Little Owl

My blogs seems to have been mostly about Owls of late but then who could resist the opportunity to photograph this pair of Little Owls? Dave certainly couldn't and you will see an almost identical set of pictures on his blog. All except for the Firecrest that is and I will get on to that later.

This now looks like a possible nesting pair so forgive me but I am not going to publish any details of their whereabouts.


Later we went to Chichester Gravel Pits to look for the Red-crested Pochard. They were there, on Ivy Lake, but staying well hidden under overhanging willows on the far side of the lake. My thanks to Sarah for putting us onto them, I don't think that we would have found them without her assistance.

With a White-fronted Goose on East Lake, the area became a bit like a birding reunion, with a lot of old faces and a newly shorn Bart Ives (not looking quite so Organic now) turning up to view the birds.

White-fronted Goose

The Great Crested Grebes seem to have suddenly developed their breeding plumage. This is a bird that we tend to ignore for most of the year and then, with a chance of seeing a Weed Dance, they become the centre of attention for a short period. These two looked as though they would kick off but then seemed to loose interest and drifted away.

Great Crested Grebes

Great Crested Grebes

We then decided to head over to Arundel and visit the Wetland Centre. I still haven't managed to get a decent picture of a Firecrest and this is one of the most reliable places for seeing them. There was a great looking bird feeding around some of the brambles with probably half a dozen or more photographers trying to get a picture of it. 

Checking later, Trevor Guy, who we met there, and Dave seemed to have nailed it as probably did everyone else apart from me. Checking the back of the camera showed a lot of empty perches and blurred shots. The best I could manage was this head shot below. Better than nothing but not really the picture I was after.

Firecrest

I suppose I shouldn't be too despondent, at least it's the head, I usually just get the rear end as it flies out of the picture.


One last shot. This is the Ashdown Forest Great Grey Shrike that I saw a couple of days ago. It was about a hundred metres west of the Long car park but very mobile. There were a lot of people and dogs walking in the area and it was avoiding these. You could probably get it down to about forty metres but any closer and it would fly.

If you want to see pictures of a much more obliging bird have a look at my November 2013 blog.

Ashdown Forest Great Grey Shrike

Another great day for bird photography but there was a definite heat haze building this afternoon despite the chill in the air. That window of optimum lighting and clear air is all to brief.

White-fronted Geese

It has been a bit of a mixed start to the new birding year. There have been some good birds about and the numbers of geese and wildfowl have increased significantly but on the other hand the weather has been awful, particularly for photography, and the number of waders still seems to be low. Today, Wednesday, gave us the first decent weather of the year so we headed off to Dungeness to get a few year ticks.

First stop was Pett Level to see if we could find the Glossy Ibis for Dave. We gave it a good try but it did not seem to be around. Fortunately I had stopped off on the way back from Canterbury a few days ago and managed to see it again, in near zero visibility and driving rain. No pictures but I might be glad of the views by the end of the year.

Picture of the Pett Level Glossy Ibis taken on the 17th December

We saw some good birds around Dungeness but most were distant or hard to photograph. A Long-eared Owl, but it was buried so deep in the bushes that you could barely see it. Redhead Smew, Slavonian Grebe, Tree Sparrow, Cetti's Warbler, and Shag, which are apparently unusual at Dungeness.

Shag

It was interesting to compare these three with a Juvenile that we had seen at Hill Head On Monday.

Juvenile Shag - Hill Head

The tree sparrows are also great to see. There are still plenty at Boulderwood Farm, at the entrance to Dungeness RSPB, but the numbers seem to be a lot lower than a few years ago.

Tree Sparrow

Great White Egret

On the way home we stopped off at Scotney Pit. We scanned a few hundred geese looking for anything unusual. It looked as though it would be just the usual Greylags and Barnacles until we picked up a flight of four birds that appeared to be different. We had just decided that they were White-fronted Geese when a farmer gathering sheep put a few thousand geese into the air. I thought that we had lost the opportunity of a picture but then we realised there were a lot more of them in the area. I think we saw just under forty of them but there may have been more. The most I have ever seen together in the past has been three or four.

White-fronted Geese in Flight

Showing the prominent black body markings

Greylags with a small flock of eighteen White-fronted and three Brent Geese at the back

The Barnacles were also flying. This picture showing a small group including a couple of the Barnacle/ Emperor Crosses.

Barnacle Geese

Other pictures taken this year -  A return visit to the Yellow-browed Warbler gave us some good views but it was still difficult to get a decent picture.

Yellow-browed Warbler

Fortunately a small flock of Long-tailed tits gave some better opportunities.

Long-tailed Tit

And, the visit to Titchfield Haven may have been disappointing in that we did not see the Penduline Tits but we did get some other birds.

Pochard

Stonechat

Gadwall

To finish off a couple of shots of Red-breasted Mergansers taken in a short break in the rain at Widewater. Still very dull though.

Red-breasted Mergansers

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.

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