Rutland ospreys and not a lot in north Wales

Last week was one of those difficult weeks that stretched out interminably as far as you could see without any hope of coming to an end. Which surprised me at the time, because it was only two days long before Girl and I headed up to the north-west to see family.

We dropped in at Rutland on the way, though bird news I've read later suggested that doing it on the way back would have been more phalaropic. We quickly notched up a good if predictable list in the hour and a bit we had: the feeders had yellowhammers and tree spugs underneath them, the hedgerows various warblers and the res all the summer ducks you could count and the only real numbers of terns I've seen all year. There's just been one tern past the flat this spring. We also had two little owls, one on a roadside just outside the reserve and one passing through the carpark, which aren't birds I see as regularly as I should. 

The ospreys were as good as you'd expect for the £5.50 each entry fee, the view from the hide being, with a scope, excellent. They put on a great performance scrapping over the remains of a fish, feeding their young, dive bombing some egyptian geese and flying big lazy circuits of the bay, more than paying for themselves.

 

So much grey.

I've heard people say it's a bit funny to pay for a 100% guaranteed view of a bird that could just as well be nailed-down, tied to a long piece of string or sitting in a big aviary, and then tick it as a wild bird when you could go see a "proper" one. It's as if, in cases like this, there's some inversely proportional link between how organised and formal the situation and the validity of the sighting or tick. Well, yes, I would get more enjoyment from stumbling across my own osprey, and no, it's not entirely the same as seeing an unknown pair at some remote Scottish loch. But those sneery people can go and do one, whatever that actually means, as those potential experiences don't in any real way diminish how god damn awesome these ospreys actually were the other day. And then they can go do another one because I never find anything good like ospreys when I'm out so have to go and pay to see stuff like this. It sucks to be bad at this birding thing.

The next day we spent most of over the border in north Wales, which was lovely but a failure in most regards. We dipped almost everything we went looking for: no grouse, no flycatchers, no redstarts and no wood warblers. As I said, it sucks to be bad. Well, that, or they just weren't there - I'm not sure which of those things was the case on Friday. They might both have been true. Still, we found a couple of pairs of whinchats and wheatears singing up on the hills which were nice enough and every river we checked had dippers buzzing up and down like strange inland auks. One had a family of mandarins, which was a surprise.

The short short walk we planned along footpaths through a large patch of mixed woodland didn't go too well. It took hours, due firstly to dozens of fallen trees necessitating long and difficult detours and scrambles for which we weren't remotely prepared or equipped, and then a section where the path had been totally removed by landslips. There was no sign of recent passage along what remained of the track and with some of the fallen trees having new growth up through them I don't think anyone had been through this side of winter. While it's nice to know that such undisturbed places still exist in a relatively densely populated bit of the country, it's a right bugger if you actually want to go somewhere and then find that your path stops abruptly at a hedge and a garden fence. Without much of a choice - turning back and redoing all the detours and then a much longer walk wasn't really an option - we pushed through a narrow patch and emerged on someone's patio in full view of their conservatory, crossing the garden and walking the very, very long drive like we knew what we were doing. Up on the lane beyond, the public footpath sign clearly visible on streetview was nowhere to be seen. Hmm. 

Isn't this a nice path?

Yes, it's very pleasant.

Oh.

And on top of all that the woods only gave three chiffchaffs, half a dozen willow warblers and a blackcap. Poo.

Rainham again - mainly photos of blackcaps

There are a few love-hate elements to my relationship with Rainham RSPB. One of the biggest of these is how I love what it stands for, making nature accessible for everyone, and I know how essential this is for there to be any kind of future for our wildlife, but I hate having to share it with, you know, other people. Eurgh.

Well, usually I do, anyway. Today, as you'd expect for a sunny bank holiday, it was busy at Rainham. Most people there were not birders or even people with more than a passing interest in nature, they were there for not a lot more than a walk. I'd gone today with the express purpose of photographing small stuff in the woodland area and, as I'd expected, the people I met at first were nothing more annoying. I was laughed at by moody teens, smirked at by a young couple, loud families flushed the birds I was lining up on and I was asked stupid questions about my camera.

