Glossy Ibis

 

The threat of having to queue for fuel has kept me close to home for the past couple of weeks but with the panic easing and my fuel tank now topped up I thought I would venture out once again. My destination was Farlington Marsh. It's one of those places where you can walk around one day and see nothing then the next day find all sorts of interesting birds. 

Today, was unfortunately closer to a nothing day, than an interesting day. A few distant waders, lots of Little Egrets, a couple of Wheatears, and a fast flyby by what I think was a Sparrowhawk. Whatever it was it wasn't hanging around to have it's picture taken.

I had been hoping for Bearded Tits. I have seen them there at the beginning of October in previous years and with a strong south westerly blowing there was a good chance they would be foraging in the reed bed behind the shelter of the sea wall. Sadly it wasn't to be and I will have to return later in the winter.

I had a backup plan, a Glossy Ibis at Warblington, just a few miles east along the coast. The Ibis had been resident for a week or so, towards the end of September but then appeared to have moved on. I couldn't get down to look for it then but it's reappearance today was good timing.

It was easy to find, in the middle of the field just to the east of the new cemetery.

It would have been nice to have got a bit closer but I can't really complain. Some of the previous Glossy Ibis I have seen have been very wary of people and moved away as soon as you showed yourself.

Favouring a field just by a well trodden  public footpath this bird must be well accustomed to people moving back and forth. I had hoped it would gradually come closer as it got used to me being there but it seemed to be finding plenty of food in the middle of the field.

I had a look around the harbour and the Nore Barn Woods and went back about an hour later hoping it had moved closer but it was nowhere to be seen. Nor could a search of the hedges and trees around the field produce any sign of a roosting place. However it could well have been there as I imagine once settled in a tree it would be well camouflaged.

It was the only bird I managed to photographed all day but as it was one I don't get to see every year, I at least went home with a smile on my face.

If you do ever get down to Warblington make sure to have a look at the Yew trees in the churchyard. The church dates back to Anglo-Saxon times and some of the trees are reported as being over 1500 years old. They are truly impressive and if I had been a bit more on the ball you could well be looking at a picture of one of them now.

The church is probably interesting as well if you like that sort of thing!

Glossy Ibis

It has all been a bit slow on the birding front. Dave and I made our annual trip looking for a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and had our usual result, one heard but none seen. The location chosen this year was Burnham Beeches. Plenty of Great Spotted around and drumming and one bird sounding good for a Lesser Spotted but we couldn't get eyes on it.

We did get Red-crested Pochard on Stockers lake but no picture. The Lesser Spotted takes priority so we don't usually get to Stockers until around midday and the Pochards always seem to be taking a siesta on one of the islands. Had to make do with a Goldeneye.

Goldeneye

with a half hearted attempt to impress the ladies

I had a better day out on Tuesday. A long walk around the Wrens Warren area was not looking very promising but just as I was about to leave I had sight of the Great Grey Shrike. It was distant and did not stay perched for long but at least I saw it. The pictures were nowhere near as good as those we had back in October. This time the bird seemed much more flighty and did not return to the perch I had found it on, as it had been happy to do the last time we saw it. It is probably starting to think about migrating back to Scandinavia.

Flushed with success I decided to head down to the Cuckmere to have a look for the Glossy Ibis. This one was a lot easier to find. It was visible from the road just to the east of the Exceat bridge and north of the road, foraging with a small flock of Teal. Again the bird was distant but with no cover or easy access I just took a couple of record shots from the road and left it in peace.

Glossy Ibis

Fortunately I had seen a tweet from Matt Eade reporting three Water Pipits just north of the Cuckmere bridge and I also managed to get views of  at least two of these as well as a number of Rock Pipits that were also in the area.


And finally, today, I managed to catch up with the two White-fronted Geese at Pulborough Brooks, at what was probably my fifth or sixth attempt. Very distant as things always seem to be at Pulborough and seemingly still associating with the Canada Geese so perhaps a little suspect.

Glossy Ibis

Went to Medmerry today, to have a look for the Glossy Ibis that has been present there for a few days.

It is frequenting a fenced off building compound, complete with workers and heavy machinery, on the Bunn Leisure Caravan Park just outside the South East boundary of the Medmerry Nature Reserve. It seems a strange environment in which to find the bird. There is a rough grassland area and a few puddles and it is obviously finding food but it is difficult to see why it would favour this over the vast wetland areas over the fence in Medmerry.

It seems to be completely unfazed by the work going on around it or by the birders and photographers that visit, so there are some good picture opportunities

This is a juvenile so it hasn't really had a chance to learn that it needs to be wary of people. Particularly as this is a popular dog walking area.

It spends most of its time searching for food in the long grass but we were fortunate to be there when it came out to drink at one of the puddles on the path outside the compound.

