Rainham Marshes RSPB

I met up with Phil W for a jaunt to sunny Rainham Marshes, walking along the Thames and back to the centre for cream tea and a quick explore on the southern path of the reserve before heading back. The high point of the visit was towards the end when we spotted an adult Spoonbill circling above us in the company of two Hobbies and a Peregrine! The Spoonie was one of two which have been seen on the reserve recently. An additional Hobby, four Common Terns, a pair of Marsh Harriers and two Bearded Reedlings were the cream of the other birds noted, and young Shelducks were a duckling year tick for me.

adult Spoonbill

Banstead Downs, Banstead, Canons Farm, Banstead Woods and Rainham Marshes

I walked through Banstead Downs to get to the patch for the Banstead Arts Festival Tour, noting a few common warblers on the way. A Pied Wagtail flew over the BP station. It was a very enjoyable walk at the patch despite the lack of unusual migrants. The Wheatear was still in Poultry Field and looked rather like a Greenland race individual. A Little Owl was seen at the farm, along with three Yellowhammers and the busy Nuthatch pair was showing nicely for paritipants in Banstead Woods, where a Treecreeper was again singing in the same area.

Back at Rainham (to pick up my car which had been locked in the previous night - my own stupid fault!), a quick scan revealed four hunting Hobbies, a nice flight view of a singing male Cuckoo and a male Marsh Harrier.

Canons Farm, Banstead Woods and Rainham Marshes

I teamed up with Adrian S early morning then we were accompanied by attendees of the CFBW's Spring Migration Tour for a mooch around the patch. Few migrants were around but we managed a Wheatear, a Mistle Thrush and a Pied Wagtail of note at the farm, along with fly-overs of six Cormorants and five Mallards. Eight Whitethroats and three Treecreepers were counted. Two Bullfinches showed nicely at Heathside and four Yellowhammers performed well. In Banstead Woods, we found a pair of Nuthatches lining teir nest and heard another Treecreeper. A Whitethroat in the Harholt Plantation is notable these days, and two Bullfinches were there.

I took my old schoolfriend Panos to Rainham Marshes in the afternoon to introduce him to some birding. It was a rewarding outing and he loved it. The pick of our sightings included a Greenshank, seven Whimbrel, three Ruffs, two Common Sandpipers, two Marsh Harriers, two Bearded Reedlings, two Common Terns, my first Swift of the year and several Reed, Sedge and Cetti's Warblers.

Greenshank at Rainham Marshes

Whimbrel (centre) with Redshank and Greenshank (right) at Rainham Marshes

Back to the Baillon's

I was lucky enough to see the BAILLON'S CRAKE as soon as I arrived in the hide early yesterday morning but I was left wanting more of this exceptional bird after getting only misty binocular views early yesterday morning. I gave it another go with Alex Bowes yesterday evening for further views but the bird was not game.

As the Banstead Countryside Day today drew to a close, Phil and I decided to give it a shot once we'd packed everything away. Phil hadn't yet been and still needed it even for his world list, despite being well-travelled recently. The journey went smoothly and we were soon on site. The hide was busy again, there were even people there that had arrived the previous day ten minutes too late in the morning and had been there till the hide shut in the evening when I returned. This certainly is a bird that requires patience.

The crake gave prolonged scope views this evening as darkness fell, while it perched in the reeds

Shortly before 7.00pm people started calling the bird from the right hand end of the hide, and some at that end were managing to get on it but the birders were not being at all helpful with directions for everybody else and it took ten minutes before everyone was clear on where it had been seen, by which point it was too late. It got to 7.20pm and the bird hadn't appeared again; the hide was closing in ten minutes' time and I was getting rather miffed. It was a relief, then, when it was shouted again... it was a bit of a struggle getting on it but thankfully the bird was sitting in one position for long enough for everybody to get their scopes on it and get good views before closing time. I'd got my desired scope views and record shots so was very happy to go home and not have to worry about it again!

Crakey!

One of the most astonishing items of birding news this year was the possible breeding of a small number of Baillon's Crakes scattered across the country. No details were released and it didn't seem like there were going to be any chances to connect with any of the birds. So, when Johnny texted me last night about a Baillon's Crake at Rainham, I jumped at the opportunity to leave early this morning with him and Ian.

