MenzieBirding

More locals

2012-02-14T15:34:00.001Z

Talk of the Devil — after mentioning that the male of 'our' Robin pair had buggered off at the end of the season, guess what appeared in our garden today. An adult Robin sporting a ring on its left leg. I haven't managed to read the ring yet but the only other Robin I've ringed on the left leg was a 1cy (by now a 2cy). So, unless this is a bird that was ringed somewhere else, it looks like last year's pair are back together. Interestingly, I ringed the male bird on 19th February 2011 when he was a 2cy, nearly a year ago to the day — though of course back then 'he' was still an 'it'.

Also in the garden this lunchtime were four Woodpigeon; and one of them was ringed!

I managed to read the ring number and it turns out it's the bird I ringed on 2nd July 2011. Fascinating to see it's still around. [And if you want to read about the day I first caught it, moult analysis and all, you can do so here]

Known sex

2012-02-12T18:10:00.000Z

I'm back in Liverpool for, umm, 'a bit' and took advantage of the overcast and still conditions this morning by putting a net out in the garden. It took until gone midday — about four hours — until I caught my first birds: 'the' Robin.

It had originally been ringed as a 1cy way back in October 2010 and has been in our garden continuously ever since, joined by a male during the breeding season. I ringed the male on the other leg, which meant I could keep track of which Robin was which without having the read the ring number each time — and it was this way, using 'behaviour', that I was able to sex the birds. For the male it was just a holiday fling; he buggered off again come autumn.

Adult female Robin. Now in her 3rd cy.

Another retrap, this female Dunnock was originally ringed as an adult (3+cy) in summer 2010 and sexed on the basis of a brood patch — not, as I might have suggested elsewhere, because she had breasts. A known age Dunnock is a precious thing... though I largely managed to screw up taking any pictures of her that are fit for public viewing.

This Goldfinch, despite being new, wasn't difficult to sex:

The extensive deep read on the head and the blackish 'nose hair' both point to it being a male, as does the rather long (80.5 mm) wing. I'll be honest and say that I find Goldfinches to be one of the trickiest birds to age, and that's despite them being the commonest bird I catch in my garden. This bird was one of the trickers ones with no retained juvenile greater coverts but no, for example, moulted primaries. It had however moulted all three tertials and the two central pairs of tail feathers.

A second bird was considerably easy to age, having one retained juvenile greater covert. It had moulted T1 & T2 (innermost and middle tertials). The newer feathers were glossed slightly bluer than the juvenile feathers and the structure was noticeably denser.

Can you spot the difference?

I finished the afternoon with a wander around the local parks and gardens where there was a depressingly high number of Grey Squirrels. Bird sightings consisted of the usual stuff: Nuthatch, Common Treecreeper, Redwing, Kestrel, Great Spotted Woodpecker etc.

Flat Menzie

2012-02-01T20:23:00.000Z

Inspired by Birdchick and the adventures of her nephew's Flat Stanley, I'd like to introduce you to Flat Menzie:

Flat Menzie at the British Museum

More often than not I'm behind the camera and not in front of it — probably a good thing, actually; but it does mean I never have any photos of myself in some of the more exciting places I've visited. Cue Flat Menzie, my 2D alter ego. Flat Menzie is a child of the Flat Stanley project — an American initiative to connect children across the world; a child's Flat Stanley can easily and cheaply pay a visit to their pen-pal (via the postal service), do a bit of sightseeing, have their photo taken in front of a few landmarks and still be back in time for school the next week. And the addition of an iPhone app makes it even easier to flat people to travel.

Flat Menzie celebrates Chinese Year of the Dragon in London's Chinatown

You may have noticed that I'm not Flat Stanley project's target audience. In fact, I'm a bit worried this may border on abuse of an educational tool, so here's the deal: Flat Menzie will only appear in respectable and, where possible, culturally educational places; he won't appear in a brothel, in a west London crack den, nor with his head down the toilet after a heavy night drinking. It's (hopefully) win-win: kids who stumble across the photos get to learn about far-flung and probably slightly obscure places, and I get to take photos of "myself".

Flat Menzie visits the São Domingos sulphur mines in Portugal

Keep an eye out for Flat Menzie in future blog posts!

Flat Menzie at the British Natural History Museum

Delayed reaction

2012-01-21T22:26:00.000Z

Barnes last weekend was so good it's taken me a week to get round to writing about it. A Shelduck, a Pintail, two Stonechats, two Pergerines. Phwoar.

Most of the rest of my time there was spent chasing redpolls around 'wildside' — far less exciting than it sounds and, predictably, none that I saw were the reported (I use that word with scorn) Mealy Redpolls.

Any other exciting news from the week past? Er, no. I did spend several days without a bathroom light. First because the fuse went and, this being rented accommodation, it required someone from the property management to come and flick the fuse switch(!) and then because a day later the bulb went. It's now been replaced though I think I preferred showering in the dark.

But by far the highlight of the week. This steak and kidney filled deliciousness.

Vegetarians look away now.

(Nor/Suf)folk

2012-01-10T20:50:00.000Z

Were they watching the Arctic Redpoll or had somebody died? There was a large crowd gathered in the picnic area. On the north Norfolk coast, staying still for more than 30 seconds attracts a crowd. Passers-by are drawn in like positively-charged flies to negatively-charged shit. You often hear them muttering amongst themselves asking "can you see it yet?"; often, they don't even know what it might be. Indeed, there doesn't even need to be an it; you could simply be staring blankly into middle distance. Or, indeed, lying lifeless on the floor. Within 15 minutes you'll have attracted a crowd of epic twitch proportions.

I left London at some time early on Saturday morning to head up to Suffolk, where I met up with Steve Rutt and his dad. From there we headed north to the Norfolk coast; first stop Titchwell. There we caught up long-time 'virtual friend', Slovenian/Italian birder Domen Stanič, who had spent the week birding in Norfolk; we also bumped into Connor Rand and Simeon Grundy who, despite many years of visiting Norfolk, I had managed to never bump into before. We joined the crowd and waited for the redpolls to appear. The flock, although fairly small, contained three different flavours of redpoll: cabaret, flammea and exilipes. Commonest seemed to be, not unexpectedly, cabaret; there were plenty of tiny buffy-brown individuals. There were 'at least several' flammea; a couple of classic individuals and a couple of individuals that, although brown, were still rather white (vs. buff) and big, noticeably bigger than neighbouring cabaret. The exilipes was also a chunky monkey, to the point that nearby cabaret looked tiny; at one point the exilipes, a 'classic' flammea and a cabaret were in the same scope view. The exilipes was considerably more interesting in the flesh than on photographs. I won't go into too much detail (that's a way of saying I spent no where near as much time with it as I would have liked; eight hours or so would have been good if not a little impractical) but, apart from the size of the bird, two things struck me that hadn't been overly-apparent in photos of the bird: the cheeks showed a chamois wash, and the flank markings—despite being rather heavy—were broken and gave an almost spotted appearance. Spotted in a streaky sort of way. The black streak on the undertail coverts was alarmingly obvious, though I suspect this was amplified by being isolated in a sea of otherwise pure white feathers.

We strolled along the main footpath with a female Scaup on the grazing marsh pool, a flyover Goosander, Brent Geese, a Water Pipit calling by Parrinder Hide… talking of Parrinder Hide, I'll interrupt myself here to moan about the windows. I remember being in Fen Hide many years ago and there being a selection of windows that you could vote for. There was one setup that I presumed was there for novelty value: it was a hideous contraption of pulleys and wind-up handles. It's not surprisingly it got the most votes, really; I'm sure people voted for which one they would have the most fun opening and closing rather than the one that would be most practical. Sure, it is great fun but I tend to go into hides to watch birds; if I wanted to mess about with ropes and pulleys I'll go and work on a sailboat. It does, however, stop me hanging out of the window to see birds like, for example, this Water Pipit. So that's +1 to RSPB hide design, I guess. But anyway, I digress. In the 'saltwater' Parrinder Hide (yes, the are now two hides for if you want it salty or fresh) a couple were close to physical violence as they argued over the identification of a bird—Redshank or… Water Rail? From the freshwater side there was the usual stuff and things; Pintail, Golden Plover, Ruff etc. Conspicuous by its absence, I looked for and failed to find a single Coot. A radio-call to one of the volunteers alerted everyone in the hide to the presence of an Iceland Gull on the beach. We took advantage of the mass exodus and enjoyed the empty hide.

A short while later we wandered down to the beach to find that the Iceland Gull had done one (it had been distant, anyway). There was the usual selection of waders and a handful of Goldeneye offshore. We left Domen & co. at Titchwell and head on to Holkham.

If Titchwell was dude central, Holkham was upper-country-class central. The place was full of black Labs, tweed jackets and, bizarrely, totty in ski gear. Less the skis, obviously. Look out for Wills and Kate wearing their purple jackets and yellow salopettes on their next visit to Sandringham.

The Horned Larks were fairly easily located thanks to a gentleman who was watching something on the far side of a shingle ridge in the middle of the gap and a dog walker who then flushed said something (four Horned Larks), causing then to fly to far end of the saltmarsh. Thankfully for us, they then stayed put there and allowed us to get some great views. Also a large flock of Snow Buntings twinkling about over the dunes and some littoralis Rock Pipits grubbing about on the saltmarsh.

Next up was Cley. Cley combines the two previous elements—dude meets country. Take, for example, the couple clutching their 10x50 field glasses complete with brown leather case. We attempted to enter the hide from where the Calidris sandpiper had been showing only to be met by a wall of bodies and tripods. We tried scoping the marsh from the path but failed miserably to pick out any small American waders, though we did finally add Coot to the day list.

I wandered off to one of the other hides to see what was on show, arriving just in time to see a small flock of Dunlin, complete with peep, drop onto the island in front of the hide. It was on show for about 10 seconds before the entire flock of small waders was engulfed by about 150 Golden Plover landing on the same island. Steve and his dad entered the hide; I told them there the target bird was 'out there somewhere'; a gentleman overhead me, rushed out of the hide and reentered the hide 3 minutes later with the entire population of the other hide in tow. Sadly for them, all of the waders had just flown up and back onto the marsh in front of the hide they're just come from. And, sadly for us, our empty hide was now full of bodies… though at least we had front row seats this time. After a while the Dunlin flock (with bonus American tag-along) flew back in, this time landing on a far island.

You'll notice thus far I've been cunning enough to avoid using the W word. The first view of the bird was too brief to get into feather detail; the second too distant. I'm not even going to bother going into detail about what I did see because I suspect it means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Except to say, it had cute little dark ear coverts. Now I have to wrestle with the ethics of seeing a bird that's been well documented elsewhere but that gave views that were good enough to know it was 'the bird' but not good enough to have come to an identification conclusion oneself.

You'll be doing well if you can see the rufous scapulars.

We finished Saturday with dinner in Cley before heading back south. Huge thanks for Steve's dad for doing all of the driving; it's a long time since I've had a day out birding where I've been able to sit and relax in the back of the car.

Sunday morning, Steve and I went on a local tour of Suffolk. We started by dipping a Great Grey Shrike before heading into Ispwich for some cheap petrol and a flock of 50 or so Waxwings.

Then, finally, onto a lay-by below the Orwell Bridge where we had a nice selection of waders (including two colour-ringed Black-tailed Godwits, both of which steadfastly refused to show both legs) and a Great Northern Diver distantly on the river.

P.S. These 'double line spaces' that blogger likes to put into my posts are really starting to hack me off. Death to <divs> and all of that...

2012

2012-01-01T18:53:00.002Z

2011 ended with me sat in my room reading Dutch Birding; 2012 started with a look at what was in the garden—it was full of Goldfinches, undoubtably a consequence of having taken the net down yesterday that had been furled up and out of action due to bad weather for most of the week.

Feral Pigeon, Woodpigeon, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Robin, Dunnock, Wren, Collared Dove, Grey Squirrel, Chaffinch...

In an attempt to drag my year list into double figures, and to get a bit of fresh air, my mum and I took a walk to the local woods.

The weather was pretty filthy with not much more than 'the usual' on show—though that did include a Stock Dove and a Buzzard perched on the edge of the wood. My first ever sighting of a perched Buzzard in Liverpool, if that's of any interest...

Year list 2012: 24. Permission to give up already?

2011

2011-12-31T15:31:00.000Z

It's been a funny year, I think; I say 'I think' because I can't actually remember most of it. Being in the office, birding abroad, and seeing nothing at Barnes are recurring themes. I worked out that this year I've spent over 30 hours sitting on a plane and over 48 hours sitting in airports waiting to sit on said planes. The upside, though: I've had the chance to go to some great places and meet some fantastic people.

It started in March with a trip to Eilat. I was like a kid in a candy shop, ticking off practically every species whose distribution is limited to longitudes east of Lowestoft. My adventures at the Eilat Bird Migration Festival, in the form of a video diary, are only here.

In September I headed east again, this time to Georgia. My Georgia 2011 trip report is, er, in prep.—I'll write it up one day, I promise!

Then I was off again, this time to Portugal to spend a fantastic week birding the south of the country with João Jara. There's a write-up of my week online here.

I finished the year back in Israel, this time in the north of the country. Fewer ticks this time round but still the same top class quality birding. An overview of my week at the Hula Valley Bird Festival is online here.

And at various points in between times:

I visited the top of Tower 42, London;

took Sir David Attenborough's nose off with a clapper board;

saw some dragonflies;

(yes, I know that one's technically a damselfly)

and some butterflies;

got anal over Woodpigeon moult;

and ate sushi.

That is all. Vive la 2012.

Otterspool promenade

2011-12-30T16:53:00.002Z

Per madre, there were "hundreds of seagulls" at Otterspool prom yesterday; probably a result of the high tide, strong winds and lashing rain pushing the birds up onto the grass and keeping the dog walkers at home. It was still bucketing down today, which suited Otterspool gull watching just fine—you can watch from the car—so I headed down there for an hour after lunch.

