Bonaparte's Gull

 

Wednesday saw Dave and I over at Chichester Gravel Pits looking for the reported Bonaparte's Gull. Initially it didn't look promising. Birders we talked to had not seen it and some were leaving the site thinking that it had moved on. 

We decided to give it an hour of "looking" and eventually were rewarded with sightings but it was not easy. There were a lot of Black-headed Gulls flying mostly at some distance and whilst you could get scope views if they landed on the water, it was difficult to track individual birds whilst flying.

We had an idea of what to look for, a slightly smaller and paler gull with a neat black edge to the wings and a black bill. It's flight was also meant to be different, more like a Little Gull, but this was not so obvious when scanning the Black-headed Gull flock. You often picked up on a bird exhibiting Little Gull like actions only to follow it and realise that it was a Black-headed Gull.

Eventually we picked up on a distant, brighter looking bird and managed to get a couple of pictures showing the features we were looking for, in particular the black bill. Unfortunately it did not come closer during the time we were there but better pictures were obtained later in the day.

I have taken better pictures myself in the past, with the much more obliging bird at Princes Park in Eastbourne back in January 2013 and the 2CY bird at Southampton Riverside Park in 2015.

Bonaparte's Gull - Princes Park Eastbourne 2013 (it is a colour picture)

2CY Bonaparte's Gull - Riverside Park Southampton 2015

Success on the gull proved to be the start of a good days birding. We found the Red-crested Pochards on Ivy Lake, although these again were distant and tucked in under the bank so pictures were not good. 

Garganey

We then went down to Pagham Harbour and saw the Garganey pair on the Severals, picked up Linnets and Sandwich Terns which I hadn't seen yet this year and ended up on the North Wall with Marsh Harriers and a Short-eared Owl.

From a photographic point of view I have had better days but with Spring breaking through and some good birds about we went home happy that evening.

Garganey

There have been a few reports of Garganey putting in appearances along the South Coast this spring. However, with restrictions on travel and with most stopping for no more than a day, seeing any of them was out of the question. Fortunately we then had one on the Ferry Pool at Pagham Harbour that stayed for three days. I couldn't make the first two but with pandemic restrictions being relaxed on the third I was able to take my daily exercise around the harbour area. Better still, with all the RSPB car parks being closed the only place to park was the lay-by just by the Ferry Pool.

This is usually a secretive bird that stays hidden in the reeds but this one was easy to spot, feeding out in the middle of the lake, amongst a good selection of other ducks and waders. I managed a couple of pictures but unfortunately it was a good distance away and spent most of the time with its head underwater skimming for food.

Garganey

Garganey

Always a nice bird to see but I couldn't stop, I had my daily exercise to complete. A quick picture of a Black-tailed Godwit, one of many on the pool and I was on my way.

Black-tailed Godwit

Just a quick birding session but it was good to see a some birds again and to be able to publish a blog. It will be a while until things get back to something resembling normal but I am at least making a start.

Stilt Sandpiper

Stilt Sandpiper is a new bird for me. So today, I was happy to spend a couple of hours at Pennington Marsh, watching one foraging on the floods at the back of Fishtail Lagoon. It is certainly an odd looking bird. The books say it looks a bit like a Dunlin or a Curlew Sandpiper and I suppose that it does, although for me, the first bird that came to mind when I saw it, was a Ruff with a long bill.

Photographing the bird was difficult. It was too far away. I took about a hundred pictures and each time I pressed the shutter release I knew it was another wasted effort but I had to get a record shot of some sort. You just hope, that when you get them home on the computer screen, you find something worth keeping.

The next shot shows a size comparison with a couple of Dunlin. You can see that the legs are long but the bird seemed to prefer the deeper water for wading and feeding and I could not get a clear picture of them.

The picture below shows some of the identifying features. Long legs; slightly down curved bill; white rump; wings long, uniform brown above, with no wing bars and a pale trailing edge; white supercilium; and barred breast.

Great bird to see. I just wish that I could have got a clearer picture of it.

A quick walk around the marsh gave me the usual mix of birds but I also found a couple of male Garganey hiding in the long grass.

