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!

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.

Distant Views

Distant is going to be the theme of this blog. Distant views and long shots and those have been the good days. It seems to have been a couple of weeks since I have had a good birding day. A trip down to the New Forest gave me a Tawney Owl but it was deep in a hole in the tree with only half its back showing. There was also a Great Grey Shrike, a distant shot but it's the only picture I came home with that day.

Great Grey Shrike

We spent most of the morning trying to locate a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker that we could occasionally here drumming but did not seem to be able to get anywhere near. I did manage to end up in a bog over my knees - exiting stuff and a good way of improving the camouflage but it hardly makes up for missing the LSW. The afternoon was spent looking for the Long-billed Dowitcher at Pennington Marshes. Our second attempt to get the year tick but we dipped it yet again.

Other days out included three attempts at a Spoonbill. One on Farlington Marsh and two at Cuckmere Haven and a couple of goes at the Red-necked Grebe seen in the Budds Wall area. The birds were all reported on the days I visited so I must just have been unlucky with the timing of my visits.

Today saw us back to the New Forest. It looked like being a sunny day and we had hopes of seeing a Goshawk. It did not quite work out the way we had planned. The mist/fog took a lot longer to clear than we expected so much of the morning was wasted. We decided to divert to Pennington Marsh for another go at the Long-billed Dowitcher and this time we were lucky. Long distance shots but the bird was actively feeding out in the open, as compared to when I saw it back in August of last year, when it was skulking away in the reeds most of the time, looking very much like a Snipe.

Long-billed Dowitcher

It looks a very different bird in its winter plumage with grey breast and white belly. Back in August it had a rusty orange breast and belly.

Snipe with Long-billed Dowitcher disappearing into the reeds

And with Wigeon landing in the background

The water levels in the marshes were considerably down on last week and waders were more in evidence although I have yet to see any form of Sandpiper this year. Most birds were too distant for good photographs although the diffuse lighting enabled a reasonable shot of this Little Egret.

Little Egret

Lets hope the birding is on an upward trend. The Long-billed Dowitcher is a good year tick and although we did not see a Goshawk we came away with a couple of good sites to revisit and some ideas for Honey Buzzards later in the year. Watch this space.

Lesser Yellowlegs & Long-billed Dowitcher

I came away from our last trip to Lepe Country Park happy that I had seen a Lesser Yellowlegs and happy that I had a record shot to prove it. It was a good result after the four failed attempts at the Cliffe Pools bird. However, the record shot was heavily cropped and there was scope for improvement

Looking at the map of the Dark Water area I estimate that it was taken from a distance of over 200 metres so I was lucky to get anything recognisable on the shot. The challenge was to get closer to the bird and with recent report putting it back on the Stansore Point pool the opportunity was there. So this morning Dave and I headed off into Hampshire once again.

It took a while to locate the bird. It was on the back of the pool and out of sight for most of the time so we had a long wait in the biting cold wind. Fortunately there were plenty of small birds around to practice on whilst we waited. My favourite being the Dunnock.

Dunnock

Eventually the bird relocated towards the front of the pool, a distance of about 60 metres. Still not ideal but at least we could get some better shots.

Lesser Yellowlegs

We waited to see if it would come closer but instead it took off and disappeared over the back of the pool. It was getting colder so we decided to relocate ourselves and went off to find the local cafe and a cup of hot tea.

Next stop was Pennington Marsh where I was hoping to improve on my pictures of the Long-billed Dowitcher. Another long wait in the cold wind but eventually we found it on the back of the Jetty Pool. I will spare you most of the pictures. It a shy bird and its nature is to stay well hidden in the reeds and today this one was living up to its reputation.

Long-billed Dowitcher in hiding

I would have liked to have got better pictures but you can't win every time. We were lucky. How often is it that you get see two rare American vagrants in one day?

Black Tern

There has been a distinct lack of birds showing over the past week with even the local resident birds keeping a low profile. Reports from sites along the south coast have indicated similar situations. In an effort to liven up the birding and the blogs, we decided to travel down to the Lymington-Keyhaven Nature Reserve. Pennington Marsh as it is more commonly known.

When I was last there at the beginning of August to see the Long-billed Dowitcher there were a lot of birds about and recent reports on the Hampshire site had looked good. In particular we hoped to see Black Terns and to get some decent pictures of Curlew Sandpiper and there was always the chance that Dave would get to see the Long-billed Dowitcher that was still being reported occasionally.

When we got there it looked like another bad decision. The lagoons were mostly dry and there were no birds to be seen on them. Even the Coots had disappeared. We sat for a while and watched the seaward side as the tide came in. There were a few Dunlin and Ringed Plover being driven in by the rising tide and a couple of Pied Wagtails feeding off the mud. Interesting but not what we had driven all that way for. At least the Herring Gull that joined us for lunch gave some picture opportunities.

Herring Gull and Friend

Lets Play

Having eaten our lunch we decided to walk along to the jetty. It's a good spot for Turnstones, if you want them, and there are a number of posts sticking out of the water that are used by the Gulls and Terns.

There were a couple of Terns there when we arrived and others flew in as we watched. The problem was that they were mostly juveniles with just a couple of adults in transition between summer and winter plumage. I had not given any thought as to how to identify Juvenile Terns and we had left the Collins back in the car. The Sandwich Terns were easy to identify but the Commons and Blacks were giving us a bit of a problem. Local birdwatchers seemed equally confused. In the end it was a case of photograph everything and try and work it out later.

Two Common Terns and a Sandwich

Common Tern

They look different but it must be two Commons

Juvenile Black Tern

Juvenile Black Tern

So, not many birds about but still an interesting day and at least I have learnt something about identifying Juvenile Terns. I will have to start thinking about amending the novice birder description in my introduction.