The wind had dropped today and, despite the rain, there were several dog walkers out and about doing what dog walkers do best: walking obliviously through flocks of roosting gulls and Oystercatchers. I did manage to find one adult Mediterranean Gull at the far end, though, which came close enough to the car to warrant getting the D-SLR out.

Despite the grim conditions and the dull light, I quite like this shot.

Another adult Med Gull was on the playing fields along with two Curlew and four Mistle Thrushes.

Foul weather birding

2011-12-29T20:13:00.000Z

I wanted to test out my 'new' coat (new in the sense that I bought it in November 2010 but it still had the label on it) and my new trousers (new in the sense that I bought them in the sales yesterday), and what better way to test them than to head down to Moore in conditions that were, as my nanna would say, not fit to turn a dog out in?

Here's a Long-tailed Tit taking advantage of the tail wing:

Talking of Long-tailed Tits... I was checking through a Long-tailed Tit flock that was slowly making its way along the edge of the wood a) looking for something, anything, that wasn't a Long-tailed Tit—a Common Treecreeper was the best I could muster—and b) looking at variation in head pattern and, on close birds, leg colour. Activity b) is a sort of work in progress crackpot theory currently based on observation of three individuals in the hand; but anyway, that is, for now, by-the-by. As I was looking through the flock, I clapped eyes on a very pale-headed individual; or, more correctly, an individual with a greatly reduced lateral crown stripe. More-or-less somewhere between 1 and 2:

Artwork by Szabolcs Kókay from Dutch Birding 30:5

It was quite striking really but, despite staying with the flock for about twenty minutes, I only ever managed to see the bird twice (including the initial sighting); and both times it was for just long enough to register the head pattern, then it would flit off and melt away. No chance to check out the rest of the bird's plumage. Could the lateral crown stripe on rosaceus ever be so thin or might this bird be europaeus? How common is europaeus in the UK? According to this it's a BBRC description taxon but is that just because no one looks at Long-tailed Tits unless they have a snowball head? The Migration Atlas lists a ringing record of one bird (race, as far as I'm aware, undetermined) that was ringed in October in Norfolk and recaught the following September in Belgium; that is—or was up to 2002 at least; I'm unaware of any records since that would change that status*—the only international recovery, with no records of birds coming 'the other way'. That's not to say, of course, this bird wasn't of Continental stock, arrived in Norfolk to spend the winter, was ringed and then headed back home to Belgium.

Anyway, an interesting bird, the Moore bird. Kind of like a poor man's caudatus. Eventually the birds headed higher into the trees where they became backlit and hard to track, so I headed off to look at some gulls.

Yuk.

There were also 21 Grey Herons lined up on the leeward side of the island. Two 1cy birds:

One, I guess, 2cy bird:

The retained (juvenile?) greater coverts are pretty obvious, worn and brown as they are; the wispy black crown feathers were rather short, too. But according to the (surprisingly scant) literature, the forehead should be grey. Hmm...

And 18 birds that appeared to be adults (3+cy):

Also with a couple of unmoulted greater coverts? But lacking the obvious contrast shown by the presumed 2cy bird above. You might have to look close.

And the best news of all: despite the torrential rain and howling gale, I stayed as dry as a bone and snug as a bug. Country Innovation and Craghoppers are to be congratulated.

*Edit (30-12-2011): There has been a record of birds coming into the country; three birds ringed in Belgium on 10th October 2001 were subsequently recaught in Essex on 21st of the same month—thanks for Mark Grantham; details at the bottom of this page.

GSW(ounds)

2011-12-27T17:17:00.001Z

And the resulting damage:

It's the Christmas holidays—whoop whoop—and that means one thing: catching up with all the stuff that's been piling up waiting to be done for the last six months. With today pretty much being my only free day this week, and with it being dry, I took the chance to head down to Woolston Eyes. Thirty birds were caught around the feeders with the above Great Spotted Woodpecker and a Lesser Redpoll being the best of the bunch. Sightings included two Yellowhammers flying over, a couple of Goldcrests, Redwings etc, and big numbers of Woodpigeons (one flock of 500+) passing overhead. Also two Wrens ringed, both first-year birds.

Note moult limit in greater coverts:

Nutcracker Suite

2011-12-23T16:40:00.000Z

London Wetland Centre

2011-12-04T13:16:00.001Z

It was back to birding with a bump today; not a single Common Crane, Pied Kingfisher or Laughing Dove seen. Nevertheless, there were a few niceties at London Wetland Centre. Nicest of the niceties was this Jack Snipe on the wader scrape:

Also present: a Common Snipe, a drake Shelduck, two drake Pintail, 11 Stock Dove, three Egyptian Geese, some Wigeon, a pair of Stonechats, and a mixed flock of Goldfinch, Siskin & Lesser Redpoll.

Most interesting was a Goldcrest giving sub-/plastic-song. It gave the recognisably Goldcrest 'cyclic' song but often finished the phrase with a Robin-like warble. Occasionally it would just warble like a Robin; occasionally it would give a Blue Tit-like phrase; occasionally both strung together. It was feeding constantly, never pausing and never opening its bill. I managed to get a very short recording of the bird by thrusting my phone at it—short because, not surprisingly, on thrusting my phone into the bush it flew out the other side. I haven't amplified the recording so you might want to turn up the volume.

Hula Valley Bird Festival roundup

2011-12-02T17:51:00.001Z

I've cobbled together the best (hmm) of the footage, cunningly grabbed half a dozen festival attendees to do some talking (so I don't have to), and put together this short piece showcasing some of the birds, some of the mammals, and a bit of the art at last week's Hula Valley Bird Festival. With apologies for shaky footage and even shakier sound.

And there's also a short(ish) article on BirdGuides detailing the week with a collection of pictures. Click >here< to view.

On the subject of British Eagle Owls

2011-12-02T15:16:00.001Z

I think most people know my rather right-wing views on Eagle Owls in the UK.

You might want to pause it at 6 seconds; after that it gets a bit irrelevant (unless escaped Eagle Owls have set up a pension fund).

But, just to add some weight to argument against "birds without jesses etc (possibly) being of wild origin"; as if all the proper scientific stuff in British Birds wasn't enough:

I was sent some images this afternoon by my granddad of an Eagle Owl at The Barn Owl Centre in Gloucester.

He's called Kaln and flies without jesses, rings, &c, which makes him a delight for those professional photographers who prefer 'controlled' situations.

So there you go—an Eagle Owl of known (captive) origin with no physical signs of captivity. Food for thought.

Hula Valley Bird Festival - day 6

2011-11-26T14:01:00.001Z

It's my last day here in the Hula Valley and I'll be sad to leave. The festival has been excellent with great birds, a fantastic location and, as in Eilat, world-class festival guides.

This morning we were out early for another Agamon Hula park mobile tour ride; we've seen some amazing birds this week but there can be few things that compare to thousands of cranes coming out of their roost in the morning. The birds then fly into the nearby fields and allow a close approach by the tractors and trailers.

Other birds seen on the morning tour included two Marsh Sandpipers, a smart male Siberian (maurus) Stonechat, and close views of a Pied Kingfisher. No sign of any Jungle Cats, which just goes to show how lucky we were with our multiple sightings earlier in the week.

Variation in Common Crane eye-colour:

After some breakfast back at the hotel we headed back to the park where we took a look at the family of Black-shouldered Kites, some Golden Plovers in one of the fields, more 'eastern' Stonechats etc. Then this afternoon we sat in on some of the lectures at the scientific conference that is taking place at the hotel—including excellent talks by Tim Appleton and Pete Dunne.

Hula Valley Bird Festival - day 5

2011-11-25T15:50:00.001Z

Another excellent day at the Hula Valley Bird Festival today. We headed back into the Golan in an attempt to clean up on a couple of the area's bird that we'd missed previously. We succeeded with excellent views of at least five Finsch's Wheatear, though sadly Long-billed Pipit eluded us. There was plenty more on offer, too, with Blue Rock Thrush, Eastern Imperial Eagle, flocks of Serins, Bramblings, plenty of Mountain Gazelle, two Red Foxes, Calandra Larks, a Syrian Woodpecker, and the usual Long-legged Buzzards etc.

Habitat shot

And one to show the feather detail...

One of our Finsch's Wheatear sites also happened to be a memorial to those who lost their lives in the fighting that took place in the Valley of Tears, near to the Syrian border; a really beautiful landscape.

The afternoon was spent back at Agamon Hula Park where we again had 'the usual' (Black-shouldered Kite, 1000s of Cranes, Hen Harrier, Greater Spotted Eagle...) along with two Yellow Wagtails, a Griffon Vulture, a smart male Namaqua Dove, and nine Wild Boar that emerged from the reed bed at dusk.

Hula Valley Bird Festival - day 4

2011-11-24T18:28:00.001Z

I had hoped to upload all of my pictures of each of last night's dinner's twelve courses but, again, I'm short of blogging time. We spent the full day exploring the Bet Shean valley south of the Sea of Galilee today then, after sunset, visited the opening of the Drawing Inspirations from the Hula Valley art exhibition; now it's dinner time and then we're off to a concert by Paul Winter.

Yet again, we had lots of great sightings of amazing birds: Desert Finch, Dead Sea & Spanish Sparrow, eagles, a singing Southern Grey Shrike, flocks of Pygmy Cormorants, Whiskered Terns, literally 100s of Black Kites, dozens of Black Storks etc etc.

A dark-morph male Marsh Harrier was particularly striking:

My apologies for the appearance of gull photos in two posts on the trot; though I make no apologies for including photos of this beauty:

There was also an young Pallas's Gull in the flock:

And this Heuglin's Gull:

Finally, for a bit of fun, who can tell me how many species are in this photo and which species they are?

(That's a subtle way of saying I don't know, though my best educated guess is four)

P.S. For anyone following Yoav's blog and wondering why I'm one behind with my festival days; the festival officially started on Sunday but since I didn't arrive till Monday morning I'm down a day.

Hula Valley Bird Festival - day 3

2011-11-23T15:12:00.001Z

An even briefer update this evening than the last two nights; we're off out again in a minute for a posh 12 (yes, twelve) course meal!

Another excellent day in the field, this time on the Med. coast at Maagan Michael. Lots of all three Kingfishers, Citrine Wagtails, Temminck's Stints etc etc. and some decent gull flocks to search through. The small gull flocks were made up of Black-headed and Slender-billed with three 1st year Med Gulls hidden amongst them. The larger gulls were mostly Armenian with one (presumed) adult Baltic; also a few showing a varying number of "Caspain-like" features, though I'm not convinced any of them were anything other than [slightly atypical] armenicus (but feel free to disagree!).

Hula Valley Mammal Festival

2011-11-22T19:46:00.001Z

Oh dear, this "blogging on location" isn't going to plan at all. I'm having such a great time at the Hula Valley Bird Festival that I've had no time to write a proper blog post. We've spent another full day in the field (this time exploring Mount Hermon and the Golan plateau) and I've just got back to my room after watching an excellent presentation by photographer-in-residence, Thomas Krumenacker.

After yesterday's Jungle Cat sightings, we scored today with excellent views of two Wolves. By the time I'd grabbed by camera they were already on the other side of the valley.

The mammal list is ticking along nicely with Egyptian Mongoose, Egyptian Fruit Bats, Golden Jackel, and Copyu all seen. Birds spotted today included Sombre Tit, Horned Lark, Eastern Imperial Eagle, Golden Eagle, Western Rock Nuthatch, and, at Hula Nature Reserve in the evening, a spectacular harrier (including several Pallid) and Merlin roost.

Eastern Imperial Eagle

Merlins at dusk

Greetings from Israel!

2011-11-21T16:45:00.001Z

It's the end of my first day here at the Hula Valley Bird Festival and it's fair to say I'm pretty cream crackered. To cut a long and foggy story short, I've had exactly zero minutes of sleep since yesterday morning and, after a full day in the field, I'm struggling to keep my head off the desk in front of me, let alone write a blog post that attempts to be vaguely interesting. So instead, here's a photo dump of interesting stuff I've seen in the Hula Valley so far. Enjoy!

Hula Lake at dawn

Pied Kingfisher

More Pied Kingfishers... spot the impostor.

A gang of Armenians

Purple Heron

Smyrna Kingfisher

Black-shouldered Kite

Jungle Cat

Fungus foray

2011-11-19T19:11:00.004Z

It was mothing at Perivale Woods this evening but, in between set-up and sun-down, we found time to search for some mushrooms. These were the ones we were after:

Blewits. Very tasty, apparently; and the colour of parma violets. The wood was full of all sorts of other (mostly unknown) species of every shape and colour.

Also a noisy Ring-necked Parakeet pre-roost.

Mothing was rather uneventful with two winter moths being the only Lepidoptera on the wing. More exciting was a Wood Mouse that we found in the 'bee tree'. We poked our heads into the cavity in the trunk, assuming that the bee colony wouldn't be active this late in the year. Imagine our surprise when we discovered the hive was still active...

Ghosts of Gone Birds

2011-11-16T18:28:00.000Z

As most of my friends know, I am the very definition of philistine, so it may come as a surprise to hear that I went to see the Ghosts of Gone Birds exhibition in Shoreditch. I'd expected it to be a hotbed of pretentious arty-farty nonsense; it was arty and, in some cases, farty, but it was in no way pretentious. I came away with a completely different view to that I'd expected to come away with. A lot of the artwork was stunning; a lot was thought-provoking; much of it was both. While we were there, we also had the chance to speak to Ceri & Chris, creators of Ghosts and ask them about the project, the artwork, Ceri's recent trip to Malta, and what they set out to achieve with Ghosts and where they want to take it next. It's a great exhibition and one that I'd suggest you try and visit if you're passing by. Yes, shocking words to come out of my mouth, I know...

