Marshside again

We only had a little while before it was time to head home on Monday, so opted to go back to the relatively close RSPB Marshside. This time we visited both hides, and got a more complete impression of this great reserve.

The extensive flat grazing marsh here, intersected with narrow waterways and interspersed with small muddy reed-edged pools, might not be that exciting to look at but forms a valuable habitat. It's great for breeding waders in spring and summer with the soggy pool and creek margins providing ideal feeding conditions for wader chicks.

An Avocet, shaking off the rain. (yet again we had a gloomy day, despite a promising sunny start). Of Marshside's breeding waders, this is the one that pulls in the punters, although from a conservation point of view it's the Redshanks and Lapwings that are more 'important' as they, unlike Avocet, are generally declining in Britain.

This Swallow was singing his heart out by Sandgrounders' hide. I felt slightly smug that those actually within the packed hide were missing out on his beauty and twitteryness.

A few weeks ago I posted a truly diabolical Sedge Warbler pic on this blog, just because I like the species so much. I'm very happy to provide a better one here. This Sedgie was singing from a laburnum  (don't ask me what a laburnum was doing there) along the roadside trail. He and the tree would have looked much better with a bit of sun, but that was one thing that just wasn't on offer over this weekend. I'm still pleased with the pics we got though, and am determined not to let a bit of cloud keep us and our cameras indoors in the future.

Peregrinations

After Leighton Moss, we went to a place nearby to have a go at photographing Peregrines. The site, a disused quarry, is also home to many pairs of Jackdaws, and Rob photographed some of them while waiting for a good view of a Peregrine.

Another challenge for the Sigmonster - fast-moving birds against the high rocky cliff-face. The Jackdaws more or less ignored the Peregrines, so when a large mobbing party descended around another fast-flying raptor we knew it was going to be something else and it was - a Sparrowhawk.

After a wait of about half an hour, one of the Peregrines came in carrying the mangled remains of a pigeon. It landed on a photogenic, if distant ledge, and set about its meal with gusto, sending clouds of feathers swirling into the air and gulping down great chunks of unidentifiable bloody body parts.

After a while, it remembered it had babies to feed too, and carried the remains of the pigeon down to the nest ledge. The action was obscured from view now by clumps of flowers, but we watched the ledge and Rob caught the adult when it flew off, empty-taloned now.

This site is good for butterflies, but the chilly, gloomy day wasn't. We found a couple of sleepy Common Blues resting in the long grass, waiting (in vain) for the sun to come out.

Leighton Moss

Saturday dawned bright and clear. Probably. Well, it was still bright and clear when we got up anyway. By the time we were on the M6 towards Leighton Moss RSPB reserve, though, the clouds were beginning to gather. At least it wasn't raining.

It's been a long time since I visited this reserve. I have very happy memories of finding my first ever Small Pearl-bordered Fritillaries here back in 1995, and hearing my first Bitterns. Today was to yield neither of the above, but it was great nonetheless.

First surprise of the day was an Osprey, flying in from the hills to cross the southern lakes. I have no idea why an Osprey would be here in nearly-June - the nearest breeding birds are up at Bassenthwaite in the Lakes. My best guess is that it's a youngster attempting its first breeding season, or an older bird that was ousted from its regular territory, and it's now wandering around looking for an established nest to disrupt. It caused quite a stir among the gulls and waders. We saw it again later from the public hide, where I took this photo, having switched from the 70-300mm (nice lens but too short) to the Bigmos. It was still pretty tiny in the frame though, and unfortunately Rob was not quite ready with the Sigmonster.

We've discovered that the Sigmonster isn't super-sharp at its long end. Add this to the difficulty of moving birds against a complicated backdrop of leaves and... more practice needed. This shot is blurry as you like, but shows something nice - food pass between a pair of Marsh Harriers. The prey, which looked like a baby Coot or Moorhen, was deftly collected by the female and borne away to her nest while the male went straight back to hunting.

The public hide overlooks a big lake with a few islands, on which noisy gangs of Black-headed Gulls are nesting. Some of the nesting spots are very close to the hide, giving me opportunities to practice flight shots and terrify everyone else in the hide as I swung the Bigmos from side to side.

One pair were building, or attempting to at least, on a little wooden step thing right in front of us. Well, I say 'pair' - in fact only one of them was at work. This industrious bird was busy grappling with sticks of various sizes, while the other just sat there and watched.

 At the seaside pools, there was a Spoonbill, which had moved from right in front of Allen hide to a tiny tucked-away pool just before we arrived. My record shot of Spoonie is too awful to reveal. The pool that it HAD been on still held a trio of Little Egrets plus a selection of ducks, gulls and waders, but the horrible light and distance made for lousy photography conditions. This Chiffchaff was my consolation prize, gathering fat green caterpillars for its chicks in the scrub next to the car park.

Seaforth and Marshside

We timed our trip up north perfectly, arriving about five hours after Britain's fifth White-tailed Plover was last seen at Seaforth. By the time we entered the reserve, the plover was being enjoyed by Dutch birders after an epic 325-mile overnight flight from Merseyside to Nationaal Park Zuid-Kennemerland. Also, it was raining. A lot.