Just as we parked up, Dominic Mitchell tweeted that the bird was currently showing. A fast walk towards the Tower Butts hide and we were there in ten minutes, Dominic putting us straight on the juvenile BAILLON'S CRAKE! Superb! It fed for a few minutes along the edge, disappeared and appeared a couple of times then mooched away into the vegetation. That was the last I saw of it and that was some time around 6.20am. It was seen in flight briefly a couple of times by others, within the next half hour or so but after a while it became clear that it wasn't going to be game for the time being, maybe dusk would be a good bet.

So that's what I plan to do, I'm just having a break at home at the moment then heading out for a stroll around the patch and giving it a late afternoon/evening go for further views and perhaps a few record shots.

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.

catch up

I've been held back from updating my blog lately mainly due to school work and there's a couple of things that have happened in the last week or so worth putting on here so I have produced a brief illustrated synopsis . . .

Black Redstart at Canons Farm last Tuesday

Last Monday I headed up to Wormwood Scrubs to check out the Great Grey Shrike and successfully added this splendid bird to my London list. All week the Solitary Sandpiper was tempting me and I nearly went on Saturday but decided better of it (very glad I did too, that would have been a very painful, very expensive dip).

Great Grey Shrike

The weekend did not go as planned. On Saturday, I went to Canons while waiting on news on the Lesser Yellowlegs in Oxon, considering going there on the train if news was postive. It came through that the bird was still present and I was just packing up to leave for Sutton station when I got a LondonBirds tweet saying there was a Bluethroat at Rainham. Decision time: go for a reliable but distant and expensive lifer, albeit not an urgent one or go on a shorter and slightly £10 less expensive trip for a potentially elusive but very good London tick (a bird much better for London than Legs is for Britain). I plumped for the Bluethroat on the basis that the Legs would be more likely to stay till the next day and was less urgent and less convenient anyway.

Rosy Starling

I should not have done this, I ended up dipping the Bluethroat (missing it by five minutes) with 4 Pink-footed Geese for company while the Legs was still showing in Oxon. On Sunday I was planning to go to Oxon but news came through the Legs had flown north - I knew that waders often do this and come back so put out an RFI, contacted a local birder who hadn't heard anything either way and waited an hour - nothing. With no reported sightings since 8.05am I thought going to Port Meadow on the off chance of the bird returning could end up being incredibly dull so thought I should make something out of the weekend and go to Newhaven to see my first adult Rosy Starling. A smart bird, though elusive and I got a couple of good views. I got back to hear that the Lesser Yellowlegs had returned later in the day . . . bugger.

No British ticks and no London ticks although opportunites were available for both . . . autumn is always a lot less lucky for me than spring.

Little Owl last Tuesday at Canons Farm

patch MEGA, Grey Wagtail last Thursday on the largest body of water at Canons Farm, a 2x2 metre puddle - long-staying though elusive first record

Grip & dip - London Tues 31 Aug

I arranged to spend the day birding at the London Wetland Centre with fellow young London birder Louis Freeland-Haynes. Starting just after opening time we went straight for the Dulverton Hide where little was noted other than Common Snipe and Peregrine. Suddenly the ducks and Lapwings got up and we instinctively checked the sky for raptors through the hide windows but we couldn't get on anything at all, we figured perhaps the Peregrine had dashed through. Upon leaving the hide we were greeted by that always gutting 'Did you see it?', we asked what the birder was referring to and he responded with 'Black Kite just flown over'. Our response mainly consisted of expletives and expression of our frustration that we thought a raptor had gone over but couldn't get on it.

