Water Pipit

Having spent six hours on Tuesday, in the freezing cold, waiting for a Serin to appear and then having gone home without seeing it and without taking a single picture we decided to spend Wednesday  on some more reliable subjects.

First stop should have been Apuldram Church but I took the wrong turn so we made a revisit to the Cattle Egrets at Church Lane Warblington. There had been eight of them in the field with the cattle last week but this time there were no cattle and only the one Cattle Egret and that was too far away for a photograph.

Moving on we tried the Nore Stream. Plenty of dog walkers and the usual wildfowl but very little of interest. Which eventually led us back to our intended target, the Water Pipit at Apuldram. We had a quick look at the Yellowhammer flock in the horse paddock on the way but we were both keen to get to the river.

Dave spotted it as soon as we arrived. Fairly close and easy to see but very difficult to get a clear shot of it against a clean background.

Water Pipit

There were a couple of Rock Pipits in the area which was useful for comparison purposes. One of these seemed to want to occupy the same tuft of grass as the Water Pipit which resulted in frequent disputes and pursuits when the Water Pipit reappeared. This was some feisty bird and it was not sharing its territory with any rockies.

Rock Pipit

You occasionally get a heart stopping moment when something unusual pops up and you think you may have found a rarity. The bird below had me scrambling to get a record shot but my hopes were dashed when Dave pointed out that it was only a Wren. True but if it were a butterfly I would call it an aberration and would be searching the records to be able to put a name to it.

Wren with a crown stripe

Apuldram is the most reliable location in our patch for Yellowhammers. There are reports of the flock being thirty to forty strong although I usually only see around six. The manure heap seems to offer plenty of food for the foraging birds but photographing them against the yellow straw is always difficult. There are better opportunities when they perch up in the trees but to get close you often end up photographing into the sun.

Yellowhammer

We made a quick visit to the Bill but it all looked very quiet and with Church Norton and the North Wall failing to produce much recently we decided to head over too the wetland centre at Arundel. The Great White Egret if still present would be a patch first for me.

A good choice as it turned out. With most of the water frozen over there were some good picture opportunities. It was nice to get a couple of pictures of the GWE  where it did not look long necked and awkward.

Great White Egret

There were half a dozen snipe present but it was a choice between photographing them or following the GWE hoping that it would fall through the ice.


The Shelduck gave good picture opportunities from the hide and we saw our second Grey Wagtail of the day.

Shelduck

Grey Wagtail

Later we saw a couple of Water Rail. Icy conditions always seem to bring them out into the open.

Water Rail

A really enjoyable days birding spoilt only by a report that the Serin has been seen again at Tide Mills. It looks like another long day in the cold tomorrow.

Waxwing

I am still waiting for the Waxwings to arrive in Sussex but with time moving on it is starting to look as though we could miss out on seeing them. That will not come as a surprise to most of the local birders. In an exceptional year across the country, for  rare and scare birds, Sussex has been noticeably missing from the list. Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire seem to be a birding Bermuda Triangle.


Today I needed to travel down to Canterbury. It is a regular trip and I usually take the opportunity to visit a few birding sites on the way. With Waxwings having been reported in the north Kent town of Strood and with it only being a short distance from my intended route it seemed to be worth a visit. At least I would have the opportunity of a 2016 year tick.

When I arrived it didn't look too bad. There were only two other birders present and the Waxwings were flying between a high tree perch and  an orange fruiting Rowan in a garden opposite the Bounty Pub. The only problem was that the Rowan was mostly in shadow.

After about half an hour the lighting improved but unfortunately the number of birders also increased. We were getting up close to twenty people with most standing directly under the feeding tree, setting up tripods and talking loudly. The Waxwings were coming down but were just grabbing a few berries and heading back to the safety of their high level perch.

How inconsiderate birders can be. Don't they realise that I need to have these bird all to myself, for about an hour, in what was turning out to be perfect light. We all have our problems. In the end I gave in, joined the fray, grabbed a couple of quick pictures, and then left to find a more peaceful place.