Waiting for the Gadwall to stop preening and pose for a picture -
but what is that in the reeds behind

Eventually one of the Garganey came out for a quick swim around

On the way back home I took a detour through the New Forest. I usually only go there in the winter, when it is a lot quieter. Stopping at Marks Ash Wood, I went looking for an old tree that used to regularly have a Tawny Owl perched up in it. I new exactly where to look for the tree but it was surprisingly disorientating, trying to locate it with all the leaves on the trees.

As I approached the tree there was a lot of noise from small birds mobbing some form of threat. My arrival must have been the final straw for the Owl, which promptly flew off, pursued by a small flock of harassing birds. Nice to know the tree is back in use but I will leave it until the winter before I have another look.

Next stop was the Milkham Inclosure. I often see reports of Crossbills from here so it was worth a quick look. There were no Crossbills that I could see but I did get two Cuckoos calling as they flew over my head. My first actual sighting of the year. It was just a pity that my camera was safely packed away in the back of the car.

 Eyeworth Pond is always worth a quick look. I usually go there for close views of  the small birds. They come in to feed on the seeds that local people put down for them. However this time I was hoping that the Mandarin Ducks had produced some offspring. They had, but mother duck was keeping them safe on the far side of the pond, close to their usual cover under the trees.

Also present was one of my old favourites. There were three of them but he seems to be on his own now. They may not be on the British List of birds but I still like them.

Muscovy Duck

and a nice Collard Dove waiting patiently for someone to feed it.

A nice day out, finally caught up with my first Cuckoo of the year and a life tick with the Stilt Sandpiper. Can't be bad!

Ring-necked Parakeets

I was staying in East London for a couple of days so got up early Friday morning and went out onto Dagenham Chase to listen to the dawn chorus. With the sun just breaking the horizon, with bird song all around, and with about 260 hectares of green space, it was easy to forget that I was in the middle of one of the most "developed" areas in the country. Even the odd pile of discarded drinks containers and fast food wrappers could not spoil the feel of the place. For once I was even out before the dog walkers.

Song Thrush in the early morning light

Dunnock - probably my most photographed bird

I don't really associate Jays with the dawn chorus but it was great to see these two feeding out in one of the open spaces, although they quickly fled back into the trees when they spotted me.

Jays

I saw over forty species of birds in the hour and a half after dawn. Most were the common species but Ring-necked Parakeets and an Egyptian Goose were firsts for me this year. The Egyptian Geese have now used the area for breeding for the last three years, although sadly, I was told that all nine of the chicks they produced this year have been predated.

Egyptian Goose

Then a screech, a flash of green and the Parakeets appeared. I know they are officially classed as a pest, I know there are flocks of hundreds around London, and I know they are a threat to some of our resident birds but I don't get to see them very often and I just like the colour, the movement and the noise that they add to the birding scene.

Ring-necked Parakeets

These are probably females as they do not show
the rose pink and black collars of the males

I was told that the Parakeets had recently arrived in the area in large numbers. Their dispersement around the country seems slow but relentless and they will soon cover the whole of the South of England.

At the other end of the day I managed a quick walk around Rainham Marshes RSPB. There wasn't much time to stop and search but we did manage to see a Spoonbill and a Garganey, my second for the week, and we had good views of a Cettie's that popped out on the reeds in front of us.

Garganey

I made a quick search of the stone barges area but could not find any Water Pipits. I think they must have mostly moved north for the summer but I am still hopeful of catching up with one before the end of the month.

Little Gull and Garganey

During spring migration West Sussex often seems to be sitting in a dead triangle with good birds being reported in Hampshire and in East Sussex and with very little making landfall along our piece of the coast which lies between them. So today, looking for a piece of the action, we set off for the Hampshire Wildlife Trust's Testwood Lakes to look for the Little Gull and Garganey that had been reported there.

I had not been there before and initial impressions were not good. We pulled into the first car park next to Testwood Lake to be greeted by the usual assortment of dogs and dog walkers including one rather large Pit Bull/Staffy type wandering about without a lead. Fortunately the sight of a Little Gull performing acrobatics over the lake soon diverted our attentions from the potential threat.