A moulting White-rumped Swift

2011-11-13T19:43:00.001Z

With my White-rumped Swift photo recently making an appearance on the 10,000 birds blog, I thought now would be good timing to write a little bit about this individual that I never had time to write about at the time.
The species was a lifer for me—one of the many highlights from my trip to Portugal—and, after initially giving brief slightly back-lit views, it proceeded to perform well for several minutes over Noudar castle. I did exactly what I tell myself I shouldn't do; after a brief look at the bird, up came the camera for a prolonged session of rattling off shots. Of course, as usual, my photos were less than tip-top but they did show things I had failed to notice in my brief glance at the bird through binoculars; namely, the bird was in wing moult.

A quick check of BWP (the only reference I had to hand) stated "No details known for [moult in] west Palearctic and hardly any for Afrotropics" so, on the face of it, this observation seemed quite important.

It looks like the bird has moulted 3 inner primaries; there's a slight step between the new primaries and the old primaries, suggesting the bird is actively growing primaries—there may even be a primary recently dropped and thus missing on the left wing, though it's hard to be sure from these photos.

However, as always, a quick dig through some literature when I was back home showed that a moulting White-rumped Swift in Europe wasn't as exciting as I thought it might have been. Searching through back issues of Birding World and Dutch Birding, I managed to find photos of a moulting bird—with two inner primaries new on each wing—from Cadiz, Spain on 19th September; whilst Swifts (Chantler & Driessens) reads "Pallid and White-rumped can start inner primary replacement whilst raising a second brood and then suspend moult until the completion of migration". Whilst not explicit ally stating this is the case with birds in Europe, it seems a fair assumption to make; and also fits with João's assumptions that late birds like this are lingering due to their raising a second brood. It all seems to fit together quite nicely.

Barnes Herring Gull

2011-11-07T18:21:00.001Z

An update on yesterday's Herring Gull at Barnes WWT, thanks to an extremely quick reply from Richard Thompson.

The bird was originally ringed as a chick on the roof of a University of Sussex building on 27th June this year—that's a movement of about 70 km, my sighting being the first reported resighting of this individual.

First World problems

2011-11-06T15:24:00.001Z

This is the sort of thing that keeps me awake at night. How does one age a Teal?
Sounds like an easy question when you see them like this:

But then my brain likes to complicate matters by asking
"what would an 'advance' first-year bird look like?"
"how can I be sure the 'first-year' bird isn't an adult still in eclipse?"
"tertials are probably good for ageing but when does a first-year moult them?"
and so on.

In the end I gave up and enjoyed them for the lovely ducks they are.

Also at Barnes WWT today, this Herring Gull. Its postal address implies it came from East Sussex but I'll wait until I get details back before I confirm that.

'The' Bittern was around but I couldn't face the scrum in the corner of the hide to see it, thus left Bittern-less.

Travelling Coot

2011-10-16T21:52:00.002+01:00

I've been catching up with reading blog posts this evening; one blog post from Kane Brides was particularly fascinating.

It's always interesting finding colour-ringed birds since there's a good chance they'll have some history to them and a good chance they'll be resighted again in the future. Back at the end of 2010, I sent Kane a batch of Coot colour combinations Sands Lake on Merseyside. Most of the birds had either been ringed there over the previous weeks, though some birds had moved 6 km down the coast from Southport Marina. One of those birds was this one:

The above photo isn't mine, though, and it's not from Merseyside; it's Kane's and it's from Slimbridge WWT, Gloucestershire! Quite a remarkable movement for a species that I think I've only ever seen fly properly twice in my life; even more so when you realise than in between times the bird has also been sighted in Stockport—but where did it breed, I wonder. Very nice too to follow the tracks of a bird I've personally seen; and amazing that a bird Kane ringed has gone and followed him down south.

Photo and map from Kane's blog.

Portugal - the final day

2011-10-15T17:29:00.001+01:00

I'm back in the UK now after a wonderful time in Portugal; I can't praise the work of João and João highly enough, and also the excellent work being done by everyone else we met out there.

We finished the trip with excellent views of two Blue Rock Thrushes outside the hotel, along with Azure-winged Magpies, an adult male Black Redstart, Crag Martins, Red-rumped Swallows etc etc. Then it was off to Lisbon airport to catch our flight home.

A few websites worth checking out:

Birds and Nature Tours – João Jara's guiding company. João is possibly one of the nicest people you will ever have the pleasure of meeting, and a fantastic birder too having sat on e.g. the Portuguese rarities committee and the BirdLife Portugal board. It's possible to organise specific trips for e.g. general birding, speciality species, photography etc.

Alentejo tourist information – Alentejo, the area in which most of our birding was done, proved fantastic for a wide variety of bird species, from bustards to White-rumped Swift. The tourist information website gives details on visiting the area.

Mértola – The town in which we were based for the week. An ideal place and stuffed full of history with several museums.

Algarve tourist information – Well known as a tourist destination but also an excellent area for birding.

Parque de Natureza de Noudar - Well equipped park, with bargain accommodation, on the Spanish border.

Reserva Natural do Sapal de Castro Marim – An excellent series of salt pans in the southeast corner of Portugal; the older nature reserve in the country and managed specifically for wildlife.

Castro Verde – An excellent area for steppe species.

Portugal - day 5

2011-10-14T00:09:00.002+01:00

Today we headed northeast to Parque de Natureza de Noudar, near Barrancos on the Spanish border. The park was fantastic; well equipped for visitors and also with accommodation for those who wanted to stay in the area for longer. It was also, in my opinion, the most breathtaking location we've visited this week as far as scenery goes.

Highlights from the park were varied and included an Otter in the river that marks the border with Spain and hundreds (if not thousands) of Crimson Speckled moths. The biggest surprise, however, came from the skies with an unexpected White-rumped Swift.

Also at least one Black Vulture.

Crag Martins were extremely common and we also caught up with species such as Rock Sparrow and Cirl Bunting.

Part of the park's "being well equipped for visitors" includes golf buggies, which visitors can take out for the day to explore the trails. We couldn't resist.

(Almost) sunset on our final full day in Portugal:

Portugal - day 4

2011-10-13T00:01:00.000+01:00

It's been another long but highly enjoyable day. We headed south, to Algarve, where we started with a boat trip. Highlights included a wide range of wader species, a Slender-billed Gull, and a some Fiddler Crabs.

Next we visited some salt pans where we found a a Caspian Tern and a flock of Audouin's Gulls and more waders.

At a second site, we came across Booted Eagle, a juvenile Little Tern, a juvenile Common Tern and several more Caspian Terns.

At Quinta do Largo pool we got good views of Purple Swamp-hen and a juvenile Littler Bittern, plus Pochard, a male Tufted Duck, Red-crested Pochard, and plenty of Azure-winged Magpies.

We finished the day at a fantastic little reserve, Castro Marim—a series of working salt pans in the very southwest corner of Portugal—before heading back to Mértola for dinner with the mayor...

P.S. I will put together some sort of full trip report when I'm back and less in need of sleep. I'm really impressed with the birding out here, the hospitality, the food, and the place in general, and hopefully a full trip report with site details, contacts etc will prove useful for anyone else who might want to visit Portugal.

Portugal - day 3

2011-10-11T22:56:00.002+01:00

This morning started much as yesterday did, less the Azure-winged Magpies and with the addition of a Little Owl and a Blue Rock Thrush.

Red-rumper over breakfast

Then we stepped things up a gear (ha) and headed for... the steppes.

Again, I'm keeping this brief since we're only just back at the hotel after our evening meal and I'm quite keen to get off to bed.

Despite the 34 °C temperatures, the birding has once again been fantastic. We started with another Black Vulture, Calandra Larks and good numbers of Black-bellied Sandgrouse.

Soon we came across four eagles in the sky above us; two Bonelli's and two Spanish Imperial!

Spanish Imperials make Bonelli's look like tiddlers...

Then we had excellent views of Great Bustard.
This is uncropped:

Damn autofocus!

And here's what (predictably) happened next:

Thankfully these birds were slightly more co-operartive, though they were more distant (this photo has been cropped):

Two Hen Harriers and some Little Bustards were soon added to the day list.

Here are the two species in the same photograph. You might have to trust me on the Little Bustard part:

Good numbers of Red Kite were seen over the day, after a bit of searching we managed to find a late Lesser Kestrel, and we finished the day with absolutely stunning views of an immature Spanish Imperial Eagle perched on the ground.

Portugal - day 2

2011-10-10T22:22:00.000+01:00

Another brief update after a full day in the field.

We've just got back from a fantastic meal of traditional local food in a local restaurant—typical of all our meals so far on this trip.

A bit of pre-breakfast birding-from-the-balcony produced Azure-winged Magpie, Sardinian Warbler, irbii Long-tailed Tit, and Crag Martins and Red-rumped Swallows mixed in amongst the House Martins.

Highlights from today have been eight Great Bustards (all females), a Black Vulture along with 20 or so Griffon Vultures, immature Bonelli's Eagle, Short-toed Eagle, plenty of Thekla Larks, a Garganey, several Dartford Warblers, Blue Rock Thrush, lots of Iberian Grey Shrikes, and probably other things that I've forgotten to mention.

Portugal - day 1

2011-10-09T22:53:00.001+01:00

So, here I am in Portugal. I'll keep this brief since it's been a long day and my bed is calling. I left a grey and drizzly Heathrow this morning along with Alan Tilmouth and two hours later I was in hot and sunny Lisbon. We were met at the airport by João and José from the Mértola tourist board and ace birder João Jara from Birds & Nature then, along with Jan Södersved from Finnish birding magazine Linnut, we headed off to the Tagus Estuary to start as we meant to go on—birding.

We got off to an excellent start with massive numbers of White Storks, Spoonbills, Glossy Ibis and Greater Flamingos.

Also in the area were flocks of various waders, at least five Great White Egrets, and two Black-shouldered Kites.

After a spot of lunch, we headed to some small salt pans adjacent to the estuary; here we found large numbers of Kentish Plover, our first Black Redstart of the trip, and at least one Little Stint.

Nearby, at a fantastic private spot, we found three Ospreys, more Black-shouldered Kites (they soon went from "wow look, Black-shouldered Kite" to "oh, it's only another Black-shouldered Kite"), a Peregrine, our first Spotless Starlings, and a small flock of Azure-winged Magpies feeding on what looked like an old bee's nest.

Next up, João J. took us to a spot on the edge of some farmland that turned out to be a veritable category C lister's wet dream. In one ditch we had Black-headed Weavers (two males and a handful of female/juveniles), four Yellow-crowned Bishops (a moulting male and three female/juveniles), and more waxbills than you could ever have wished for. Plus Great White Egret, Squacco Heron, Kingfisher, and more Black-shouldered Kites thrown in for those who like their birds a tad less... aviary.

Cat C overload

Weaver, Bishop & Waxbill - trusted solicitors since 1832

Then, a mere 90 minutes later we'd gone from coastal salt pans and feral finches to bustard county. Admittedly it was after sunset and there wasn't any point in stopping—we're saving it for another day—but we did pick out some roadside Southern Grey Shrikes and more Azure-winged Magpies as we made our way to Mértola town, which is where we'll be based for this week.

So far, I'm extremely impressed with the birding that Portugal has got to offer—hopefully that will continue through the week!

Back to Acton

2011-10-04T21:19:00.000+01:00

This morning dawned bright but horrendously windy on Holy Island. Pre-breakfast sightings included (the) Yellow-browed Warbler in the back garden again and (the) male Great Spotted Woodpecker in the front garden.

A pre-lunch wander added Brambling to our trip list and a Yellow-browed Warbler was calling from the far end of the village; also this, which amused my simple little brain:

Then it was back on the train and down to sunny (or uncomfortably warm, at least) London.

Working away

2011-10-03T19:32:00.000+01:00

We've swapped Acton for Holy Island this week. Highlight so far has been a Yellow-browed Warbler and a (potentially rarer on a local level) Great Spotted Woodpecker in the garden, and a female Hen Harrier hunting over nearby fields.

I didn't manage a picture of the warbler, largely because I haven't got a proper camera with me, but I did get this awful quality sound recording on my phone: YbW by Stephen Menzie

You'll kick yourself when you find out what it was...

2011-09-27T17:36:00.000+01:00

Remember that mystery tail feather from way-back-when, before I disappeared off? No? Well here it is again:

And the bird it came off...

Obviously! I know what you're all saying—"yeah, we knew it was a first-summer female Ménétries's Warbler all along; we just didn't want to spoil the game for others". The feather, in case anyone's interesting, I found in my bag when I was clearing it out the other week and had come all the way from Eilat; I'd completely forgotten I'd put it there.

Portland

2011-09-25T14:55:00.002+01:00

Yesterday and this morning was spent at Portland (Dorset, not, erm, Oregon).

A bit blustery and quite quiet, though a Balearic Shearwater, a dark Arctic Skua and a handful of Manx Shearwaters past, a couple of Tree Pipits, two redpolls and some Siskins over, and a Whinchat, a Redstart and plenty of Wheatears around-and-about provided interested. In the nets, a Pied Flycatcher and a Woodpigeon were the highlights along with some Linnets, Chiffchaffs, Whitethroats, Blackcaps, a Wheatear and plenty of Dunnocks—opportunity to indulge in some more making-up-moult-limits on the latter.

First-year Dunnock. Note the dirty ochre-olive tinge to the iris, supposedly indicative of immature Dunnocks... though later in the day I caught a bird in wing-moult (i.e. not a first-year bird) with an eye that was very similar; and speaking to a friend who's spent far too long looking at eye colour on birds in Sweden this autumn, he stated "eye-colour doesn't work on Dunnocks"—so it looks like it's back to dodgy greater covert moult limits [and A1 pattern?].

More moult. A second-year bird, I think; I'll spare you the gory details.

Pied Fly. – first-year bird (nice big step in the white at tip of the middle tertial).

