Oh dear...

... three days into yearlisting and I've turned into a twitcher. Today we went to Westcliff-on-sea in Essex to look for 'Rossi', the famous Ring-billed Gull who's been wintering there since 2004. On the way, we decided to call in at Pitsea to look for Waxwings - but then I spotted a flock in a roadside tree on the A13, close to a parking layby, and bullied Rob to turn around at the next roundabout. Naturally, when we came back they had gone. So it was on to Pitsea, where we got lost trying to find our way into the big supermarket carpark where the birds had been seen yesterday. However, our convoluted approach proved fruitful, as we found a flock of Waxwings down a side road on the way.

There were probably about 30 of them. They were not feeding but sitting about in the treetops, occasionally having a little fly around and constantly calling, their trills a pleasant contrast to the squeaks and rattles of the many Starlings that were sharing their trees.

It wasn't the photographic cornucopia I'd hoped for, as they were quite high up and the light wasn't great.

Nevertheless, it was great to spend a bit of time with such stunning and charismatic creatures. A car pulled up while we were there and the driver told us that this particular road had attracted Waxwings on many occasions. Not sure why, there seemed to be nothing for them to feed on here.

We had a bit of time before we needed to be in Westcliff (I'd read that the best time was 2-4 hours either side of high tide, and today high tide was 11.30ish) so we looked in at the nearby Wat Tyler Country Park. The tide being what it was, there were few waders to see on the creek, but I did add Black-tailed Godwit to the yearlist. This looks like a great place for a birding day, we'll have to come back another time.

This fine fellow was in a field by the access track, just trotting along looking fairly relaxed. When we pulled over and wound down the window, he loped away to the safety of the miniature railway track, from where he shot us baleful looks.

On to Westcliff, where we located the coast road and drove along it til we found Rossi's Ice Cream Parlour, the haunt of Rossi the gull, and scored a nearby free parking place by some mad streak of luck. There were lots of gulls floating about in the very calm sea, nearly all of them Black-headed.

 New for the yearlist - a Turnstone. It and half a dozen of its friends were skittering along the shingly shore, in the company of Feral Pigeons.

Scanning my way through the gulls, I found no Rossi but there were a couple of Mediterranean Gulls, sadly too far out for nice photos. First time I've photographed them in winter plumage, and of course a new species for the yearlist.

Someone put some bread out for the gulls up on the promenade, and I took a look through the bins and thought I spotted Rossi among them. I took a couple of insurance pics and then we hurried over - too late, the melee was all over by the time we were anywhere near.

Examination of the pics showed that I had indeed spotted Rossi - he muscled through the swirling Black-heads to land on the wall and take his share of bread. Great photo opportunities if we'd been up there. We decided to give it a little longer.

Every Common Gull made me look twice. They are somewhat similar to Ring-bills - only a little smaller, with yellowy legs and even the suggestion of a ring on the bill. This photo shows the bill mark is more of a smudge than a neat ring, and also shows the Common's dark eyes - Ring-bills are pale-eyed, and more extensive white in the wingtip.

Finally, a really good candidate flew out - yes, it was Rossi himself. He settled on a breakwater that was just appearing as the tide retreated. I went over for a closer look, aware that this bird is well known to be approachable and tolerant of humans.

And there we have it. Lovely neat bill ring, pale mantle, pale eye, yellow legs. I took a lot of shots, inching closer until the Black-heads started looking twitchy (though Rossi himself didn't seem at all bothered) then rejoined a relieved Rob to get in the car and warm up.

New year, new year list

Hello out there,

I've decided to keep a year list this year. Nothing fancy, just a straightforward British year list - hopefully it will motivate me to get out on those days when I would normally look at the sky and think '.... nah'. The list got off to a blinder when we heard the distant quavery fluting of a Tawny Owl outside at about 1.20am, which I suppose cemented my resolve to give it a go. I will try to include in my blog posts at least a record shot of the more unusual species, which will mean an increase in blurry and heavily cropped images for you to enjoy. You have been warned...