I wasn't too surprised to bump into three unaccompanied kids aged maybe eleven or twelve at the very back of the woodland, blatent fence-hoppers from the Garrison Estate. There are usually some kids hanging round the drive on a weekend and getting in can't be too hard if you're willing to climb a bit and risk getting a bit wet. Normally I'd have filed them under "annoying" along with everyone else I'd met and was about to do just that when they stopped me and asked excitedly in the best Purfleet accents you'll ever hear about the birds I'd seen, photos I'd taken, what they could see at this time of year, and particularly about snakes and lizards and newts. They had a home-made net and were carrying some murky pond-water in tupperware boxes. One showed me where a stickleback had punished him for picking it up the previous day and another spoke happily about a falcon that had gone over, probably a kestrel or a hobby.

I'm assuming, perhaps unfairly, that their parents couldn't give enough of a monkeys to take them out pond-dipping so they'd taken it upon themselves to go out and do it anyway. I'm also assuming, probably correctly, that most people on the reserve wouldn't have given them the time of day and that the RSPB wouldn't want them there on their own, or pond-dipping. But it was refreshing, almost reassuring to see kids out doing what more kids should be doing in their spare time - enjoying being outside - even if they were breaking a couple of rules. I hope the interest in nature and wildlife sticks with them.

Anyway, I never actually got further than the woodland over the whole afternoon and nor did I see anything rarer than a cuckoo, with one calling constantly from the big oak on the path. I had a great time though; I went with the sole aim of taking photographs and I took lots, mainly of blackcaps. There were at least five singing birds in the Cordite alone with another two doing food runs. I watched great tits taking food and fecal-sacs to and from a nest, watched a pair of chaffinches sneak about, thinking they were going to their nest unseen and enjoyed occasional hobbies and kestrels overhead. I counted ten species of butterfly in the area, including brimstone and green hairstreak, the hairstreak being one I don't often see and have never seen at Rainham.

I carried on the photograph-all-the-common-things drive back in Orsett, partictularly enjoying this dunnock.

Rainham - kingfishers, raven

I've been told that the biggest reason we see nothing at Rainham is that we tend to only go mid afternoon on a weekend, when there are loads of people and the wildlife is all sleeping or hiding, and only stay for an hour or two. These are fair points, of course, but it doesn't mean we don't see some stuff. Occasionally. 

Today, in an hour and a bit, we had the kingfisher, once doing its best impression of being a zoo exhibit and once flying round the Butt Scrape (teehee), buzzards thermalling over, a good count of 12 hobbys and, best of all, a raven north over the Target Pools. And then there's all the other stuff: warblers doing food runs, a pair of little grebes building the worst nest I've ever seen, lapwings defending their broods from marauding redshanks and a cow with half an afterbirth hanging out of it. A great afternoon.

Lots of seal action today, too. Had both grey and common at Grays and a grey at Rainham that I think was the same individual.

It would be stupid not to have gone to see these, even if it did mean being in a busy hide that I don't particularly like, peering through gaps in camo netting and three years worth of scum on the glass. Kingfishers are worth it though, and the views it gave while bashing a fish's head against a branch were pretty fantastic. Raven's a goodun too; especially pleasing to get it on my county list properly. My previous sighting was of a bird well outside Essex while I was in, and I've since felt bad about that. Even though it's my list and I make the rules. Stupid, huh?

Kent - Dusky Thrush. Of course.

I saw this funny looking redwing in Kent today. Lots of other people were interested in it too.

Yeah, today I predictably did the predictable thing, that everyone else will have done and then blogged about: I went to see that thrush thing in that cemetary in Margate, and followed it up with a stop at Reculver. You'll probably see a hundred of these posts today.

