Golden day

Golden Plovers

Waxwing

Apologies for further 'blurry' photos, I know they haven't been reaching the lofty heights of some's expectations from a spare 300mm lens. It was one of those days today (in a good way). Two minutes after getting off the bus in Banstead, early in the morning, I was watching a Waxwing which stayed atop a pine for a few minutes before flying off (unfortunately not in the CFBW recording area).

Canada Goose

Cormorant

When I got to the 'Watchpoint' at Canons it was still overcast but soon the sky brightened hugely, it started warming up and birds started appearing with Canada Goose, Cormorant (both patch year ticks, don't laugh), two Mallards and a Grey Heron in the short window before a blanket of cloud cut off the warmth and light again. But it wasn't over. I picked up three birds heading north north east with my naked eye and instantly knew they were Golden Plovers, so got the camera on them. I noticed in my viewfinder another birds slightly further back, also a Goldie, making four birds.

Common Buzzard

I then walked the Farm and the Woods but this produced little. Norm and Whitey the Common Buzzards started to get up when the sun shone in the afternoon but I didn't manage a Red Kite before it was time to head home.

Pheasants

Patch year ticks today in consequtive order: Canada Goose, Cormorant, Golden Plover
Patch year list: 63 (four ahead of this time last year)

flying white-rumped needle in a very woody haystack

That pretty much describes what it's like finding a Mealy Redpoll in Banstead Woods. Early this afternoon Ian Jones and I, after a relatively poor morning, bumped into about fifty Lesser Redpolls feeding in larch trees near the Reads Rest Lane entrance to the Woods. I very quickly got onto a Mealy Redpoll. The conditions were excellent, the birds were feeding low down and the sky was starting to brighten up. The bird stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the Lessers and the rump was seen well. There were probably more, it was difficult to judge how many birds were involved.

You can see the rump clearly in this image

I am on sixty for the year at the patch, which is one greater than my total at this point last year. I've missed Peregrine, Red Kite and Marsh Tit in the last week or so and have learned today that a Barn Owl evaded my eye in January. The birds I had got at this point last year are Canada Goose (not to worry), Cormorant (not to worry) and Egyptian Goose (gonna be bloody hard); Mealy Redpoll, Curlew and Grey Wagtail are the birds I didn't have at this point last year.

Grey day

Grey was the theme of today at Canons Farm, in terms of weather and birds. I got two quality patch year ticks, Greylag and Grey Wag, the names of which compliment eachother nicely. That's the tenth and third patch records respectively (all previous records for both are from last year).

Things quietened down and I got bored and started photographing the gulls moving up the valley, presumably to Beddington. When I looked at my camera I realised that I had captured what looked to be an interesting gull (weakly continuing the grey theme), potentially an adult Yellow-legged. Upon further scrutiny it's just given me a headache. The upperparts appear darker in some photos than in others and in some photos the underneath of the flight feathers are quite dark, recalling Lesser Black-backed; whereas in others it appears to have a more Herring Gull-esque underwing. In some photos the wingtip pattern looks quite good for Yellow-legged too, but, again, not in others. Have I captured two separate birds or is this all a trick of the light? I'm utterly baffled. At the moment I'm erring on the side of a pale graellsii Lesser Black-backed Gull.

Enjoy (Make sure you look at all the pictures to get the full idea):

Gotcha

The redpoll flock at Banstead Woods has been a real bugger. You are walking through the woods and suddenly you realise you've flushed the flock that would have been on full view for you had you taken more care. Most of the time they will completely clear off, sometimes they will land again nearby but very shortly get jittery and go entirely. I have had the flock over a radius of at least one mile and, as there is a scattering of birch all over the patch, they can be anywhere.

Yesterday I finally nailed a Mealy. The flock was on show in good light near the pond and after scanning through a few dozen I came across a strikingly pale and grey bird with white wing bars etc, the lot, and got a couple of views of its rump. A video is included.

While I was watching the flock a male Tawny Owl started to sing, confirming that it is regular at the spot that Roy and I heard it recently.

Today I had a male Brambling again with about two hundred Chaffinches. I teamed up with Kojak and, when we were looking for the Tawny Owl, a Woodcock emerged from under our feet. All five known current Little Owls were noted today, two pairs and a single that may or may not have a mate. Frustrating was a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker that I heard at Pages Acre but just couldn't get on; there were three Great Spotted Woodpeckers in the immediate area and they may have moved it on.

Knot what I was expecting

I stayed the night of the 21st/22nd in Dersingham with Phil Wallace and Mark Stanley. Phil wanted to photograph the huge numbers of Knot at Snettisham. While this is not something that I would go out of my way to do, I figured it would be an opportunity to get Rough-legged Buzzard and/or Golden Pheasant later in the day (plus I wouldn't say no to seeing thousands of roosting waders) so thought it would be worth coming.

Snettisham didn't start well, I realised I had left my binoculars in the car so had to run back and it was spitting with rain. Arriving shortly before high tide, not many waders were flying over our heads so we went into the hides to see thousands of Knot and Oystercatcher along with a Ruddy Shelduck and about thirty Avocets and a redhead Red-breasted Merganser. To be honest I was underwhelmed with the waders, from what I had seen on TV etc I was expecting endless flocks to be arriving and adding to an unbroken and extensive carpet of birds. Instead, there were at least 15,000 Knot tightly packed and covering a small part of the bank. While this sounds a lot, it is half the number Phil saw last year and looked suitably unimpressive, somehow.