I wasn't so keen when the alarm went off at 6.30am, but did manage to get up by 8am (adding a heard Magpie and Wren in the meantime) and walked down to Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve to see if I could rack up a creditable start to the list. It was a 1990s-style winter morning - mildish, grey and damp.

Lots of the resident passerines are singing already, which made it very easy to add Song and Mistle Thrush, Great Tit, Greenfinch and Robin on the walk down, along with a bit of a bonus in the form of a 30-strong Fieldfare flock overhead. Then it was on to the reserve itself. I went into Grebe Hide to get the camera ready, then took a few shots. Just for fun, here's my very first photo of 2011:

Not a great start. Hopefully things will improve, and I'll remember how to focus the lens... Besides the Blue and Great Tits there was a party of Long-tails around.

I went to Tyler hide first. There was lots about, including lots of gulls. This Lesser Blackback was the closest of them - there were also several Herring and Common Gulls (one of the latter is in this photo) and one adult Great Blackback, which I unaccountably didn't bother to photograph.

My first grebe of the year, and it's a Black-necked. This bird has been around for a few weeks - it's high time I paid it a visit. It was rather distant and very actively feeding (ie on view for about 5 seconds per minute).

Moving on from Tyler hide, I finally saw what I'd wondered was a mythical bird, the oft-reported semi-resident female Ruddy Duck. Here she is with my second grebe of the year, a Great Crested.

I carried on to Slingsby hide but there was nothing to see - the lake was completely iced up at this end. I did get a Great Spotted Woodie on the way.

On the way back towards Tyler hide, a Treecreeper. I'm not sure what it thinks it's doing in this photo. Not great pics but at least it didn't shimmy around the far side of the trunk when I showed up.

I looked in at Tyler hide again on the way back and this time there were a couple of female-type Goosanders on view. Another nice bird to get in the bag, though I'd have preferred a nice smart drake (but then who wouldn't?)

Here's part of the vast herd of Coots grazing the Serengeti (aka the small grassy foreshore bit that you can see from Tyler). Lots of Coots, lots of Moorhens, but where's my Water Rail?

I went up to Willow hide next. This proved disappointing. Not only was the lake completely iced over, but one of the two stools was missing, and the other had been relocated by some idiot to the icy surface of the lake. This not only spoiled the view, but spoiled the chances of short people like me from enjoying the view, as the benches in this hide are set too low. I didn't hang around, but carried on past Long Lake to the field at the end. Overhead large noisy Siskin flocks roved around the alder trees, but I couldn't turn any of the Siskins into Redpolls.

By the field, I surprised myself by taking a recognisable photo of a Redwing. These thrushes are often amazingly shy and suspicious, and this one quickly flew away when it realised I had spotted it, even though it was so high in the tree that this is a nearly 200% crop.

With the light so poor, black and white subjects were a bit more appealing than colourful ones.

Last photo of the day. A bit better than the first... a drake Teal on one of the pockets of unfrozen water on the big lake.

So after about 3.5 hours' birding the year list stands at 54. I got some great bonuses, but many SWR regulars eluded me - the likes of Stock Dove, Sparrowhawk, even Goldfinch for pity's sake. Still, there are 364 more days to go.

Slimbridge.... in November

Here is the promised Slimbridge blog, in lieu of anything more recent as I have been mainly staying in working. I have missed Red-necked and Black-necked Grebes AND a Smew at Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve - though they may still be there if they find an unfrozen corner I suppose. If we get a nice day this week I'll go down and have a look. Anyway. Here's Slimbridge, from November. We called in on our way home from a trip to Cornwall (a bit of a detour but not that much). Weather was horrid at first but got better.

It wasn't the best time of year to visit. Slimbridge is best known for its Bewick's Swans and White-fronted Geese but numbers of both peak later in the winter. There was a good mix of wildfowl around though, including plenty of Pintails. This one was among vast crowds of Pochards on what I think is called the Rushy Pen. There were also a few Bewick's here.