And on the way out I stopped at Chesil Cove/Ferrybridge where a juvenile Little Stint was with the Ringed Plover and Dunlin.

Gamarjoba, y'all

2011-09-23T18:10:00.000+01:00

So, here I am, back from Georgia. That's Georgia in the Caucasus and not Georgia in the USA, just in case my previous blog post confused anyone. Plenty to tell and plenty of photos to come... I'll put a proper trip report online sometime in the not-too-distant future but, in the mean time, here's a small selection of photos.

Dining in style—the view from where we were stopping.

Suited & Booted

Red-backed Shrikes are pussies.

grey shrikes, on the other hand, aren't.

(sub)species yet to be determined...

but most likely one of these:

If you get what I mean.

Costa del Batumi—a mix of grey pebbles and plastic bottles

Though still ideal to cool off after a morning's ringing.

Hard to get a photo of anything without a Honey Buzzard ruining the shot.

Or, in this case, a whole gang of ('vulpinus') Buzzards:

Part of the raptor count's remit is to work with locals; we were always happy to let them have a look through our optics:

Levant badboi (or, in this case, badgurl).

The result of 7 days nonstop ringing/raptor watching:

With thanks to Dave Andrews and Ross Crates from whom most of the photos of myself came.

Hodwy y'all

2011-09-12T12:55:00.000+01:00

All being well, I'm speaking to you from beyond the departure lounge. If I've timed this right, I should be just about to step onto a plane on my way to... well, I'll leave you to work it out...

See you all again in 10 days!

Everyone loves a mystery bird photo

2011-09-11T10:51:00.002+01:00

Don't they? Especially when it's near(?)-impossible and completely impractical ("You'd never get views of one like that in the field"). I'll give you a clue, though: the species is on the WP list. And it's not a Mute Swan.

Answer in two weeks...

Whitethroats and white tips

2011-09-09T18:00:00.000+01:00

Whitethroats at this time of year show nice variation in plumage. This bird (above and below) is a 1cy that's undergone a rather limited post-juvenile moult. All of the tertials and all bar the innermost greater coverts are juvenile. It also shows the typically dirty outer tail feathers of immature birds, plus a dark eye giving quite a cute look.

That's the second time I've used the word cute in as many posts. I really should stop it.

This bird, on the other hand, has undergone a rather extensive post-juvenile moult with all of the greater coverts and the small and middle tertials moulted. Compared to the bird above and to this bird's large tertial, the adult-type tertials show a more solid dark feather centred and a more saturated feather border.

A few adults were also caught. They had all finished their moult and showed uniformly fresh plumage.

Compare the shape of the secondaries on this bird to the 1cy birds above—but note the atypical shape of S4; the middle tertial is missing.

Adults also show broad tail feathers with relatively clean white outer tail feathers and white extending onto R4.

They also showed a pale iris.

We also trapped this 1cy Nightingale, aged by the moult limit in the greater coverts—there are five retained juvenile outer greater coverts.

I have to admit that, on spring birds, I always found the moult limit in the wing quite hard to detect; and in this photo you can see why. The juvenile greater coverts show distinct paler tips; however, GC6 & 7 (the outermost adult-type greater coverts) also show what, with a bit of squinting and a pinch of imagination, could be seen as paler tips. However, notice the colour of the feather fringes, too — more orange-brown on the juvenile feathers.

On the other wing, the bird showed an odd white tip to P8; presumably a form of extremely localised leucism.

41-nil

2011-09-04T22:13:00.004+01:00

With 41 Curlew Sandpipers reported from Frodsham Marsh this morning, I couldn't fail to see one this afternoon... or could I?
I started with a walk from the log at No 5 to the Weaver Bend. A Wheatear and a Common Sand were the best on show.

I arrived at No 6 tank to find a Calidris-free zone. Admittedly it was now low-tide, but even so. There were, however, 115 or so Black-tailed Godwits and a further two Wheatears.

A Hobby was over No 4 bed along with at least six Common Buzzards. Also loads of Chiffchaffs all over the show and plenty of Reed Buntings.

I'm using the new Blogger composer thingy, which now has an 'easy to use' photo uploader. By default, it sticks the photo in the middle of the page; something I hate – I'd much rather have it over on the left. But setting it to left-aligned then sets the texts to run down the right hand side of the photo, which is also something I hate. I managed to hack the html a bit in the first photo, hence it's sensible placement, but I really can't be arsed doing that for every photo. It looks like I will have to give in to centre-aligned photographs.
But anyway, I digress...

On the way back home I called in at Pickerings Pasture, a small 'community park' come nature reserve (read: open space for dog walking) on the banks of the Mersey. By now the tide was on its way back in and many of the sandbanks were already covered with most birds distant. Four Black-tailed Godwits were about the most exciting things; also a pair of shelduck(ish) species. Presumably these are the two birds that were originally reported as Ruddy Shelducks then downgraded to South African (Cape) Shelducks. They were distant(! - see below) but looked to be there same two birds that I've seen at Frodsham on several occasions in the past. I'm no shelduck expert but it's always been my suspicion that they're hybrids, perhaps Ruddy x Paradise or something equally odd.

And just as I was leaving, this cute Ringed Plover landed on the river bank below me. It did its best to hide behind this lump of rock until the tide pushed it further up the bank.

Is this about to become the most famous sweet and sour chicken and rice stain in the world?

2011-08-30T18:20:00.000+01:00

As featured in Storm-petrels & Bulwer's Petrel, reviewed here.

female/immature/Back from BirdFair

2011-08-29T14:23:00.006+01:00

It's that time of year again when half the reports of Redstarts on the news services are of 'female/immature' birds; the implication being they could be an adult female, a first-winter female, or a first-winter male. That would mean first-winter males look like females.

Here's a first-winter female:

And here's a first-winter male:

If it looks like a female, it is a female; if it looks like a male, it's a male (but not necessarily an adult male).

Pied Flycatchers also often get reported as 'female/immature' but there lies another problem. Unlike Redstarts, where males look like males, autumn male Pied Flycatchers are brown. So, unless you're checking the uppertail covert colour and the tertial patterning, that 'female/immature' you're watching could equally as likely be an adult male. But anyway.

A few nice moult limits were on show this weekend:

Here, a 1cy Lesser Whitethroat with one retained juvenile greater covert.

Showing off its diiiiirty outer tail feathers.

And here, a Cetti's Warbler with two retained juvenile greater coverts:

Also some top-level predators:

Sparrowhawk.

White-throated Hawk.

Sightings included two Little Stints:

A Black Tern:

And some other stuff.

Last weekend it was the Great British Birdwatching Trade Fair in beautiful but mobile-signal-deficient Rutlandshire. As usual, great to catch up with a host of people; not so great to catch up with the annual pests who appear each year and are impossible to get rid of. [Undoubtably others are saying the same about me when my cheeky grinning face appears around the marquee doors.]

I went for a dawn wander on the Friday; all very pleasant, with a Raven being the best bird seen, though I was regretting it slightly by 17:00.

Look! It's 'im off of telly!

And best of all, my OSME wrist-band that I won playing pin-the-bird-on-the-map-of-the-Middle-East.

Back to Barnes

2011-08-14T15:04:00.003+01:00

Another few hours at the Wetland Centre this morning.

The number of Green Sandpipers had doubled since yesterday with six juveniles now on the wader scrape.

Other notables included 5+ Swifts, an adult Common Tern, 5 Stock Doves, a Kestrel and two Sparrowhawks. Also Brown Hawkers, (Migrant?) Hawkers, Common Darters and Blue-tailed Damsels around the pools.

A 1cy male Cetti's Warbler was calling and occasionally attempting to sing next to Headley Hide. Here's a recording I made with my phone:

Background: Moorhen, Tufted Duck, Mallard ducklings, Heathrow flightpath. Or should that say foreground?

Post-riot

2011-08-13T14:13:00.005+01:00

I survived. More than can be said for some of the shop windows and doors below my flat, though thankfully it seems the mob had ran out of lighter fluid by the time they got to Ealing Common and my flat escaped a chargrilling. Anyway, I spent most of late morning/early afternoon today at London Wetland Centre. Shockingly, there were waders on the wader scrape. Three juvenile Green Sandpipers to be precise. Here are two of them:

The only other birds on site of any note were this pair of 'Gyptian Geese. No doubt from the central London not-quite-feral population but relatively exciting to see all the same.

Eclipse drake Red-crested Pochard:

Pretty, even if it is from wrong side of the fence.

Also, apologies to the young lad I ended up stalking. Stalking in that you go into a supermarket at the same time and end up bumping into each other in every aisle sort of way...

When in a sticky situation, blog.

2011-08-09T02:41:00.003+01:00

It's 02:45 on Tuesday morning. I've got to be up and in work in a few hours but I'm not really in the mood for sleeping. Oh, wait, I'm in the office already; there's a stroke of luck!

From what I can gather, some bad shit happened in north London on Saturday evening. That's OK; north London is miles from here. Then last night bad shit started happening in other areas of London; but again not to worry—I think it's fair enough of me to say that most of what was going on was confined to areas of 'lower economic income' and none too close to here. Way out west, there'd been no sign of the troubles that were going on further into the city. Until this evening, that was. Within half an hour of getting home from work, 25 or so police cars had gone speeding past the road outside my flat. All heading into the city, though, so nothing to indicate that I should be worried about anything there. As the night wore on, the sound of distant sirens filled the air (like literally; I'm not trying to be poetic). In the far distance to the northeast(ish) I could see what looked like a smoky orange glow: presumably one of the fires that's been on the news. Again though, it was all a safe distance away from Ealing.

Then there were reports of looting in Birmingham and then, disappointingly, Liverpool. Then I could smell smoke. And I could hear sirens that were closer than before. Then I heard that looting had sprung up at Ealing Broadway; that Ealing shopping centre was on fire (hence the smell of smoke); and that police were attempting to lock-down the immediate area. At this point it's worth me telling you that Ealing Broadway is about 800 m to the west of my flat, just along the main road. And my flat is on the third floor above a row of shops. I bottled it and bailed.

I grabbed a few essentials and headed for my car; as I drove out at about midnight, there were a suspicious number of people starting to gather around Ealing Common station and several gangs of lads on bikes. Other members of the BirdGuides team were fast asleep so I headed to the office for a night on the sofa there. A gated entrance to the courtyard and metal roller-shutters outside are making me feel a little bit safer here.

I felt a bit of wimp leaving my flat; a sever over-reaction, surly? Perhaps not. I had a feeling that, as people where being pushed out of Ealing Broadway, they'd head east and west along the Uxbridge Road... and from what I've read online that's what appears to have happened. And it doesn't sound pretty.

It would appear that the disturbances have moved west and east of Ealing broadway. There are reports of violence in West Ealing (sky news are suggesting that both business and resindences are being looted) also tfl has closed Ealing common station at police request.

It looks like a war zone - I have never seen anything like it in all my life – Christian Potts, Ealing resident

So, there ya go. Don't ever say I don't blog about anything topical!

And finally. Have you seen anyone this evening shouting anything, waving any sort of banner, demanding any sort of reform in the government? No. Protesting to voice one's concerns? Yes, sure, go for it. We know that, regrettably, that occasionally gets a bit over-emotional; it has a purpose, though. But looting for the sake of looting; burning down buildings for the sake of burning them down; pulling people out of their cars to then set the car on fire? No. No, no, no. Bunch of w*nkers.

Dungeness

2011-08-08T19:20:00.006+01:00

Yesterday's trip to Dungeness was largely Bombus-focused, though I did sneak a scope into the car and consequently notched up a not-too-terrible list of waders on ARC pit; more species than the last time I was here though considerably fewer long yellow legs on show among them this time around. Two Black-tailed Godwit, a Common Sandpiper, two Dunlin, good numbers of Golden Plovers, a Common Ringed Plover and several Little Ringed Plovers were spread out amongst the Lapwing.

This beasty was in the car park:

Bombus rupestris

And a couple of species of rare carder bee were also seen on a tour guided by the extremely knowledgable Nikki Gammans.

A couple of Turnstones were on the beach by the fishing boats but no sign of the immature Glaucous Gull in a quick look.

TomTom took us back home along the 'scenic route' allowing ample opportunity for a bit of east/central London sightseeing. Notable sights seen included a public toilet with a turnstile entry system to allow only those who had paid their 50p(!) entry fee entry, and a squad of police tanks on their way to north* London.

Dome.

Welcome to the Blackwall Tunnel.

Docklands.

...And associated 'light railway'.

Tacky sign.

And fresh** fish for supper.

Now I can brush my hair in the morning.

*North London was correct at the time. I guess 'on their way to London' would be more applicable after last night and this afternoon.

**Fresh in the sense that it was recently caught. Not so fresh in that it had spent all afternoon wrapped in newspaper in the back of the car. Now there's a story I'm sure I've heard before...

London Wetland Centre

2011-08-06T18:02:00.002+01:00

A couple of hours at London Wetland Centre this afternoon—quiet (as always?). Half a dozen Swifts passed overhead, flying rather purposefully to the west; all of the Common Terns seems to have buggered off. A couple of Kingfishers, Stock Doves, Great Crested Grebes, Shovelers, a tit flock avec accompanying Chiffchaffs and a juvenile Reed Warbler, and a washed-out Black-headed Gull were the most exciting things on show.

And plenty of these:

A fine example...

2011-08-01T21:49:00.005+01:00

...of a 2cy Goldfinch.

It's started primary moult, which means it now has three generations of wing-feathers on display. I've rather crudely coloured in the different feather generations.

green = juv

blue = post-juv

and red = 'first adult', currently restricted to the innermost two primaries and primary covert

N.B. I *think* I'm right with the tertials, not that you can see either way in the picture; I did catch a lovely 2cy bird yesterday with really obvious moult post-juv moult in the tertials (T8 moulted, T7 & 9 old)... but I didn't bother taking any picture of that one.

