Redwings & Fieldfares, Upton Warren

Bang on schedule, these winter thrushes are back. Last year I picked them up a day earlier; but what's a day between reuniting friends? The redwings are already numerous, the fieldfares less so. We saw only one small flock. Skylarks too were on the move. They're not an obvious migrant, being a native breeder, but large numbers fly down from their upland breeding areas and in from the north. Whether this means just Scotland or northern Europe, I don't know.

The fieldfares are an especial thrill with their bold patterns and chattering calls. They also have the coolest nest defence mechanism. Basically, they fly above predators and “shit on the bastards below”. Remember that from football songs of yore?

The two thrushes pushed me closer to my goal of 600 species for the year, as I predicted the winter birds would. The list stands at 578 with a trip to Scotland in the offing at the end of the month. Whooper swan, pink-footed goose, velvet scoter and turnstone should be easy, with maybe red-throated diver, purple sandpiper, crested tit, Scottish crossbill and twite depending on where I go. Locally I could still expect Bewick’s swan, grey partridge, Mediterranean gull, little owl, brambling and that darn bittern, reported on BirdForum, which didn't show again today. I’m also missing barn owl, lesser spotted woodpecker, tree sparrow and corn bunting, but Lord knows whither they've retreated.

What's that? 19 off the top of my head. It sounds easy but, like many birders, I over-estimate. The game is much harder than that.

Scottish Icterine Warblers

Oh, Lordy. Here's another tricky, non-descript species to get to grips with, found thanks to work on the BTO Breeding Atlas. No, no, no, it's a Good Thing, right? Yes, it is.

Great (White) Egret, nr Pershore

Egretta alba according to the Collins Bird Guide; Ardea alba to Wildlife Recorder (WR) and BirdGuides, which includes the “White” in its name. WR only includes “White” for its alternative Egretta alba scientific name. Sibley in the US and Morcombe in Aus both agree on great egret Ardea alba but Robertson & Heather in New Zealand call it white heron Egretta alba. And Robson for South-East Asia throws a complete spanner in the scientific works with Casmerodius albus.

Is this the same bird around the world? To which genus does it belong? Ardea tends to be the herons and Egretta, the egrets. I've had trouble with consolidating worldwide records for this species since I first started seeing it. The confusion seems to be historic and Wikipedia suggests that the egret is in fact a heron, with the possibility that the down-under race is a separate species.

Got that straight? The visitor to Worcestershire showed for all of three seconds this afternoon, less than 1% of the time it took to sort out its taxonomy. Still, the glimpse was long enough to identify black feet, which in the absence of an accurate size is the best distinction from little egret. I was happy enough with it anyway.

1999: Fulmar and Sandwich Terns at Lyme Regis

OK, I've a whole series of these things from ten years ago, this time August 25. Like I said: I've been at this game for a while:

"I had driven through nearly an hour of torrential rain and lightning from the M5 down to Lyme Regis. Chard had threatened to turn into Venice with waterfalls cascading off roofs to join the rivers forming in the streets. I was beat almost before the trip had begun.

Lyme itself was not much better. I spent another hour trying to find shelter to eat my sandwiches. Only the Herring Gulls looked relatively unperturbed.

However, in the midst of all this gloom and murk another gull flew across the front and veered out to sea. I don't know why I noticed it particularly -- some sixth sense maybe? As it turned away its flight action became more apparent -- those stiff wings, flickering more than beating. I got the binoculars on to the bird and sure enough the colouring and shape was all Fulmar. Suddenly munching a rye bread and Marmite sandwich in a sodden Dorset town did not seem like such a bad idea after all.

Later the weather turned completely and it became too hot for jeans and t-shirt. It also became possible to check out the other birds. A pair of terns called out at sea. I suspected Sandwich Tern from the shape, and the call did not seem like that of a Common; but I am no expert and these birds were too far out to tell for sure. Five minutes passed and the pair obliged by settling on the fast disappearing rocks 100 meters away. This time I could definitely make out the yellow tip to the bill and the slight crest.

A smart pair of Grey Wagtails, possibly my favourite bird, on the stream running through the town was a welcome late addition to the day's list. Then I had to head back to Winchester."

Long-Billed Dowitcher, Chew Valley

This American wader just happened to me. BirdGuides had listed it a few days back but I'd thought no more about it until I stopped at Herriott's Bridge this afternoon as part of my standard route round the lake. I was only in the area looking at a room to rent in Chew Stoke, which pretty much has to be a birder’s dream. Fingers crossed on that one.

A gaggle of telescopes at the lay-by told me something was up, so I hauled mine out of the boot and joined them. I picked up the muttering of “long-billed dowitcher” and then remembered the earlier report.