I am always surprised how large this bird looks in flight and in pictures. Perhaps we have a preconception based on the larger members of the Ibis family or perhaps it's all in the legs. It is actually quite a small bird but with large wings. Here is another shot taken a couple of years ago at Dungeness of a Glossy Ibis along side a juvenile Black-backed Gull.

Quite a few other birds around today but very little that was posing for a photograph.

Stonechat

Black-tailed Godwit

A good day out, nice weather lots of birds to look at and even a couple of decent pictures. Things are looking up.

Little Bittern

I came away from Ham Wall with a list including Little Bittern, four Great White Egrets, Two Glossy Ibis, Green Sandpiper, Brown Hawker, Southern Hawker, Common Darter and Black-tailed Skimmer. Was I happy? No, not really, because the Collared Pratincole, that I had travelled all that way to see, had flown overnight.

The problem with wanting to see the rarer birds but also being twitch averse, is that sometimes you just get the timing wrong. This is the second time this year that I have left it too long and turned up the day after the bird has moved on.

Fortunately this time there was a back up target, that of getting a picture of a Little Bittern.

I had seen one earlier in the year but only for a few seconds. At the time I was sure that it was a Little Bittern but I didn't get a picture and after a few days the doubts start to creep in. Was the bill right? Did I see the white patches on its wings?  It was a life tick for me so I wanted to be sure. As such it had only been greyed in on my list and given a few more weeks, with the doubts continuing to grow, would probably have been removed. So I am trying to think positive and treat this as a life tick and now the journey seems a bit more worthwhile.

No problem with seeing the white patches on the wings this time.

They get some good birds at Ham Wall but it is not a great place for a bird photographer. You are just too far away for a decent shot. Below is one of a pair of Glossy Ibis but it is probably 300 metres away. It doesn't really compare with the one at Pett Level last December that was almost close enough to touch.

I spent most of the day standing around waiting for the Pratincole to put in an appearance so didn't really have time to photograph any other birds. However, there were a few Dragonflies that came within range.

Southern Hawker

Black-tailed Skimmer

Common Blue Damselfly

The most abundant Dragonfly was the Brown Hawker, which is always a difficult one to photograph. I tried a few in flight which all failed and I managed to spook the only one that I found settled.

It was a long way to go but it was worth it for the pictures of the Little Bittern.

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

Glossy Ibis

Three years ago the Glossy Ibis seemed like a common bird on the south coast. I saw five perhaps six that year. The following year it was one bird and last year zero. It looked like being zero again this year but with a Glossy being reported regularly at Pett Levels we were still in with a chance.

Our first visit on Monday was a bit of a failure. We spent an hour there in the morning and an hour again late afternoon, with a visit to Dungeness in between. We searched thousands of birds that morning but came up with nothing. It's strange how, at a distance, an upright walking coot can look a bit like a Glossy Ibis and there were a lot of coots out there feeding on the grass.

As you would expect whilst we were away at Dungeness the Glossy Ibis was reported again and in its usual place - in the ditch, in the first field, just to the left of the roadside pool (the eastern most pool). In the afternoon we searched all the birds again but still drew a blank. The doubts start to creep in, Who had reported it? Did they know the difference between a Glossy Ibis and a Curlew? Was it someone's idea of a joke?

Still we had to try again and with some decent weather promised on Thursday we left home early and were out at Pett Level just before nine o'clock. Within thirty seconds of getting out of the car Dave had spotted it. It was exactly where all the reports had placed it and despite what I said above, it looks nothing like an upright Coot. But then its easy to be clever once you've made the identification.

We grabbed a few record shot, all of mine were useless. The early morning light was giving me 1/80 second and hand held on a large lens that does not make for good pictures. Then the bird took off and we thought we had lost the chance. It circled round then came into land even closer to us. Too close in fact.  Great for looking at the bird but I could barely get it in the frame and there were reeds blowing across the view.

I don't usually put up poor pictures but this one is a classic. Almost close enough to touch but too big for the frame, too close to focus properly, reeds blowing across the view and photo bombed by a coot.

Little more that could go wrong with this picture

A bit of shuffling around to try to get a better view saw us flush the bird and for a second time we thought we had lost it. Fortunately it stayed close and we had the chance to get some better pictures.

A great bird to see but this time of year its colours are a bit dull. I would like to get a picture of of one that was really showing the green and purple gloss that they are named after.

Given our early success we headed off to have a look at Scotney and Dungeness. It was all a bit quiet although the numbers of geese and ducks are gradually building. We saw Great White Egrets and Marsh Harriers, both quite common birds at Dungeness these days.

Marsh Harrier

The Long-eared Owl was still showing behind the dipping pool, but it was even better concealed than when we last saw it, and there were four redhead Smew on the Burrows lake.

On our Monday visit to Dungeness there were a couple of pairs of Pochard showing but both the males were asleep. This time they were nowhere to be seen so I had to settle for just taking a picture of one of the females.

It took two trips but it was good to see a Glossy Ibis again.