Dave and I have been able to get some great pictures of Waxwings in the past but you need time and space. A large twitch severely reduces your chances of success. I think, that in the new year, we could be making the trip up north, possibly even to Scotland where at the moment Waxwings can be found in their hundreds. 

My route to Canterbury then continued via a minor detour to Dungeness. I had no specific target but it is always a place where something unusual could turn up. There were Smew and Goldeneye on the Burrows Pit but both were too far away for even a record shot. I also failed to find the Ring-necked Duck behind Bolderwall Farm. However, there were good numbers of Tree Sparrows around Bolderwall, which was good to see after missing them earlier in the summer.

The Long-eared Owl was in its usual spot behind the dipping pool. With the green foliage gone it was at least a bit easier to find him this time.

Lots of other birds but nothing really unusual. The Great White Egret dosen't even raise an eyebrow these days other than for me to think that it is unusual to only find one at Dungeness.

Finally another shot of a Kestrel. One day I will get that picture of a Merlin that has been at the top of my list for so long.

Not a bad day out given that it is just a day after the mid winter solstice.

Great White Egret

We were down at Dungeness beach on Monday searching for Caspian Gulls. I have studied all the books and know how to identify juvenile Caspians but theory and practice are vastly different. The advantage of going to Dungeness was that it has two Polish colour ringed birds. So this was a case of spot the colour ring rather than spot the Caspo.

It didn't help. We started by searching the beach area and gull roosts around the fishing boats. Plenty of Herring Gulls, Greater Black-backed and Black-headed but no Caspians, or at least none that we could identify. The wind was fierce so we soon retired to the car and parked up so that we could scan the gulls in comfort. Still no luck. We found one ringed bird but that was a Herring Gull.The only consolation was that a couple of other birders were having the same problem.

In the end we dipped but we did have a brief stop at the ARC hide and had good views of a Great White Egret and Marsh Harrier.

Great White Egret, a superb looking bird sideways on.......

but a bit more comic looking head on.

Not too bad, but with a white bird it's always difficult to get the exposure right so that you can see the feather detail.


The Marsh Harrier gave some great flybys but was difficult to photograph against the sky. Fortunately he did one low pass with the water as a background.

 

Not the Caspos we were looking for but at least a couple of decent birds to photograph, so it wasn't a wasted day.

Tree Sparrow

If its Tree Sparrows it must be Dungeness. Although actually the day was about much more than just the Tree Sparrows. We saw fifty two species in all on the day. This included Great White Egret, Cattle Egret, Black-necked Grebes, Bearded Tits, and Marsh Harriers together with all the usual Dungeness residents.

We missed the Cattle Egret at the first attempt. It was reported as being behind Boulderwall Farm but we were unable to find it and so headed off to the Visitors Centre to see what else was about. Apparently it walked out of the long grass just as we drove off. My thanks to the birder who recognised us in the car park later and let us know that it was showing again.

Cattle Egret

Cattle Egret

One little bonus was this Field Mouse that Dave spotted when he was pee(r)ing into a bramble thicket. It was completely fearless and carried on eating whilst being rocked up and down as we tried to get a clear view of it through the bramble. Those big eyes must have given it a clear view of a couple huge monsters scrabbling about within a few feet of it, but it remained calm, finished off its blackberries, licked its fingers and then wandered off deeper into the thicket.

Field Mouse

Field Mouse

Field Mouse being a generic term, it should really be called a Long-tailed Field Mouse or Wood Mouse (Apodemus flavicollis)

There were three Black-necked Grebes on the ARC pit but they were too far away for a picture. I had to make do with this female Shoveler that was posing in front of the hide. I also missed out on a couple of Water Rails that raced across a gap in the reeds in front of the hide. Even if I had the camera ready it doesn't focus that fast.

Shoveler

Stonechats were all around the RSPB site and there were a few nice males displaying dark heads. I was a bit suprised by this one. He was gathering food and flying off with it then reappearing a few minutes later looking for more. Either he likes a bit of privacy when he is eating or perhaps the warm weather has resulted in a late breeding attempt.

