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.

Chasing Waxwings

My second twitch of 2017 (150 Birds seen)

I've always had a fascinating with Waxwings, ever since first discovering them in my books when I was a younger birder. It's arguably my second favourite UK bird, after the Hoopoe and I've always wanted to see one.

When I was a youngster I would desperately crane my neck skywards whenever I went out bird watching, not realising that both birds are fleeting visitors to the UK and normally seen at very specific times of the year.

The Waxwings were high up in the trees, making photos quite a difficult task.

So when I heard that Waxwings had been spotted a short drive from my house I knew I couldn't pass up the chance to see them. Nomadic by nature, they typically move around in large flocks, breaking up into smaller groups as food becomes more scarce. Annoyingly, the birds where nowhere to be seen the afternoon I had off, so I missed my chance to see them.

As I've been off on holiday this week I decided I was going to head off to Weymouth in search of the Bitterns that had been spotted at Radipole Lake. I changed my mind when I found out that a small group of six Waxwings had been spotted at Corfe Mullen, some thirty minutes from my home.

A half decent shot, took from the other side of a busy road. 

I set off early in the morning (well 8 is early for me) and located the birds relatively easily thanks to great directions from the ever helpful Ian Ballam. There were a small group of photographers there when I arrived, so I quickly set my camera up and waited for the birds to move.

They were flitting between two locations, staying to peck at berries for a few minutes, before heading off to a larger tree. Sadly, the light was atrocious so it was extremely hard to get shots that would do the birds justice.

All the shots were with my 600mm prime lens and 1.4 TC. Expensive, but worth it for getting close.

And they really are quite magnificent to look at. Beautifully coloured and with amazing erect crests, they get their name from the small red marks on their wings that look like candle wax. They have a weird, almost sculpted look to them compared to many other birds, giving them a very unique looking appearance.

I managed to spend 30 minutes with the birds before they flew off. We headed over to a second location where they had been feeding previously, but they were nowhere to be seen. After waiting for nearly two hours, the general thought was that the birds had found a more suitable food source and were feeding there instead.

I love the bottom bird shown here.

I'll try and connect with these birds again this year, but it's been a particularly busy season for them, so it's unclear if we'll see anywhere near as many this coming winter. I'm certainly glad I made the effort to see them, even if my shots weren't the best. 

Oh and it's my 150th bird since starting my blog nearly three years ago, so that's worth celebrating, too.

I wasn't fast enough to get good shots when they were on the berries.

And here's a shot showing off how the Waxwing gets its unusual name.

I've whacked up the vibrancy here, I don't think it ruins the shot too much.

Patchwork Challenge Trip 1 (2nd January) 37 Birds

While I enjoyed last year's Patchwork Challenge, I found myself flagging at certain times of the year and I eventually trailed a long way behind local birder Martin Wood, who also patches at Longham Lakes and has his own blog.

This year is going to be different though, so I made a concentrated effort to get out of bed early and I was at the lakes for 8.20 in the morning, which is a pretty good effort for me.

Things got off to a cracking start in the car park with the lovely trill of one of many, many Robins that I would see on my 2 and a half hour walk. A quick walk over to the adjoining horse field got me three Carrion Crows and two Mistle Thrushes, which were patrolling a second field for food.

After a few worrying minutes I found the Great White Egrets

Of course, my real target for the day were the overwintering Great White Egrets, which would mark my first two-pointers for the year. I rapidly crossed the car park to the lakes, passing a couple of Magpies and Blackbirds, and spying a fair number of Coot on the North Lake.

As I walked up the causeway I could feel my breath quickening as I couldn't see any sign of the egrets. I spied Little Grebes, Great Crested Grebes, Cormorants, Tufted Ducks, and Mute Swans, but the Egrets weren't where they normally were. Just as I was starting to think I'd missed them for the year, a call up above alerted me to a Little Egret, which was quickly followed by one of the Great Whites!. Following its trail, I soon spotted the remaining two birds, and carried on with my walk.

There were lots of Robins on patch. This image made it onto the official Springwatch twitter feed.

The hedges along the back of the lake yielded fiery Wrens, a small party of Great Tits, a lone Chiffchaff and a Blue Tit. I walked down to the far corner hoping for Bullfinch, but they weren't to be seen. I did find Wood Pigeons and a small flyby of Feral Pigeons though.

Mallards where on the far side of the North Lake and I also discovered around 16 Pochard, with several red-headed males amongst them. Walking back behind the south lake I met some birders who suggested combing the trenches for waders and rails.

