Patchwork Challenge - Longham Lakes Visit 10 17-May-2016

I had high hopes this evening as a Black-Necked Grebe and a Mandarin Duck had been reported. Sadly, I didn't see either of them.

Despite this, and despite the fact that I foolishly tried to handhold my 600mm lens. I still saw a nice selection of birds and got a few patch ticks too, which was nice.

First up was the large number of Swifts that were flying around. They were absolutely everywhere and often joined by Martins and Swallows. As Martin pointed out in his post, it's spectacular to see them whizzing past your head at insane speeds and it's amazing that they don't fly into you, so close do they get.

I spied plenty of goslings around the lakes, although ducklings weren't very plentiful. I couldn't see any Great-Crested Grebe young either, which was a little disappointing as they carry them around on their backs.

I did see a pair of Reed Buntings gathering food however, and while the shots were a little soft, I'm quite pleased with how they turned out.

An uncropped shot of the Reed Bunting

As I walked up the narrow causeway I could hear a Cuckoo calling in the distance. It's apparently okay to include if you can successfully identify it by call, so it's being added to the list :) There were a few little brown jobs flying about in the reeds and I was hoping they were Sedge Warblers, but it was Reed Warblers, a bird I've already ticked off this year.

Whoops!

Walking along the back of the lake I strained my eyes for the Grebe and the Duck but saw neither. I did spot a Jay fly across the small back pond and into the trees though, which is a first for me. That means with the exception of Raven and Hooded Crow, I've seen every corvid on the patch now.

I diligently scoured the reeds for Water Rails, but came up with nothing and the rest of my walk was rather uneventful. Still, I'm now up to 61 birds, so I'm quite pleased with myself :)

Patchwork Challenge - Longham Lakes Visit 7 28-March-2016

Sorry about the lack of updates but I've had nothing to write about.

The weather has been appalling throughout March, work has been busy and I've simply not been able to get out on patch. I did manage to get out on the bank holiday Monday and I was rewarded with several new birds.

Another crop from later in the day.

Things started off pretty typically with Blue Tits and Great Tits in the car parks along with the odd finch. There was a lot of action on the North pond and in total I must have seen around 100 Tufted Ducks. I can only imagine what these numbers will swell to once the ducklings start arriving.

There were only a few Greenfinches about.

I didn't see anything out of the ordinary and while there had been high winds there were no vagrants that had been blown off course. What I did see however was a lone Swallow, desperately battling against the strong wind on the hunt for insects. It's the earliest one I've seen at Longham and was pleasurable to watch. It was also a much needed tick, although not the sort of bird that will start allowing me to catch up with Martin, who is also patching Longham.

A heavy crop, but there's a Swallow :)

Continuing around the far side of the lake I spied a pair of Bullfinches, although frustratingly, my camera constantly focused on twigs, meaning I couldn't get a single clear shot. Other birds in the thicket included Blue Tits, Great Tits, Chaffinches and Chiff Chaffs.

My shutterspeed was 500, far too slow for this bird!

I was soon alerted to a hunting Kestrel, which continued to patrol both lakes on the hunt for food, but I saw no other raptors. Ducks were relatively scarce with a small group of Gadwell and Teal, the odd Mallard and a couple of Shoveler. The gulls were nowhere to be seen either, with just a small flock of Black-Headed Gulls on the south lake.

A lone Little Egret was skulking about.

Once I got over to the far side of the south lake (which has a smaller pond running adjacent to it) I was rewarded with my first Moorhen of the year as well as a Green Woodpecker. Sadly, I was unable to get pics of decent quality, but it was great to see them all the same.

I thought this was a Turtle Dove, but on close inspection it's a Collard Dove :(

I've now spotted 51 different species of birds since the beginning of the year. Hopefully there will be more to come now migration season is in full swing.

Here's all the birds I spotted.

Blue Tit (6)
Bullfinch (2)
Canada Geese (10)
Chaffinch (5)
Chiffchaff (3)
Collard Dove (3)
Cormorant (12)
Coot (too many)
Gadwell (8)
Great Tit 5
Green Woodpecker
Greylag Geese (5)
Great Crested Grebe (12)
Little Egret
Long-Tailed Tit (3)
Mallard (5)
Moorhen
Magpie 7
Shoveler (3)
Swallow
Teal 6
Tufted Duck (100)

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 - Visit 4

This was my final visit for the month and I was accompanied by my wife and youngest daughter.

The company meant I wasn't able to lug around my big lens, and I didn't really have much opportunity to use my powershot. As a result the pictures aren't of a very high quality.

It started off as usual with Magpie, Carrion Crows and Rooks in the field next to the main car park. I scanned the car park too, but didn't really see anything, which was rather disappointing.

As I didn't have time to walk both lakes, we went up the causeway and decided to circle the south lake, so we only saw one side of the north lake. While we didn't see any Pochards, we did spot Tufted Duck, Great Crested Grebe, Black-Headed Gulls and plenty of coots.

Stopping halfway up the causeway allowed us to view the island on the south lake. Here we saw Gadwell, Mallard, Cormorant, Canada Geese, Teal and a lone Little Grebe.

A pair of Mallards, the drake is on the left.

As we reached the end of the causeway we saw the first Little Egret of the year, which continually flew from one side of the lake throughout the rest of our walk.

Checking out the fields, we spotted plenty of Mallards and Mute Swans, but nothing out of the ordinary. There were lots of gulls, but they were too far out to get a good id (my binoculars aren't the best), the Greylags and Canada Geese were nowhere to be seen either.

There was a lot more action in the wood that runs along the back of the south lake however and we saw a small flock of Long Tailed Tits. We also spotted a lone Goldcrest, as well as a lone female Bullfinch, the first I've seen on the patch since I've started visiting it over a year and a half ago. It just highlights what you start spotting when you continually visit the same locations.

A Long-Tailed Tit with the Powershot.

Following the lake we saw more of the usual birds, as well as a lone Pochard and a pair of Wigeon. It was otherwise pretty uneventful until we reached the main car park and I decided to look over one of the nearby fields where I saw a singing Chaffinch. Perched in the distance was a lone Kestrel. As I took out my powershot I heard a screech and it had been replaced by a Buzzard, which it then proceeded to mob. It just highlights that you'll never know what you see, so it's always worth stopping for one more look.

So at the end of the month I spotted a grand total of 43 new birds, which is a good 7 short of the target I'd set myself. It's only going to get harder in the coming months, so we'll see how it goes :)

Birds seen
Black-Headed Gull
Bullfinch
Buzzard
Canada Geese
Carrion Crow
Chaffinch
Cormorant
Coot
Gadwell
Goldcrest
Great Crested Grebe
Jackdaw
Kestrel
Little Egret
Little Grebe
Long-Tailed Tit
Magpie
Mallard
Mute Swan
Pochard
Teal
Tufted Duck
Wigeon