P.S. Clever OS Lion has a smart spellcheck/autocorrect, except it's a bit too smart; it keeps correcting 2cy (and 3cy and 4cy for that matter) to icy... so if I start blabbering on about icy birds, you know why!

Feeling naked

2011-07-31T22:09:00.005+01:00

I did something stupid on Friday. Like reeeeally stupid. I left my bins and my scope in the office. Not overly stupid in itself except for the fact that the office is in London... and this weekend I'm in Liverpool. Any plans of birding were thus scuppered. Not that staying home didn't pay off, though; I had a new 'garden entity' tick.

A Canaray x Goldfinch hybrid. He called in flight like a Goldfinch and he kicked like a mule (ha), and was also the size of a Greenfinch. I'm guessing its Canary parent was red, though I suppose a bit of colour-feeding might give the same effect; I'm assuming the bird is an escape.

I opened up two nets in the garden, which proved to be surprisingly productive with 26 birds (25 new & 1 retrap) caught over the morning. The retrap was a Blue Tit that I'd originally ringed in the garden on 1st July. Plenty of adult birds were in wing-moult, most doing it the conventional way (primaries working out in order from the innermost). This 2cy male Greenfinch, however, had decided to do things a little differently:

On the right wing, it's moulted p3 first (now almost three-quarters grown), then it seems to have moulted p1 and p2 simultaneously (both about half grown), and then most recently it's moulted p4 (about one-quarter grown and still largely surrounded by the feather sheath); primaries 5 onwards are old.

Perhaps not too surprisingly given the Bohemian nature of this bird's moult, the two wings are not symmetrical. On the left wing it has moulted p4 first (about three-quarters grown), followed by p2 (about half grown) and then most recently it appears to have simultaneously moulted p1 and p3 (still in their sheath and hidden from view in the above photo). Again, primaries 5 onwards are old.

And one last thing from the garden. I don't really do cute but, you have to admit, this is cute.

Ringing at Icklesham

2011-07-25T16:00:00.006+01:00

Most of the weekend just passed was spent ringing at Icklesham, East Sussex, with a bit of birding and meeting up with old friends in between.

The vast majority of birds caught were Sedge and Reed Warblers, with smaller numbers of Garden Warbler, Whitethroats and Grasshopper Warblers.

Other interesting birds ringed over the weekend included this juvenile Jay:

This juvenile Yellow Wagtail:

And a trio of Common Treecreepers, all juveniles.

Here are its primary coverts:

And here are the primary coverts of the other two birds:

Sightings of note in the wider area included an adult Med Gull, a couple of Hobby, a Whimbrel, two Ruddy Ducks on Pett Level, 13 Common Scoter, two Common Sandpipers, two Green Sandpipers, 37 Black-tailed Godwits, and a Barn Owl. Non-avian highlights included this fat moth:

This pretty moth:

And these day-flying moths, seen during my Big Butterfly Count:

London wet land

2011-07-16T16:24:00.002+01:00

I donned my leaky jacket and headed down to the London Wetland Centre again today. Quiet is perhaps an understatement, though at least the heavy rain meant there were about four other people on site. A Kingfisher was the highlight, with Common Tern and Shoveler vying for second place; after that the standard of 'highlights' falls somewhat with Teal, Gadwall, Stock Dove, Whitethroat, Blackcap and a family of Little Grebes. Yes, it really was that quiet!

The wader scrape wasn't looking too scrapy, and the only waders present were a couple of Lapwings...

No trip to the wetland centre would be complete without a badly exposed Grey Heron photo.

And proof that grim birding in London isn't just confined to way out west:

Just another week in the BirdGuides office

2011-07-15T15:29:00.007+01:00

I don't usually blog about my day-to-day life, largely because I suspect no one cares; and, after all, this blog is called MenzieBirding and not Menzie's hot birding and life!... But some weeks certainly lend themselves to being more bloggable than others and this week was one of them.

Monday started watching some caesium being melted. For those reading who have never messed about with caesium before, watch this to the end to see what happens when a pea-sized blob of it is dropped into some water:

Wednesday we were at the British Natural History Museum for the launch of Butterfly Conservation's Big Butterfly Count.

Look who we found in the butterfly house:

It's His Majesty Sir David of Attenborough.

Here he is just after his interview with us.

And here I am coming close to chopping off Sir David's nose with a clapperboard.

Then on Thursday I was at Tower 42.

On top of Tower 42, to be precise.

Click here for a 360° view of the roof

We were there as part of the Tower 42 bird study group's migration watch, organised by David "The Urban Birder" Lindo.

The bird count was limited to a dozen Common Swifts and a distant Peregrine, but the spectacular views more than made up for the lack of sightings...

Look at me! I'm higher than the Gherkin!

Acton Park and London Wetland Centre

2011-07-10T14:28:00.010+01:00

This morning was spent wandering around Acton Park collecting up as many proof-of-breeding records as I could to whack into BirdTrack. Amongst the expected stuff, a family of Mallard and a family of Moorhen were on the tiny pond at the bottom end of the park. The Moorhens were on to their second brood, judging by the full-grown juvenile that was also pottering around the pond.

This afternoon I headed off to the other side of the river to Barnes WWT wetland centre. It was generally quite quiet with a female Peregrine and a plethora of Coot being the highlights. That said, the site is only 20 minutes from here and is definitely worth visiting more often.

Plenty of Pochard and Tufted Duck around the place, too; lots with broods.

Also some dragonflies and damselflies. Here's a female Emperor egg-laying:

And a Six-spot Burnet moth:

The captive stuff is always worth a look. Mega trio:

Call me a pedant, but should these really be in the Icelandic pen?

And I think this might be a new species for me:

That's to say I've never set eyes on one before, full set of primaries of otherwise.

-----------------------

Also at the wetland centre were some Woodpigeons. Here's an 'interesting' bird...

I sketched its right wing.

I guess it's more of a representative diagram than a sketch, but anyway, it turned out to be a bit of a waste since photos showed exactly the same thing. It's nice to be oldskool with a proper physical notebook though, right?

To decipher my scribbles and explain what the photo shows:-
There are two generations of primaries; p9-6 are old; p5 is growing (just visible beyond the secondaries); p4 is new and probably in the last stages of growth; and p3 is new, probably fully grown. After that the primaries are hidden under the secondaries, but we can safely assume that they're all new, too.
There are three generations of secondaries; s1 is, I suspect, old - it looked darker than the neighbouring feathers and gave the impression of being newer but this could be because of its more protected position; s2-3 are (also) old; s4 is new and probably fully grown, or nearly so; s5 is new and still growing; s6 is very old (pale brown, short, and frayed around the edges); p7-8 are old.
If what I said the other day is to believed, that should make this individual a 3cy.

Odonating

2011-07-07T18:49:00.007+01:00

With a window in the weather this afternoon, we dashed out of the office to try and catch up with a damselfly that has thus far managed to elude our lenses.

Small Red Damselfly Ceriagrion tenellum

We were escorted onto the private site at Eelmoor Marsh by the lovely Betty, who then showed us a series of peaty ditches stuffed full of odonates.

The most conspicuous were the male Keeled Skimmers:

Here is what I presume is a female Azure Damselfly, identification based mainly on the nearby presence of male Azure Damselflies! It looks like it's been dipping its bottom into dirty water...

We also found this (immature?) female Emerald Damselfly:

...and this female Black Darter:

But most common was our target species. Mature male:

...and teneral individual:

Other stuff on site included this tiny Palmate Newt:

And several species of insectivorous plant. Butterwort sp.:

Round-leaved Sundew:

And Narrow-leaved Sundew

No birds; but then it is the first week of July, so what did you expect?

More garden ringing

2011-07-02T21:22:00.004+01:00

Plans to go birding today were thwarted by domestic duties. I did, though, have just enough time to stick a net up in the garden again, catching four birds over the course of the afternoon: two juvenile Long-tailed Tits, a Coal Tit, and a 3+cy (adult) female Dunnock.

Here's the Dunnock, showing off her amazingly unworn year-old primaries:

The Coal Tit was in heavy post-breeding moult, looking rather tatty. At least it has itself a shiny new set of wing coverts.

Wing moult was slightly asymmetric; primary moult was about the same on both wings, but on the right wing tertial moult was more advanced than on the left...

...while on the left wing, secondary moult was slightly more advanced than on the right.

For those of a technical nature:
right - T|S|P 1¹1⁴1¹|5⁰1²|3⁵1⁴1³1¹4⁰
left - T|S|P 1¹1³1⁰|4⁰1¹1²|3⁵1⁴1³1¹4⁰

Never Mind the Dunnocks

2011-07-01T20:18:00.008+01:00

I stuck a net up in the garden this afternoon whilst I worked inside, watching through the window. It was a bit too sunny and the wind was stronger-than-ideal, so I was surprised that I managed to catch eleven birds; all dumb inexperienced juveniles that had thrown themselves into the shiny wafting net. Totals by the evening were three Dunnocks, three Blue Tits, three Greenfinches and two Coal Tits.

I was going to write something exciting ("exciting") about the Dunnocks. Having birds of known age is always useful when it comes to trying to age birds later in the year. This bird is undergoing its post-juvenile moult:

While this bird hasn't started yet:

But thankfully you're spared from more Dunnock-talk by something equally tedious, if not more so. There was great excitement this evening when this critter blundered into the net and, amazingly, stayed there:

Despite (or perhaps due to) being extremely common, widespread and conspicuous, there's not all that much literature around on ageing Woodpigeons. Moult patterns are muddied by suspended moult, arrested moult, and early- and late-breeding/hatching individuals. So, a good starting point seems to be simply working out what's what on the wing and then taking it from there.
There were three generations of primaries and some active primary moult. p1-3 were new, p4 was growing (still hidden under the primary coverts), p5-9 were old (p6 on the right wing had shattered at the base and thus, though still present, isn't visible from above), and p10 was 'very old' (i.e. an older generation than p5-9).

I've labelled the three different generations of primaries with three different colours.
In the secondaries there were at least two generations of feather. s6 is certainly new but might be misleading - it was new only on the right wing (whilst the rest of the moult pattern was identical on both wings) and so could very well have been regrown following accidental loss. Indeed, it doesn't fit with the normal pattern of secondary moult in Woodpigeons, which is moving inwards from s1 and outwards from the innermost secondaries. Illustrating this nicely, s1-2 and s9 have been moulted while s3-5 and s7-8 are older; there was no sign of active moult.

Again, I've labelled the different feather generations in different colours, though note that I've used different colours here than on the primaries. The reason is simple: it's not immediately clear which generations of secondaries correspond to which generation of primaries. Or at least my eyes are telling me that s1-2 and s9 belong to the same generation as the newly moulted p1-3 but my brain is telling me that they should belong to the same generation as p5-9. Equally, s3-5 and s7-8 look as old as p5-9 but in reality are probably as old as p10. Secondary moult doesn't start until primary moult is well under way, so this bird shouldn't yet have moulted any secondaries during the moult it is currently undergoing. The less worn appearance of the feathers is likely due to the fact that the secondaries are more shielded from sunlight and from wear than the primaries.

Does any of this help with ageing? Yes. First of all the obvious: it's not a juvenile. Could it be a (very) early-hatching 1cy? Although an early-hatching 1cy could conceivably look like this bird in terms of body plumage (though note that I could find no trace what-so-ever of retained juvenile body plumage), I think there would, at best, be two generations of primaries, not three. So that leaves us with 2cy, 3cy, or 3+cy (adult).
If I've understood BWP corectly, a small number of adults can suspend moult at the onset of winter with p10 unmoulted; the use of the word 'suspend' implies that p10 is then moulted again either after winter or at the same time as the next primary moult begins, though this isn't explicitly stated. 1cy birds, on the other hand, suspend moult over the winter and continue moulting from the point at which they left off in spring of their 2cy but can then arrest (i.e. stop and not continue) primary moult with p10 unmoulted. Thus, the primary moult pattern on this bird seems to fit best with a 2cy.
Adults often leave some secondaries unmoulted, even in a 'complete' moult, so the presence of two generations in the secondaries does not itself rule out an adult. However, the retained secondaries on this bird are clearly shorter and considerably browner than the newer s1-2 and s9 (and s6); retained adult secondaries, though likely to be more worn, should be the same length as adjacent moulted secondaries. Hence these retained secondaries appear to be juvenile. Seemingly, some birds can retain juvenile secondaries into their 3cy. However, they would only retain one or two at most and these would be very worn. So, we can say with some confidence that this bird is not a 3cy, is not a 3+cy (adult), and is not a 1cy; everything points to it being a 2cy.
I've relabelled the images to try and put a sense of time into the different feather generations.

And for anyone who's still awake, there's more on the subject of ageing Woodpigeons here (extremely useful) and here (scroll down to 22nd March 2003).

Thus ends the most boring blog post ever.

Countdown

2011-06-30T17:57:00.001+01:00

I read a comment this afternoon that got me thinking about counting.

The highlight [at Spurn on 28th June] was 3 ALPINE SWIFT sightings during the day, and it asks the question is it just the same bird going round? Well we can’t prove anything but we think there probably were three different birds today as there was a very heavy passage of Common Swifts moving south during the day. 8,000 flew south, flying low, direct and straight towards Lincolnshire, with no birds appearing to be u-turning.

I've always been dubious of counts that involve a stream of passing birds, largely through personal experience. I remember once being at Portland with two friends. They were seawatching from the obs balcony one evening. Manx Shearwaters were passing by at a reasonable pace - all close inshore and all heading left-to-right. I was jotting down numbers as they called them out every five or ten minutes. "8... 30... 15... 17... 9... 32... 16... 16... 8... 27... 15... 15... 9... 31..." and so on. There was clearly a pattern emerging. I grabbed one of the scopes, pointed it a few degrees higher and told my friends to watch what was happening further out to sea. There were Manx Shearwaters, all heading right-to-left; first a flock of about 8 birds, then a flock of about 30, then about 15, then about 16. The same four flocks were flying round in a big anticlockwise circle. Had we not looked further out to sea, the total count could have been nearing four-figures by dusk!
I've heard of this thing happening to other people too: a partially leucistic bird seen several times over a morning's seawatch, despite the fact the it was always seen flying one way and never seen to fly back the other way; and other similar stories.

