Last Year's Record Beaten - 78 birds

Well that's not bad, just over halfway through the year and I've beaten last year's record of 73 birds.

Of course it helps that I've been out a lot more this year, but I'm still pleased and there's only the chance it will grow as I pick up more migrants in the Autumn.

Anyway, I headed down to Longham in the hope of seeing the Common Terns that Martin had spotted on the Friday. While they were no longer on the North Lake, the fledgling had moved to one of the buoys on the south lake and I was able to take a few photos of it, as well as the adult fishing.

The juvenile was quite far out, but I'm pleased with this image.

I then met Steve Smith who runs Birding Poole Harbour & Beyond. He was out looking for the Lesser Emperor and other dragonflies and stopped for a little chat about why there had been so much interest this year at Longham for the insects.

The adult landed briefly on the closest buoy, allowing for a nice shot.

Leaving Steve to his search I walked up the causeway seeing the usual Reed Warblers and Reed Buntings, but very little else. There were Coots, Tufted Ducks and Mallards on the North Lake and a large number of Coots and Canada Geese along the back.

Coots and Canada Geese taking it easy.

The island on South Lake was empty aside from a Mute Swan, Lapwing and Grey Heron, so I moved to the back of the lake where I saw 4 Greenfinches, a lone patrolling Kestrel and several more Reed Warblers.

Mute Swan and Grey Heron enjoying the quiet of the South Lake island.

It was otherwise quiet so I headed back along the causeway stopping to take some photos of a Green Woodpecker. As I got to the end of the causeway I heard a commotion in the sky and saw a Sparrowhawk being mobbed by Swallows, my first view of the raptor this year.

Sparrowhawk being mobbed by Swallows. Next time it will hopefully be a Hobby.

I then caught up with Steve who was heading home and Martin, who was just arriving and had watched the Sparrowhawk from the car park.

So I'm now on 78 birds, which beats last year's record by 5. Let's see how many more I can get.

Green Woodpecker on the causeway. The Great Spotted still eludes me.

Massive crop of the Common Tern hunting.

Another heavy crop, but it's an unusual pose which I like.

Brand new lifer seen on patch (07-14 May) 73 birds

On the 7th I headed off to my local patch.
I'd been invigorated by the many new birds that had been seen and was eager to find more so I took my 600mm prime lens as it gives me the best chance at record shots.

The car park was relatively full when I got to the lakes, but it didn't register really as I was quite late in the morning and model boat enthusiasts were normally there. Wondering around I casually walked up to a man and asked him if he'd seen anything of interest. "Well the Black Terns are over there".

Several Swallows and a House Martin on the right hand side.

"You what?" I replied, immediately excited because I'd never seen one before. He kindly let me look through his scope but as the birds were moving too quickly I couldn't see one. Quickly getting frustrated my rising anger turned to sudden elation when one flew straight past me.

Shaking with excitement (because it is exciting when you find a brand new bird I thanked the man for his help and hurried off to the far side of the lake, notifying my rival Martin as I went.

The Black Terns were resting on a bouy, but a high crop and heat haze stopped me getting anything better than this.

I found lots of Swallows resting on some branches in the middle of the lake, as well as my first Sand Martins of the year. Rushing around the side of the lakes were the terns were flying I finally caught up with some more birders. And that's were it all started to go wrong...

No matter how I tried I simply couldn't lock onto the birds with my camera. I couldn't work out whether it was poor technique, the dull weather or my lens, but I was struggling to get any sort of decent pictures.

Not the greatest of shots, but it does highlight what beautiful birds the Black Tern is.

Incredibly frustrated I kept taking snaps, eventually filling my card and decided to head home. I'm glad I saw the terns as they're relatively rare and incredibly graceful birds, but I was greatly upset that my gear had seemingly let me down.

Still I'm now on 73 birds for the year on patch and now have a total of 151 birds for the blog.

This juvenile Herring Gull highlights just how small the Terns are.

I headed back down to Longham on the 14th as a Bar-Tailed Godwit had been spotted the previous day, but I saw very little of interest aside from a singing Whitethroat and around 5 Cetti's Warblers.

Another shot of the Black Tern in flight.

I'm glad I have a prime, as I wouldn't have got this shot otherwise.

And here's a non-cropped shot to highlight just how far out they were.

I had no problem locking onto fast-flying Swifts in the evening, so I think the poor light was against me.