Firecrest

Today it was a choice between the Red-throated Diver at Arlington Reservoir and a return trip to Arundel Wetland Trust for another go at the Firecrest. Both were tempting but having failed to secure a decent picture of the Firecrest yesterday, and in fact having failed to get a decent picture of one ever since I started birding, it had to take top priority.

After two hours with hardly a sighting of any birds it was beginning to look like a bad decision. I was bored and hungry and really needed a bacon sandwich. I would have gone but Dave kept winding me up about the bird turning up as soon as I left. It was just as well that he did because that is exactly what would have happened.

Fortunately I hung on and with a Goldcrest and then a Firecrest arriving in quick succession all thought of eating disappeared.

Photographing the Firecrest was hard work. They are very fast moving and you rarely get clear views of them. By the time the camera has focused on them they have usually moved on and you are left with a shot of an empty perch or the back end of the bird as it disappears out of the picture.

This time we were lucky, the bird stayed in the area for a decent length of time. I had an awful lot of failures but in the end weight of numbers told and I ended up with a few good shots.

Am I satisfied, no not really. The background of most of the pictures is very messy. I didn't get a shot of the bird with its crest up, and all my flight shots were blurred. However, as Dave always says, they are a lot better than the pictures I had this morning.

Little Owl

My blogs seems to have been mostly about Owls of late but then who could resist the opportunity to photograph this pair of Little Owls? Dave certainly couldn't and you will see an almost identical set of pictures on his blog. All except for the Firecrest that is and I will get on to that later.

This now looks like a possible nesting pair so forgive me but I am not going to publish any details of their whereabouts.


Later we went to Chichester Gravel Pits to look for the Red-crested Pochard. They were there, on Ivy Lake, but staying well hidden under overhanging willows on the far side of the lake. My thanks to Sarah for putting us onto them, I don't think that we would have found them without her assistance.

With a White-fronted Goose on East Lake, the area became a bit like a birding reunion, with a lot of old faces and a newly shorn Bart Ives (not looking quite so Organic now) turning up to view the birds.

White-fronted Goose

The Great Crested Grebes seem to have suddenly developed their breeding plumage. This is a bird that we tend to ignore for most of the year and then, with a chance of seeing a Weed Dance, they become the centre of attention for a short period. These two looked as though they would kick off but then seemed to loose interest and drifted away.

Great Crested Grebes

Great Crested Grebes

We then decided to head over to Arundel and visit the Wetland Centre. I still haven't managed to get a decent picture of a Firecrest and this is one of the most reliable places for seeing them. There was a great looking bird feeding around some of the brambles with probably half a dozen or more photographers trying to get a picture of it. 

Checking later, Trevor Guy, who we met there, and Dave seemed to have nailed it as probably did everyone else apart from me. Checking the back of the camera showed a lot of empty perches and blurred shots. The best I could manage was this head shot below. Better than nothing but not really the picture I was after.

Firecrest

I suppose I shouldn't be too despondent, at least it's the head, I usually just get the rear end as it flies out of the picture.


One last shot. This is the Ashdown Forest Great Grey Shrike that I saw a couple of days ago. It was about a hundred metres west of the Long car park but very mobile. There were a lot of people and dogs walking in the area and it was avoiding these. You could probably get it down to about forty metres but any closer and it would fly.

If you want to see pictures of a much more obliging bird have a look at my November 2013 blog.

Ashdown Forest Great Grey Shrike

Another great day for bird photography but there was a definite heat haze building this afternoon despite the chill in the air. That window of optimum lighting and clear air is all to brief.

Bullfinches

As far as waders and wildfowl are concerned I am not a great fan of Pulborough Brooks. There are great expanses of water, but the birds are usually too distant even for record shots. The place is actually better for the smaller birds with Bullfinches, Goldcrests, and later in the year Nightingales being relatively easy to capture.

Today, however, with the brooks and scrapes likely to be frozen over and with the possibility of finding birds out on the ice looking for open water, it seemed worth another visit. It was worth the try but it was nearly a wasted trip. There were birds on the ice, as we had expected, but they were all the common ducks. We managed to find a group of ten Snipe foraging near West Mead Hide but other than those and a few Lapwing I did not see a single wader all day.

Snipe

Fortunately the visit was rescued by the Bullfinches and a few good looking Fieldfares we spotted as we walked around.

Fieldfare

We found a small flock of six Bullfinches close by West Mead hide, a couple at Fattengates and another three or four at the top of the zigzags. They were all very mobile and it was difficult to get shots of them but it did occupy us for an interesting hour or so.

Bullfinch

Keen to improve on our Bullfinch shots we then headed off to the Arundel Wetland Centre where Dave had photographed a couple of females the previous week.  They were still where he had left them, feeding on the buddleia bushes just outside the Sand Martin hide. These were a little tamer than the Pulborough birds and had no intention of leaving their food source even when people passed within a few feet of them. Unfortunately though, there was no male to photograph.

Female Bullfinch

A quick look from the Sand Martin hide gave us the unexpected bonus of a Grey Wagtail actively feeding on the waters edge and the interesting challenge of could you get a shot that was not a complete blur as it raced up and down

Grey Wagtail

I had one final opportunity for a photograph as we headed back for the car. One of my favourite birds the Dunnock, almost too close to get him in the frame.

Dunnock

Overall, not a bad day. A few decent pictures of the Bullfinches, sightings of Water Rail, Treecreeper and Goldcrest and a few year ticks and I went home happy.

Arundel WWT Kingfisher

I have made a couple of visits to the Arundel WWT hoping to photograph Firecrests and Bullfinches. Monday was wet, windy and dull and I came away without a single picture. Today looked a lot better so I thought I would give it another go.

The weather cooperated but the birds didn't. I got two or three glimpses of distant Bullfinches and a blurred shot of a Grey Wagtail and I really didn't see much else in the way of wild birds.

Feeling sorry for myself I headed back to the visitors centre with the intention of heading home. When I arrived there the Kingfisher was sitting on one of its favourite perches just outside the picture windows. Favourite with the Kingfisher that is, but not with me as the only way you can photograph it is through the glass and I would not normally bother. In fact Dave and I had sat there the day before drinking tea and watching the bird on the same perch.

Today desperation was creeping in. I didn't want to go home empty handed again. The window looked reasonably clean so I thought I would give it a go.

Kingfisher

The pictures are not perfect and they would not stand enlarging much above what you see here but it was nice to be able to get some shots of a Kingfisher stretching its wings and preening.

 

Its not much to show for two birding trips but its better than nothing. Lets hope that's the bad days out of the way and things will pick up again now.