Mark and Phil then seemed to decide we were going to Titchwell, so off we went. A Barn Owl was seen on the way. About forty Twite were nice to see as was a Red-necked Grebe close-in on the sea. Several hundred Common Scoters were on the sea but I was far more surprised to see a raft of about fifty Eider. Two Grey Partridges showed well.

At 4.00pm, with just an hour of light left, we finally headed to Holkham, the main reason why I came. At this point I was getting quite irate that the reason for my presence had been left so late. We pulled up by the side of the road were a group of birders where trying to turn a Common Buzzard into a Rough-leg. I told them politely that it wasn't what they thought it was but they weren't getting it until I spotted a distant bird and stated 'Now that is a Rough-leg'. I've been looking for these birds so many times and familiarised myself with them to such a degree that identification wasn't a problem. The bird was very pale on the head and chest and had a solid black belly. When it preened or flew the white tail with a wide, well-defined terminal tail band, was obvious. A Grey Partridge showed here, also.

Provided that everything I've seen gets accepted (Alder Flycatcher and Glaucous-winged Gull are probably the most risky), this would be my 300th bird. It's frustrating that my 300th bird could be one of three and I won't know which it is at the time. Oh well. It was very nice to get Rough-leg in the bag after so many hours spent looking for them in the past. Thanks Phil and Mark for the company.

Keep going . . .

Following the recent Stonechat, further signs of early movement were noted at the patch today. The highlight was a single Curlew that dropped into Broad Field, calling, and departed a few minutes later, still strongly calling (second site record, following my flock of six in December). Of course, the day I don't bring my SLR because it has finally refused to work at all, a patch mega flies past me less than one hundred metres away . . . (see extremely poor 'point and hope' digiscoped flight shot above)

Also a couple of Meadow Pipits went through, the first in quite a while. We usually get at least a couple wintering but not this season. Three Little Owls were located and I had a couple of male Bramblings in the morning with about four hundred Chaffinches, not far away from Norm the Common Buzzard who was busy eating worms, I haven't seen his associate Whitey in a while. Johnny Allan and Paul Goodman joined me in search of the big flock of Redpolls I had yesterday but we only located fifteen or so, they got two of the Little Owls though.

Hopefully it won't be too long until we get a Black Redstart, or, preferably for me, a Firecrest (still need it for CFBW).

Lovely dovey

Johnny Allan picked me up this morning and we headed for Chipping Norton, with the intent of catching the dove early in the morning. First news was offputting, with the bird having appeared briefly then flown off, but just after a fairly major navigational cock-up on our part it was said to be showing in the garden and access had been arranged at number 41.

On arrival the situation was unclear, people were saying that the bird was still in the garden but everyone was just casually floating around and no queue was forming. The word then got out that it was viewable from a garden not far away, where access had also been allowed, and I got a quick look at the RUFOUS TURTLE DOVE through someone's scope, however it was an anxious wait for better views. Johnny then picked it up and, after a long time looking in the wrong direction and a bit of pushing and shoving, I got much better and longer views of the bird sat right out in the open. Top stuff. We then made our way back and I'm now enjoying a lazy afternoon in.

Good bird in a bad week

I've had an absolutely awful week, in quite a serious way. Today a SLATY-BACKED GULL took my mind off things for a while, until I reached for my phone to give Roy an update and found it must have fallen out of my pocket when I was running in blind panic when the pager bleeped (I had started to walk towards the reserve for Penduline Tit). After the week's ordeals I was getting hysterical, half laughing and half crying but after searching high and low I realised the best thing to do would be to savour the only good thing that had happened to me all week. Then went with Kojak to have a go at the Rufous Turtle Dove, he was excellent company but the bird was nowhere to be found.

It starts now

I was in Banstead Woods when Ian Jones, a relatively new CFBW patcher, texted me about a Stonechat at Canons Farm. Seeing as this was the most exciting thing to happen there all year - even better than when the farmer dumped huge piles of sh*t in two of the fields and left them there to rot, the previous 2011 title holder for patch thrills - I hot footed it over there and enjoyed the symbol of the early stages of spring migration:

Local's best

Bittern roosting in a tree, well away from the fox that was prowling around!

I was getting ready to go to Canons this morning when my dad said 'Are you ready to go for the Eagle then?', I was confused and explained that I was planning on doing my patch but he kindly offered to take me for another attempt for the White-tailed Eagle in Hampshire as long as we were back by midday, I agreed. To get to it, we didn't see the bird, again.

I met Roy at Canons and I was very pleased with his front cover painting for the bird report that he brought along. He is a very talented artist! Just need to gather and confirm a couple of articles, finish off the species accounts and it will be ready for the print run. We didn't see much, one of the two currently residing Common Buzzards was on show.

I had more luck locally than with twitching. My parents then picked me up and we headed to Godstone. I found Bay Pond and teamed up with Neil Randon and another friendly bloke. After quite a bit of waiting, I walked up to the end of the path to get another angle, looked back to the other end and saw the Bittern perched in vegetation directly opposite Neil and our friend, I ran back and we all enjoyed absolutely epic views of the bird, my best ever. I was just about to snap it when it took off and settled in a slightly more distant tree, still top views though - see record shot (at this point it was getting pretty dark). Also at Godstone were a Kingfisher, a Great Crested Grebe, a pair of Gadwall, a Mistle Thrush and a couple of Egyptian Geese. Satisfied, I went and had dinner with my parents in the Beefeater round the corner, which was very nice. Past midday it wasn't a bad day.