None of that bothered Rob or I unduly. The purpose of our trip was for me to buy a D300 and Rob to borrow a Sigma 300-800mm lens (aka 'Sigmonster') from our chum and photographic maestro Steve Young, and we accomplished both of those things without any problems. Steve escorted us past the security guards into the heavily guarded Seaforth reserve (it's right in the port and access is strictly limited) and we settled into the hide, overlooking a nice big lake with rafts, islands and well-vegetated margins.

Common Terns dominated the scene. It would be very easy to while away hours and hours and hours photographing them as they went to and fro, chasing each other, displaying, passing fish to their partners and having little dust-ups over whose turn it was to sit on the wooden railing. The light today though was awful.

Rob slowly got to grips with the immense Sigmonster lens. It is twice as long and much wider at the business end than the Bigmos. Handholding is a physical impossibility and Rob's Manfrotto tripod only just up to the job of supporting it. Panning around after moving birds is going to take some serious practice.

Seaforth was great, despite the lousy weather. Besides the terns, we saw a few gulls including a first-summer Med, a lovely group of sum-plum Dunlins, Ringed and Little Ringed Plovers, a lone Knot, masses of Swifts, House Martins and Swallows, a phalanx of dozy Oystercatchers and a passing Peregrine which sent all the terns into a hysterical panic.

Having had no breakfast, we moved on quite quickly to search for food and then on to RSPB Marshside, a tad north of Southport. The weather was still horrid. From the first viewscreen we saw two young Avocet chicks skittering about, but by the time Rob had unpacked the Sigmonster from its coffin-like case, they had skittered off. We opted to continue to Nel's hide, where at least we would be sheltered. The hide overlooks a big area of mud with some pools and creeks, and it held a small but pleasing selection of birds.

I thought at first glance that this Lapwing cowering on the mud didn't look entirely healthy - wings hanging down and plumage fluffed up. On closer inspection I saw a possible reason for this - it had 10 legs.

After a while, a fluffy backside shuffled out from under the mother Lapwing's chest, and one by one four very young and utterly adorable babies emerged and trotted off to do some foraging.

The chicks could only have been a few days old at most. They were absurdly top-heavy to look at, but those big feet and long legs kept them clear of the mud as they tottered around, picking up tiny somethings from the ground. After about 10 minutes of this, they obviously got chilly and hurried back to mum, who stopped what she was doing and assumed the wings-drooped brooding pose to let them stuff themselves underneath once again.

Other birds out enjoying the mud and rain included several Redshanks, as well as Avocets (no chicks here though) and Shelducks. A couple of Meadow Pipits and Pied Wagtails called in, as did a single gorgeous Black-tailed Godwit, a couple of Ringed Plovers and a very distant tiny possible Little Stint.

With better weather promised for tomorrow, we decided we'd take the Sigmonster north to Leighton Moss and the surrounding area. But for today the light (lack of) and rain (surfeit of) meant an early finish.

Up and at 'em

It's not often I wake up before 6am on a Monday morning, but noticing that it was already shaping up to be another beautiful day I left Rob sleeping and took the D300 down to Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve.

Late spring's a funny time for birding at a place like this - the leaves have grown in making it tricky to spot passerines, and the wildfowl population has shrunk down to mostly just breeding birds. Some days it's very hard to see anything much. Today I was a bit luckier.

I returned to the spot near Willow Hide where I'd photographed the singing Reed Warbler the other week. He was still there, but so were at least two others - were they recently fledged young? They were quite dopily sitting around in full view and buzzing their wings in a begging manner, but I couldn't see any sign of yellow gape flanges. They did look slightly short-winged, -billed and -tailed though.

What a little poser. He was a delight to photograph, even going so far as to sitting on a well-exposed reed stem for long spells. Thinking about it, he also looks a bit less white-throated than the singing adult male.

 I waited in that same spot for about half an hour. The regular Cetti's was tormenting me, singing from my left and then somehow from my right without me seeing him fly across, then blasting away with that fruity song almost at my elbow yet impossible to see - then briefly possible to see in the depths of a bush but impossible to focus on. But my patience paid off and I finally got a couple of opportunities to fire off some shots. It's been well over a year since I first heard Cetti's here but I didn't think I'd ever get a decent view, let alone any photos. Happy, happy day :)

As if I hadn't been jammy enough with the Cetti's, this Wren singing in view and at close quarters on the main path to Willow Hide was a real treat. I also got pleasing photos of a very approachable male Blackbird and an agitated Blue Tit with a bill-full of squished green caterpillars, and less pleasing photos of a fine Cinnabar moth.

I'd already packed the camera away when I saw this dragon come and land on a high twig. A look through the bins revealed it to be a female Broad-bodied Chaser. I unpacked the camera again and took a selection of pics from various angles. Each time I moved, she took off but unfailingly returned to the same perch after a short zoom around - a handy behavioural trait of the Libellula dragonflies. That was the end of today's visit. I was home before 8.30am - what a good way to start the day.

