river bank through
the scope. What a relief!
As luck would have it local birding stalwart Darrell Clegg
arrived on site and talked me through some of the mouth-watering avian history
of the site and more importantly showed me how to get a bit closer to the bird
in question so that I could try and get some sort of record shot or video. So
what did I learn from it? Well just as my field guides suggested it was similar
in size and plumage characteristics to that of a Little Gull albeit had a
delightful “dove” shaped and rather large head. It was also slightly larger,
which was quite notable when comparing it to the nearby Black-headed Gulls. It
certainly didn’t appear so diminutive as I have recalled Little
Gulls in the past. I also noted that it appeared to have an extensive primary
projection and I could also quite easily see the diagnostic wedge or diamond-shaped
tail. This particular bird was an adult and it was starting to show a faint pink
flush to the breast but was lacking the neat black neck ring that it will get a
little closer to the breeding season.
The following day I also did a little research on its normal
distribution to refresh my knowledge on such a wonderful creature. Interestingly Ross's Gull breeds in the high
Arctic of northernmost North America, and northeast Siberia. It has a short autumnal
migration and most of the population are found wintering at the edge of the
pack ice in the northern Bering Sea and in the Sea of Okhotsk. So another
species around 5000 miles away from its normal wintering grounds! With around 104 UK records in the last 120 years this species is another rather rare bird that was a delight to see.
Laughing Gull - Cheddar Reservoir - 14th of March 2020
Feeling incredibly lucky having just had superb views of the Ross's Gull I felt it best to maximise my profitability whilst luck was on my side! So I decided to drive two hours north and head for Cheddar Reservoir and try for the Laughing Gull that had been coming into roost every evening for the past week.
I arrived a number of hours before prime time so made the most of the afternoon by enjoying the picturesque spot and take a look at the local bird life. It was a wonderful place and I can see why it has such a good core of local birders. After an all to brief siesta and as the day started to wane it was time to put my serious cap on and get into place. I was one of the first to the area and in all honesty I wasn't expecting many more twitchers as it had been around awhile, but as the minutes ticked by and the local gull population started flying in so more and more people arrived. Before long over 100 people were in place and scopes to the ready! It was pleasant talking with some others that had travelled to the Reservoir with the same goal in mind as myself and I was chuffed that I picked up on the drake Ring-necked Duck that was also present. A bird that a nearby group had hoped to catch up with all afternoon but alas it had eluded them! It was also pleasing to meet some of the Falmouth Uni students on site and had a good yarn and catch up with Toby Flood, Liam Langley, Matt Doyle and Matthew Broadbent. They are a smashing group of lads and my bet is that they will become prominent figures in the birding and ornithological world in the not to distant future! They were also hoping for a double victory day having been for a nearby Kentish Plover earlier that day.
After some heavy scanning of the gulls that were coming and going eventually several of us noticed a sooty looking gull bobbing in and out of view. That had to be it surely? A moment or two later it slipped out from behind a Common Gull and Liam exclaimed "there it is"! Hooray, now that was well worth the effort and drive.
So what useful observations and subconscious impressions did I take away with me? Well firstly it was very distinctive and much darker than I was expecting it to be! My first thought was that it looked superficially like a long-winged mellanistic Common Gull. However, on closer inspection several key differences could be observed. The general wing plumage appeared uniform and dark chocolate brown in colouration. This contrasted nicely with the head, neck and flanks which were extensively smudged with an ashy grey. The bill was very dark/black and the diagnostic slightly dropping shape could easily been seen even at range. As the bird flew I also noted that the belly appeared pale and clean which contrasted starkly with the flanks and upperparts of the bird. It also had a clean white rump which contrasted with the mostly dark tail shown on a first winter bird.
My research following the twitch councluded that in the past 120 years there have been around 260 records of this gull in the UK. However, this figure is slightly skewed due to Hurricane Wilma which led to a dramatic invasion of Laughing Gulls
in early November 2005, possibly as many as 70
individuals arrived! So, whilst a little more frequent than the previous species I had recently seen, it is still bordering the "mega" end of the rarity scale! I also brushed up on the Laughing Gull's home range and found out that they normally spend their winters from North Carolina and along the west coast of Baja California; along the Pacific Coast from Colima, Mexico, south to northern Peru! Making the Cheddar bird some 3500 miles west of its intended winter haunt.
I do keep lists of bird species I have seen but only two are important to me and they might surprise you! The all important one to me is my Cornish list. I don't think there is is anything quite like seeing a new bird in your home county. Although I know that I am extremely lucky living where I do, as its avian history and rarity potential is some of the most desirable in the UK! I also love my Western Palearctic listing which is in its infancy but Ross's Gull was my 500th species. So I feel it is off to a good start and I have some superb trips planned for the next few years so lets hope it continues to grow. Is there a point to all of this? Well, for me at least I love the novelty value and thrill I get from "going" for new birds. But the learning opportunity and experience I gain is by far the most important aspect for me! Lets hope for some more educational conquests really soon. I hope I get to see and meet some of you there.
Our resident birds seem to be having a successful breeding season so far thanks to the settled weather I suspect. We have been delighted to see fledged Song Thrush, Blackbird & Mistle Thrush in the garden and we have also glimpsed the odd juvenile Robin. The delightful Dippers which grace the river below our house have also raised their young and we were lucky enough to see two juveniles on VE day busily chasing their parents for food along the riverbank. After a while they began to search for their own food and were already pretty adept at catching prey underwater which is amazing considering they were so young out of the nest. It's worth searching for Dippers and watching their antics as they bob up and down the river. They are the only passerine that has adapted to feed underwater and they achieve this by having specially adapted eye lids which have evolved into a pair of water tight bird goggles!
