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.

Wryneck

A morning up on Chantry and Kithurst hills, earlier in the week, gave great sightings of up to ten Ravens and half a dozen Buzzards. We watched them for a couple of hours as they practiced aerobatics, squabbled over territory, and just seemed to be enjoying themselves tumbling in the updrafts.

Great fun but a bit of a disaster for me, photographic wise. I took lots of pictures but the quality was just not there; poor light, blurred, out of focus, heat haze, mist, lots of excuses but at the end of the day, probably just that the photographers skills were not up to the challenge. So only one shot from the session.

Ravens on Kithurst Hill

Find of the day was this Wryneck spotted in the distance as we waked up towards the trig point. Nice to find our own rather than have to go twitching someone else's bird, even if we did only get fleeting views.

Big crop of a distant Wryneck

Lots of Yellowhammers and Corn Buntings about although the flock of Corn Buntings seemed to be making a point of avoiding anywhere that I chose to stand.

Yellowhammer

A trip up to Cissbury today produced mixed results, with the usually reliable Monarch's Way proving to be virtually birdless. We did see a few Yellow Wagtails in with the cattle but these were spooked by the farmer coming through on his quad bike.

Yellow Wagtail

Cissbury Ring itself was also looking quiet with just a raven and a couple of Wheatears.

Wheatear

Second Wheatear

But fortunately, as we were about to leave a mixed flock of Spotted Flycatchers and Redstarts came through the wooded area on the east of the ring and rescued the day.

Redstart

Spotted Flycatchers

Earlier in the week we had seen a good number of Yellow Wagtails in with the cattle at the western end of the North Wall but these had proved to be very flighty. With good numbers of Cattle Egrets being reported it seemed to be worth another visit.

Grey Heron on the Breech Pool

There was no sign of the Yellow Wags but the Cattle Egrets were showing well with a group of twelve birds, consisting of eleven Cattle Egrets and one Little Egret. A record number for me in this country.

Eleven Cattle Egrets and One Little Egret front right

We also managed to get a distant sighting of the Spoonbill out in White's Creek but missed out on the Curlew Sandpiper that has been around for a few days.

Mallorca - the rest

Raptors were in short supply during the week we were in Mallorca. An Eleonora's Falcon would have been nice but I think we were a couple of weeks too early. Best Raptor of the trip was this Black Vulture photographed above the Cuber reservoir.

Black Vulture

Booted Eagles were a common sight at various places we visited and we also managed to pick up lots of Kestrels and Marsh Harriers.

Booted Eagle

Marsh Harrier

Kestrel

The Boquer valley was a bit of a disappointment. It is a lovely walk and well worth doing but other than one distant Rock Thrush, a few Sardinian Warblers, and a couple of Booted Eagles we did not see much. Fortunately I had taken some reasonable pictures of a Rock Thrush at Beachy Head only a couple of weeks before (see here)

It was worth spending some time at the start of the walk in the area between the car park and Finca Boquer (Boquer Farm). The farm is private property but you are allowed to walk through it and it gives some wonderful views out across the adjacent fields and wooded areas.

Cirl Bunting in the fields below the Finca

Pied Flycatcher at the Finca

Woodchat Shrike in the fields below the finca

We saw three different Woodchat Shrikes but the only ones close enough to photograph insisted on giving me long views of their backs.

Sardinian Warbler at various sites

Serin at the Pine avenue

Yellow Wagtail (Iberiea) Albufereta

Spotted Flycatcher 

The local race of Spotted Flycatcher, balearica, is noticeably paler and less streaked than the ones we see in the UK.

Wheatear - Cuber Reservoir 

Yellow-legged Gull - Puerto Pollenca

The problem with birding in a place like Mallorca is that you want to visit every location and see every bird. It was our first time there and that is what we tried to do. I think that if I were to go back I would be a bit more selective. Identify just a few target birds and spend the time getting some really good pictures.

Yellow Wagtails

With the autumn migration getting under way, I managed to add a few year ticks this week but pictures opportunities have been limited. Pagham Harbour, in particular, has provided some good birding but the key target, Curlew Sandpiper, has proved to be a bit elusive.

