Mostly Widewater

You get some good birds at Widewater but getting pictures of them can be hard work. Pick the right day and the right time and there are some good opportunities. Get the timing wrong and you leave empty handed, only to read reports of the successes of others when you get home that evening.

You also have to contend with dogs charging out into the reserve and flushing the birds and also the occasional overeager photographer doing the same. Just what you need when you have been sat there for an hour or so waiting for the birds to come closer.

I even flushed the Goosander myself today. I watched it for about five minutes and then decided that I should pay for a parking ticket before I got the camera out. The Goosander must have good hearing as it took off just as my money disappeared into the machine.

Anyway here are a few pictures taken at Widewater over the past month or so.

There has been at least one male and two females at Widewater over the past month so I am not sure that these are all pictures of the same bird. As for seeing them, if they are not out on the water they can often be found roosting on the lawn of one of the houses. Have a look about halfway down the western most lake.

Pull up at the western end of the car park and the resident Stonechats will usually come over to see what you are doing there.

And over the New Year period we had a Knot in residence for a few days. It is always a bit worrying when you see a flock bird by itself but it looked healthy enough and was feeding well.

To finish a couple of pictures not from Widewater, the juvenile Black Guillemot from Sovereign Harbour Eastbourne and a couple of shots of Fulmars from Newhaven West Cliffs.

A useful blog, it has cleared out a some pictures that have been sitting in my pending tray for a few weeks. All now filed away and a clear inbox just waiting for the next great adventure!

Glossy Ibis

Went to Medmerry today, to have a look for the Glossy Ibis that has been present there for a few days.

It is frequenting a fenced off building compound, complete with workers and heavy machinery, on the Bunn Leisure Caravan Park just outside the South East boundary of the Medmerry Nature Reserve. It seems a strange environment in which to find the bird. There is a rough grassland area and a few puddles and it is obviously finding food but it is difficult to see why it would favour this over the vast wetland areas over the fence in Medmerry.

It seems to be completely unfazed by the work going on around it or by the birders and photographers that visit, so there are some good picture opportunities

This is a juvenile so it hasn't really had a chance to learn that it needs to be wary of people. Particularly as this is a popular dog walking area.

It spends most of its time searching for food in the long grass but we were fortunate to be there when it came out to drink at one of the puddles on the path outside the compound.

I am always surprised how large this bird looks in flight and in pictures. Perhaps we have a preconception based on the larger members of the Ibis family or perhaps it's all in the legs. It is actually quite a small bird but with large wings. Here is another shot taken a couple of years ago at Dungeness of a Glossy Ibis along side a juvenile Black-backed Gull.

Quite a few other birds around today but very little that was posing for a photograph.

Stonechat

Black-tailed Godwit

A good day out, nice weather lots of birds to look at and even a couple of decent pictures. Things are looking up.

Desert Wheatear

Today we had a trip down to Normans Bay, just to the east of Pevensey, to see the Desert Wheatear. It was showing really well and as with the previous one I had seen in Worthing, a couple of years ago, it seemed completely unconcerned about being close to people. On occasions flying to within a few feet of where I was standing.

It was feeding on a stretch of grassy foreshore stretching westward from the Martello tower for about 200 metres

It is a lovely bird to watch. I am not sure if it is the soft colours or its lack of fear of people but it just makes you feel good to see it flying around.

We watched it for a couple of hours but with a few good shots in the bag and with the number of birders on the beach starting to increase we decided to move on. Probably not a good idea as I didn't take another picture all day.

Just for a bit of variety, here is a Stonechat from Tuesdays visit to Waltham Brooks. We did get to see the Great Grey Shrike but I didn't manage to get a picture. The Male Stonechat was keeping his distance but the Mrs came over to have a look at us.

Water Pipit

Monday morning and it was a choice of go back to Titchfield Haven and risk dipping the Penduline Tits for the fifth time or find a new target. Fortunately there had been a few reports of a Water Pipit on the Cuckmere and having missed out on seeing one last year I decided to give it a go.

The directions were really good. Two hundred metres north of the Charleston reedbeds on the east bank of the Cuckmere (just by the metal gate). I found the spot but there was no Water Pipit or for that matter no small birds at all. A two hour wait in really cold weather and I was ready to call it a day. As often happens I was about twenty metres down the track when a bird flew in over my head from the west side of the river. A quick dash back to the gate confirmed that it was the Pipit.

