Crested Tits

Being the second part of my blog about our week in Scotland, this part is focused more on the smaller birds and as always the number one target was the Crested Tit. This was a new location for us, a bit less busy than Loch Garten, and with the added advantage of Red Squirrels and a good supporting cast of other birds. The only disadvantage was that it was difficult to spot the birds as they flew in, so most of the shots are taken on the feeders.

Other birds at the site included Goldcrests, with the unusual sight of one using the fat ball feeders, Coal Tits, Yellowhammers, Siskin, Long-tailed Tits, Robins and an army of Chaffinches.

Coal Tit

Goldcrest

Just amazed that the bill is still sharp - reminds me of a Humming Bird

Yellowhammer

and of course one of the Red Squirrels

We found Twite at at Netherton Farm at the south end of Findhorn Bay. There were about sixty birds in the flock including a few Linnets but they were very mobile and difficult to photograph. The shot below shows the yellow bill of the Twite.

Twite

There were a number of Glaucous and Iceland Gulls being reported in the area. We spent a bit of time scanning the Hopeman Pig Farm seeing first and third winter Iceland Gulls. Unfortunately the third winter flew just as we found it so the pictures below are of the first winter bird.

Iceland Gull

Iceland Gull

Other birds seen are shown below.

A Goosander flying up the River Lossie

Pink-footed Geese running for cover at the first sign of a camera

A Red-legged Partridge in the early morning sun.

There was a distinct shortage of waders at all sites that we visited but we did find a flock of around a hundred and fifty Knot at Burgh Head. These are a particularly annoying bird to try to photograph. There are too many of them to be able to get a shot of a single bird and the flocks are too big to be able to get the whole lot into the frame. The best thing is just to sit back and enjoy the spectacle of the flocks movement.

Knot - part of the flock - perhaps a collective noun of a confusion is appropriate

And finally on the way home we called in at the Northumberland Wildlife Trusts Cresswell Ponds. We had tried it on the way up looking for the Long-billed Dowitcher but were short of time so left without finding it. This time local birders put us onto it and we also saw Snipe and a Water Rail so a good end to the holiday.

Record shot of the Long-billed Dowitcher at Cresswell Ponds

It's a pity a that a lot of these shots are of birds on feeders, I usually try to avoid that, and also that many of the birds photographed have been ringed, but then beggars can't be choosers, it was that or no pictures at all.

Common Terns

I was back over at Selsey today. My targets were to get a good picture of an Arctic Tern, to see a Cuckoo, and if there were Pomarine Skuas coming through, to get a look at those as well. There have been plenty of Cuckoos reported but, so far this year, I haven't even managed to hear one.

My first stops were the Pagham Harbour Visitor Centre and Church Norton looking for the Cuckoo. There were lots of small birds around in the bushes but no sign of the target bird. My best shot was of this Red-legged Partridge in the Church Yard.

Red-legged Partridge

Down at the bill things looked a bit slow, although there had been a couple of Arctic Skuas through earlier. I was told that there had been a Roseate feeding offshore so I decided to walk along the beach to take a closer look at the Terns. There were a few feeding over the water but with the tide rising the shingle bar was being covered and the Terns were moving onto the groynes to roost.

Terns at rest

Now all I needed to do was to find an Arctic Tern. The Sandwich Terns I can spot, the Arctics and a possible Roseate were a different level of problem.  I was looking for a Tern with slightly shorter legs, longer tail streamers, and a slightly paler upper-side, more the shade of the Sandwich Terns. Is there a difference?

When faced with this sort of problem I usually photograph everything and take the pictures home to check against the diagnostic details.

You only get about an hour before the groynes go underwater and the Terns move back out to sea. I took plenty of pictures and spent hours checking through them at home - and the conclusion - lots of pictures of Common Terns. There may have been an Arctic or a Roseate in amongst them, I may even have seen them, but I couldn't identify them.

The experts sitting at the bill can pick them out at a hundred metres and I struggle with the pictures two feet in front of my nose. I still have a lot to learn.

So here are a few pictures of Common Terns

and a Sandwich Tern

No success this time but I had great fun taking the pictures and I will be going back for another go.

I eventually caught up with a Cuckoo flying west to east along the North Wall at Pagham Harbour. It disappeared in the direction of Pagham Church but I did not bother pursuing it. By then the rain had set in and there was little chance of a picture.

Night Heron

I decided to drive down into Kent to see the juvenile Night Heron at Nicholls Quarry near Hythe. I had been thinking about it for a couple of days but had been put off by the fact that the bird was on private property and also that I do not really like twitches. I was surprised then, to arrive at about ten thirty, to find that I had it all to myself and that no one else turned up in the two hours that I watched the bird.

Mind you, they had probably thought about a little more than I had. Its called a Night Heron for a reason. It is active at night and probably best observed at dawn and dusk. During the day it roosts in a suitable low tree or bush and that is exactly what this bird did. I watched its back for nearly two hours as it roosted deep in a bush by the side of the lake.

Juvenile Night Heron

If I was only a birder I could have walked away happy that I had seen it and that I had my tick, but I am not and I needed a better photograph. The temptation is to step over all the private property signs and go and disturb the bird and if you read SOS that's probably what you expect all photographers to do. The temptation is great, there was no one around to see me but instead I stood for two hours in a pool of frozen mud and water waiting for some movement.

Was I rewarded for my efforts? Well sort of, the heron did stir and preen for a couple of minutes but still with its back to me, then before it settled down again it gave me what seemed to be a begrudging glance over its shoulder.

