Patchwork Challenge - Longham Lakes Visit 6

Despite having some time off this past week the weather was pretty atrocious. I'm something of a lazy birder, so I waited until Saturday when the weather cleaned up, with the aim of catching up with Martin Wood, who is also regularly walking Longham Lakes.

Here's the back end of a Buzzard as it flew away.

The car park was pretty empty and I've still been unable to find any House Sparrows. I thought I saw some on a tree driving in, but upon returning they had long flown.

Moving to north lake I could see the usual suspects and there were a large number of Tufted Duck. The Pochard on the other hand were nowhere to be seen. I caught the back end of a buzzard in one of the hampreston fields, spotted several coot and saw the old greenfinch and goldfinch but it was pretty slim pickings all around.

Not the greatest shot of a Chiffchaff, but it will do.

Upon reaching the back of the north lake I hopped the stile hoping to find gulls in the field but it was completely empty, the first time that's happened. It wasn't too bad though as around 6 Chaffinch were hanging around the small coppice found at the end of the walkway between the two lakes. I saw numerous Tits, including Great, Blue and Long-Tailed Tits and also robins, blackbirds and dunnocks.

A few Long-Tailed Tits were hanging around and proving difficult to take photos of.

Upon moving to the other lake it became obvious where all the Pochard were. In fact there were about 20 Pochard all in and at least 15 Shoveler which had been hiding in the reeds. I saw no teal at all though, although Mallards and Gadwell were in the adjacent field.

The Shovelers and Pochards were happy to hang out together.

As I travelled around the lake I soon realised where all the gulls were! There must have been at least 200, probably more gulls on the lake and they mainly appeared to be Black Headeds. Heeding Martin's advice I spent a fair while scanning them and was rewarded with some Mediterranean's which was my one new bird for the week.

You can tell the Mediterranean Gulls as they have no black tips on the wings.

There were numerous Little Egret, but I didn't see a single Grey Heron. Moorhen's continue to elude me too, which makes me wonder whether they are perhaps seasonal here. I spied several Herring Gulls on the lake too, as well as more Tufted Ducks, Great Creasted Grebes and a small number of Little Grebes. Carrion Crows, Magpies and Jackdaws were abundant, but I couldn't see any Rooks. I'm yet to see Jay too, but that's not surprising as I've never seen them in the two odd years I've been visiting.

A couple of very distant Little Egrets. I saw several more on the actual lake.

All in all it was a nice walk, but I'm hoping that as we move into March we're going to start seeing a few possible migrants (I saw Wheatear last year and Hobbys aren't unusual).

That puts me on a total of 47 birds, which isn't too shabby at all.

The backfields were rather quiet, with just Canada Geese, Greylag Geese and Mute Swans.

Here's all the birds I saw.

Black-Headed Gull (at least 250)

Blackbirds

Blue Tits

Buzzard

Canada Geese (around 20)

Carrion Crows

Chaffinch

Chiffchaff (about 5)

Coot (too many to count)

Cormorant

Dunnock

Gadwell

Goldfinch

Great Crested Grebe

Great Tit

Greenfinch

Greylag Geese

Jackdaw

Kestrel

Little Egret (4)

Little Grebe

Long-Tailed Tit (5)

Magpie

Mallard

Mediterranean Gull (3)

Mistle Thrush

Mute Swan

Pochard (about 20)

Robin

Shoveler (about 15)

Starling

Tufted Duck

Wood Pigeon

Patchwork Challenge - Longham Lakes Visit 5

I had a new camera turn up this week, so the weather has been absolutely terrible. I went out anyway, but I am massively unhappy with the quality of what I took on such an overcast day. Most of the issues was that I had it set up completely wrong, so don't be surprised by the poor quality of the images today.

Scanning the carpark yielded Great Tits, but not a lot else. I could hear plenty of birds around, but my id skills are pretty poor and it was far too cold to simply hang around in one place.

Moving to the north lake I was rewarded with a fair sized flock of Pochards, which must have numbered around 15 birds, far more than I saw last time. Carrion Crows and Magpies were in the adjoining fields and there were plenty of Blackbirds and Robins about too. I've still yet to see any House Sparrows, but there was a small number of Goldfinches and Greenfinches flying about.