Cormorants were everywhere. You can see the Pochards and Great Crested Grebes in the background.

I didn't say any, but I did find a couple of Redwings, a small party of Long-Tailed Tits and a lone Starling and female Chaffinch. I also spotted some Song Thrushes in the back field as well as a flock of Canada Geese, a smaller group of Mute Swans, and a smattering of Black-Headed Gulls and Herring Gulls. There were plenty of Jackdaws in Samual's Wood, but I saw no new passerines, which was a little disappointing.

The small island at the back of South Lake yielded 3 Gadwall (I'd later see a total of 17) but my walk back to the larger island was largely uneventful. A small number of Teal were roosting, as well as around 4 Snipe. Pleased with my total, I headed back to the car.

A pretty lousy image of one of the many Redwings I saw.

I spotted a Pied Wagtail probing around in the car park and decided to try the adjoining field one more time. There were a large number of Redwings around so I decided to walk along a smaller path to see if the group held Fieldfares within it. It wasn't easy traversing the path, but I found my first patch Coal Tit, Goldfinch, and a pair of Greenfinches too. I met up with yet another birdwatcher who confirmed that the flock didn't hold any Fieldfares and that they typically arrived in February.

All in all, a pretty good start for the year and I'm currently ahead of last year's record of 24 birds by a comfortable 13.

Current patch total = 37

Here's the list in full
Robin
Carrion Crow
Mistle Thrush
Blackbird
Great White Egret
Magpie
Coot
Little Grebe
Great Crested Grebe
Tufted Duck
Mute Swan
Cormorant
Little Egret
Wrens
Great Tit
Chiffchaff
Blue Tit
Wood Pigeon
Feral Pigeon
Mallard
Pochard
Redwing
Long-Tailed Tit
Starling
Chaffinch
Song Thrushes
Canada Geese
Black-Headed Gull
Herring Gull
Jackdaw
Gadwall
Teal
Snipe
Pied Wagtail
Coal Tit
Goldfinch
Greenfinch

Week 49 29-03-2015 Birds Spotted 0

I'm pretty sure I'm approaching the end of the first year of my blog and somewhere along the line I've messed up the week. Still, we'll worry about that shortly.

This weekend has been more miserable weather, so I'll be posting up images from last week's trip to Moors Valley Country Park. I didn't see any new birds, but I did manage to take some nice photos, so I'll be sharing those with you for the time being. Enjoy.

One of the first things I spotted was this Magpie, busily eating some food
 it had stolen from somewhere.

There were plenty of gulls around, but nothing out of the ordinary. 

Here's the first of many Black-Headed Gulls.

I thought this was a Little Gull as it was quite graceful in flight, but it's another BBG :)

Due to plenty of people feeding the birds there were plenty of fights on the pond.

This young Herring Gull was happily chasing the smaller gulls for food.

There were a few Lesser Black-Backed Gulls around as well.

Mallards were plentiful. In fact they were pretty much the only ducks there.

There were a single pair of Wigeon, but they stayed far out for the entire duration.

I also saw a distant Great-Crested Grebe

A hunting Buzzard.

While a singing Robin finished off the day.

Week 45 01-03-2015 Birds Spotted 0

It was a pretty disappointing week this week as the weather has been absolutely lousy.
I was able to get down to Longham Lakes and take a few photos though. It was a pretty disappointing set of pictures though due to the general dullness of the day.

I saw plenty of birds though including Long-Tailed Tits, Blue Tits, Goldcrest, Pochard, Shoveler, Mallard, Scaup, Tufted Duck, Canada Geese, Mute Swan, Greylag Geese, Blackbird, Great Created Grebe, Little Grebe, Black-Headed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black Backed Gull, Coot, Moorhen, Cormorant, Kestrel, Little Egret, Carrion Crow, Rook, Jackdaw and Magpie, so not a bad selection all in. I was hoping there might have been some special geese in amongst the Greylag and Canada Geese but no luck (although they were quite a way off).

Surprisingly, I didn't see too many Mallard today.

There were far less Pochard too.

The Scaup was a little further out today, hanging out with Tufted Ducks.

This is the closest I could get to a Great Crested Grebe, the Little Grebes were right in the centre of the Lake, so were pointless taking shots of.

Canada Goose and Mute Swan.

Canada Goose with Mallards.

An unknown gull. Herring Gull?

Canada Geese flyby.

Little Egret in a distant field.

Some very distant Greylag and Canada Geese.