Trying my hand at phonescoping

 Yes it's been a long time and my blog hasn't been used for years.
Life gets in the way, but after picking up a spotting scope in December, I've been keen to get back to birding. Now that lockdown has begun to lift I've been able to visit Longham on a few occasions with aims to see the Ring Necked Duck there. I managed it this week, so here's a record shot of the bird in question. I'm going to try a little my scoping over the next few weeks and post my findings here.

Cattle Egret - New lifer and tick for the patch.

Busy weekends have meant that I've missed the large influx of Sandpipers that have been knocking around Dorset this last few weeks. Still, there's always next year...

I visited Longham Lakes on 30th Sep as they were having an open day. It was amazingly bush, with a rammed car park and lots of friendly faces and it was my first chance to catch up with Dominic Cousins, who has been recording birds at Longham since 2002. He was there to take birders around and sell signed copies of his book, A Patch Made In Heaven, which I can recommend.

Just some of the Lapwings resting at Longham. I saw 28 birds, the most I've seen there.

I also met up with George Green who is one of the regular contributors to Longham's bird listings and Martin Wood who had annoyingly seen a Cattle Egret earlier that morning. It's only the third record of the bird since 2002 so it's a real rarity and I hustled off with Alice to find it.

It had been spotted in the rear fields at the back of the causeway but it had long departed when I got there. Crestfallen I headed off with Alice around South Lake, marvelling at the insane amount of birds that were congregating there. I counted close to 30 lapwings and about 50 Canada Geese, along with countless coots and mallards and a fair number of Shoveler. My first sighting of these handsome ducks for the year.

A fair few Shovelers as well as returning Wigeon.

Upon reaching the visitor's centre, Dominic mentioned he needed to take some birders out but was still waiting for Martin to return. I offered to look after his books and gear and chatted to a few other people who were eager to learn more about birds.

Martin returned and within five minutes had a text from Dominic stating the Cattle Egret had returned. Grabbing Alice were virtually ran up the causeway and desperately started scanning the fields. When I couldn't find it Dominic kindly lent me his scope and put me onto the bird.

A record shot of the Cattle Egret. My first ever sighting.

It's a fantastic looking creature with a somewhat stocky build for a small heron and a bright yellow bill. It was picking up food around a small group of cattle and began to attract a small crowd of admirers. Sadly, the bird was extremely far away so I have only strict record shots. It was a delight to see though and I believe it's my first three-pointer for the year.

I'm now on 85 birds for the year.
The Cattle Egret puts my photographed birds for the blog up to 154.

This crop isn't too bad.

A rather harsh crop.

And another of it foraging.

A final shot to highlight just how far away it was.

Chasing The Green Wing Teal And Lesser Yellowlegs

My first twitch of 2017 (149 Birds seen)

I shouldn't be a bird watcher. The reason I say this is because I hate getting up early in the morning. I find it hard to get up, I don't like the cold and it just makes me grumpy.

If you want to chase birds, you need to be up early as that's when they are most active. The early bird catches the worm, and the early bird watcher hopefully spots the good birds - that's how it should go anyway.

Because Martin Wood was ill, I decided against heading to Dorchester for the Rose-Coloured Starling and instead tried going after the Green Wing Teal and Lesser Yellowlegs which had been staying at Lytchett Fields and Bay.

Birds aren't obliging at Lytchett. This Pied Wagtail is the closest I got in two hours.

It's a long old walk to the site and even longer when you are carrying a heavy 600mm lens and tripod. Excitement spurred me on though and as I walked through some really muddy areas I was glad I grabbed my boots.

Upon getting to the site, I suddenly realised that I had no idea what the two birds looked like. I mean, I knew roughly what they looked like, but I'm pretty ropey when it comes to waders and felt panic starting to set in as I started to scan the groups of birds on the football field-sized area.

Now it's worth noting that while Lytchett Fields is a cracking site for birds (nearly 170 were spotted there in 2016, it's no good for photograpy really. It's a nature site first and foremost and if I'm honest, that's how it should be. It's designed for scopes and I don't have a scope, so I started feeling pretty stupid as I futilely scoured the fields.

My first ever Spotted Redshank I've photographed. Their plumage looks amazing during the summer.

Within 10 minutes of getting there, resident birder Ian Ballam showed up and started to give me useful advise on what I should be looking for. Typical Teals have a white horizontal stripe, whereas the american bird has vertical strips. Armed with this useful advice I scoured the fields... And found nothing.

We walked over to the adjoining field looking for the Lesser Yellowlegs. Ian has spotted it most of the times he's been at Lytchett and within minutes he found the bird and gave me incredibly useful directions to it. I couldn't get great shots, but what I managed makes it clear it's the bird and that will do for me. The Lesser Yellowlegs is typically found in America, so they are big news when they turn up in the UK. Pleased with the discovery we returned to the original field, looking for the elusive Teal.

The Lesser Yellowlegs is dead centre at the back of the reeds.

"There it is" Ian excitedly exclaimed. "It's swimming directly behind the marker"! Chest heaving with excitement (because it is exhilerating when all is said and done) I managed to locate the bird with my lens and took a few record shots. The vertical stripes were easy to see and you could instantly tell it apart from the other teal. It's a cracking looking bird, but it's a shame it didn't come closer. Oh well, there will be other opportunities.

Here's my record shot of the Green Wing Teal. The vertical strip is clear to see here.

We stayed for around another 40 minutes, and I was rewarded with my third new bird of the year, a Spotted Redshank. Again, it was far away, but Ian was on hand to help with identification as it's far harder to tell apart from other shanks when it isn't in its summer plumage.

That gave me three new birds for my life list, two of which (the Spotted Redshank and Green Wing Teal, are both suitable for qualification in TGBBH). Needless to say I was very happy with how things turned out.

Ian was ready to go looking for an American Wigeon, which had been spotted over Upton way, but the poor light and lack of confirmation (there were rumours it could be a hybrid) made me decide to head back to the car and visit my mum instead. 

While I won't go on many big twitches this year, I did enjoy this one and it's easy to understand why people chase birds all over the country. I've decided it's not for me though, as I'm far too lazy. If any Hoopoes turn up at Portland though it could be a different story...

These are my first new birds since May 2016, which is pretty disgusting when all is said and done. I'm now at 149 birds with 149 to go.

Record shot of the Lesser Yellowlegs, yellow legs apparent.

Another Teal shot, directly showing the difference between the two ducks.