Black Redstart

Just a few pictures from earlier in the week. Best picture opportunity was the Black Redstart at Shoreham Fort. It has been around for a few weeks now but it's such a good looking bird that we always drop in for another look when passing. 

Black Redstart

It is not easy to get a good picture but the results are well worth the effort. I am sure that I will be going back for another go.


A walk out on Chantry Hill gave us Ravens, Buzzards, Grey and Red-legged Partridges, Fieldfares, lots of small birds including Mipits, Skylarks and 30 to 40 Yellowhammers but no sign of the usual Corn Buntings. I am keeping my fingers crossed for the Partridges with just one week to go before the close of the shooting season.

Yellowhammer

At Waltham Sewage Works a Grey Wagtail, probably a dozen or more Chiffchaffs, and a Goldcrest on the access road.

Chiffchaff

Goldcrest

A Rock Pipit at Seaford Head but no Kittiwakes and another visit to the Newhaven Hume's Warbler but still no picture.

Rock Pipit

Perhaps best of all my garden birding has picked up. I don't get a lot of variety but this morning I had a Blackcap on the feeders and later I was able to photograph it, tucking into a pear that I had put out. Whilst I was trying to photograph that a Redwing dropped in and finished off the last of the holly berries.

Blackcap

Redwing

It was very misty in the garden this morning but there was just enough light to be able to get the pictures.

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.

Water Pipit

Having spent six hours on Tuesday, in the freezing cold, waiting for a Serin to appear and then having gone home without seeing it and without taking a single picture we decided to spend Wednesday  on some more reliable subjects.

First stop should have been Apuldram Church but I took the wrong turn so we made a revisit to the Cattle Egrets at Church Lane Warblington. There had been eight of them in the field with the cattle last week but this time there were no cattle and only the one Cattle Egret and that was too far away for a photograph.

Moving on we tried the Nore Stream. Plenty of dog walkers and the usual wildfowl but very little of interest. Which eventually led us back to our intended target, the Water Pipit at Apuldram. We had a quick look at the Yellowhammer flock in the horse paddock on the way but we were both keen to get to the river.

Dave spotted it as soon as we arrived. Fairly close and easy to see but very difficult to get a clear shot of it against a clean background.

Water Pipit

There were a couple of Rock Pipits in the area which was useful for comparison purposes. One of these seemed to want to occupy the same tuft of grass as the Water Pipit which resulted in frequent disputes and pursuits when the Water Pipit reappeared. This was some feisty bird and it was not sharing its territory with any rockies.

Rock Pipit

You occasionally get a heart stopping moment when something unusual pops up and you think you may have found a rarity. The bird below had me scrambling to get a record shot but my hopes were dashed when Dave pointed out that it was only a Wren. True but if it were a butterfly I would call it an aberration and would be searching the records to be able to put a name to it.

Wren with a crown stripe

Apuldram is the most reliable location in our patch for Yellowhammers. There are reports of the flock being thirty to forty strong although I usually only see around six. The manure heap seems to offer plenty of food for the foraging birds but photographing them against the yellow straw is always difficult. There are better opportunities when they perch up in the trees but to get close you often end up photographing into the sun.

Yellowhammer

We made a quick visit to the Bill but it all looked very quiet and with Church Norton and the North Wall failing to produce much recently we decided to head over too the wetland centre at Arundel. The Great White Egret if still present would be a patch first for me.

A good choice as it turned out. With most of the water frozen over there were some good picture opportunities. It was nice to get a couple of pictures of the GWE  where it did not look long necked and awkward.

Great White Egret

There were half a dozen snipe present but it was a choice between photographing them or following the GWE hoping that it would fall through the ice.


The Shelduck gave good picture opportunities from the hide and we saw our second Grey Wagtail of the day.

Shelduck

Grey Wagtail

Later we saw a couple of Water Rail. Icy conditions always seem to bring them out into the open.

Water Rail

A really enjoyable days birding spoilt only by a report that the Serin has been seen again at Tide Mills. It looks like another long day in the cold tomorrow.

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.