Nightingales

Last year I spent a lot of time standing in front of bushes listening to Nightingales singing but failed to see a single bird. This year I was determined to start looking at the beginning of the mating season when the birds were more likely to be displaying in the open and when the bushes would have less green growth.

Pulborough Brooks RSPB is one of the more reliable sites in Sussex for finding the Nightingale and I had a good idea where to look from last years failed attempts. I visited the site today but did not get there until about one o'clock and my initial walk around proved very disappointing with virtually no birds visible and very limited bird song. However, by three o'clock everything had changed and the hedges were alive with birds.

The ground was not doing so bad either with a number of snakes and slow worms visible. These two were within about three feet of each other. I think if I were the Slow Worm I might put a bit more distance between us before the adder woke up.

Male Adder

Slow Worm

Being a photographer I did wonder about doing a bit of gardening around the adder to tidy up the picture but I felt sure he was watching me from below that blade of grass.

The Nightingales were around and I heard a number of them singing, although I was told that they had been displaying more openly on the previous day. I missed a couple of good shots but was happy to leave with a few decent record shots. I am looking forward to returning over the next couple of weeks to improve on these.

Nightingale

The song is amazing. It's too unstructured to be my favourite but the volume and the range are truly impressive and the energy that the bird puts into it makes you wonder how it can stay singing for so long.

There were plenty of Blackcaps, Warblers, and Whitethroates around but I spent the rest of my time there trying to get a decent picture of a Redstart. I would have preferred the more colourful male but as this was my first sighting of the year I needed a record.

Female Redstart

I think a trip to Old Lodge Nature Reserve may be in order whilst the males are still showing well.

I could not resist finishing off with this Green Woodpecker, one of two seen foraging in the cow fields.

Green Woodpecker

Spain

I have just got back from a week in Spain on a non birding Holiday. We spent the week exploring the influence of 800 years of Moorish occupation on the country and very interesting it was. I had left my cameras and telephoto lens at home but did manage to squeeze in a little Canon SX50. I say little but it has a zoom lens that gives the equivalent of a 35mm camera 1200mm lens plus a 4x digital zoom. Very impressive figures but it only has a 12.1 Megapixel sensor, it still has all the problems of hand holding such a long lens, and a zoom lens will always be a compromise on quality. Still it could be a useful way of obtaining record shots when carrying the full photographic set up is not an option.

The route we took was mostly through the cites of central southern Spain and only included a couple of places where I had expectations of seeing birds. The first was Seville Cathedral which I had read was a stronghold for the Lesser Kestrel and the second was Ronda where I could expect to see a variety of birds around the gorge and cliffs. There were no Lesser Kestrels at Serville but Ronda did not disappoint. There were dozens of birds floating on thermals about 50 metres below the cliff top and lots of small birds in the bushes along the top. Viewing was great but positive identification and, even more so, good pictures were difficult and I only had an hour before we had to move on.

Chough were easy to identify as they swept up and into nest holes on the bridge, but checking my pictures later either the camera has a shutter delay or the operator was suffering a brain delay from too much Rioja the night before.

Not my best ever picture!

In Flight

There were Pallid Swifts and at least five Kestrels on the cliffs and there may have been a few Crag Martins as well, but they were all too fast and too far away to get any decent pictures. The Kestrels could have been the Lesser Kestrels that I had been hoping to see but the only positive identifier I had was the colour of the claws and that is not very helpful when you are looking at them from above.

Fortunately things did improve when we moved towards the coast. I am reasonably confident on this being a female Red-backed Shrike and as I was taking the picture a Hoopoe flew past. Fortunately I remembered about the bird in hand being worth two in the bush and settled for getting one decent picture.

Female Red-backed Shrike

See comments below from Richard T. It looks as though this is actually a Woodchat Shrike. Checking Collins again I am inclined to agree with him.

There were also plenty of Spotless Starlings around.

Spotless Starling

Smart Looking Birds

The coast around Malaga had a more colourful selection of birds. I have yet to see a Ring-necked Parakeet in England and the Monk Parakeet was a new bird for me.

Ring-necked Parakeet

Monk Parakeet

There was also another bird that so far I have been unable to identify. It's probably an escapee but I am hoping its short tail will give me some clue as to what it is.

Suggestions for identity gratefully received

I also managed to get record shots of a couple of other birds including the Hoopoe so given the time I had available for birding this was not too bad a trip. Its interesting seeing the different birds but not as satisfying as adding to my UK list.

The SX50 will not be replacing my 500mm lens. It was ok for record shots but the real quality was missing from the picture and I found it quite difficult to handle. There are buttons all over it and I found myself brushing against them and switching the camera into the wrong mode just as I was about to take a picture. It was also quite difficult to hold such a  lightweight camera and long lens combination really still whilst setting up and taking the pictures. However, if you need to travel light, need a back up camera, or are just getting started in bird photography then it is worth looking at. My one cost about £310 as compared to a new Canon 500mm lens at about £8500.