Little Gull

I am no expert at ageing gulls but I assume that this is a second calendar year bird.

Photographing them is great fun but always a bit of a compromise. If they are at a distance you loose the detail. If they come in close you get the opportunity of some great pictures but their erratic flight pattern and frequent changes of direction make them very difficult to track and keep in focus.

A Lesser Black-backed Gull gets in on the action - and proves a lot easier to photograph

A quick check on the map showed that there was a second car park further along the track and that we were not actually in the Wildlife Trust reserve. A short drive and a large "no dogs allowed" sign and our opinions of the site improved dramatically.

A short walk took us to a couple of good hides looking out over the scrapes and Meadow Lake. There was also a Sand Martin wall that was seeing a lot of action.

Sand Martin Wall

It was interesting to see that here they plug the holes with sand each winter and the birds have to dig there way through to get a nesting burrow. I don't think they do this at the Arundel Wetland Centre, which could be part of the reason why the Sand Martins always stop there to have a look but never actually nest there.

The scrapes and lake also gave us our first Swallows and Little Ringed Plover of the year but the real prize was the drake Garganey. Dave picked it up as it flew into the reeds on the edge of Meadow Lake. We then had about an hour of watching as it attempted to stay hidden whilst feeding amongst the reeds. It was distant and it was hidden most of the time but these were the best views I have ever had of a Garganey.

Drake Garganey

and with a Mallard for comparison of size

We moved on to the New Forest in the afternoon looking for signs of Goshawks or Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers but the best of the day had gone. It even looks as though the Tawny Owl at Mark Ash Wood has abandoned its usual hole. The only thing of note in the forest was the increase in the level of tourists, bicycles, and mobile sheds. I am already looking forward to next winter.

The main birds of note in the forest were the Stonechats, Meadow Pipits and Woodlarks.

Meadow Pipit?

and I still haven't seen a Wheatear this year!

Hoopoe

The birding has been a bit of a mixed bag of late. There has been a shortage of waders for the first three months of the year and even the usual small birds seem to be keeping a low profile of late. I have not had many good picture opportunities recently and the birding seems to have all been a bit flat. Strange then that, when I check back, the week has been quite successful with five year ticks and one life tick.

Perhaps the most rewarding was catching up with the Cuckmere Spoonbill. This was my fifth attempt at this bird. Previous visits had involve a walk along both paths on the Western side and detailed scanning of the channels and ditches. Other than the White-fronted Geese I saw nothing, but on every occasion the bird was reported on the same day. This time we parked up on Seaford Head and scoped the area from a distance. Not a very satisfactory approach but we did eventually manage to pick it up over in the lagoon on the eastern side.

Other ticks that day were a Linnet and a Black Redstart at Tidemills and Kittiwake at Seaford Head. Whilst I managed distant record shots of all of these birds the only shot worth publishing is this slightly out of focus Skylark.

Skylark

Today I visited Kent and with the M20 passing within a mile of Snodland it seemed an ideal opportunity to catch up with the Hoopoe that had been reported there. I managed to park in the wrong place but after a short walk I eventually found the bird, although I only managed four shots before it disappeared into cover.

Hoopoe - my first in this country

Feeling flushed with success I thought why not try for the two reported Garganey at Allhallows, its only a few miles away. So I did, but without any luck. If they were there they were staying in cover or were both females that I was unable to separate from the female Teal. Then I thought, there is another Garganey reported at Restharrow Scrape in Sandwich Bay, this time a male, its only a few more miles away (65 to be exact). Can I justify the mileage, I don't really go in for twitches, but then this is not really a twitch.

I arrived at the hide only to be told  the usual, you should have been here ten minutes ago it was swimming around in front of the hide, and the guy had superb pictures to prove it. I eventually managed a brief view through the bins when it appeared in a gap in the reeds. If I was just a birder I could have gone home happy. Being a photographer, I wanted a picture and I was still sitting in the hide three and a half hours later when I had to finally accept that I was not going to get a picture in the dark.

A bit of a frustrating week as far as the photography goes, my only consolation, telling my birding buddy Dave about the Hoopoe and Garganey. It doesn't quite make up for his Capercaillie and Crested Tit but it helps.