I was forced to play it cool in the morning by a very important and totally uncancelable haircut meaning I wasn't on the road until 10.30, arriving on site at about 11.45. Eventually, after lots of obscured views where I saw all the bird, just not all at once, it did the right thing and sat out in the open for a few minutes where I could see, more or less, all of it, before disappearing high towards the back of the cemetary. Didn't manage a great photo but had some fantastic scope views. I reckon there were 300 people present when I got there, rising across the middle of the day to at least 400. With only a bare minimum of grumpiness on display it was actually rather a nice twitch. (Potentially dodgy intergrade or not.)

Like every other birder in Kent today, and there were quite a few, I visited Reculver after the thrush. The ringtail montagu's harrier, my first in the UK since that pair in Norfolk, was easy from the higher ground, if a little distant, hunting over the oyster beds and nearby fields. The shrike was apparently the better part of a week's walk along the seawall, so I bailed at the thought. I'm lazy and was, after the successful day thus far, incredibly relaxed about achieving anything else at all.

 

Showing well. If you're in that ditch.

I dropped in to Oare as the afternoon wore on, thinking lazily that I might turn up a temminks or something from the car. Obviously no such luck, so I did a quick circuit, during which I met only one other birder - amazing how quiet it was given the numbers of birders in the area. There were a couple hundred blackwits (one colour ringed) and a scattering of other waders but nothing smaller. A wheatear and two yellow wagtails were along the seawalls, and the occasional hobby and cuckoo scattered the singing warblers and linnets. There were at least half a dozen bearded tits present, one of which, a smart male, I watched doing food runs for ages. A great, quiet, way to end the day.

Imagine the twitch if these were rare...

Rainham - mixed singing willow-chiff thing

When I did finally get out to see birds over the weekend it rained, that slow steady drizzle that doesn't feel too bad until you get inside and suddenly realise you're soaked through. Rainham still produced a few bits interesting enough to make the wet hour and a half worth it, despite me missing stupid year-stuff like little-ringed and whimbrel again. A lesser whitethroat was my first this year and a nice mixed wader flock of half a dozen each ringed plover and dunlin, with single turnstone and little stint, would have made the trip worthwhile on its own.

I put up with the weather as far as the first viewing platform, where I had the kind of views of water rail that you can only guarantee by leaving your camera in your bag - the bird stood right in the middle of the boardwalk before scooting off into the reeds. The rain bought swifts down low over the pools, the first time I've seen them in any real numbers this year, and I counted around 50. Having missed my water rail shot but with camera in hand I turned to the waste of card-space that is trying to photograph swifts and hirundines at close distance in the rain... with a predictable success rate of 0/82.

On the way back I stumbled across a mixed-singing willow-chiff in the woodland, surprising myself by actually noticing something out of the ordinary. It sang constantly in the rain, usually starting with a few slightly wet "chiff chiff chaff" syllables before descending into a standard willow warbler "sif-sif-sif-pew-pew-pew-sisisisisi" thing. Sometimes, though not often, it forgot the "chiffs" at the beginning or threw a couple in halfway down the scale, but was otherwise quite consistent in its wrongness.

I initially thought I was onto something good, or at least better than my usual finds. Maybe other people would like to see this? It's almost "interesting", depending on your definition of interesting, of course. So I mentioned it to a passerby who, most unimpressed and slightly confused that I looked happy with myself, just said "er, yeah, it's been up on the Rainham blog for weeks now." Well bum.

Here are some pictures. To my colour-blind eyes and on this monitor at least the photos below are a fairly accurate representation of the bird's colour.

For what my opinion is worth I reckon it's a willow warbler, dark legged and grey though it may be. I base this entirely on the facts that I like willow warblers more than I like chiffchaffs, so it should be a willow, and that everything else suggests willow over chiff.

Here's a bad video. It sings three times, the first of which is not how it usually sounded.

Thrilling, huh.

Weekend: red-footed falcon and a sweary low-functioning Norfolk hick.

