White-fronted Geese

It has been a bit of a mixed start to the new birding year. There have been some good birds about and the numbers of geese and wildfowl have increased significantly but on the other hand the weather has been awful, particularly for photography, and the number of waders still seems to be low. Today, Wednesday, gave us the first decent weather of the year so we headed off to Dungeness to get a few year ticks.

First stop was Pett Level to see if we could find the Glossy Ibis for Dave. We gave it a good try but it did not seem to be around. Fortunately I had stopped off on the way back from Canterbury a few days ago and managed to see it again, in near zero visibility and driving rain. No pictures but I might be glad of the views by the end of the year.

Picture of the Pett Level Glossy Ibis taken on the 17th December

We saw some good birds around Dungeness but most were distant or hard to photograph. A Long-eared Owl, but it was buried so deep in the bushes that you could barely see it. Redhead Smew, Slavonian Grebe, Tree Sparrow, Cetti's Warbler, and Shag, which are apparently unusual at Dungeness.

Shag

It was interesting to compare these three with a Juvenile that we had seen at Hill Head On Monday.

Juvenile Shag - Hill Head

The tree sparrows are also great to see. There are still plenty at Boulderwood Farm, at the entrance to Dungeness RSPB, but the numbers seem to be a lot lower than a few years ago.

Tree Sparrow

Great White Egret

On the way home we stopped off at Scotney Pit. We scanned a few hundred geese looking for anything unusual. It looked as though it would be just the usual Greylags and Barnacles until we picked up a flight of four birds that appeared to be different. We had just decided that they were White-fronted Geese when a farmer gathering sheep put a few thousand geese into the air. I thought that we had lost the opportunity of a picture but then we realised there were a lot more of them in the area. I think we saw just under forty of them but there may have been more. The most I have ever seen together in the past has been three or four.

White-fronted Geese in Flight

Showing the prominent black body markings

Greylags with a small flock of eighteen White-fronted and three Brent Geese at the back

The Barnacles were also flying. This picture showing a small group including a couple of the Barnacle/ Emperor Crosses.

Barnacle Geese

Other pictures taken this year -  A return visit to the Yellow-browed Warbler gave us some good views but it was still difficult to get a decent picture.

Yellow-browed Warbler

Fortunately a small flock of Long-tailed tits gave some better opportunities.

Long-tailed Tit

And, the visit to Titchfield Haven may have been disappointing in that we did not see the Penduline Tits but we did get some other birds.

Pochard

Stonechat

Gadwall

To finish off a couple of shots of Red-breasted Mergansers taken in a short break in the rain at Widewater. Still very dull though.

Red-breasted Mergansers

Red-breasted Goose

I picked up on the report posted on SOS of a Red-breasted Goose on Henfield Levels and with the sun shining this morning I went to take a look. It took a bit of searching but I eventually found it whilst viewing from the Downslink Path although it was very distant.  It was with a flock of about a dozen Greylags although I later found it in a mixed flock with Greylags and Canada Geese.

With mixed flock of Greylags and Canada Geese.

You will have to be very lucky if you want to get close to this bird. The Greylags make excellent guards. They start giving alarm calls if you get within about 100 metres of them and take flight if you approach any closer. There is good cover along the Downslink path but the river bank is very open and people walking along the bank were putting them to flight.

There was another Red-breasted Goose flying with Greylags reported in the same area in March last year. Perhaps it is making a return visit.

Yesterday we had another unusual Goose, a single Barnacle  on the Breech Pool at Pagham Harbour. This time associating with Brents.

Cackling Goose

Today I thought I would go down to Cuckmere Haven and have a look for the Cackling Goose. I think it's been there for over a month now and I was just interested to see what a half sized Canada Goose would look like. Strange enough when I did find it I was surprised to see that it looked just like a half sized Canada Goose!

I think that I had expected it to be a lot harder to find. I had spent a lot of time doing a complete circuit of the western side of the river and of course it was in the very last group that I examined. Go anti-clockwise from the Golden Galleon car park if you want to save yourself time. I had examined a lot of Canada Geese. Is this one smaller than that one? Does it have a darker breast? It gets very confusing but when you do find the Cackling it really is half size and there can be no doubt.