Kite weather

It was a gorgeous and hot day, and after an exhausting morning of basho training in Bromley, we were delighted to have the opportunity to sit in a sweaty traffic jam in Croydon over lunchtime. Eventually we made it to the M25 and headed clockwise to junction 16 and the M40, a.k.a. 'Red Kite Highway'. Rob has only seen Red Kites in Scotland, when we were going through Inverness on our way to Wester Ross, and there was no time for pics. I hoped that Aston Rowant, in Oxfordshire, would prove as great for the species as I'd remembered.

The original Chilterns reintroduction site is nearby, and has proved extremely successful, with birds now breeding in a wide swathe across Oxon, Bucks and beyond. We saw our first kite at junction 2 of the motorway, but by junction 5 where we turned off, we'd seen two groups of about five birds plus several singletons.

From the reserve car park we followed a trail through a short stretch of woodland and out onto the escarpment. The hill falls away sharply down to the motorway, which provides a constant noisy soundtrack but doesn't seem to bother the kites at all. Rob was soon happily clicking away at them as they wafted overhead.

That outline and pattern makes Milvus milvus one of the most easily recognised raptors in Britain, though the odd Black Kite wandering here from the continent may cause problems. With a view like this there's no confusion though - deeply forked tail, strongly contrasting ginger, black and white plumage and five clear 'fingers' are all Red Kite hallmarks.

The kites were as happy to go around in gangs as to fly solo, and few seemed busy with any pressing engagements. These two weren't as close to us as we'd have liked but provided great entertainment as they chased each other over the treetops.

Aston Rowant used to be a lovely National Nature Reserve with lots of flowery downland and no motorway slicing it in half. That description is no longer wholly accurate, but at least the M40 affords thousands of people the opportunity for close views of Red Kites every day.

I'd hoped to see some butterflies and so we did - Common Blue, Brown Argus, Brimstone and Small Heath to name some of the more interesting ones - but the weather was so hot that they were barely pausing for breath as they swept over the slopes. One that did sit down was the best of the bunch - this Green Hairstreak. Sadly its cute face is obscured by a leaf but you can at least see how very, very green its undersides are, and also that it has no trace of a white 'hair streak'. Looking at some photos on line, I see that the extent of the streak is variable, and streakless individuals are quite common.

Besides kites and butterflies, we also saw one Buzzard and there were assorted warblers in the wood and scrub. I'm hoping to do a return visit in midsummer when there should be goodies like Dark Green Fritillary and Silver-spotted Skipper on the wing. And it would be great for Rob to have another go at photographing those wonderful kites.

Insect nation

Yesterday I had a lovely afternoon walk along a stretch of the Medway near Tonbridge, with Sue. The weather was a bit overcast but it was warm enough to have encouraged a few damsels and butterflies to take to the air. There were some birds about which I failed to photograph, including numerous Whitethroats, Sedge Warbler, Reed Bunting, Yellowhammer and a very distant flyby Egyptian Goose (actually I did photograph the goose but it looks like a speck of sensor dust so I'm keeping those images to myself).

This was the first - a female Banded Demoiselle, brand new and respendent. We saw about a dozen Bandeds in all, far fewer than on a similar walk last year, a couple of weeks later.

Anyone out there good on cranefly ID? Sue was not impressed when I pointed the camera at this little monster but I thought it was quite smart with its bright green eyes.















Here's Mr Banded Demoiselle. It was not really a day for being out on the pull, more for mooching in the dense vegetation, but before long the male Bandeds will be spending their days hanging around at the water's edge, flashing their wings at each other and the girls, in a courtship frenzy. I'll try to come back next week or sometime and get some pics of them 'in cop'.

Not sure when I've ever seen such a fine display of Dandelion clocks. In places they formed a great fluffy carpet.


Orange-tips were out in good numbers, and being quite skittish despite the lack of sun. I was hoping to find one resting on the cow parsley and showing off how effective that underwing camouflage is, but had to settle for this female tucking into a Common Vetch (I think).

In keeping with the 'Mr & Mrs' theme of this post, I present Mr Orange-tip, in a slightly different pose to the one in the 'Sevenoaks in Spring' post and waving his proboscis around in an engaging manner.















In contrast to those lovely pristine Orange-tips, this Peacock (who has of course lived through the winter rather than being newly emerged) has evidently been in the wars. Most of the damage seems to be at the back end - those diversionary eye-spots doing their job.

I was hurling abuse at this Green-veined White for flying away before I'd got a pic, when it suddenly doubled back and settled on a flower almost at my feet. I take it all back, Mrs GVW, you're a very lovely and helpful butterfly.


















Back at Sue's having a cup of tea, I noticed a couple of House Sparrows on her neighbour's roof, and got some pics by standing on the toilet of her upstairs bathroom and pointing the camera out of the window. It was quite sparrow-enhancingly sunny by this point.



Oh, go on then, one last butterfly. Speckled Wood in Sue's garden, sitting half in shadow which was a pity but at least it sat still for a little while. We're planning a trip to Aston Rowant on Sunday where hopefully there'll be even more butterfly fun to be had.