Red-necked Phalarope

I wasn't going to bother going to see the Phalarope at Pulburough Brooks. It's a great place for birds but not so good for bird photographers, especially in the summer when the water in the brooks seems to retreat back over the horizon. Then sitting at home you start to think - I haven't seen a Phalarope for a couple of years; I haven't been out all day; I do need to top up on the bird feed supplies. In the end I was convinced. I did get to see it and I did get my shot although it was a little distant!

Red-necked Phalarope on a 600mm lens combination

With a big crop you can at least see what it is. It was nice to catch up with it although I don't think that it will be taking pride of place amongst my Phalarope pictures.

Better news though, in a Spotted Flycatcher, that at first landed too close for me to focus on. Fortunately, after staring me out for about fifteen seconds, it did give me a second chance, moving a little further away before quickly disappearing into the distance. One of those all too fleeting magic moments.

Spotted Flycatcher

This was my first Spotted Flycatcher of the autumn although I have seen a number of Pied Flycatchers. A reversal of the usual autumn norm.

Walking back up the zig-zags to the visitors centre its always worth inspecting the Stinking Willies (Ragwort) for insects. This time finding an obliging Clouded Yellow.

Clouded Yellow

and a Painted Lady in reasonable condition

Painted Lady

A couple of shots from the past week. A Whinchat, all I had to show from a morning searching for the Beachy Head Montagu's Harrier.

Whinchat

and an ugly duckling but it won't be long before he turns into a beautiful Reed Bunting.

Reed Bunting

Nice to get some pictures but we could do with a rarity on the patch.

Wryneck

It's Wryneck time again, one of the highlights of the birding year. They are always such a fantastic bird to see and to photograph. There may not be many of them but when they are feeding up, before crossing the channel, they do tend be loyal to a patch and so can be relatively easy to find.

This year there looked to be a good candidate at Farlington Marsh. We gave the Bank Holiday weekend a miss but were along there early on Tuesday morning. Unfortunately so where a lot of other people. 

My best pictures have always come from watching the birds feeding pattern and sitting down in the open where you expect it to get to in about ten minutes time. My experience is that if you stay seated and move slowly the bird will ignore you and come close. See here for some examples.

Today was a bit different. As soon as the bird was sighted there was a bit of a scrum. It's understandable, everyone wants  to see the bird and that includes me but all I got were a couple of rather distant shots before the bird took fright and disappeared.

Wryneck

Wryneck

If it's still there in a weeks time I might have another go.


There have been a lot of other migrants through over the past few days. They mostly seem to be juveniles but I am still hoping for a some better pictures and I still haven't seen a Spotted Flycatcher.

Whinchat

Pied Flycatcher

Pied Flycatcher

Yellow Wagtail

Wheatear

And from a trip over to Anchor Bottom to look for Clouded Yellows, no pictures of said butterfly, although we did see two brightly coloured males and one female. It was just too hot to chase after them up and down the slopes.


Worth going though, as there were still Adonis Blue on the wing and I needed Autumn Lady's Tresses to complete my Orchid year.

Adonis Blue

Autumn Lady's Tresses

Autumn Lady's Tresses

Thirty six species of orchid seen this year plus a number of variants and hybrids. It could have been more but it would have needed a few trips to Scotland and the north of England to find them. I am not going to do long distance twitching for single targets but combine birds, orchids, dragonflies and butterflies and the trips look more acceptable.

Barred Warbler

I am not a great fan of twitches. Usually, there will too many people there and you end up too far away from the bird to get a decent picture. That does mean that I miss a lot of good birds but then I have always said that I would rather have a good picture of an ordinary bird, than a poor picture of a rare bird.

Except, I do really want to see the rare birds. If only everyone else would stay at home and leave me to see the bird by myself. It's not going to happen, so I usually wait until the initial rush has died down and then if the bird is still around I go along when it's a bit quieter.

On that basis, today, I went to look for the juvenile Barred Warbler at Staines Moor near Heathrow. Sunday is not really a good day as more people would be there but then it's probably better than the Monday morning traffic on the M25 and that assumes that the bird would stay around for another day.

It was not too difficult to find. There were some good directions on the London Bird Club web page (see end of blog) and I was soon standing in front of a large patch of brambles along with about a dozen other people. The bird was actively feeding for a time but then settled down to observe the strange looking group of twitchers.

Barred Warbler at rest - and just too far away for a decent picture

A bit disappointing as far as pictures go but fortunately most people wandered off once they had their ticks and with the bird moving around I was able to get some better pictures.