I like three-day weekends. There's time enough to do everything you want to do, which compares very favourably to a traditional two-day weekend where you have to choose between the hobbies you pursue and quality time at home. After some birdy drinks on Friday night, Saturday morning was always going to be a bit of a write-off, but it didn't matter with Monday to look forwards to. So I spent the day at home, watching birds on the river, playing bass, starting a pacifist run-through of Deus Ex 3 and annoying Girl, which are all activities that usually get passed over in favour of being outside during a regular weekend.

By Sunday morning, with more exams looming and Saturday having been less productive than she'd planned (oops), Girl all but pushed me out of the front door, car-keys and bins in hand. I went up to Lakenheath for the red-footed falcon, along with half the rest of East Anglia. On arrival I powered straight over to Joist Fen, hardly stopping on the way, which turned out to be a good decision as the bird soon disappeared to the back of the fen. I enjoyed some nice close views though, with a good supporting cast of bittern and crane flypasts. I stuck around another couple of hours hoping it would come close enough for a record shot but only had occasional distant looks. I spent the time between sightings listening to the birders around me. 

Now I'm crap at this birding thing, but it reaffirmed what little faith I do have in my abilities. The people to each side loudly called kestrels as hobbys, hobbies as kestrels, the red-foot as a kestrel, the most obvious buzzard you could hope for as a marsh harrier, a heron as a crane right after the real thing just flew by, and so on. And of course every hobby that came close enough to get colour on was suddenly the red-foot as people pointed out the red vent. I gave up correcting them; there's no harm in it if they have a good day.

On the way back to the car a late and presumably not very well whooper swan was sleeping on the river bank, only it's size and a hint of a yellow bill betraying the ID. Lots of mutes around too, some flying past at just the right distance for flight shots - a couple turned out almost well.

I headed off deeper into the Brecks. My undoubted weekend highlight came towards the end of the day on a roadside just north of the Norfolk-Suffolk border. As the sun dropped and mid afternoon turned slowly to late afternoon, I stopped in a field entry on a dead straight piece of road to scan a promising looking area for woodlark. A tree pipit and a couple of yellowhammers sang from the edge of a shelter belt, and a few crossbills chipped overhead moving from one belt to another. It was all very nice until the moment was interrupted by a car approaching at speed. I had intended to ignore it - cars do use roads, afterall, and I was stood on a roadside - but when I become aware the car was slowing down I turned to look. A woman, mid twenties, hung out of the window of an old Mercades as it slowed towards to me, and yelled "sad cunt!" before laughing, flooring it, and heading off. I laughed back in surprise, though I'm not sure she noticed. There was noone else in the car, and noone else nearby to see it so I can only assume she did it entirely to amuse herself. And it seemed to work; her laughter was genuine enough. 

The most frustrating thing about drive-by insults is not having the opportunity for a come-back, even if you'd not usually take it or make the most of it. About an hour later I passed through a village on my way back to the main road. And there, on the high street, was the same old dark red Mercades parked up. I must admit it was very tempting to stop and key her insult back at her in the car's bonnet... But though I may be a "sad cunt", I'm not actually a horrible person. So, presented with the perfect opportunity for revenge, I turned it down and got her back with a passive-agressive anonymous tweet and a blogpost that noone will ever read. So that showed her.

In the end, I never did find a woodlark and had only the one stone curlew, but I did spend a long time watching a tree pipit calling and display-flighting and counted up a good 20+ crossbills.

A less birdy day yesterday saw us enjoying a picnic, Girl trying to herd some reeve's pheasants, a lazy beer in Orsett and the in-law's ancient cat Eb failing to see or hear much of anything at all. 

Then she went inside and vomited everywhere. Nice.

(Here's a video of a reeve's pheasant chasing a mountain bike for ages.) 

Ring-Necked Duck

Not seen many birds this weekend - didn't find the time between bouts of severe man-flu and drowing in snot. Did manage to find the time for a quick twitch-n-run job at the ring-necked duck just outside Maldon though. 

I don't suppose there's really a great deal to say about it. It's a female ring-necked duck, looking, acting, and standing out exactly as you'd expect it to. Still standing by my long-held opinion that aythyathathas are rubbish.