Eyeworth Pond

Mid February and time to make our annual trip to the New Forest to see Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers. Or, as it turns out almost every year, to spend a morning listening to distant drumming and to leave without managing to set eyes on them. This year was no exception. Greater spots drumming and a distant half hearted drumming from a Lesser Spot but no sight of them at all.

Plenty of birds in the forest but all of them difficult to approach although we did get the opportunity to photograph a juvenile Buzzard just after we entered the forest. It is not an unusual bird to see but it is one that I have always found difficulty in photographing.

We had a look at Blashford and a few of the enclosures but there was not much to see and even less to photograph. There were a few of the more common birds about but there was little point in spending time chasing them when our final stop of the day, at Eyeworth Pond Fritham,  would deliver close up views of all of these birds.

You do need to take a few handfulls of peanuts or sunflower seeds to keep their attention but the birds are conditioned to being fed and to being close to people.  It's not our usual idea of birding but it does lift the spirit to have so many "wild" birds almost close enough to touch.

Blackbird

Blue Tit

Blue Tit

Chaffinch

Coal Tit

Marsh Tit

Marsh Tit

Nuthatch

Nuthatch

Nuthatch

Even the Mandarins are happy to come over looking for food. We had seen ten of these at the northern end of Swanbourne Lake earlier in the week but they were very wary of people, staying well away from the feeding areas. The Eyeworth birds were out on the pond edge often too close to be able to get the picture.

Mandarin

Displaying to the ladies

Female Mandarin

Last time we visited there were a pair of Wood Ducks on the pond. I was hoping they would have stayed and I could have another go at photographing them but we did not see any sign of them this time.


As you leave the forest there are some areas of open grassland which are always good for Thrush species. Most were a bit distant but we were fortunate to get a pair of Mistle Thrushes that were feeding close to the car.

Mistle Thrush

Mistle Thrush

We didn't see anything spectacular and we didn't add any year ticks but it just felt good to be in close contact with the birds and to be taking pictures all day. The alternatives were standing in the cold all day waiting for the  Thayer's or Ross's Gulls to turn up -- boring!!

Wood Duck

Eyeworth Pond near Fritham is always worth a visit. The birds are fed regularly and are nearly tame and there are always picture opportunities. This year there was the added bonus of a resident Wood Duck. It may well be an escapee but it is living in the wild, and it looks good, so it is worth a picture. What we hadn't realised was that there was a female on the pond as well. Next year we could be going back to photograph wild british born Wood Ducks.

If this happens you would have to question why their status should be any different to that of the british born Cranes from the reintroduction program.

Wood Ducks

Wood Duck

Female Wood Duck

We did initially have a bit of confusion over the female. We had not expected to see it and she looks very similar to the Mandarin Duck female, picture below. However, she does shows the diagnostic darker head, more white around the eye, black nail, and different markings around the base of the bill.
They are quite different when you see the two side by side.

The male Mandarins were also in attendance and there was a small group of Goosanders, one male and four females but as ever they were keeping their distance. Still, not a bad slection of ducks for a small pond.

Mandarin Duck

Mandarin Duck

Goosander with three of his four ladies

We had started the day at Blashford Lakes. It's not one of our favourite sites but the Bramblings are reliable on the feeders outside the Woodland hide. I would have liked to put a picture of them on the blog but you could barely see them through the windows in the hide. The "glass" is badly scratched and fogged and you have difficulty making out any colours on the birds.

Brambling duly ticked we moved on. We did have a quick look out from the Tern Hide but the birds as usual were so far away it was almost like doing a sea watch. The Ivy North Hide does give you a good chance of seeing a Bittern but you have to look at it through heavily tinted blue glass. We gave that a miss. The site has so much potential but seems so poor on delivery.


Eyeworth Pond, however always delivers on the small birds as well as on the ducks and there is no blue glass to get in the way.

Marsh Tit - white spot on upper mandible 

Marsh Tit

Nuthatch

Coal Tit

On the fields driving away from Fritham a flock of forty to fifty Redwings

Redwing

Below a couple of shots from earlier in the week. A rather wet and bedraggled looking Great Grey Shrike at Waltham Brooks. A bit like me that day. He wasn't going anywhere but there was a lot of wet and sticky mud between me and him. I thought better of it and headed off to Arundel Wetland Centre for a cup of tea.