Cackling Goose in the centre

Size is key to finding it but even if full size the bird would look different. It has a much darker breast and belly, darker grey upper parts, a shorter neck and a smaller, more pointed beak. In some lights it also takes on a slight purple sheen. This one has a white crescent neck ring. It also had a much different call to the Canada Geese.

Showing slight purple sheen

Now for the nerdy part. Is it a Ridgeway's (minima) or  Richardson's (hutchinsii).  Having read up on them, on balance, I would have to favour the minima due to size and colouring but on the other hand there is the neck ring. It presence does not rule out minima but it is more characteristic of the hutchinsii and even more so of a third variety the Aleutian (leucopareia).

The image below is lifted from

Identification and range of subspecies within the (Greater) Canada and (Lesser Canada) Cackling Goose Complex (Branta canadensis & B. hutchinsii).

Click here to see more detail





The minima on the left, if you add a neck ring, looks like the one I saw at the Cuckmere and again you can see the purple tinge coming through.

Cackling Goose - but no purple tinge in this light

And, the final question, is it an escapee or a vagrant. I have no way of knowing but I see no reason why it should not be a "real" bird. There have been other examples of vagrant Cackling Geese recorded and verified in europe from recovered rings.

More details on identification of subspecies here.

I didn't look at much else around the Cuckmere. I am not allowing mission creep any more having missed out on the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker on Monday, but I did stop to take a picture of these Barnacle Geese. There were five in total on the river side of the circuit.

Barnacle Geese

Baltic Gull

Well. I am just back from holiday, a two week cruise around the Baltic. Plenty of food and culture, Stockholm, St Petersburg, etc. and with the benefit of a days mini Paleartic cruise across the North Sea at the beginning and end of it. I can really recommend sitting out on the balcony, in the sun, with a cold beer just waiting for something like a Storm Petrel to turn up. The trouble is that nothing did turn up. I had seen Petrels before as well as other sea going birds but this time it was just Herring Gulls and Gannets.

Herring Gull

Gannet

Things improved slightly as we moved north through the Baltic with the Herring Gulls gradually being replace by Baltic Gulls. I had not expected the Baltics to be much different from a Lesser Black-backed but these were a much more elegant looking bird with longer wings and a very dark back.

Baltic Gull

The idea then was to immerse myself in the culture of the places we visited and to enjoy a different type of holiday. The trouble is that I have a camera that just refuses to take holiday snaps and gets very excited when birds or butterflies come near. There were very few opportunities for pictures but there was always the unusual that showed that you were not back in England. Flocks of Barnacle Geese on most of the lakes where I would have expected Canada Geese and Carrion Crow replaced by Hooded Crow.

Barnacle Goose

Hooded Crow

and a Sand Lizard, perhaps not unusual but I cannot remember the last time I saw one in England.

Sand Lizard

The butterfly sightings were equally flat. I chased after a few whites whilst in St Petersburg hoping that I had an Appolo or a Black-veined White but they were all Green-veined.

Green-veined White

I did have one find, a Queen of Spain Fritillary which is a first for me. I did think about putting it in a box and bringing it back to England ... but that would be cheating.

Queen of Spain Fritillary

I left the sun and temperatures of thirty degrees plus in Sweden and Russia and I have come back to rain and gales. I need it all to clear up quickly as I still have that Brown Hairstreak to find. It should be my final butterfly of the year and I will then be able get back to the birding. That is, unless the Queen of Spain puts in a late autumn appearance over here as it did at Chichester a few years ago.

A sad end for two Merlins

We travelled out to Dungeness early this morning for a day that was going to have some real highs and lows. First stop was a quick visit to Pevensey Bay to look for the Red-breasted Flycatcher that had been reported there. We had no great expectations of finding it and after a quick look around we were about to leave when we saw a flash of red as a bird emerged from one of the bushes. A high quickly dashed to a low as we realised that it was only a Robin.

We then moved on to Scotney where we were faced with thousands of geese and wildfowl. The Barnacle Geese which had returned for another year were probably the most interesting and the flock included at least seven hybrids that looked like Barnacle/Emperor crosses.