Barred Warbler

a juvenile so barred underside markings not yet developed

Rear View

A bit of barring starting to show on the undertail-coverts

Not too painful as far as twitches go, a life tick for me,  and a great bird to see. I am glad I decided to go.

Other birds seen were a Kestrel, Whitethroats, Blackcaps, Swallows, and House Martins. There were probably others but I wasn't really paying attention.

Blackcap

Kestrel

Whitethroat

and here is a Whinchat from a couple of days ago. It's a bit distant but it gets into the blog as it was my first of the year.

Whinchat

Directions for the Barred Warbler: 

Park at the end of Hithermoor Road in Stanwell Moor village. Walk along the Colne Valley Way (following the west bank of KGVI Reservoir), turn right through the kissing gate and follow the path, cross the boardwalk and over the bridge onto Staines Moor. Walk south following the Colne and then turn right cross the concrete bridge, follow the path and go across the first wooden bridge, turn right before the second wooden bridge and view the hawthorns and bramble to the right.

Ring Ouzel

Ring Ouzels were the target of the day. We usually see them in the autumn on their way south, but one had been reported in a paddock field in Warners Lane Selsey and it had been there for eight days. Of course when we got there on the ninth day it had moved on but the field was still interesting with half a dozen Wheatears, two female and one male Redstarts, and assorted other small birds. The male Redstart looked really smart but he would not come close enough for a photograph. Fortunately one of the females was more obliging.

Female Redstart

There must have been a big fall of Wheatears overnight as we found them wherever we went on the peninsular including the unusual sight of eight sitting in a tree in Rectory Lane.

Wheatear

A walk up the west side of Pagham Harbour from Church Norton towards the Visitors Centre gave us plenty of views of Linnets, Whitethroats, and probably a Lesser Whitethroat, although we could not really get a satisfactory view of the latter.

Linnet

Then we managed to get onto another Ring Ouzel, this one a male with a bright white breast band. We watched it for a while but found it difficult to get a decent picture.

Ring Ouzel

We were then joined by Dave Smith, Bernie Ford, and Dorian Mason, and they spotted a second Ring Ouzel close by. We ended up with two in the same tree, but I was a bit slow and missed that picture. When we were left on our own we decided to stake out its favourite perch and wait for a better picture opportunity. All looked good, it was gradually coming closer......

.......and then a Magpie took exception to its presence and chased it off. Perhaps the similar black and white colouration led the Magpie to see it as a threat.

There goes my picture opportunity

Magpies have never been my favourite bird. They have now becoming public enemy number one.

We were also fortunate enough to get a flyby from a Cuckoo that we had been hearing in the distance for about an hour. I did manage to get a record shot but you would have to be a good birder to recognise it as a Cuckoo from the silhouette that I ended up with.

Pheasant - there are so many about that I thought I should include a picture.

We then headed round to the north wall. The water was very high in the Breech Pool so there was nothing much to see there but further along the path we saw Dave Shepherd who had another Cuckoo in his scope although this one was strangely quiet.

A couple of weeks ago we had photographed a Little Grebe sitting on a nest. Dave told us that she had hatched three chicks so we went along to have a look. Sad to say there only seemed to be one left, but it seemed happy tucked up under her wings.

Little Grebe on nest  - taken a couple of weeks ago

Safely under mum's wings

Happy that is until she started diving for food. He survived a couple of dips but then ended up floating on the surface whilst she searched for food below. He looked very vulnerable on his own, you can see why the survival rate is low.

Looking a bit lost

Mum's Back with food

When last seen she was back on the nest with the chick scrabbling to get back under the safety of her wings.

We also had a lot of Whimbrels past and I had a lesson from the others on what to listen for to be able to tell Whimbrel from Curlew as they fly over.

Then to finish of the day there was a Whinchat in the Horse Paddock at the end of the wall. It was a great looking bird but it just wouldn't come any closer and I only ended up with a record shot. So not the perfect end to a perfect day but pretty close.

Whinchat

Wryneck

Dave picked me up this morning. We had planned to go to Farlington Marsh to see the Wryneck and Osprey but an early morning report on SOS indicated that the Findon Wryneck was still around. This was closer and looked like the best option enabling us to move onto Farlington if we dipped out.

It also gave Dave the chance to drive by the Lloyd's building in Durrington and point out the Peregrines on the building. I drive past there regularly but had never managed to see them and had accused Dave of not knowing the difference between a Peregrine and a Pigeon. Previous attempts to prove me wrong had failed but this time I had to admit defeat it was definitely a Peregrine sitting on top of the black horse sign eating his breakfast.
.