So what of the Spurn swifts? It strikes me that the '8,000 Common Swift' argument might be slightly flawed; what if there were only 2,600 (8,000 ÷ 3) Common Swifts and they all went round in a big loop three times, each time bringing the same Alpine Swift with them?

I know I'm saying 'only' like 2,600 swifts is an insignificant number but the principle should stand that dividing the total number of swifts by three acts to divide the probability of three Alpine Swifts by three. And a big loop with birds flying through Grimsby and back over the Humber further up wouldn't require individuals to U-turn for them to be double (triple) counted. That's my rather sceptical take on it, anyway; I'm more than happy to receive angry comments from East Yorkshire locals pointing out why my theory is completely and utterly wrong!

And as for vis'migging and the difference between a bird that's actively migrating and one that just happens to be flying over... Don't get me started on that topic!

Bitch

2011-06-26T17:46:00.005+01:00

Here is a bitch.

bitch [bich]
- noun
1. a female dog
2. slang

a. a malicious, unpleasant, selfish person, especially a woman
b. a lewd woman

3. a butterfly twitch

And here is what they are bitching.

A Purple Emperor.

There are some things about Purple Emperor that are worth knowing, one of which takes me back to about an hour prior to the above photo. Purple Emperors spend a lot of their time in the treetops but on sunny days they come down to lap up minerals from the woodland floor; they seek out the best source of minerals they possibly can. Banana skins are good; so is dog excrement; and so is decaying flesh. We didn't have any bananas with us, nor did we have a dog (or its excrement). However, keen-eyed Max, somewhere along the A45, spotted a roadkill fox. An unscheduled stop later and we had an extra passenger in the back of the car.

Sadly(?), the body was extremely fresh and lacked the degree of seepage needed to entice down thirsty butterflies and so young Master Brush remained in the car whilst we headed off into Fermyn Woods. We needn't have worried though as we soon found a crowd of people huddled around Purple Emperor that had come down to the path of its own accord; no carcases needed. Further on round we found several more, which we had all to ourselves.

I also had the chance to try out a new app on my iPhone. 360 panorama. It pretty much does what it says on the tin. Click on the photo below for a full all-the-way-round view of (an admittedly actually quite dull-looking) Fermyn Woods.

Other butterflies around the wood included a Silver-washed Fritillary and several White Admirals. Birds included a Raven, plenty of Marsh Tits (heard but not seen), some Red Kites, a Yellowhammer, a Yellow Wagtail, and the usual woodland stuff.

And in the afternoon... if you go looking to buy a Sunday Times in west London this afternoon, well, good luck!

The cover story - T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land for iPad - is a project that all four of us in the car have been involved in in some way or other and we needed copies to send to various people, frame, etc. By 'some way or other' I mean that two of the four are co-founders of Touch Press, one of the four worked extremely hard on the proof-reading and marketing for the app, and one of the four (umm, that would be me) edited a promo video... Which, by the way, if you have Sunday Times on your iPad or access to the website, you can watch.

And what of the fox? He's currently in refrigeration, on his way to playing a starring roll in Touch Press's up-and-coming Skulls app.

Blogging on location

2011-06-25T22:57:00.005+01:00

I'm testing out a new app I've installed on my iPad. It should give me the ability to update my blog from wild and remote locations. Like Box Hill National Trust reserve, Surrey.

I suspect the formatting might be a bit iffy - I can't find any way to have pictures right centred but not text-wrapped; and they automatically upload at 281 pixels wide unless you manually change each one individually. But anyway. Enough about the app and more about tonight. I've never been to Box Hill before but it seems like a lovely place. I had a quick scout around before dusk; a family party of Long-tailed Tits and a female Green Woodpecker yaffelling away angrily at a Red Fox were the highlights.

Back in the car park, it was all far too civilised. We had candles, wine and delicious salad...

We nearly had escargot too, but apparently you have to feed them lettuce for a week before you can eat them. Which got me thinking, what if you fed them chillies, or pineapple; would they come preflavoured?

As the sun set, the International Space Station passed overhead.

Either that or there's a pixel blown in my camera.

Exciting moths included this V-pug:

And this Small Elephant Hawk-moth:

We also found a Glow-worm, thugh sadly by the time we'd got it back to the car it had stopped glowing.

Barn Swallow x House Martin hybrid

2011-06-22T18:56:00.000+01:00

This (presumed) Barn Swallow x House Martin hybrid was trapped and ringed on the evening of 8th May 2010 as it came into roost at dusk with a flock of Barn Swallows at Aiguamolls Natural Park, Catalunya, Spain.

The feathered legs are a trait inherited from the House Martin side of the bird's family tree:

In the lack of anything more interesting to say...

2011-06-18T17:58:00.002+01:00

Here's something that was published six or so months ago in the BTO's Ringers' Bulletin.

I'm not sure how these things work with copyright etc, so here's hoping the BTO don't come chasing after me with a big pointy stick.

Whilst I was ringing in Catalonia, Cetti's Warbler was one of the bread-and-butter species in the nets, which gave me plenty of chance to study the subtleties of ageing them. Due to space restraints, the above article is a slightly shorter version of what I'd originally written; I may, one day, put the fuller (and considerably more illustrated) version online somewhere. Because, as M.I.A. once sang, I've got more hot wings than the KFC so, er, no funny business.

van Duivendijk

2011-06-10T18:35:00.005+01:00

Great excitement this morning when this was plonked on my desk*:

A full review will appear sometime between now and the start of August but, briefly, it's got an extra 50 species compared to 'the blue version', some clever comparison tables, and (according to the back cover) "includes significant updates to more than 570 species accounts. Oh, and it's a lot bigger!

*Read: wrestled out of FB's hands before she'd even had time to remove it from its packaging.

Red-flanked Blacktail

2011-06-06T22:06:00.002+01:00

There's plenty of questions I'd like to ask about this bird, though I won't for fear of receiving a sharp blow to the back of the head with a pair of ringing pliers. What I would like to know though is, does that message really say what I think it says?

I don't know if I should laugh or pack my bags and move away from this messed up country as soon as I can...

More hypnorum

2011-06-03T21:46:00.006+01:00

A bit of ringing in the garden this evening produced a trio of juvenile Greenfinches and a juvenile Great Tit - the adult birds seem to have become wise to the position of the nets.
Here's a juvenile male Greenfinch:

And here's a juvenile female:

Also in the garden was this queen Bombus hypnorum, sunning herself on a tree trunk.

Garden ringing

2011-06-01T21:25:00.004+01:00

I was up (too) early this morning to do a bit of pre-work ringing. I set up a 9 m mistnet aiming to catch passerines; imagine my surprise when I looked out of the window to find an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull thrashing around in the net! Not what you expect to catch in a small suburban garden surrounded by trees... Sadly though, despite sprinting out the door, the gull managed to free itself just before I got to the net.

More expected totals from today consisted of eight Long-tailed Tit, four Greenfinch, two Starlings, two Goldfinch, a Blue Tit, a Great Tit, and a juvenile male House Sparrow.

Starlings and bumblebees

2011-05-30T20:22:00.015+01:00

Most of today was spent enticing Starlings into the garden. Eighteen were ringed in total of which all but three were juveniles. Starlings are extremely good at clambering out of the net and the total ringed represents only around 2/3 of the total number that went into the nets.

This one's a male, with a bluish-grey base to the bill and a (largely) brown iris:

And this one's a tatty female with a pinkish-yellow base to the bill and a pale ring in the iris:

The iris colour also works for juveniles. This one's a male:

And this one's a female:

Also caught were a single juvenile Greenfinch, a new 2cy male Blackbird, and a Dunnock.

This one's a real big boy.

It's also an adult. The wing feathers were in really good nick, the greater coverts are uniform right across the wing, and the primary coverts are noticeably broader compared to yesterday's bird.

And on the closed wing, the primary coverts are (relatively) uniform with a thin, tapering, black band on the tip; young birds tend to show a wider rather solid black bar - potentially useful for in the field...

Here's an iffy photo of a juvenile from a year or two back to illustrate the point.

And in non-bird news. Yesterday, whilst closing up the nets, I spotted a bumblebee in the garden. I've been doing a bit of work on bumblebees recently and, try as I might, it seem as if I might have accidental learned how to identify them. This one was Bombus hypnorum (Tree Bumblebee). The species only arrived in the British Isles a decade or so ago and is spreading northwards. Here's a map showing its distribution, up-to-date as of last Thursday, with thanks to Stuart Roberts at BWARS:

I've added a blue dot to show my record into what was previously an empty space. So, actually quite a significant record! The fact it was a worker that I saw suggests there's a nest somewhere nearby; so today, after the nets had stopped catching, I went on a bumblebee hunt around the garden. And look what I found...

Bombus hypnorum! There were several around the garden, both queens and workers, so it seems they are well established in the area.

Commonest, though, were these:

They're either Bombus lucorum (White-tailed Bumblebee) or Bombus terrestris (Buff-tailed Bumblebee). My Bombus-skills aren't yet up to separating these two species...

There were also a few of these:

Bombus pratorum (Early Bumblebee). Both of these are dark workers, lacking the usual yellow stripe at the base of the thorax.

The day finished with a wander through the local woods where a Kestrel was doing its best to catch Starlings and the wild-flower borders were in full bloom.

Dunnock junk

2011-05-29T15:47:00.008+01:00

Yesterday I battled north through bank holiday/half term traffic; with the M6 closed and seemingly every car in Britain on the roads, it was queue-central for most of the way. Good for roadkill spotting, though; a Grey Heron and a Mink were two quality ticks. Notable (live) bird sightings consisted entirely of raptors, with about 100 Red Kites over the Bucks/Oxon stretch of the M40 and a fair few Buzzards and Kestrels elsewhere along the route.

This afternoon, I stuck a net up in the garden and, despite the wind, managed to catch this Dunnock.

First, the easy part: sexing. Following on from this post, here is the little ventral 'tuft' I was talking about:

And a puff of air reveals the offending organ. Most definitely a male...

And on to the hard part. I doubt I'm the first to admit that I find Dunnocks difficult to age. Eye colour is useful for birds in autumn but once the eye has 'matured' things aren't so simple. This bird, though, *seemed* relatively straightforward to age. Overall, the plumage was pretty shagged. P9 (outermost[ish] primary, not visible in the picture) on both wings was broken and there were chips-ahoy in many of the other primaries.

Did I really just say chips-ahoy?

On the bird's right wing, S6 (innermost) had been replaced and contrasted with the five outer secondaries, especially the feather fring that was a much richer brown. The same secondary on the left wing hadn't been replaced, suggesting the feather was regrown following accidental loss rather than deliberately moulted. However, the feather appeared fairly old making it likely that the colour difference was genuinely down to it being of a different generation (i.e. adult-type rather than juvenile) rather than it simply being much newer and less faded. The longer length compared to the neighbouring feathers also supports this idea.

Additionally, and this is where things start to get a bit ropey, I'm fairly confident this bird had three retained juvenile greater coverts. The most obvious clue was the feather quality: 'looser' and not as solid looking as the inner greater coverts; additionally, there was a slight colour difference (similar to in the secondariness but much less pronounced). The pale tips on the outer web of the feather also seem in agreement with that the colour and feather quality were suggesting; they extended further up the feather and ended rather sharply at the base. This compared to the smaller and smudgier-looking pale tips on the neighbouring greater coverts. The outer greater coverts also showed fairly obvious pale spots on the inner web of the feather and the black in the centre of the feathers was more solid. As can be seen, pale spots do become larger and more obvious moving away from the body but the rather sudden change in the pattern on these feathers suggests it is not merely down to this.

The same differences are also visible on the closed wing, though only two of the outer three (presumed) juvenile greater coverts are visible.

So, it looks like the bird is a 2cy, and neither alula nor primary covert pattern disagree with this conclusion. Thoughts and comments on the subject welcome!

Falsterbo ringing recoveries online

2011-05-27T19:09:00.004+01:00

I'd love to say I haven't posted anything for the last three weeks because I've been so busy out in the field, away from internet, birding dawn to dusk. But I haven't. I've been in west London with nothing at all interesting to say. Except that I survived the end of the world and that yesterday it hailed.

Anyway, now I do have something really interesting to say. Måns Karlsson sent me some exciting news about all of the ringing recovery records that are generated from birds ringed at Falsterbo Bird Observatory in southern Sweden and subsequently found elsewhere. Here's what Måns says about the new feature on their website:

Hello!

This week Falsterbo Bird Observatory launched a new feature on our website, an interactive map showing recoveries of birds ringed at Falsterbo throughout the years. Everything is available in English and you are free to search on any species, age and sex. Also, the three oldest birds and the three most distant recoveries are automatically listed, you can choose to show the average position depending on season and much more.
Please have a look at www.falsterbofagelstation.se, just scroll down a little when you're at the newsfeed and the link is right there. Or click on "Recoveries" in the menu bar at the top!
If anybody has any feedback or questions, please feel free to contact FBO.

Sincerely,

Måns Karlsson, Falsterbo Bird Observatory

Some of the recoveries and the whole site is well worth a look.

Plastic foot of doom

2011-05-09T18:40:00.001+01:00

Here are three reports that caught my eye today:

The first one is funny for pretty obvious reasons; the second because Twitchers' Gate is a really lame place name; and the third because some people still seem to be convinced that this bird might wild (or at least 'of unknown origin'), despite it looking considerably less than Scandinavian!!!!!!!!

Oops, sorry, my fingers must have got stuck simultaneously on the shift key and the 1 key. My bad.