Garganey

Realising of course that this was just one of those things and we had to make the best of the day, we decided to go to the Peacock Tower to look for the Garganeys that had been reported recently. Scanning through the Teal, after dismissing a couple of strongly patterned individuals I got onto another bird which was instantly recognisable as a Garganey (London tick 194) and showed well. This is a bird I've missed in London several times.

some of the Ortolan dippers

News then broke on the pager of an Ortolan Bunting at Rainham so Louis and I jumped on the tube and were checking in within an hour and a half. After an expensive Broad-billed Sand dip followed by a frustating Red-necked Phal dip I was hoping that my recent bad twitching record for Essex would be broken, but it was not to be. As we arrived we came across a group of anxious birders and we joined them, everybody's anxiety turned into boredom and acceptance of a dip after a couple of hours and the crowd slowly disintergrated. Four Spotted Flycatchers were ample entertainment while we were waiting though. A quick check of the river before getting a lift back with Mike Spicer of Beddington produced nothing more than 18 Ringed Plovers and a Greenshank.

Spotted Flycatcher

So I missed two major London birds, one as it flew over me unawares and another by a pretty short margin (if we arrived about 20 minutes earlier, or less, we'd probably have got the Ortolan). Garganey's poor damage limitation but at least I got something out of the day.

Rainham

Black-tailed Godwits

Thought I'd do something a bit different today and do some general birding at Rainham, getting there and back by train (I need all the practise of doing that I can get, so I can get there ASAP when the next mega turns up!).

Black-tailed Godwits

It should have cost me just under £20 to get there and back, bad enough but clever old me completely screwed up tickets and oyster cards and it ended up costing me something really painful like £35 or £40, I don't really want to add up an accurate figure to be honest!

Oystercatcher

I arrived on site at about 8.20am and alternated my time between scanning the Thames (the main point of interest at the moment), scoffing myself in the cafe and checking the main reserve until 3.25pm when I started to make my way back.

Whimbrel

The river produced a nice flock of 14 Black-tailed Godwits, 3 Whimbrel, 3 Oystercatchers, a pair of Common Terns attending to 3 juveniles, and 6-7 Common Sandpipers. A small number of Sand Martins and a Swallow moved overhead while a Reed Warbler sang and a Reed Bunting called from the riverside vegetation.

Whimbrel

The reserve held a female Marsh Harrier, 3 Green Sandpipers, 2 juvenile Little Ringed Plovers, a Dunlin, another Common Sandpiper, the summering Wigeon and an assortment of commoner wetland birds. I managed to pick out at least 7 Yellow-legged Gulls (3+ adults and 3+ juveniles) throughout both the reserve and the river.

MEGA: London WHITE-TAILED LAPWING

I reluctanly awoke at 11.30am this morning to answer an annoying phone call but if I didn't I might not have made it up in time to see this montrously mega bird for London, so thank you Santander!

Turning my mobile on the first thing that flashed up on the screen was 'London WHITE-TAILED LAPWING Rainham Marshes: one on Aveley Pool at 10:57 this am' and being half asleep I closed it before thinking 'hang on, what did that say?' looking again and saying 'oh ****' I proceeded to text just about every local birder I knew but everybody was either at work or already on their way so I logged onto National Rail, planned my route, picked up bins and scope and was off. The journey was relatively simple; Sutton to Farringdon where I walked to Fenchurch Street and took the train to Purfleet where the RSPB visitor centre was a ten minute walk away; it still took at least two hours though.



On arrival I rushed through the visitor centre and headed straight for Aveley Pools, and got onto the WHITE-TAILED LAPWING lying flat on the bank almost exactly where I saw the Sociable Lapwing nearly five years ago. It stayed like this for ten minutes or so and I have to say views of just its brown back against a brown background weren't too great but then the bird stood up and started feeding, stretching its wings from time to time; it was then that the bird looked really impressive, a real stunner and it wasn't terribly far away either. Those long bright yellow legs, white tail & underparts, pale brown upperparts, paler face and white secondaries & primary coverts as well as the very short primary projection combined to make the bird a very attractive and interesting one to watch.


After enjoying the bird for about an hour it was time to make my way back to the visitor centre if I were to have a snack there before heading home, as I was beginning to leave my dad rang up to ask if I'd like to spend a bit more time there and he'd pick me up at 7.30pm; I accepted and walked the seawall, scanning the Thames and picking up a Whimbrel, an adult Yellow-legged Gull and 2 Oystercatchers which provided some nice bonus birds.