Among half-a-dozen snipe the stranger was easy to separate. But was it a dowitcher? I've seen long-billed dozens of times in California and short-billed often enough, and generally separated them by habitat. By default the long-billed occupied the Bay Area while shorties were more coastal. I guess I even got quite lazy about that because it’s nowhere near a hard-and-fast rule.

Certainly the length of the bill is little use in identifying them, so I’m continually amazed when British birders confidently announce one or the other. I used to have the greatest difficulty with them. So, here's the British trick: if you’ve got a dowitcher, which is rare, it’s long-billed. Short-billed is a mega; the last certain sighting was back in 2005.

Still not sure whether I was looking at the right bird, I decided to play a game of sketching what I did see. Here in words is what I came up with: surprisingly similar size and build as the snipe; grey head and breast with darker cap and possible eyebrow; a slight gap between the breast and coverts/scapulars – rather like a common sandpiper; black-spotted grey coverts under black-spotted rufous scapulars, then back to black-spotted grey on the mantle; and a kind of weird, splayed tail-feather configuration. Google Books shows typical shorebird topography for these terms if you scroll down a little. I had to use it.

The spotting on the feathers signifies a juvenile at this time of year, as do the rufous fringes, so I got those bits right. I’m not too sure what was going on with the tail though! The rest of the description is pretty much spot-on for any dowitcher.

Sketching, in my case just ovals and lines (you should see the tiny head on my effort!), is something I should do more. Again, I tend to get lazy. But not this time, not for my 278th British (sic) bird. Surprisingly it did nothing for the year list: good old Shoreline at Mountain View, CA gave me one back in March. Or was it short-billed? Ha! I don't know. However, this afternoon did push the year list on to 575, thanks to my first water rail – so late in the year. I could reckon on getting to 600 since I have yet to see many of our common winter birds.

Did I mention that I was away last winter? I expect so.

Osprey at Chew Valley Lake

Here's something from ten years ago – August 24, to be exact – when ospreys were still a bit of a novelty:

"I had got up early to catch high tide at Severn Beach. I walked out of the door at seven to the start of some persistent rain and changed my mind instantly. There were hides at Chew Valley and I would at least stay dry. There is nothing to be gained from peering through droplet-coated binoculars while getting soaked and probably blown about into the bargain.

"A good decision. Within moments of settling in to the Stratford Bay hide I saw a large shape above. Great Black-backed Gull was my first thought. I had never seen one at Chew, so that wasn't too bad. An instant later better was to come. The bird turned to reveal splayed wing tips -- way too splayed for any gull. I knew that I could only be looking at an Osprey.

"I watched it hunt and thought how expensive an operation it was. No gliding or soaring in this weather. More or less continuous wing-beats and turns punctuated the odd plummet as the bird saw something only to pull out as its prey disappeared. Once it continued its dive, thrashed around and came out with... Well, was there something? The binoculars did not resolve anything and the Osprey continued its quartering.

"A second dive, thrash and lift-off definitely produced a wriggling victim. I was in a state of tension. Would the bird hold on? This fish definitely did not want to be caught. I could see the Osprey try to straighten its catch as I knew it must before it could fly efficiently. I looked out for gulls that might try to harass the Osprey. Eventually it had its cargo stowed to its satisfaction and powered off overhead and away behind the hide.

"You can see all this stuff on the TV but you will always miss the emotional involvement provided by being there and witnessing the whole chase. I felt nearly as exhausted as the Osprey must occasionally have felt after a hard day's work."

Three Things I Never Knew About Raptors

Guts. They're the key to a raptor’s ability to soar. Guts and wing area. A shorter gut means less weight, a lower wing-loading and “up she goes!” That's why a sparrowhawk soars and a similarly dimensioned wood pigeon flaps like crazy. The pigeon is full of guts for processing seeds. The hawk with its high-protein diet doesn't need so many.

This came out of a fascinating talk given by Keith Offord to the Kidderminster branch of the WMBC last night. Here's more: raptor is a taxonomic term. Yup, the birds have hooked bills, binocular vision and long, pointy claws; but so do owls, which technically are not raptors. Nor are New World vultures, more closely related to our storks. They evolved convergently to the same body pattern. (Actually all vultures have somewhat subdued claws but I’ll skate over that.)

And finally, why are some species’ females bigger than the males but not others? Nobody really knows but there's a correlation between this sexual dimorphism and the speed of the birds’ prey. Dead stuff doesn't move fast at all and the sexes of the carrion eaters, like vultures and kites, are the same size. At the other end of the scale birds are the zippiest things on the planet and the female of our sparrowhawk can be twice the size of the male.

So there's another thing for him to worry about, along with his lack of guts. (Just kidding: I wouldn’t tangle with a male sparrowhawk.)