Owl photo 'borrowed' from Penny Clarke's blog.

Singing male Dunnocks?

2011-05-08T16:25:00.005+01:00

Hardly a headline to pull excited passers-by in off the street.... And I'm not sure the body of this post is going to get any more interesting. Although it might get some interesting Google search results. Anyway, I'll start with a quote from the always wonderful Sound Approach:

I remember reading a beautiful introduction to bird sound in The handbook of birds of the world 6 by Baptista & Kroodsma (2001), when suddenly I learnt that female Alpine Accenotors P collaris sing to attract males. I had recorded the song of the species in the French Pyrenees and not imagined that it was anything other than a male. Later, on recounting the song to veteran Dutch birder, Gerald Oreel, he said "you do realise Dunnock is the same?".

Ever since I first read it, that bit if text has intrigued me. I always took it to mean that it was only the females that sang. After all, given everything else that's up with their breeding behaviour, that wouldn't seem too out of the question; and ever time I was in company and heard a Dunnock sing I'd smugly say "that's a female, that is".
Nevertheless, I'd always wanted to prove this first-hand for myself - not because I doubted what was written, just because that's the sort of person I am.

It's easy enough to find a signing Dunnock; quite another thing to work out if it's a male or a female! I came up with a cunning plan. I'd do my best to catch as many of the local Dunnocks around my garden as possible, ringing all of the birds that were definitely female on left leg and all of the other birds (males and unsexed birds) on the right leg. Then all I needed to do was to watch a singing Dunnock, see which leg the ring was in, and if it was the left leg: bingo, I'd got myself a singing female Dunnock. Unfortunately, I only ever managed to catch three Dunnocks; one was a male while the other two were caught early in the year and had to be left unsexed. You see, Dunnocks can only really be reliably sexes in the breeding season. Females develop a brood path, an area of bare skin on the belly used for incubating; males develop a large 'cloacal protuberance'. That's a big willy, to you and me. And by most bird's standards, a Dunnock's "C.P." is massive, which gave me an idea for a plan B.
Usually, a bird's feathers are rather smooth and continuous in contour; any protruding bits are hidden away under the layer of feathers. However, compared to most other birds, male Dunnocks are a little bit... bigger. Think of it like a well-endowed man in a pair of hot pants; things poke out. With good views during the height of the breeding season you can just make out a spiky tuft if feathering that breaks the surface of the ventral region. That's his cloaca, and that's proof that he's a male. So, finally, a way of sexing Dunnock in the field.

So, why am I telling you this? Whilst camping in the New Forest last week, there was often a Dunnock singing in the small bush behind the tent. One morning it gave particularly good views as it hopped about on the floor, singing as it did so. And there, poking out of its vent was a small spiky protrusion of feathers - it was a male! And it was singing. Suddenly, everything I thought I knew about singing Dunnocks came crashing down around me.

Where had things gone wrong? Was what had been written about Dunnocks wrong? Or was it simply that I had read it wrong? A little bit of Googling sorted things out. A Google search at the beginning would likely have been the simplest way of doing things, but chasing singing Dunnocks round trying to catch a glimpse of the private parts is far more fun. It turns out that I had read the text wrong; the message I should have come away with is not that female accentors do all the singing but that female accentors also sing. Now then, I wonder if you can hear the difference between male and female Dunnock song....

For a bit more, see here (original Alpine Accentor paper), and here (Dunnock paper).

P.S. Answering my own pondering from above, there's a short note in BB from 1970 entitled "Song of female Dunnock" (British Birds 63, 179–180) that states "With practice, it was possible to distinguish her song from the male's: it was shorter and
the notes seemed to be arranged differently". I really should read through the literature before thinking out loud!

The weekend that was

2011-05-02T14:46:00.011+01:00

Friday: the day of the wedding. The wedding. After reading plenty about how many people were avoiding it etc, I'll happily admit to getting up and watching it live on the beeb. I thought it was great, the whole thing (although I did go for a shower while the service formalities were going on), and so nice to see so many people out on The Mall. I will say, though, a) the shock that they kissed TWICE was perhaps a little overplayed, and b) the comment "William certainly is a good driver", was, well, silly. He drove at 20 mph down a wide, straight, empty road... I think my sister could manage that, and she crashed into a parked car...
Anyway, I digress. After a brief trip into the city centre, along an uncharacteristically empty A40, I headed out west towards Hampshire. The M4 was equally as empty, partly due to a rolling roadblock about half a mile behind me to allow a departing wedding guest to speed through on their way to Heathrow; twenty police riders and a shadowing Range Rover suggested a foreign royal, perhaps. Friday evening was spent in a pub in north Hampshire, getting annoyed by how loud the house band were playing and pointing out that the Wills and Kate flags were the wrong dimensions. Can one be middle aged at the age of 23?

Saturday morning Joe and I headed down to Hurst Castle for some early morning seawatching. Or some early morning seawatching for Joe, I should say. Hampshire, as nice as the county is for birding, never really strikes me as a prime seawatching location; there's a big lump of chalk in the way.

So, I left Joe to stare at the Isle of Wight for a few hours (notching up a couple of Poms and four Velvet Scoters) while I took did some birding on the marshes.
A buck Roe Deer was out on the shingle spit; with the arrival of some early morning dog walkers, it decided to make an exit, swimming across the tidal lagoon and on into the arable fields inland.

With only three and a half legs, perhaps it found swimming easier than hopping...

Also on the tidal lagoon, perhaps not unexpectedly after last week's movements, were a small flock of Bar-tailed Godwits. Most of the males were looking lovely in their breeding plumage.

Onwards to Pennington Marshes. A couple of Lesser Whitethroats were singing along the cycle track and my first Common Swift of the year flew over; this Little Stint was on Fishtail lagoon.

Just as I was walking away, a flock of ten Calidris waders flew towards me... nine Dunlin and, ooh, that looks like a Curlew Sandpiper. I watched as the flock past me, expecting to see a gleeming white rump* in the middle of the flock. But I didn't. Instead I saw a rump that looked a sort of streaky greyish. Admittedly at this point the flock were flying into the light, so views weren't the best, but I was quite sure the rump wasn't white. Thankfully the flock landed further along Fishtail lagoon and off I scuttled for a better look. Sure enough, there were nine Dunlin and a perfectly fine-looking fresh breeding-plumaged Curlew Sand. I watched them for a while and eventually they flew from one island to the next - and the rump was indeed barred. Odd. However, a quick look on my phone revealed that actually this might not be all that unusual after all - as the old tagline goes, always discovering!

*I'm using the word rump here in that commonly-used but often incorrect "ooh look at its white rump" sort of way, rather than the techinically-correct "feathering between the uppertail coverts and the back" sort of way.

Other waders included two Knot, a breeding-plumage Sanderling, a male Ruff, and quite a few Turnstones. A drake Garganey was on Butts lagoon while Sandwich, Common & Little Terns and Yellow Wagtails passed overhead; and several Dartford Warblers were in the gorse bushes along with masses of Common Whitethroats..

Up in the New Forest things were quite quiet, though we did manage to find several Wood Warblers, a handful of Redstarts and a Crossbill.

New Forest pony:

New Forest nuisance:

In the forest - out of control
Worryingly, I saw more than one car with one of these stickers.

Evening meal consisted of fish, chips and Fosters; thankfully the chip shop's food was a lot better than its grammar:

We finished the day at the very pretty though rather birdless Hatchet Pond; a pony using my wing-mirror as a scratching post, almost breaking it off in the process, was about as eventful as it got.

Sunday morning we headed back to Pennington Marshes. Four Little Stints were on Jetty Lagoon and again there were plenty of Bar-tailed Godwits. Small groups of Whimbrel were also passing over and occasionally landing in the fields or on the marsh.

Next, we headed to Blashford. Hell-on-Earth on most weekend days; we were expecting a bank holiday Sunday to be even worse.

But it wasn't. That is an empty Woodland Hide. Completely empty. Mind you, we saw nothing more exciting than a Great Spotted Woodpecker from there, but even so. I've never seen the place so quiet. A Garden Warbler and a Hobby passing over were both new for this year.

Joe is county yearlisting this year - and doing a good job of it, too - so, when news of a Wood Sandpiper broke at Farlington Marshes, we headed east. Joe wandered off to the furthest point of the reserve to view the sandpiper while I entertained myself with these Blue-tailed Damselflies. I was particularly interested in the different colour morphs (for exciting reasons that should become clear in soon). All of the different colour morphs/forms were present: young (green thoraxed) males; mature (blue thoraxed) males; typica (male-like) adult females; rufescens (pink-thoraxed) imature females; rufescens-obsoltea (yellow coloured) adult females; infuscans (greenish-thoraxed) adult females; and some really attractive violacea immature females, with bright purple thoraxes.

rufescens female:

mature male:

Back in the New Forest and taking a wander across some of the heathland, more Dartford Warblers along with a few Stonechats were about the only birds on show. A Cuckoo flew over and was the first one seen of many heard. Highlight for me came from looking down, not up - something slithered away from my right foot and under a bush. It was small and brown and I was expecting it to be a Slow Worm; peering into the bush, though, revealed a neat pattern of dark diamonds along its back: an Adder! Amazingly my first snake of any sort in the UK. By the time my phone was out of my pocket it had slithered deeper into the bush and out of sight.
Again, evening highlights were provided by New Forest ponies; this time a gang of hooligan horses running amok on the camp site and swiping food (literally) from peoples barbecues.

And this morning. Well, nothing much to report. We woke to the sound of a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker drumming on the edge of the campsite, with another off in the distance. Then it was back to London - again on alarmingly clear roads, passing someone driving a boat (seriously, an actual boat with wheels) along the A303 on the way!

Wednesday to Saturday

2011-04-23T20:05:00.005+01:00

Wednesday and Thursday were again spent recording, though after the relative success of Monday and Tuesday it was hard going. I'd headed down into Wales where it would, in theory, be nice and quiet... but with tractors, sheep, cows, helicopters and ramblers to contend with, recording wasn't easy. Plus, none of the things I 'needed' were performing. I did catch up with my first Redstarts and Cuckoo of the year, though, and with the weather as sunny as it was it was nice to be out and about.

A little bit of ringing in the garden whilst I worked in the evening produced only a handful of birds; this 2cy male Coal Tit was the only species of any note.

Yesterday afternoon I headed off to Woolston for a 24 hour ringing session, complete with overhead thunderstorm and a night in the car. Warblers were back in force with plenty of Willow Warblers, along with Chiffchaff, Blackcap, and the first Sedge & Reed Warbler and Common Whitethroat of the year. Also the first Woodpigeon of the year. I headed back home at 11 this morning; total for the two days: 93 individuals of 20 species.

And finally, for anyone interested, I wrote a short piece for Martin Garner's blog looking at the age of the 2011 Titchwell Iberian Chiffchaff and explaining why it isn't last year's bird returning: http://birdingfrontiers.com/2011/04/22/iberian-chiffchaff/.

More recording

2011-04-19T21:55:00.005+01:00

My target for today was Willow Tit. Try as I might, I couldn't find one anywhere. I did, though, manage to cross off some more recordings from the target list - Treecreeper call, various Long-tailed Tit noises etc. Also some recordings of two screwed up Chiffchaffs. More on those another time if I have the chance.
This plane did its best to piss me off by circling low overhead:

Sightings included a Grasshopper Warbler, plenty of Whitethroats, Reed Warblers, a Sedge Warbler, and a Black Swan. All new for the year...

Non-avian sightings included these longhorn moths:

And, back at home, this Hebrew Character:

Opening the nets in the garden while I worked in the evening produced four birds: two new Goldfinches, a new Dunnock, and a retrap Dunnock originally ringed in February. Also some 'breeding behaviour' from our resident pair of Robins. Thankfully, I'd thought ahead and ringed each bird on a different leg. Turns out its the female that's been in our garden since at least October last year (ring on the right leg), with the male (ring on the left) turning up in February. Interesting!

Sefton Park

2011-04-18T16:28:00.007+01:00

My mission for today was to get a sound recording of Feral Pigeon. Easy! Right?
I'm up in the northwest still where noise pollution isn't quite so offensive as it is in London. Even so, point a Telinga in any direction and you'll still hear the roaring of some engine or other. And the difficultly with recording Feral Pigeons is that you're unlikely to find them in an oak woodland in a Welsh valley 20 miles from the nearest town; they like to potter around the noisy places they can possibly find. I tried to find an acoustic/pigeon compromise and headed off to the park with a parabola in one hand and a bag of bread in the other.
The plan was simple - throw bread; attract in pigeons; record pigeons. Plans rarely turn out to be that simple, though. There was already a pile of bread dumped on the side of the lake, big enough to last every bird in the park a week, and consequently the well-fed pigeons spent most of their time sat roosting in a tree doing not a lot (and making not a lot of sound). I did, however, manage to get fantastic recordings of a Treecreeper that was singing from a trunk about 3 m in front of me along with a few other target recordings, so the trip was a success overall.
Interesting sightings over the day included some Stock Doves and a flyover Yellow Wagtail.

Back at home, I spent the rest of the afternoon in front of the computer. While I was working, I opened up the nets in the garden. Within minutes I'd caught an adult Magpie. It was enough hour before I caught another bird, though; this time a Goldfinch. Another hour later, and just as I was about to close the nets for the evening, another two Goldfinches and a 2cy male Greenfinch flew in. The Greenfinch is interesting (erm, "interesting") in that it shows a moult limit in the primaries, with the 5th and 6th primaries having been moulted during the post juvenile moult. Admittedly it's not the most obvious moult limit...
In addition to the moulted primaries, it's worth taking a look at the primary coverts, too. Compared to yesterday's adult male, this bird lacks the lovely grey feather tips; and unlike in adult's complete moult when primaries and the corresponding primary coverts are moulted at the same time, the primary coverts here have all been left unmoulted.