I spent the next hour enjoying second helpings of the Lapwing which was a bit more elusive than earlier but still afforded good views. Other birds on Aveley Pools included a Greenshank, a juvenile Water Rail, a Green Sandpiper, 2 Common Sandpipers and two or so Little Ringed Plovers. I headed back to wait ages for dad to pick me up, he was was late because of the same traffic which caused us to have to endure a five hour journey back; one which would normally take 45 minutes to an hour. A very worthwile trip, White-tailed Lapwing for London, what a bird!

London hat trick

On Wednesday I travelled by public transport to Crayford Marshes, with Kevin McManus, in the hope of getting Corn Bunting and Red-breasted Merganser for my diminutive London list. Be warned, this post is full of VERY bad record shots.

As soon as we arrived we fell in love with the site; it was just like a mini under-watched Rainham. We bumped into the very welcoming Kev Jarvis who showed us where to find the first of our targets and it wasn't long before I was watching my first London Corn Bunting, a singing male. Soon we realised there were two singing males. The heat haze was bad though; even at fairly close range viewing was distorted. There are now only a very small number of sites in the LNHS area for this species unfortunately.
Moving to the Thames we scanned towards Rainham, eventually picking up the long staying and very unseasonal female Red-breasted Merganser hugging the shore of the reserve, my second London tick of the day. We enjoyed close views of several Common Terns fishing but saw nothing else at all unusual. We walked slowly back and found a pub in which to watch the England game in the 'great company' of the, interesting, locals at 3.00pm before making our way back to the Marshes at 5.00pm when the game finally ended.


We staked out the Thames, and as the tide pushed back in an Oystercatcher announced its presence, piping away providing me with my tartiest London tick and one that I've been trying to get for a long time while giving me a hat trick of county ticks for the day. The Red-breasted Merganser pulled herself onto the beach at Rainham. The walk back at around 7.30pm added Little Egret and Lesser Whitethroat to the list for the very enjoyable day. My London list now stands on 184.

It's about time!

Avocet, Elmley

This morning negative news came out on the Rainham Black-winged Stilt, and I was pretty cheesed off. Despite this, Phil and I headed up to that area for general birding in the area.

Our first stop was, naturally, Ingrebourne Valley for what I thought would be another dreadful failure in finding my main tart bird (at least I would be able to add it to the long list I give to people who say 'You still need Gropper!?!?' which is full of places I've tried in desperate attempts to tick off my main tart).

To our surprise, we managed to find the right spot (even though directions were really dodgy) and after a short while I heard the distinctive reeling song of the Grasshopper Warbler and called Phil down.We enjoyed close range views of the bird as it sang, though it was elusive most of the time.

Unfortunately, Phil wasn't quite quick enough to get a shot of it, and it moved before I could digiscope it but I did get a really dodgy shot with Phil's SLR that I'll put up when he sends it to me. I was just elated to finally connect with this embarrassingly tarty species (a very nice one at that, my sort of bird) and relieved to have such a big weight off my chest as a result (also it was convieniently in London).

Other birds in the area included my first Common Whitethroats of the year (a pair and a solitary singing male), a handful of Cetti's Warblers, Willow Warblers, Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs.

We made a very brief trip to Dagenham, failing to locate yesterday's Ring Ouzel then Rainham, which ended up just being lunch in the cafe, before heading off to Minster, Sheppey to have a look for another Ring Ouzel (Phil's main tart bird). This also failed and the only birds of note were an adult and a 1st summer Mediterranean Gull.

A drive up and back again along the Elmley RSPB entrance track produced little of note, but it was nice seeing the nesting Redshanks and Lapwings close up and seeing large congregations of Curlew. A showy Brown Hare kept us occupied for a few minutes. Scanning from the toilets, 4 Avocets, a year tick, were noted before heading home.

And a couple of photos of one of the 3 Northern Wheatears that were at Canons Farm yesterday . . .


. . . and one from Wednesday, when 5 were on site together . . .

Gorgeous Swift

Alpine Swift

I was disappointed this morning when news came the reply on the pager to my RFI was negative on the Alpine Swift, and the Rainham Hoopoe had also decided it could find somewhere better to go.

