Week 22 14-09-2014 Birds Spotted: 2

So it's been an interesting week for me this week.
I invested in a pair of binoculars and joined the Christchurch Ornithological Bird Group. I'm keen to meet up with people who share my passion for birds and was looking for someone to occasionally go birding with (it gets quite lonely see).

Anyhow I meet up with Mark, who was kind enough to take me around some of his favourite haunts at Hengistbury. As a result of his good ear for identifying bird by their song and his general knowledge I was able to see no less than five new birds: Yellow Wagtail, Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Blackcap and Sparrow Hawk. Unfortunately, I was unable to get photos of many of them, which leaves me in a quandary with regards to the blog. Do I include birds I see, or just the ones I photograph. I'll stick to the original plan, but will now keep a separate list for total birds.

So let's move onto the new birds we've got photos of this week then.

Lesser Whitethroat.
Okay so the picture is terrible, but this is a Lesser Whitethroat. Honest.
It's smaller than the Whitethroat, with a more masked face (which you can't see here). We identified it by call and it was generally staying deep in the trees, refusing to surface. It's a relatively common warbler with around 74,000 breeding pairs throughout most of the UK. It's a summer migrant like many of our warblers and will be heading home by mid October at the latest.

Not the greatest of shots admittedly. So consider it a record shot only.

Snipe

I returned to Hengistbury Head the following day, hoping to maybe get photos of the birds I had seen the previous day. While I saw none of them, I did see a Kingfisher hovering for food and this delightful bird. I'd been following a Kestrel, when my eyes were drawn to the Snipe. It had a very erratic flight (possibly due to the nearby Kestrel) and eventually dived into some marsh ground. It was quite a distance away but more than near enough for a solid ID.

Snipes are relatively shy wading birds that like to skulk around. They are relatively common with over a million birds wintering here each year. They are suffering from falling numbers though, meaning they've been placed on the RSPB's amber list. I'd just been talking about seeing one of these on a forum this very morning, so am more than happy to see it cartwheeling through the sky.

It's a 100% crop, but there's no mistaking what it is.

Here's a shot of its underside. Again, a 100% crop. Note the large patches of white.

So I'm now on 117 spotted birds, 113 photographed birds, with 159 left to find.

Here's some of the other birds I saw over the weekend.

A Chiffchaff on the hunt for food.

A Carrion Crow on the roof of the visitor centre.

Goldfinches resting.

A Great Tit in the same bush as the Lesser Whitethroat.

A juvenile Stonechat.

A Robin in Christmas Card pose.

A low-flying House Martin.

A Speckled Wood. Thanks Marianne!

A Magpie.

A Green Woodpecker.

Which flew to a nearby tree.

It wasn't until I'd processed this Magpie picture that I saw the Green Woodpecker.

Some bird watcher I am!

A very distant Kingfisher.

A Jay flying overhead.

Cormorant flying over the head.

We saw this little fellow on the Sunday. Shame about the Mallard in the background.

And here he is hovering. Stunning little bird. He ended up attracting a small crowd.

Starlings are everywhere.

The Kestrel that disturbed the Snipe.

A juvenile male House Sparrow. Thanks for the id Marianne.

Little Egret and some Mallards.

Another Kingfisher shot? Go on then.