As we made our way to the wilder parts of the reserve, flocks of ducks and geese sped overhead, including Pintails, Wigeons and... Mallards. Note gloomy weather, don't be fooled by those scraps of blue sky.

The summer walkway was shut, but from the nearest hides there were large flocks of Wigeons on view. The sun came out briefly against a backdrop of stormy skies and something panicked the Wigeons into flight. We didn't see what had alarmed them but got some photos of the resultant chaos.

From the Kingfisher hide, there were no Kingfishers but nice close views of a feeding station, though there wasn't much actually feeding on it.

A female Chaffinch. demonstrating that the sun had come out again.

One of two Grey Squirrels that were monopolising the hanging feeders, and having little squeaky rows with each other.

On the way back to the visitor centre, we passed an exhibit of Cranes, some destined for reintroduction to the UK. I assume this guy knows what he's doing...

More sunshine, though the skies still looked ominous (and indeed it rained really hard most of the way home). Slimbridge, like most other WWT centres, has lots of captive birds like these Greater Flamingoes which no doubt help pull in the punters, and some of the birds are here as part of conservation projects. It's certainly a good place to learn your wildfowl. Wild wildfowl-wise, plenty to see - it's good for waders too when the tides are right. I would urge, beg and implore the people in charge to do something about the hides though - they are well sited but bench and window position/size makes them a real pain to use for those of us under 6ft tall.

Snowy deer fest

We woke to more snow than ever. I really don't think I've ever seen more, anywhere, ever.

It was pretty obvious we wouldn't be going anywhere in the car (in fact we were lucky even to find the car), so we decided to walk to Knole Park.

This is our road, looking down towards the station. No-one attempting to drive anywhere. Many of the people we passed were pulling sleds, loaded up with shopping and/or children.

There are some fine icicles around. This icicle-appreciating Blue Tit made me curse the fact that I'd set out with the 18-200 on my camera, and so could not get a very good shot of him.

So did this Redwing - one of a couple of dozen working over the holly trees, alongside several Blackbirds.

The main entrance to Knole Park. Unsurprisingly the house and tearooms were shut, but there were a lot of people there, sledging or just enjoying a wintry stroll. We had only a short walk, and found next to no wildlife around unless you count the deer.

An assortment of Fallows. They weren't happy (unsurprisingly). Off the main paths the snow was thigh-deep in places. Hard for them to find food - the doe above was eating dead leaves from a tree. I suppose they will be provisioned with hay or something.

This was the only Sika we saw. She looks to have a pretty serviceable winter coat on. As this species comes from Japan, I suppose it is well adapted to severe winters.

There's sunshine forecast for tomorrow (!) so I expect we'll walk somewhere - probably back to SWR.

Brrrr

I do have an excuse for not blogging lately, but it's pathetic. It's because I've switched to shooting in RAW, after some very insistent advice from a friend who knows what she's talking about. Now I have to severely edit my existing photo library to free up some disk space, before going through the huge backlog of photos I have to file, and working out how best to file them, given that .NEF images don't give you a preview in Windows XP. Anyway, that's my problem, not yours. Today Rob was off work because of stupid quantities of snow everywhere, and we waded down to Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve to see what was about.

 This gives you a pretty good idea of the depth of snow, and only a couple of walkers before us had disturbed it.

Going into the wildlife garden to look at the feeding station there was difficult (snow jamming the gate shut), treacherous (you couldn't see where the pond was) and ultimately pointless (the feeders were empty). However, several Song Thrushes were visiting the guelder rose tree, and I also saw a Mistle Thrush high in one of the tall trees. No 'winter thrushes' though.

About six Dunnocks were at the Grebe Hide feeding station, rubbing shoulders with the tits and Chaffinches, and doing a bit of singing and displaying at each other in between amateurish attempts to take food from the hanging feeders.

While the Dunnocks sat around posing in full view, this Wren was much more furtive and refused to pose nicely in the open. It didn't look very happy - the smallest birds suffer most in weather like this.