Peregrine Falcon and breakfast - the close up is a bit gruesome

 On the walk through the gallops at Findon we spotted an obliging Whinchat. A bit annoying given how far I had walked the previous day looking for them.

Whinchat

The directions for the Wryneck were easy to follow but we were a bit surprised that there were not more birders searching the target area. We were starting to think that we could have made a mistake when we spotted Russ Tofts up ahead and he had already located the bird. It was quite close and we had the chance of a couple of quick shots before it retreated to the far side of the field.

Wryneck

 We then spent a couple of hours watching it sunning itself on the fence and dropping down to the ground to feed, all the while hoping it would come a bit closer. As we watched the heat haze was slowly increasing and the quality of the pictures gradually reducing until around lunch time it disappeared from sight, probably to find shelter in one of the bushes. The following are only record shots but they are the best from around one hundred and fifty almost identical shots that I took. Just as well that the we have moved on from film cameras.

Wryneck

It proved to be quite a good spot for birding. There were the usual Willchaffs on display and a number of Redstarts in the bushes. You just had to be prepared for inquisitive horses nudging you just as you are about to take the shot or trying to eat your rucksack or shirt.

Redstart

A successful day as far as a year tick for the Wryneck goes but I cannot help feeling that it was a missed opportunity on the photography front. Still if you got the perfect shot first time every time there would be very little to look forward to.

Whinchat

Out with Dave on Tuesday and it was back to Pagham Harbour still looking for a Yellow Wagtail. First stop was Church Norton but there had obviously been a big clear out overnight and there was very little showing. Nice to see Dave mobile again, but it was just as well that I had him to talk to as there was nothing happening on the birding front. The best we could manage were distant views of a Restart and also of a Spotted Flycatcher as we returned to the car park.

The Long Pool gave distant views of a Greenshank and whilst the Ferry Pool had a good few birds on it they were mostly distant as well.

Next stop was the North Wall and as with yesterday the Sand Martins and Swallows were still gathering on the power lines at the entrance. Lots of chattering and preening going on in preparation for migration.

Sand Martin

There was nothing outstanding on the Breech Pool or in the Creek, but there was a constant stream of interesting birds. I checked Dave's blog and as I expected, he had spent so long enjoying the sunshine and talking to people, that he had forgotten to take pictures of most of them.

There were Common Sandpipers and a possible Curlew Sandpiper in the creek but they were difficult to photograph against the harsh backlight. These two were out on the harbour wall. There is quite a difference in size but they both look like Commons.

Common Sandpipers

 The Spotted Redshank was still around but that has been in my last two blogs. There were a couple of Snipe showing well and also two Dunlin that were being harrassed by the Lapwings whenever they approached too close. Whilst a common wader the Dunlin are still an attractive bird.

Dunlin

Snipe

 

One of the more interesting birds of the day was this Starling that came in at the back of the Breech Pool. Its the first time I had seen one looking like this.

Starling

The Yellow Wagtails were about but keeping their distance again. I need to get a few shots of them when they are feeding around the cattle, where they seem much more approachable. There is also a Canary Yellow male about the North Wall somewhere. I had seen it the previous day but only managed a blurred shot of its top half and it showed fleetingly again today.

Yellow Wagtail

The ducks are starting to return with Teal already in large numbers. Three unusual ducks flew in as we watched. It's always difficult when they are in eclipse but these were sleek, long tailed and long winged. Pintails, a greyhound amongst ducks as Collins puts it.

Pintails

Showing upper wing markings so this is a male in eclipse.

Finally as we were leaving we had distant views of a Whinchat, either a female or a juvenile. The pictures are poor but you are seeing them anyway as this is my 200th bird for the year (203 if I count Ireland)

Whinchat

Whinchat

When I arrived home I saw the report of the Sykes's/Booted Warbler at Climping . I thought about it for a while and in the end decided that as it was so close I should go. When I arrived there were a lot of people standing around the Tamarisk bushes looking for the bird. I did see a bird flitting between bushes and disappearing into deep cover and there seemed general agreement that this was the Sykes's. I am not sure. It was probably a warbler that I was looking at but I could not get a picture of it, and I certainly could not identify what type of warbler it was.

The light was fading so I decided to go home. I will not be adding this to my life list but I might just go back in the morning and have another look. That is if the crowds are not too big.