Kentish Plover

The birding and more importantly the birding photography have been a bit slow of late. A combination of dull overcast days and the unseasonal cold weather has resulted in a slow start to the spring migration and also to fingers often too cold to press the camera shutter. The lack of anything interesting must have been getting to me as I woke up in the middle of the night and I could feel a "twitch" coming on.

The result, I got up early the next morning and left home at 05.45 to head down to Rye in the hope that the Kentish Plover would still be there. Unfortunately that was not quite early enough. I arrived at Rye only to be told by a couple of birders "you should have been here a few minutes ago, it was on the mud right in front of us". Not the best of news first thing on a cold morning.

We did manage to relocate the bird but it was distant and despite waiting three hours for the high tide to push it closer I could only manage distant record shots. If you have good eyesight you can just see it in the picture below sitting under the Shelduck's backside.

Shelduck and Kentish Plover with Avocets in the background

This was taken with a 500mm lens and 1.4x extender and gives about the same view as you get through a pair of 10 x 50 binoculars. Fortunately Photoshop gives the possibility  of digital magnification and whilst you do not get the best quality image it does enable you to see that it is definitely the Kentish Plover.

Shelduck and Kentish Plover

There were plenty of other birds around the harbour. Sandwich Terns were starting to arrive and there was a Meadow Pipit clearly unwilling to abandon its territory just because we wanted to stand there.

Around seventy Sandwich Terns roosting with the Oytercatchers

Meadow Pipit

So what to do in the afternoon. Wait around for a better picture of the Plover or try somewhere else. There was always the Glaucous Gull that I had missed last time I was down at Dungeness and there would always be the chance of something unusual turning up on the pits.

It could have been a wasted trip. The RSPB site was very quiet, just a few Tufted Ducks and Coot along with lots of Gulls. Even the Tree Sparrows were hard to find. The feeder area seemed to have been taken over by Reed Buntings.

Reed Bunting

Eventually a couple turned up but they seemed less showy than when I had seen them before.

Tree Sparrow

I wasn't sure that I would recognise the Glaucous Gull when I saw it and after walking the beach for an hour looking at multiple variations of juvenile gulls I was starting to give up hope. The wind had been cold all day but across Dungeness beach it was really bitter. Just as I was on the point of leaving a shadow passed over my head. I had been looking for translucent wings with no black on them, front heavy, and aggressive looking, or as a local birder had put it big and dirty looking. When you see it there can be no doubt, there was nothing else like it on the beach.

Aggressive looking perhaps

Translucent wings

More graceful in flight

I believe it is a third winter bird so it has colour on the wings but has not yet developed the yellow beak. Still, it's a great bird to see and it has a bit more character than most of the gulls I come across.

I called in at Rye again on the way back but although the Plover was still around it wasn't coming any closer.

First Signs of Spring

A day exploring the cliffs between Brighton and Seaford Head with our chief target a Black Redstart reported at Telscombe Water Works.

We had a bit of a slow start when the Black Redstart was a no show. However, we did see a pair of Peregrines flying and also a male Wheatear, my first of the year, as he made his way off the beach and up the cliffs. Pity he didn't hang around a little longer.

Wheatear

There were also a number of Rock Pipits around. I had only ever seen them as single birds before but there must have been between six and ten moving around on the beach and at the bottom of the cliffs.

Rock Pipit

Very active feeding

and not camera shy

 As usual the Rock Pipits were easy to photograph. They seemed indifferent to my presence and as long as I made no fast movements they would come quite close.

We then moved on to Seaford and searched the churchyard. Again no Black Redstart but there was a Chiffchaff, probably newly arrived judging from its rate of feeding.

Chiffchaff

There were Kittiwakes at Seaford Head but picture opportunities were limited and Newhaven harbour was also very quiet with only one Fulmar on the cliffs. However, we did meet another birder who gave us better directions for finding the Black Redstart back at Telscombe.

A second visit proved successful although my pictures were a bit of a disaster with the black bird in shadow and silhouetted against sunlit chalk cliffs. I couldn't even use them as record shots.

Oystercatchers

 

A quick shot of an Oystercatcher roost and we headed off home after a successful day and with the warm sun and the sightings of Wheatear and Chiffchaff suggesting that spring could be on the way.

Smew, Bittern, and Marsh Harrier

This looked like a good start to the day. Two drake Smew, five redheads, and a Bittern sitting in the reeds behind them.

Taken from the ARC hide Dungeness

It being a crisp, bright, and sunlit winters day we had driven down to Dungeness in the hope of just such pictures. If only I could have gotten a bit closer, but there was a lot of water between them and me and they had no intention of coming over to give me better views.

Drake Smew - a long way off

Showing off to the ladies

And "too distant for a good picture" turned out to be the theme for the day.

Bittern flying - too distant

Marsh Harrier flying - too distant

Another Marsh Harrier - too distant

Avocet - too distant (at Rye Harbour)

We had a good day and saw a lot of birds including the scarce Smew. In fact this was my first sight of a Drake Smew in the wild. Overall though, it was disappointing to have returned home without a couple of really good pictures. Sometimes it just doesn't happen for you.