Red-breasted Mergansers

The beginning of a new birding year and I am off to a very slow start. We had family staying over New Year and for the first few days of January, then I was laid low by a stomach bug. Even the garden feeders let me down. The Sparrows, Goldfinches and Greenfinches that visit every day disappeared, Wood Pigeons gone, no Robin, no Dunnocks. I managed to entice a couple of Herring Gulls in with some festivity left overs but other than that it was a couple of Crows, one Starling and a few feral pigeons on the surrounding TV aerials.

I finally managed to get out for a couple of hours on the Monday and decided to target the Red-breasted Merganser at Widewater and the Purple Sandpipers at Shoreham Fort. Great idea but neither were showing, there was nothing on the sea, and very few other birds about. I ended up going home at the end of my two hours with my bird list barely reaching double figures.

Fortunately things picked up after that but with generally overcast and dull conditions picture opportunities have been limited. Still a return to Widewater on the Tuesday did give me the Merganser and also sight off the Purple Sandpipers, which were roosting in deep shadow under the pier.

Red-breasted Merganser

Red-breasted Merganser

It took yet another visit to get the Purple Sandpipers in half decent light. Not my best pictures of them but it was good to finally get the shots.

Purple Sandpiper

Purple Sandpiper

Next picture is a Water Pipit. This one taken on the tidal marsh at Appledram. Seen in isolation it is often a difficult call to tell it from a Rock Pipit. Fortunately in flight you can clearly see the white outer tail feathers that confirm the identification.

Water Pipit

The shot below is a Rock Pipit taken on very similar territory at Pagham North Wall. It was being mostly true to its name, hunting along the stones on the edge of the wall, whilst the Water Pipit was out amongst the puddles left by the retreating tide.

Rock Pipit

Also at Appledram a Greenshank in the fading light

Greenshank

A quick trip to the WWT at Arundel added a few more birds to the list. This Grey Wagtail was still foraging around the dried out duck feeding pool. The signs say that the area will be developed for a new bird pavilion. I guess that means Flamingos or Pelicans. I hope they are not making a mistake. I may not like captive birds but I always stopped to look for the Smew and to listen to the Eiders calling. Surely bringing the children to feed the ducks is (was) one of the biggest attractions of the site.

Grey Wagtail

You are never quite sure what you are going to get when you photograph Kingfishers. This one in good light at the Appledram outflow is OK but I have taken hundreds like it.

Kingfisher Appledram

I thought this one taken from the Scrape Hide at the WWT was a wasted effort, fading light, back-lit, high ISO, but it is always worth giving it a go. The "blue" feathers can give some odd effects.

Kingfisher WWT Arundel

So where does the blue streak come from? The orange plumage is the product of tiny pigment granules but its cyan and blue feathers contain no pigments.


These colours are ‘structural’. They are created by the intricate structural arrangement of a transparent feather material which, depending on its precise make-up and thickness compared to the wavelength of light, produces a range of colours from incident light – in other words from light shining on the feather with only certain wavelengths being reflected (or is it refracted?). Scientists describe this as semi-iridescent. Think of a soap bubble. It is formed from a colourless transparent liquid but when blown up into a very thin layered bubble it shows all the colours of the rainbow.


But then I struggle with this picture. The bird is silhouetted with its back in shadow, so where does the incident light come from to generate such a vivid blue streak?


For the record it wasn't Photoshop!

Common Scoter

Dave called me this morning to say that the Common Scoter was showing again on Widewater Lagoon. It is not a rare bird but it is unusual to be able to see one close up so I abandoned my tasks in the house and headed over there. As it happens I did not really get to see it close up. It was in hiding when I arrived and then promptly swam out into the middle of the lagoon, beached itself on the island there and I assume went of to sleep.

Female Common Scoter

I waited awhile but it did not reappear, the only consolation being that there were two pairs of Red-breasted Mergansers on the lake to pursue. Always a great bird to photograph.

Red-breasted Mergansers

There are a few resident Common Scoters over at the Wetland Centre in Arundel. They would be a lot easier to photograph but they don't have the same magic as a wild bird.

I had a quick look at the Turnstones and Purple Sandpipers on the harbour wall and then headed for home.

White-fronted Geese

Out with Dave today and we finally managed to catch up with White-fronted Geese a bird that we had failed to see last year. They had been reported at Cuckmere Haven and were fairly easy to find albeit that it meant wading through a lot of mud to get to them.

White-fronted Goose

 

They were in with the Canada Geese, which makes them a little easier to find, than when searching for them amongst Greylags.  They were probably feeling reasonably safe amongst such a large flock and this made them easier to approach.