Moel Famau

2011-04-17T20:42:00.003+01:00

I took a wander up Liverpool's highest mountain today, 'Mole Vamma'. That's probably quite a funny joke if come from Liverpool. And probably quite offensive if you come from north Wales. All the usual suspects were out and about: Ravens, flocks of redpolls, my first House Martins and Willow Warblers in the UK this year, and a few Wheatears.

After yesterday's dismal failure, I decided to try again with the nets in the garden and opened them up for a couple of hours this evening. Amazingly, they caught! Six Greenfinches and a single Goldfinch; all new. All of the females had broodpatches and all of the males cloacal protuberance, so presumably all locally breeding individuals. All second-year birds with the exception of a single adult male Greenfinch:

The rather bull-necked appearance is due to a crop full of sunflower hearts!

I'm back in Liverpool

2011-04-16T21:52:00.003+01:00

And everything seems the same.

Headline news from today: I saw my first UK Swallows of 2011, a Blackcap was singing from some back gardens up the road, and there was a big spider in our garage, now residing somewhere down the road at the request of my mum.

Opening up a couple of mistnets in the garden for most of the morning caught a grand total of zero birds. I did however take some lovely photos of a Woodpigeon with retained secondaries. I was going to say something about the age of it but, thankfully for most of you, I then proceeded to smash my camera against the toilet (I was photographing the bird out of the bathroom window) resulting in the CF card auto-formatting (read: corrupting) itself. I don't seem to be having much luck with cameras recently. My compact also took a bash somewhere between Tel Aviv and Heathrow:

Please learn from my mistakes,
please learn from my mistakes.

Moffz and stuff

2011-04-10T11:08:00.001+01:00

Yesterday evening was spent in the delightful Perivale Woods, setting up moth traps followed by a session of 'dusking' (running around with a net catching anything that happens to fly in front of you) and 'sugaring' (wandering around checking 'sugar' baited tree trunks, generally failing to find any moths).

Species encountered on our dusking tour of the woods included an Early Thorn, some lacewings (including a tiiiiiiny white one), several very attractive Lunar Marbled Browns that had already been attracted in to the traps:

a Nuctenea umbratica (we think):

And a European Hedgehog:

HH meets FB.

We were back this morning to check the traps. Plenty of Eriocrania subpurpurella:

Quite a few Brindled Pugs, too:

Some Hebrew Characters:

An Oak Beauty:

An Early Thorn:

And, excitingly, a new species for the site: Pine Beauty. It's nationally quite common and widespread but its absence from Perivale can be explained by the scarcity there of its foodplant - pine.

Messrs Howdon, Culshaw & Whitby photograph the Pine Beuaty:

Lunchtime at KG

2011-04-06T17:55:00.009+01:00

A quick trip out of the office this afternoon to Kensington Gardens. I'd yet to see the famous KG owlets, so we took advantage of the glorious weather (27 °C... according to the car) in the hope of catching up with them before the trees came into leaf and they melted away into the canopy. The Tawny Owls had been late to nest this year, and thus the owlets had been late to "branch", so already there were plenty of leaves on the trees. We'd given up, unable to find them, and were leaving the park when we received a phonecall from Des McKenzie who'd found the entire owl family in a tree about 300 m from their original 'hatching tree'. They don't half travel around a lot for a ball of fluff that can't yet fly!

Other sightings during our short stay included a handful of Stock Doves, the ever-present Ring-necked Parakeets, and plenty of singing Nuthatches, Treecreepers, displaying Blue Tits etc. All very pleasant!

Postscript: Little did we know had we wandered across to The Serpentine, we could have watched a corpse being dragged from the lake...

Catalan ringing

2011-04-01T18:16:00.003+01:00

This time last year, I was 1/3rd of the way through my stay at Aiguamolls natural park. The ringing campaign is running there again this year, at the same location for the same time with (more-or-less) the same set of nets. This year, there's a blog dedicated to news from the ringing site. It's in Catalan, but it has some pretty pictures.
There's also a list of totals, which you can compare directly with last year. Promig means average; the rest should be pretty self explanatory...

Eilat spring migration festival 2011 - day 8

2011-03-27T18:43:00.001+01:00

It's my last day here in Eilat. This morning, to end the festival, we went on a last-ditch-attempt mop-up tour. It proved worthwhile, starting with a female Semi-collared Flycatcher (plus Chaffinch and European Bee-eater, new for the trip list), then on to a Broad-billed Sandpiper at IRBCE; next was a pair of juvenile Striated Herons in the marina; then finally Eastern Olivaceous Warbler and a male Cretzschmar's Bunting in the IMAX park.

Eilat spring migration festival 2011 - day 7

2011-03-26T16:28:00.003Z

It's my final full day at the spring migration festival here in Eilat. I've had a bit of a lazy day, catching up on a few things that needed doing and staying local in Eilat. Two White-eyed Gulls off North Beach were the highlight, and a Pied Kingfisher was briefly along the canal there.
I'll spend this evening at the round-up lecture here in the hotel; tomorrow morning will be spent on a quick "mop-up" tour of the local area before heading to the airport to catch a flight home via Tel Aviv. So, I suspect this short video is going to be my last post from on the ground at the festival - I'll post an update of the final day when I'm back in the UK and a slightly more carefully put together summary of the whole festival when I have time. I can honestly say though that the whole trip has been superb, and massive thanks has to go to all of the festival organisers and trip leaders who have done a more-than-brilliant job over the last seven days.

Eilat spring migration festival 2011 - day 6

2011-03-25T21:23:00.002Z

This morning I joined the Uvda Valley tour and, under grey skies and with strong winds, headed up into the mountain valley. We soon found a large mixed flock of larks, mostly Thick-billed and Short-toed though with some Bimaculated mixed in. Trumpeter Finches were also mingling amongst the flock.
A female Citrine Wagtail, a female Namaqua Dove and a Collared Pratincole were at the sewage works; the fields nearby were very productive with several Red-throated Pipits, Woodchat Shrikes, Wrynecks, a mixed flock of yellow wagtails (mostly Black-headed with one 'superciliaris' and at least one flava/beema-type), an Ortolan Bunting and two Cretzschmar's Buntings.
At Yotvata, the fields contained several more Red-throated Pipits along with Water Pipits; a Lesser Short-toed Lark called in briefly, a Booted Eagle dropped down on some prey nearby, and an Oriental Skylark gave fantastic 'scope views as it fed in the cut grass.
The evening was spent back at Yotvata. Three species of bird were seen - Stone Curlew, Pharaoh Eagle Owl, and, oddly, Isabelline Wheatear. The owl gave stunning views. We also scored with several mammal species: many Cape Hares, three Jackals, a Red Fox, and three Desert Hedgehogs.

Eilat spring migration festival 2011 - day 5 (evening)

2011-03-25T14:10:00.002Z

Last night was 'Rambo night' - a trip north to look for Nubian Nightjars and Hume's (Tawny) Owls. Our first sighting of a Nubian Nightjar came quickly, before we had even arrived at the favoured site. At the site, we managed to get good views of two or three birds as they sat on the tracks around the saltmarsh. Then we moved onto the Hume's Owl site, where we quickly located a pair of calling birds that gave fantastic scope views as they sat on the cliff face.
WARNING: This movie contains no bird footage... though it does contain a recording of a male Hume's Owl!

Eilat spring migration festival 2011 - day 5 (morning)

2011-03-24T11:07:00.002Z

I'm uploading today's video early because tonight is 'rambo night' - Nubian Nightjars and Hume's Tawny Owl, hopefully!
I spent this morning at the IBRCE ringing station with Re'a, Roni, Teun, Bram and the other volunteers there. On the walk up to the station, two Pied Kingfishers were along the canal. I arrived just as yesterday's male Ménétries's Warbler was retrapped; sometime late a second bird, a female, was caught. Other highlights includes a Hoopoe, a female Woodchat Shrike, a Squacco Heron, and an Eastern Orphean Warbler.

Eilat spring migration festival 2011 - day 4

2011-03-23T17:24:00.003Z

The great thing about the festival here in Eilat is that there's no obligation to take part in the festival tours. So, if like me this morning you want to take a lie-in and catch up with some sleep, you're free to do so. It also gives the chance to do a little bit of exploring yourself. I took a wander through Eilat, where I found several House Crows along with the usual Spectacled Bulbuls, Laughing Doves etc. At North Beach, a dark morph Western Reed Egret was present and several Eastern Bonelli's Warbler were migrating through.
In the afternoon, I joined Yoav and the group for a trip to the km19 pool. The pair of Little Crakes were still showing exceptionally well and, around the cattle sheds, we found a smart male Namaqua Dove. Sadly the latter decided to fly north before I can set the camera rolling. At least one Red-throated Pipit flew north over, a couple of Isabelline Wheatears were around the site, and Short-toed Larks and Spanish Sparrows were feeding in the cattle sheds.

Eilat spring migration festival 2011 - day 3

2011-03-22T20:40:00.004Z

It was another early start this morning with the minibus leaving at 4am, heading to Nizzana in search of desert species. It was a long day but we managed a good haul and, in addition to the species features in the film clip below, we managed to see Bonelli's, Lesser Spotted, Short-toed & Steppe Eagle, Cretzschmar's Bunting, Rüppell's Warbler, Masked Shrike, Eastern Bonelli's Warbler, and Eastern Orphean Warbler.
Given the nature of the terrain we were birding in, a lot of the birds have been filmed from the car, so please do excuse the slightly shaky footage of some of the species!

Eilat spring migration festival 2011 - day 2

2011-03-21T23:06:00.002Z

It's the second day of the spring migration festival here in Eilat, and the first full day of tours. I opted to head up to the Dead Sea in search of some of the specialities that area has to offer. Led by Itai Shanni, our group of six left the hotel at 5am to head north. The array of species on offer was amazing, though frustratingly several proved to be just that bit too flightly, flittly or scuttly for me to keep up with. The result: good views of Sand Partridge, Cyprus Pied Wheatear, Fan-tailed Raven, Scrub Warbler, Long-legged Buzzard, and Graceful Prinia but no usable footage of any! Here's a summary of the day with some birds I did manage to film:

Eilat spring migration festival 2011 - day 1

2011-03-20T20:06:00.006Z

After an overnight flight from London to Tel Aviv followed this morning by a short internal flight, I arrived at Eilat seriously in need of some sleep but excited all the same. Late morning was spent around the hotel grounds, early afternoon spent catching 40-winks, and late afternoon into the evening spent around the km20 pool complex. Personal highlights for me today have been a variegata Stonechat:

And a male 'superciliaris' wagtail, here with two male feldegg:

Sad, I know. But 'proper species' like Litchenstein's Sandgrouse, Little Crakes, a Great White Pelican, Palestine Sunbirds, Spectacled Bulbuls, and Spur-winged Plovers have also provided plenty of interest.
Here's a video summary of the first day:

Next stop, Tel Aviv

2011-03-19T21:07:00.001Z

An hour and a half and we're off! I'm currently sat in T1 waiting to board the flight to Tel Aviv. From there, it's a short hop down to Eilat. And from there on in it's a week of what should prove to be fantastic birding at the spring migration festival.

I'll be blogging as often as I can from the festival so check back for the latest!

----------------------------
Blogged from my iPhone

Parklife

2011-03-13T15:51:00.005Z

It's a glorious spring day here in Liverpool, so my mum and I took a stroll through some of the local parks. Nice to be out locally, and nice to see some of the commoner species that I haven't seen for a while now; things like Nuthatch and Song Thrush.

Most surprising sighting was of three Buzzards soaring in the air together and indulging in a spot of 'rollercoasting'.

Also in the sky this afternoon:

And back at home, plenty of frogs croaking away in the pond. Possibly the most skittish frogs in the world, he's a dodgy photo of two of them taken from about 4 m away; any closer and they all disappear below the surface.

Eilat spring migrations festival 2011

2011-03-13T09:52:00.003Z

By this time next week I'll hopefully be watching my first Palastine Sunbirds and Spectacled Bulbuls. I'll be in Eilat, visiting the spring migration festival.

All being well, I'll be making daily or near-daily blog posts while I'm out there, so stay tuned from the 19th onwards. In the meantime, here are a few blogs that I've been wetting my appetite for Israeli birding with, all of which are well worth a read:

Yoav Perlman Yoav's fantastic blog details his birding right across Israel; he will also be taking part in festival events next week.

Eilat Birding News from the International Birding and Research Center in Eilat.

Faab's Sightings Fabian Meijer has just returned from a week in Israel and visited many of the places the festival tours will be heading to in a week's time.

And for anyone who speaks Dutch, Teun van Kessel and Bram Ubels are volunteering at the IBRCE and blogging about their exploits.

Reed Warbler retraps

2011-03-10T17:35:00.001Z

I received two sets of informations this week, both regarding ringed Reed Warblers that I'd retrapped at Aiguamolls, Catalonia, during the spring migration ringing campaign. They highlight the two different - but equally valuable - type of data to come out of ringing campaigns like this.

The first bird, caught of 26th April, had a Slovenian ring. Here it is:

It had been ringed as a 1cy in September 2008 in Koper.

That's an official movement of about 920 km; in reality, this bird has already undergo two autumn migrations to Africa and was in the middle of its 2nd migration back north again.

The second bird was caught on 8th May and was carrying a Spanish ring. Here's the bird in question:

It had been ringed as a 1cy at exactly the same site, and was presumably in the area as a retuning breeding rather than as a migrant passing through. On paper, that means this bird has moved a rather unimpressive 0 km; in reality, it had already made three trips to Africa and back.
Interesting too to note the rather dull eye of this bird, which was in its 4 cy when the photo was taken.

Thanks to Oriol Clarabuch/ICO for the information.

The best thing about the Crossley ID Guide?

2011-03-07T19:07:00.003Z

It smells of plasticine.

For a slightly more balanced review, see >here.