The pictures are not great, it was a long way off and did not stay on view for long but I was happy to have got the record shots. It did stay in the area, feeding on the flooded part of the field, just south of the gate, but once on the ground it was even harder to photograph.

Water Pipit

Next stop, once I had my circulation back, was Tide Mills. The tide was out so there was no chance of Purple Sandpipers on the pier but the Black Redstart did put in an appearance. It looked to be a fabulous bird but I just could not get it framed the way I wanted. If it sticks around I will be going back for another try.

Black Redstart

A Meadow Rock Pipit feeding in the puddles makes a nice comparison with the Water Pipit above. The Water Pipit being a much smarter looking bird with a richer brown above and extensive white below.

Meadow Pipit - whoops made a mistake its a Rock Pipit
I was so pleased to have got the Water Pipit that I didn't really give it any thought. Thanks to Ian Ballam for pointing out the error.

Other pictures taken recently on my abortive trips looking for Pendulines - the ubiquitous Stonechat, always good for a picture.

Stonechat

A Goldcrest in the Wetland Centre at Arundel

Goldcrest

and a Nuthatch in the New Forest

But that still leaves me with the problem of getting to see the Penduline Tits.

Kittiwake

I have been out gathering year ticks over the past week. That is, see the bird and move on, rather than stand and wait for the right picture opportunity. However, I have still ended up with a few pictures that are worth putting on the blog.

One of the key birds I was looking for was a Little Gull. I was standing in the right place, just by Southsea pier, a juvenile Little Gull had been seen a few minutes earlier, and this bird was sitting just off the beach. The risk is that we see what we are looking for and not what is actually there. It looked good, but then, the bill was the wrong shape, the dark collar on the back of the neck looked wrong, and it should have had black cap of some form. It's actually a juvenile Kittiwake but it had me fooled for a while and I had to spend some time delving through books on gull identification once I got home to be sure.

Therein lies the real benefit of bird photography. You get a second chance to check the identification. Without that I could easily have made a mistake.

Juvenile Kittiwake

Juvenile Kittiwake

Fortunately we caught up with a Juvenile Little Gull a couple of days later on Climping Beach. It was too far away for a picture but at least that time I had a lot clearer idea of what I was looking for.

It's hard work but I think I could actually get to like juvenile gull identification.

Other gulls spotted whilst we were out were Common and Mediterranean. The first at Arundel Wetland Centre and the second on Climping Beach. However, with Waldo failing to return to Gosport, there is no easy Ring-billed Gull this year.

Common Gull

Mediterranean Gull

The Wetland Centre also gave us ticks for Goldcrest and Firecrest. As you might expect there were a couple of decent Goldcrest shots but all the Firecrest pictures were blurred.

Goldcrest

Farlington Marsh gave us distant views of Bearded Tits but there was no chance of a picture. Fortunately the ever present Stonechat popped up to have his picture taken.

Stonechat

And, finally a trip to Church Norton didn't give us the views of a Spoonbill that we were looking for but we did get to see an overwintering Whimbrel that was hunkering down out of the wind.

Whimbrel

It has not been a bad start to the year but there are still a few of the winter birds that I would like to find before they head off to their summer grounds.

Mating Bloody-nosed Beetles

Well at least it's a title that I haven't used before.

I travelled around a few local sites today, looking for some of the birds that had been reported, but without much luck. The highpoint of the day were these two Bloody-nosed Beetles that I watched for about an hour. You have to admire his stamina, he didn't even take a break in that time. On the other hand the female didn't seem to notice he was there and just carried on walking for the whole time he was engaged.

Bloody-nosed Beetles

There were a lot more pictures but they don't really add much value. There was not a lot of variation in the action. The most interesting thing was the little pads on his feet that he uses to hang on. I must try to find out if they are suction or sticky.

Birds photographed were all at Old Lodge NR in Ashdown Forest. I managed to see five Redstars but I could not get a decent picture of any of them.

Male Redstart

A bit closer but a photograph of the wrong end

There were also Tree Pipits present enabling a comparison of  Meadow and Tree pipit.

Tree Pipit

Meadow Pipit

The usual Stonechats, although it was difficult to capture the contrasting black and white colours in the bright sunlight.

Stonechat

Woodlarks and plenty of Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs.

Woodlark

Contrasting colours but I am assuming that both of these are Willow Warblers

A good days birding but with Hoopoe, Wryneck, Ring Ouzel, Greater Yellowlegs, and Bee-eater being reported I could have hoped for something more.