The best photographic opportunity came this afternoon when we found a flock of 200 plus Yellow Wagtails.

They were feeding in amongst cattle in the fields just to the west of the Breech Pool. Initially the flock was only around thirty birds and we could not get close to them. However, by standing in the middle of the herd we managed to get some good close up views.

We then had other flocks coming in and joining the cattle. It was impossible to do an accurate count but we estimated at least 200 birds.





The only problem was that the cows were curios and soon came closer to investigate. I don't mind being licked by them or having them attempt to eat my shirt but licking the camera and blocking the view of the wagtails was a different matter. We eventually had to make a strategic withdrawal with the cattle in pursuit and still managing to block our view.

Still, we had some good picture opportunities with the Wagtails seeming happy to come closer as the cows had accepted us as part of the herd.

Back on the Breech Pool there was a small flock of five Little Stints. I had only ever seen them in ones and twos before.

Two of the Little Stint

Sowing the prominent white lines on their back

The white markings on their back are very distinctive but earlier I had been left somewhat confused by a Dunlin showing similar markings. Fortunately, when you see the Little Stint along side the Dunlin the size difference ensures that there can be no confusion.


Other sightings included Wheatear, Whinchat, Kingfisher and earlier in the week Yellow-legged Gulls and Lesser Whitethroat.

Wheatear

There were also a good number of Clouded Yellow Butterflies at both Pagham Harbour and Medmerry

Clouded Yellows usually mark the end of the butterfly season but there is always the chance of a rare migrant turning up. Last year we had Long-tailed Blues. Perhaps this year it will be a Camberwell Beauty - dream on!

Little Gull and Little Tern

With the small car park in Easton Lane now open, the Stilt Pools at Medmerry seem a little more accessible, but it can still be a bleak walk in when the cold south westerlies are coming in off the sea. Some days you get down there and there is just nothing to look at. Fortunately today was just the opposite. A nice sunny day and lots of birds. Photography is difficult, you are just that bit too far away from the action, but today there was certainly a lot to look at.

Perhaps the best bird of the day was an adult Little Gull. When I arrived it was asleep on the back of an island and I could well have missed it. So my thanks to Peter Hughes the warden for pointing it out. I had to wait a while for it to fly and then had about ten minutes of trying to photograph it before it moved on. Good practice for the Little Terns that were to come.

All I could see at first was just the one Little Tern out on the back of a sandy bar. Perhaps more came in or perhaps they had been better hidden hidden but eventually there were five or maybe six present.

I always forget just how small the Little Terns are. The picture below shows one alongside Black-headed Gulls which themselves are at the smaller end of the Gull family.

Small, fast, highly manoeuvrable, and a nightmare to try to photograph. You need a big lens on to get close enough for a picture but even if you can track them my lens will not focus fast enough to get the shot. The pictures below are not perfect but you should see the hundreds that have been deleted as unrecognisable

The islands look a bit short of the shingle that the Little Terns like for nesting but there is always a chance. They would at least get some protection here as the Avocets that nest at the site are very aggressive parents and see off a lot of the predators.

Also present were at least six Little Ringed Plovers. This pair look as though they are trying out nest sites.

There were a lot of other birds using the pools including a Common Sandpiper, and a brilliantly coloured Yellow Wagtail.

Common Sandpiper

Yellow Wagtail

Catching a fly -  at 1/2000 of a second and still not sharp

Also a lot of birds in the long grass around the pools.

Meadow Pipit

Meadow Pipit

Skylark

Nice also to see some young about. This young Moorhen even looks halfway pretty.

Other shots taken this week. A Black Swan On Chichester Gravel Pits. They always take a nice picture. I wonder how long it will be before they are on the British list.

Tuesday it was back to Pulborough with Dave so that he could catch up with the Nightingales. He is just back from a weeks birding in Spain with stories and pictures of Bee Eaters, Collard Pratincoles, Squacco Heron, Gallinule, etc. etc. See his blog here for some good pictures but I think good old British Nightingales take some beating

 A great weeks birding so far. Spring seems to be on hold at the moment but that just means that when the cold weather stops we still have the spring migration to come - I hope.