Distant and rather wet Great Grey Shrike

And the Wetland Centre delivered yet another good Kingfisher photo opportunity. There are at least two on the site and they appear very tolerant of people. The only problem is that they are attracting more and more photographers to the site. Good for the WWT funds but not so good if you want the bird to yourself.

Arundel Wetland Centre - Kingfisher

Willow Tit

Dave and I have just got back from a weeks birding in the Cairngorm National Park and on the Moray and Nairn coast, but more on that in the next blog. This one is about our stopover on the way up at RSPB Fairburn Ings. We chose the site as it has resident Willow Tits. They are absent from Sussex and most of the South East and, if seen, would be a life tick for both of us.

I think we could probably have told the difference between the Willow Tit and its look alike the Marsh Tit but the beauty of Fairburn Ings is that it has no Marsh Tits. It is always good to have the odds working in your favour.

Fairburn Ings is a great site and just a few minutes from the A1. The wardens gave us some useful information and we found our first Willow Tit within a few minutes of arriving.

Willow Tit

They were very difficult to get onto in the trees and picture opportunities were limited, so in the end I resorted to photographing them on the feeders. There was no way I was going to leave without a definitive picture.

Identification of the Willow Tit is now done either by the call or by the absence of a white spot on the base of the upper mandible. However, the birds shown here do seem to show other characteristics that aid the separation from the Marsh Tit. That is, dull rather than glossy black cap, larger black bib, and thicker "bull" neck.

Willow Tit in the bag on the first day, a great start to the holiday.

The reserve also supported nesting Tree Sparrows, another species mostly absent from Sussex, a good number of Bullfinches, and gave close up views of some of the more common birds.

Tree Sparrows

Bullfinch

Greenfinch

Nuthatch

Reed Bunting

Goldfinch

It may be a case of the grass always being greener but it seems to us that the RSPB sites in the north of England are far better at getting birders close to the birds. Fairburn Ings was no exception and it is a place I will be visiting again.

Long-billed Dowitcher

Today it really felt as though Spring had arrived. We were off down to Pennington to look for the Long-billed Dowitcher. It wasn't exactly warm but the sun was shinning, the sky was blue, and there was no wind, and for the first time this year the birds seemed to be out singing and marking out their territories.

On the walk down to the lagoons from the car park we had Linnets, that I didn't manage to photograph, a Reed Bunting and even a Wren happy too be sitting out in the open singing.

Reed Bunting

Wren

Waders were in short supply, as they have been for most of this Winter, but the comparison of this Spotted Redshank and Redshank made an interesting picture.

Spotted Redshank and Redshank

Spotted Redshank

A search for the Long-billed Dowitcher found it sleeping in the reeds along side three Snipe. It looked promising when we first spotted it but it wasn't until it raised its head and revealed the bill that we could be sure.

Long-billed Dowitcher and three Snipe

We watched it for a while and it was beginning to look as though it would not leave the cover of the reeds. Luckily a low flying Lapwing spooked the Snipe and the Dowitcher took to the air with them. I would normally have expect it to head deeper into cover.

The flight shot gives a good view of the white cigar shape on its back.

Long-billed Dowitcher - showing cigar shaped white mark on its back

The bird did not travel far and was soon heading back to its favoured resting place in the reeds

Long-billed Dowitcher

With the shot below showing the greenish/yellow legs and truncated bill with slightly down turned end.

and heading back to the reeds

Next stop was at Mark Ash wood in the New Forest but our usually reliable Tawny Owl seems to have moved on and our quick search for a Lesser-spotted Woodpecker revealed no sighting and no sound of drumming. Perhaps still a little too early in the year and certainly a little late in the day.

Next stop was Eyeworth Pond at Fritham. The small birds are always easy to photograph here  as they are very tame and use to visitors providing them with food. The only difficulty is getting a decent shot of the bird without piles of seeds getting in the way.

There are usually Mandarins on display although they tend to stay on the far side and shelter under the trees but the bonus on this visit were four Goosanders, three male and one female.

Goosander

Goosander and Mandarin Duck

Goosander and Mandarin Duck

Mandarins escorting the female.

We had great fun watching and photographing these and there were a number of flight shots that nearly made the grade but in the end were all consigned to the bin. It is amazing how different the male Mandarin looks in flight.

Then it was back to the feeding station and a few shots of the more common birds.

Great Tit

Great Tit

Marsh Tit

Marsh Tit

Nuthatch

A great days birding with, for a change, some decent lighting for the photography.