Before going back to sleep

By this time I was getting cold and I had left my sandwiches in the car so I decided to leave it in peace and move on. It may not be the picture I was looking for but at least I had a record shot of its face and eye or at least part of it.

Out of interest the colours shown on these shots are not what I expected. My memory of the bird is of it being a much deeper brown and of the spots having a green tinge. I am not sure if it's my memory that is letting me down, my eyesight, or my cameras ability to record the colours in the very low light levels within the bush.

Having visited Scotney and Dungeness recently I decided on a change of venue for the afternoon. I decided to drive up to Sheppey and visit Elmley Nature Reserve to view the vast numbers of wildfowl and waders that were in the area. I was not best pleased then, when I arrived at Elmley to find that it was closed. They were demolishing a barn close to the entrance and had decided to close it for the day. I was not alone in my displeasure, I met a number of birders during the afternoon that had also travelled long distances to be there.

Fortunately Sheppey has some other good sites, Capel Fleet, Harty Ferry, Swale NR, Shellness. Too many for me to cover in an afternoon and I got no further than Capel Fleet and the Raptor Point. The wildfowl were a bit distant and I did not see any unusual waders but I did manage to pick up White-fronted Geese.

White-fronted Geese in the foreground

Sadly everything was too distant to be able to pick out the Pink-footed and Snow Geese that had been reported in the area.

Raptors were plentiful. There were at least six Marsh Harriers flying at the same time. Peregrines, Merlin, Kestrel, Short-eared Owl, Barn Owl, and a probable Ring-tail. A male Hen Harrier had aslo been spotted over at Shellness. The Merlin was picked up by a couple of birders standing next to me but I failed to get onto it yet again. This is turning out to be a bit of a bogey bird for me with the only ones I have ever seen being the two we picked up dead in the road close to Scotney (see blog). 

As usual the only picture that I managed to get was that of a Kestrel

and there was Red-legged Partridge crossing the road as I headed home in the half light

The Night Heron made it a successful day but I had hoped to see a lot more and to get some better picture opportunities around Elmley.

Scotland

I have just returned from a walking trip to the Cairngorm mountains in Scotland with a group of friends. Fortunately they are all Munro baggers and so under the pretext of not wanting to slow them down I was able to opt out of the longer walks and do a bit of bird watching.

The journey up there stopping off at Martin Mere and Leighton Moss was a little disappointing. There were plenty of birds around but nothing very interesting and all too distant for a decent photograph. The highlights were a Little Ringed Plover and a Ruff that was showing the start of its summer plumage.

The first days walking was also a bit of a failure. I had done my research and set off through Glen Muick in search of  Capercaillie and Black Grouse. It was a nice walk but by the end of the day I had seen a Jay, Common Sandpiper, Common Gulls, Willow Warbler,  Wheatear, and a couple of Chaffinches. A disappointing day even if I was birding from home. To add insult to injury that evening my friends were happy to tell me all about the birds they had seen on their way over Lochnagar. I think we eventually decided these had been Red Grouse and Red-legged Partridge.

Stung into action I was out by four thirty the next morning and off along the Tomintoul Road to check out a possible Black Grouse Lek site. No luck again but I did at least close the gap on them by finding Red-legged Partridge and Red Grouse.

Red Grouse

Superb camouflage - you only see them when they come out to take a look at you.

Red-legged Partridge

The three pictures above demonstrate the vagaries of using high ISO speeds in low light. It was a dull wet morning with dawn just breaking and these pictures are hand held on the car window using a 700mm lens, ISO 1600, F8, and low shutter speeds. The first picture is at 1/80sec and has come out well, the second also at 1/80sec is just about acceptable, and the third at 1/320 sec has an unacceptable level of noise even after working on it in Photoshop. It would be nice to know what really works but like most people I end up taking as many combinations as possible and hoping that I get at least one good picture out of it.

I had another day searching Glen Tanar for the Capercaillie and Black Grouse but even with a tip off from a local birder I came away empty handed. I knew this was also a good area for Dipper but was not having any luck with those either, until one of the group, Alan, who is a bit of a closet birder, said he had seen them at a location I had already searched four times.

A quick trip the next morning and I had some superb views.

Dipper

Must have a nest nearby

With my friends returning home I headed off to Fowlsheugh, a seabird colony just south of Stonehaven on the Aberdeenshire coast. 

Where there had been a shortage of birds up in the Cairngorms there were plenty to see at Fowlsheugh. The cliffs had Kittiwakes, Guillemots, Razorbills, Fulmar, Rock Pipits, and Rock Doves. Out to sea there were Eider and Gannets and on the cliff tops hirundines, Yellowhammers and Meadow Pipits.

Guillimot - including one bridled variety

Kittiwakes

Razorbills

Meadow Pipit

Yellow Hammer

Next stop was an overnight at Musselburgh and a look around the estuary and lagoons. The lagoons have been filled with ash from the nearby Cockenezie Power Station and the remaining shallow pools attract large numbers of roosting waders, terns, and gulls - or so my research had told me. In fact the lagoons had now been completely filled with ash and the site was left with what looked like a series of slag heaps. There were still a few scrapes but these only held a couple of Shelduck. Fortunately the estuary was more interesting with both Velvet Scoter and Eider Duck present and with a number of waders moving around.

Female Eider

Eider

Velvet Scoter

Again the views are a bit distant but as this was the first time I have seen either of these in the wild they were worth including.

The journey home then crossed the border into England but read the second part which will be in the next blog and covers Bempton Cliffs, Flamborough Head, and Paxton pits.