Stonechat

The Tree Sparrows have been absent from the Boulderwood Farm area on my last few visits to Dungeness and I was beginning to think that the colony was disappearing. It is probably just that the feeders are not being filled and the birds have dispersed over a wider area. These were on the ground under the feeders at the Visitors Centre. The background is a bit busy and distracting but it was nice to be able to record them.

Tree Sparrow

Tree Sparrow

Dungeness

Dungeness was today's destinations with the objective of adding a few year ticks before the winter visitors start to disappear. The day got off to a slow start when a stop at Scotney Pits gave us plenty of ducks and Lapwings to look at but very few geese and other than a couple of Egyptian none of the rarer species we were looking for.

Goldeneye

The ARC hide at Dungeness was a little better. A Marsh Harrier flyby as we arrived, Golden Eye displaying, a Great White Egret, and whilst there were no male Smew we did see lots of redheads spread out over the lake. We also had a brief view of a Bittern from the viewing screen as it disappeared into the reedbed.

Great White Egret

The Tree Sparrows were on the feeders and around the garden at Boulderwood Farm as were a number of House Sparrows and Reed Buntings.

Tree Sparrow

I think we were both a little disappointed by the end of the morning. Birds like the Marsh Harrier and the Great White Egret are unusual in Sussex but in Dungeness they are quite common. We had four or five sightings of each during the day. The water levels were also very high and there were no waders around.

The afternoon livened up a bit. We spotted a female Goosander on the far side of the lake and could not believe our luck when she swam all the way over to perform just in front of the hide.

Female Goosander

After much searching of the thousands of ducks and gulls present we also found a Black-necked Grebe. As you can see below they do not always come close enough to give a good picture opportunity.

Black-necked Grebe

A local birder also put us onto a a pair of Black-throated Divers on the New Diggings Pit. We missed them in the morning but they proved a lot easier to find when we returned in the afternoon.

Black-throated Diver

We tried Scotney again on the way home. The geese were there but were on the fields on the far side of the pits so even with the scope we could not see any detail. All we saw were more ducks and Lapwings and a few Golden Plover. We also tried Pett Level . Even more ducks, a couple more Marsh Harrier sightings, and plenty of Curlew.

We have often looked over the sea wall here and seen a vast expanse of sea with nothing on it so we had no great expectations as we climbed the slope. It's always worth a look though and this time there were hundreds of birds. They were mostly Wigeon but we did manage to pick out Red and Black-throated Divers, Great Crested Grebes, and a few Auk species.

With the mist  rolling in and the sun beginning to go down the opportunity for more sightings disappeared and we headed for home. Over fifty species seen on the day and eight year ticks, it had proved to be a good day out.

Birding in Kent

A recent trip to stay for a few days in Canterbury gave the opportunity to try birding in some different areas. However, I wasn't very adventurous and ended up visiting a lot of places that I am already familiar with. Cliffe Pools twice, to see the Lesser Yellowlegs which I missed by about ten minutes on both occasions. Stodmarsh and Grove Ferry, where I hardly saw a bird all day, although I did have a fly by from a Marsh Harrier, so close that I had no chance of getting a picture. Folkstone and Dover Cliffs, looking for Ring Ouzels, which was a total waste of time despite all the reported sightings.

In the end it all came down to Dungeness, five Great White Egrets, a Spoonbill, and a small supporting cast. Even here there were some missed opportunities, A Pectoral Sandpiper that kept relocating every time I got near it and a Rare Bird Alert that reported Ring Ouzels within fifty metres of where I was standing but which were gone by the time I got there.

It all sounds a bit depressing but actually I had a great time wandering around the sites. I am just trying to convince the wife that I need to do this more often.

So, pictures taken at a rather drab and over cast Dungeness.

Spoonbill

Little Egret with fish

Great White Egret

Taking to the air - Five to six foot wingspan

Two of the five Great White Egrets present

Bar-tailed Godwit and Curlew Sandpiper

Greenshanks

 and one picture taken at Grove Ferry

Snipe hiding in amongst the Ducks

The most exiting spectacle of the day was a feeding frenzy of about thirty Cormorants on a shoal of fish, with an even larger flock of gulls trying to poach fish out of the Cormorants mouths. I must read up on how to use the video mode on the camera.