White-fronted and Canada Geese

White-fronted Goose

Rain clouds were moving in when we located them so pictures were difficult. We waited a while but with the skies getting darker and the flock relocating to an adjacent field with the White-fronted further away we grabbed a few pictures and waded back through the mud to the car.

Working our way back along the coast we stopped at Seaford and at Newhaven Harbour to search for Kittiwakes and Fulmars. No luck with the former but the Fulmars were occupying nest building sites and performing aerobatics along the cliff faces. 

Fulmar - always appear to have strong pair bonding

And, it's difficult to pass Widewater Lagoon without stopping off to take yet more pictures of the Red-breasted Mergansers.

Red-breasted Mergansers

Diving

Hove - Grey Phalarope

I had just decided to pay a visit to the Gull roost at Goring when an alert came through for a Grey Phalarope on the children's paddling pool at Hove Lagoon. It seemed a bit unlikely. The pool is in a really busy area, it was a Sunday afternoon, and the first dry day for a long time. It would be packed with people, children, and dogs, and it was probably the last place I would think of looking for such a bird. Still, if there it would be a year tick and its not a bird I could guarantee catching up with later in the year.

I am glad I went and my thanks to whoever put out the alert. It was a great bird to see and it seemed to have no fear of people or dogs.

Grey Phalarope

It was overcast and drizzling by the time I got there so the pictures were never going to be brilliant but I did get a few record shots. It was not too difficult, as the bird was quite happy feeding only a few feet away from the gathered watchers. In fact I would have been better off with a smaller lens as most of the time I found myself having to back away from the bird to get the big lens to focus.

It did go out on the larger lagoon a couple of times but kept returning to the paddling pool which is only a few inches deep. They do seem to favour walking around in shallow water when they are feeding over having to swim on deeper water but I am not sure what food it would have found in the paddling pool.

On the way home I called in to Widewater to see he Red-breasted Mergansers. The weather was even worse by then and pictures were very difficult. They have been there for a few weeks now but I have yet to see them on a decent day.

Red-breasted Mergansers

Still, getting a picture of one catching a fish made it worthwhile.

Red-breasted Merganser with fish

 The gulls were out over the sea and seemed to be having a great time with the wind and waves. There is probably a lot of food being washed up and there were certainly more gulls on the sea at both Hove and Widewater than I would normally expect to see. Great to watch but all the action made it very difficult to spot anything unusual amongst them.

On Seawatching

Interesting but I cannot see it catching on!


I tried a seawatch for the first time yesterday morning. Hardcore birding as I have seen it described. The sea was calm and there were plenty of birds about. We could identify Common Scoter, Red-breasted Merganser, Great Crested Grebe, and Gannet with probable sightings of Guillemot and various Grebes. However, I left feeling something was missing. This was not what I wanted from bird watching. Lots of black dots, mostly unrecognisable, no chance of getting pictures, and an element of doubt in anything you do identify.

For me birdwatching is about getting up close, making a positive identification, and getting a good quality record shot. Or, perhaps being a bit more realistic, having a good enough record shot to be able to go home and make the identification against the Collins Guide.

Arriving home with no pictures to look at also left something missing from the day. Fortunately I was home by 10.30 and after an early lunch I was soon starting to get edgy. I headed off into the snow flurries hoping the reflection from the snow would give the extra couple of stops needed for decent pictures. There were certainly a lot of birds about.

The cold weather has caused a lot of bird movement. Thousands of Fieldfares have been heading west in flocks of a few birds through to a few hundred. Great to look at but they are stripping all the berries from the trees and bushes. What will the the other birds live on and perhaps more interestingly where are the Redwings? We even had a dozen Fieldfares in the garden, a first that I can remember.

Fieldfare in the Garden

Looking for water to drink

On the local Gull roost at Goring Gap

 Other notable birds were Meadow Pipits and dozens of Skylarks down on the coastal fields looking for food. All of the birds seemed really focused on feeding and were not too bothered by people being close to them.

Skylark on the local Gull roost at Goring Gap

 

Skylark on the local Gull roost at Goring Gap

 A meadow Pipit running around in the failing light in search of that last mouthful of food.

Meadow Pipit in a hurry

Finally, on the way home I spotted Waxwings in Rustington. They have been returning to the roundabout on the A259 for a couple of weeks now but this was the first time I had spotted them. No light for a picture but this was a year tick for me and not too worried as I doubt that I would have been able to improve on the shots shown on my December blog.