After a bit of thought I decided it was probably wisest to go up to that area regardless, just in case something was found and on the off chance that I would find something for myself. This turned out to be a good decision as my heart jumped when positive news of the Swift came through on the pager, off to Chafford Hundred!Upon arrival at Chafford Gorges EWT reserve no sooner had I looked out of the car window than I got onto the Alpine Swift hawking over the visitor centre! I got out of the car and enjoyed the next 2 hours watching the stunner flying around me as I was munching on a light lunch on the balcony of the centre, birding heaven! The bird was accompanied by a couple of Sand Martins and a Swallow. A male Kestrel caused the bird to disappear for about 5 minutes as it hunted beneath me.Swallow

At 1.40pm I jumped into dad's car again and we made our way to Rainham. While the parents were doubtlessly having an enthralling time sitting in the car for 3 hours I was enjoying a casual afternoon's birding, not seeing anything amazing but a couple of Little Ringed Plovers were nice and provided another year tick. Other than a Peregrine there was very little else of note in the area.
Little Ringed Plover

At 4.55pm I was passing through the visitor centre on the way back to car and was completely unaware that I was missing another (or the same) Alpine Swift that reportedly made a brief visit at that time around the centre. I didn't see anyone else looking and anything in particular and of course didn't notice any Swifts overhead . . . strange.

There are some much better photographs of this bird elsewhere on the internet if you surf around a little bit.

2010 starts well

2010 started better than I expected, yesterday, I went up with Kev to Rainham Marshes RSPB first off.

It was a beautiful day, and high tide. Things were good. As we were walking along the seawall we came across the reserve warden Howard Vaughan and he instantly put us on the Bonxie (aka Great Skua) and we got distant views as it sat on the Thames, before it flew east (although we saw it back at the same spot on the walk back). This is an excellent bird for the LNHS area and it was even a tick for some high listing London birders. Also a potentially tricky year tick out the way.Bonxie

We walked up to the special viewing mound where we also instantly got onto a female/1st winter Serin, another useful year tick and my best views yet. I would have got a decent pic but unfortunately a twig was covering much of its front. At least one Rock Pipit was present on the foreshore of the Thames.SerinRock Pipit


A long overdue London tick came in the form of good numbers of Golden Plovers.Golden Plovers

Having got the two main target species out of the way, we decided it was best to head up to Westcliffe-on-Sea to get Rossi the Ring-billed Gull and the Black-throated Diver, both seemed to be more or less guaranteed.

After a bit of scanning from the yacht club Kevin spotted the Black-throated Diver and we enjoyed fairly distant views, although all of the key features could be noted. Another tarty lifer out of the way.
Common Gull

With Gulls scattered all along the sea front we didn't know where to start with scanning for our quarry but thankfully it was perched up on a post right in front of us! The Ring-billed Gull showed well, I got my best views of it yet, and Rossi is a very fine specimen.Ring-billed Gull

Other Gulls present included one or two adult Mediterranean Gulls, the lowering sun shone right through their white primaries at some angles.Mediterranean Gull

As the tide was starting to go out, revealing a small amount of rocky shore, there was a small group of Turnstones that showed down to a couple of feet, way closer than the Leysdown birds! The evening sunlight had a beautiful effect on them.Turnstones

As we were driving away we spotted 3 Dark-bellied Brent Geese on the edge of the increasingly exposed beach.

A very good day, the year list having a relatively healthy beginning of 53 species (I think that's more than the 1st day of 2009!) and I was still missing very common things like Woodpeckers, all Tits but Blue, Wren etc.

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Today (2nd) I popped down to Canon's Farm and Banstead Woods where the highlights included 2 or 3 Woodcocks which I flushed in Banstead Woods, 6 or so Yellowhammers, 2 Common Buzzards (the resident bird plus a distant individual over the Chipstead Valley), 17+ Skylarks, a Treecreeper, 5+ Nuthatches, 3+ Coal Tits, c.3 Lesser Redpolls, 2+ Bullfinches and a handful of Rose-ringed Parakeets.

The year list is now on 71, with some very common species still avoiding me e.g. Song Thrush. Very early days yet anyway.

See the right hand side of the blog for my chronological 2010 year list.