The big lake was unfrozen (though it looked damn cold). We walked up towards Willow hide, stopping on the way to photography a group of snow-covered Canada Geese. Otherwise, the walk up was very quiet. The occasional sneeze of a Siskin overhead, and we flushed a Green Woodpecker from the ground. That may be a site tick for me (or a site sight tick at least, have definitely heard them here before).

From Willow hide, there wasn't much to see. The lake was mostly frozen, I guess because it is smaller than the main lake, with a bit of clear water around the island. In this small pocket of water swam a pair of Wigeons, a few Gadwalls, one Teal, two Great Crested Grebes, a bunch of Coots and a juvenile Mute Swan. It looked pretty crowded. On the edge of the ice lay a dead something (possibly a Canada Goose, but it was half covered with snow) being picked at by a Magpie and a Carrion Crow.

We went back to Tyler hide and enjoyed the sight of lots of wildfowl and gulls on the water and islands. I'd been chuckling at Lapwings falling over in the snow for some minutes before I noticed something unexpected - a tight-knit group of swans, not the regular Mutes. They were Bewick's - nine adults and two juvs. I don't recall seeing this species in the sightings book before, so I'm guessing this is quite a notable record.

A fast-flying group of ducks went over. I grabbed a couple of shots - zoomed in I could see they were Goosanders, which was nice as I hadn't managed to find the two females that were supposed to be on the lake.

There's been a Bittern about lately, apparently seen from the Tower hide. We went into the bit underneath the tower and from there had quite close views of a nice Snipe. However, the light was disappearing already and we were both freezing, so we opted not to continue the Bittern search. Maybe tomorrow... meanwhile, if I get my act together and sort out those old photos, there should be a belated post about Slimbridge coming soon.

The wild side is one today!

So, to celebrate I thought I'd better make a post, though I don't have very much to say/show. We've not been out and about much, just a couple of local trips. Not very impressive, especially given that it's October and there have been good birds around. Anyway, here are some things to look at.

A trip to Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve last weekend, badly timed because the heavens opened as we arrived. This was taken from the Grebe hide, a short dash from where we'd parked - a Black-headed Gull intent on getting the hell out of there.

Yes, not a great day for photography. Nice weather for Tufted Ducks though. It did stop for a few intervals, enabling us to manage a short walk.

Another distant and fuzzy Sparrowhawk. This one's a female, and she circled around overhead for ages but didn't come close enough for a nice photo. Ironically I saw one much closer from the car window on the way down...

A mixed bag of Cormorants, chilling out on the half-submerged dead tree in the West Lake.

Sun plus rain plus backlit Teasels.

What's this? Yes, it's a patch tick! My first SWR Coal Tit (and my second SWR Coal Tit was nearby too). This little beauty was visiting the feeding station in the wildlife garden. The layout of this feeding station means it's necessary to be very patient (because the windows in the viewscreen are so big) and sit in a hunched posture (because the seats are too high for the windows) but it's worth the wait, because the light is nice (when the sun's out).

Chaffinches are returning to the feeding stations now. Here's a female.

And a male, demonstrating the aforementioned nice light. On the way out of the reserve there was a huge flock of Chaffinches and Goldfinches feeding on the horsey field, and I spent a fruitless 10 minutes scrutinising them for Bramblings. No luck, but it was good to see several Redwings. I also heard a Water Rail (another patch tick!) close to Willow hide.

Otherwise, it's a quiet time on the reserve. We have lots of extra Lapwings, and duck numbers now include about eight Wigeons as well as plenty of Shovelers, Gadwalls and Teals. Lots of Black-headed Gulls. Insect life fast disappearing, though I saw a coupled pair of Common Darters last week, rather pointlessly egg-laying in some very temporary rain-puddles.

I'll end with something completely different - a lucky shot of a Kingfisher in Tonbridge, just behind the castle. I'm sorry to say that it was not observing the rules outlined on the sign.