Cissbury Ring and Farlington Marshes

Val kindly agreed that I could go ringing but shoot off at 9am as I'd played it cool with the Eastern Olivaceous Warbler yesterday and was beginning to worry. It turned out to be a productive ringing session, with Spotted Flycatcher and Reed Warbler the headline birds caught by the time I left. At this point we had also processed 39 Blackcaps, 15 Goldcrests and six Chiffchaffs. Birds noted included a juvenile Peregrine, three Siskins, a Tree Pipit, seven Yellow Wagtails, a Grey Wagtail, 15 Meadow Pipits, two Yellowhammers, a Bullfinch, 40 House Martins, 10 Swallows, two Ravens and a Tawny Owl.

Spotted Flycatcher at Cissbury Ring

After eventually getting parked at Farlington Marshes, the EASTERN OLIVACEOUS WARBLER gave itself up nicely to the appreciative crowd, with a Garden Warbler nearby and two flyover Yellow Wagtails.

Eastern Olivaceous Warbler at Farlington Marshes

Portland and Farlington Marshes, 22nd August 2017

Captained by John B, I headed with Magnus A to Portland in the early hours in the hope of connecting with the Yellow Warbler discovered near the bird observatory yesterday afternoon. Abject failure, it was down to a very light overhead trickle of Tree Pipits and Yellow Wagtails to keep us busy. In hindsight, I should have shot down there as soon as news broke but I simply didn't expect to get there in time for the bird to still be showing, or perhaps for there even to be any light. Six Common Scoters and a Dunlin flew past at sea, while at least four Ravens, two Wheatears, a few Willow Warblers and a Peregrine were also seen.

We gave up and started off for home at about 13:00. John fancied dropping in at Farlington Marshes on the way home for Pectoral Sandpiper as a year tick. Incredibly, it transpired that the bird was in the process of buggering off just as we were parking up. It was nice to relax and stretch our legs for a couple of hours though, highlights including a Green Sandpiper, two Greenshanks, a Ruff, two Yellow Wagtails, three Wheatears, three Stonechats, several Grey Plovers, a Common Sandpiper and two Bearded Reedlings.

Recent

My computer has crashed and consequently I'm struggling to organise things and dealing with photos is impossible at the moment (doing this on my phone) so that's why I haven't put anything on here lately. More for the sake of maintaining a searchable record for myself than anything else though (as I'm too crap with time management to keep a database going so often just search my own blog for my own records), I feel I ought to issue a quick text-only update.

Things have been very slow of late and despite putting in 86 hours since last Friday my haul for the patch in this period has been a single Chiffchaff on April 2nd and two Red Kites on March 30th, which (although the kites were superb) is a paltry return for efforts and reflects the astonishingly delayed migration at the moment. I've been on two other trips, one on March 24th to Farlington Marshes where Jamie, Liam and I enjoyed the RED-BREASTED GOOSE, a Spoonbill, about four Wheatears and a couple of Chiffchaffs, plus Black-tailed Godwits and impressive numbers of Dunlins, Grey Plovers and Bar-tailed Godwits. Other highlights included Black-necked Grebe, Red-breasted Merganser, Marsh Harrier and the number of dark-bellied Brent Geese. The other trip was a dip on April 1st at Papercourt Water Meadows (Pallid Harrier) but we were treated to a long performance by three Barn Owls, often in the same view, plus three Mandarins and a Chiffchaff or two, while Reed Buntings sang and a small flock of Wigeons grazed. Also, Sunday 31st, a quick visit to Holmethorpe was rewarded with the adult Little Gull on Mercers Lake, a Little Ringed Plover on Water Colour Lagoon 2 and a singing Chiffchaff plus Grey Wagtail and the Great Crested and Little Grebes, a Shelduck, a drake Shoveler etc.

I hope the better weather improves local birding soon!

Farlington Marshes

A trip to Farlington Marshes today lacked anything remarkably unusual but my first Northern Wheatear of the autumn was a nice surprise and it was interesting watching an immature male Peregrine take a Feral Pigeon while his sister waited nearby.


The undoubted highlight, however, was the splendid juvenile Cuckoo which gave the best views I've ever had of this species and I think it will really take something incredulously special to beat these views; the bird sat obligingly in a bush less than 10 metres away for as long as I was there and jumped down to catch something at one point where it sat with its wings fully open for a couple of minutes.