Barnacle Geese with Barnacle/Emperor crosses - yellow legs and white heads

We had planned to spend some time searching the Greylags for ringed birds or perhaps a Bean or Pink-footed but just as we were getting ready the farmer came along on a tractor with hay for the cattle and the whole lot relocated to the far side of the pit.

Then on to Dungeness. As we got out of the car we had a flyby by two Marsh Harriers, great start but it then all went quiet. Water levels in the ARC Pit were high and there were very few birds around. A visit to the beach gave us huge numbers of Gulls with a few Great Crested Grebes and Cormorants, but not the Little Gulls we were looking for. There was nothing to be seen around the Bird Observatory. At the RSPB Visitor Centre the reports board gave no indication of anything unusual around the site and, to top it all, they had fenced off the area around the Tree Sparrow feeders so you were too far away for a decent picture. Use the wood to put up a screen instead of trying to keep people away from the birds. I might have a rant about the way the RSPB is going in a future blog.

Finally we decided to settle in the Hanson Hide overlooking the ARC Pit. It had always managed to turn up something good in the past and fortunately it did not disappoint this time.

We had a noisy Water Rail probably defending his territory. He was not coming out into the open but we did at least get views in amongst the reeds.

Water Rail

 A Glossy Ibis was settled out on one of the flooded islands. Again I am amazed by how small the bird is, but this time it probably had something to do with the juvenile gull behind it, which I assume is a Great Black-backed. He is going to be a big boy when he grows up.

Princess with her minder and I think he has spotted me

There were lots of the usual suspects about but the highlight was a Kingfisher that gave good views in front of the hide for about twenty seconds. Not long but enough for some decent pictures.

Kingfisher

Almost perfect but no blue showing. The lighting really has to be perfect for a Kingfisher shot.

We then decided to return to Scotney to see if the Greylags had returned. There were a few about but nothing easily viewable. Still it had been a good day and we set of for home feeling happy.

Unfortunately just after setting off we came across two dead birds in the road. Sad at any time but these proved to be two dead female Merlins. I had never seem one close up before and I have not seen one at all this year so it was strange to see two together like this . They are a really beautiful bird and it put a bit of a downer on the trip home.

Dave picked them up and took them home to give them a decent burial. The picture below is lifted from his blog site.

Two dead Female Merlin - original on Friends of Groyne No.4 Blog

Rose-coloured Starling

It was located with a flock of Starlings on the Selsey seafront but don't expect the bright pink of an adult male. This was a juvenile so it looks a bit like a washed out Common Starling but with a pale yellow bill and showing some contrast between a pale body and darker wings. That is, if you can see the body and wings in my pictures, as the bird stayed well hidden in bushes where the rest of the starling flock was feeding on the blackberries.

Thinking of coming out into the open

But happier staying in deep cover

If I was just a birder I would probably have been happy going away with a life tick but as a bird photographer you are left with the feeling that there was a better shot to be had. The trouble is that I will probably see it on other people's blogs over the next few days.

It's funny seeing something exotic like the Rose-coloured Starling alongside our plain old common Starling. Sometimes we don't see what is in front of us. Perhaps we should look a little harder at what is one of our most colourful birds. Shots below from the same starling flock.

Brilliant colours at this time of year

Looks more like a bird of the rain forests than the British lawn

Returning from Selsey we stopped off at Pagham North Wall. It seemed quiet although we did manage to find around ten Snipe on the back of the Breech Pool. Dave also spotted a Barnacle Goose in amongst the Canada Geese.

Barnacle Goose showing white face and black breast

There were also some Barnacle/Canada crosses on the pool with what appeared to be part of the family group.

Two black breasts at the back suggesting Barnacle - one with Canada Goose face one more like Barnacle

It has been a bit slow on the rest of the birding front. I am still chasing Ring Ouzels. I caught a glimpse of one as it was flushed from the Yew tree on Cissbury by a Sparrowhawk but there was no chance of a picture. Hopeful there will be a few more through soon. As always there was a consolation and this time it was Mistle Thrushes in the same tree.

Mistle Thrush

Kestrels are also easy to photograph on Cissbury. This one was taken looking straight into the sun. A bit more artistic than record shot and it would have been deleted without the bokeh effects in the background.

Kestrel with bokeh effect