The back fields were pretty quiet, with just Mute Swans, Herring Gulls and Black-Headed Gulls about. Heading off one of the footpaths I saw a Mistle Thruish skulking around in the undergrowth, but it soon flew off. I had better luck in one of the adjoining fields due to a Common Gull which was grazing with some Black-Headed Gulls.

A Common Gull, out for a stroll.

Walking along the back of the lake rewarded me with Long-Tailed Tits, Blue Tits and another Goldcrest. A couple of Cormorant were fishing and there was a lone Little Egret, which ended up flying over to the south lake.

The south lake was very quiet, with very little on the small island about from Tufted Ducks and Mallards. There were a few Great Crested Grebes and Little Grebes swimming about, but many of the ducks were nowhere to be see. The wood at the back of South Lake was bursting with song, but I struggled to identify anything other than a Great Tit. I did manage to see a lone Stock Dove though, which gave me my second new birds of the day. Oh and while I remember there was a Dunnock skulking around in one of the hedgerows too. There were a lot of Herring Gulls on the south lake and one Lesser Black-Backed Gull, which was another new bird for the patch.

Lesser Black Backed Gull in the foreground.

As I was walking back, I'm convinced I saw a female Reed Bunting but as I couldn't fairly ID it I'm not including it. One thing I do remember is that the back fields had a lot of Cormorants in them. I typically see these birds resting in the pylons there, but never on the actual ground.

That gives me a total of 46 registered birds for the patch now. Hopefully my fellow patcher Martin hasn't seen any new yet :P

Black-Headed Gull
Blackbird
Blue Tit
Carrion Crow
Cormorant
Coot
Dunnock
Gadwell
Goldfinch
Goldcrest
Great Crested Grebe
Greenfinch
Great Tit
Herring Gull
Jackdaw
Kestrel
Little Egret
Little Grebe
Long-Tailed Tit
Magpie
Mallard
Mistle Thrush
Mute Swan
Rrobin
Pochard
Tufted Duck
Wigeon
Wood Pigeon
Wren

Patchwork Challenge Hengistbury Head Visit 1

As the weather wasn't too bad on Sunday I headed to Hengistbury Head with my wife and daughter.
It's a great opportunity for the patchwork challenge as a walk from the visitor centre to the ferry is a mile and a half, which easily covers the 3km rule of the challenge. It also allows you to cover a wide variety of environments, far more than at Longham. Despite this, the day was something of a bust as the weather was so windy, with hardly any small birds around.

Things started off well with a large group of 30 odd Wigeon feeding in harbour by the visitor centre. Black-Headed Gulls were also abundant, although I didn't see anything rare among them. Maybe next time... I looked for Little Egrets and Water Rails but the tide was in and the heavy rain meant everything was quite flooded. They'll be plenty of other opportunities. Oh and I saw a Coot.

A lot of Redshank were about, but they were quite far out.

I did look at the spit which is opposite Stanpit but the only bird I could identify with any certainty was a Cormorant. I'm sure there were some interesting gulls out there too, but my binoculars just weren't up to the task.

Moving into the woods I heard a lot of chatter, but my lousy knowledge of bird song meant the only bird I could identify was a Great Tit. I did spy a Blue Tit and some Starlings, but it was otherwise uneventful.

Lots of BBGs were about.

Scanning the next set of ponds produced a few more ducks, notably Wigeon (which were everywhere) Mallard and quite a few Teal. I saw a male Pheasant skulking around in the grass behind them and there were also about 5 Redshank feeding, but no other waders appeared.

Upon reaching the beach I spied Pied Wagtail, Carrion Crow, Cormorants, Black Headed Gulls and a Rock Pipit, the first I've seen on the head. I still haven't seen the Purple Sandpipers, but I'll catch them one day.

A pretty lousy shot of a Rock Pipit.

The walk back wasn't too eventful, although I did catch Magpies, Little Grebes, a Grey Heron and a couple of Herring Gulls. Not the best of starts, but it's quite hard to bird when you have an impatient wife (who did kindly keep note of everything I saw) and a scooter-riding daughter.

Not the greatest start with 17 birds, but that just leaves me more to find.

Black Headed Gull
Blue Tit
Carrion Crow
Coot
Cormorant
Great Tit
Grey Heron
Herring Gull
Little Grebe
Magpie
Mallard
Pheasant
Pied Wagtail
Redshank
Rock Pipit
Teal
Wigeon