Marsh and Willow Tits

A walk down to Trimpley Reservoir brought my first marsh tit sighting for a couple of months. I was actually on the trail of a willow tit. I thought I heard one but it’s been nearly six years since I even logged one and I’m quite out of touch with its call. It has a nasal, buzzy quality, just like a chickadee, but the marsh tit has a similar, softer call. I got two birds in the binoculars but both were clearly marsh. I’ll have to practise with my Roché bird songs and go again.

The woodland held a wealth of species – great, coal and blue tits, great spotted woodpecker, nuthatch, treecreeper, spotted flycatchers, goldcrest and a raven. That’s certainly flavour of the moment. There was even a train. Ha-ha! The video recorder on my phone works, as does uploading to YouTube – two more landmarks to go with this, my hundredth post.

Immigration Crisis Over: Swallows Leaving

Lord knows what our robins, blackbirds, tits and finches think when waves of hirundines, warblers and swifts sweep into the country from the Third World. Is there an avian equivalent of the BNP? And would the blackbirds be welcome in it anyway? It’s not even as though party leader, Griffon (Vulture), is a native.

OK, that's enough allegory. Or is it metaphor? Upton Warren today saw a stream of swallows, house martins and sand martins pushing their way back to Africa. Hobbies seemed to be following: one perched obligingly by the Moors Pool and darted out for insects. Another laboured over the hide with some unidentifiable feathered victim in its talons.

Birds of prey, in general, appeared to be on the move, too. I saw several buzzards, one of which looked distinctly osprey-like with long, straight, fingered wings. The light was appalling and I was trying to see through trees, so I had to write it off as yet another one that got away. I heard later that a marsh harrier had passed at about that time but I would never have put my bird down as any sort of harrier.

No rarities, then. But some damn fine birds all the same.

Grey Phalarope, Witcombe, Gloucestershire

This year I’m doing well on phalaropes: red-necked added to my British bird list two months ago; and only my sixth sighting anywhere of grey today. What better compensation for dipping on the wryneck that's been showing at the reservoir the last couple of days? At first, distant, the phalarope flew after five minutes – right to our edge of the water – for binoculars-filling views. They're not shy.

It was moulting into winter plumage and impossible to sex. The female of the phalaropus genus, like the dotterel, is the colourful one and does all the courting. Oh, to be a phalarope. Hang on, though. The bloke gets left on the tundra with the kids while her-outdoors buggers off back to the African oceans. This wader, along with the red-necked, is also unique in spending its non-breeding life at sea. So, today’s bird was probably female.

In summer plumage the gal’s body and neck are red, as are the male’s but more blotchily so. In fact, they're called red phalaropes in the USA, where they're also considered the rarest of the genus. Rarest because America has a third phalarope, Wilson’s. It’s a landlubber but “she” still wears the trousers.

Black Terns, Upton Warren

An influx of these through the Midlands in the bad weather yesterday left three over the Moors Pool this morning. Without expecting them, they're easy to overlook initially. The adults have largely moulted into winter garb, which along with the juveniles’ plumage, renders them white below and only somewhat greyer above than common terns.

Their behaviour gives them away. Their constant, bouncy flight brackets swift plunges to the water’s surface to pick off insects. Closer inspection, even just through binoculars, reveals the darker shade, a hint of collar and, on the youngsters, a definite leading dark band to the wings. For contrast a common tern did join them later and was clearly bigger and sturdier too.

Despite missing the late spring’s black terns in breeding plumage, it was good to add these to the year list and moreover to my score from September last year, which now stands at 645. I used that date as the start point for my round-the-world twelve-month list but may push it back to October because I’m off to Malta in a couple of weeks. More of that later, I’m sure.

I spent an hour in the lapwing (east) hide, absorbing these birds plus a very obliging common sandpiper and male kingfisher. I know this now because it wasn't wearing “lippy”, as someone put it (the female has a red base to its bill).

Movie Birds – Charlie’s Angels

Movies that get their ornithology wrong appeal to the trainspotter in me. From nearly ten years ago, the bloomer in Charlie’s Angels still tickles. I'd only recently moved to California but even so knew that when Natalie (Cameron Diaz) exclaimed that a pygmy nuthatch only lived in one place, Carmel, I was definitely in Hollywoodland. Moreover, she had identified the bird from its song over a telephone connection.

For starters, few species in the world are restricted to an area as small as one town. Then, California really only has one endemic bird – the yellow-billed magpie, which is widespread throughout the Central Valley. To give the film’s researchers credit, pygmy nuthatch does actually occur in the state, but also in Oregon, Washington and as far east as Colorado.

What made the mistake more egregious was a previous shot of some very, very red bird supposedly representing the nuthatch; and as for the song... No, no, no, no, no. Although going to an earlier version of the screenplay on Daily Script suggests the source of this error and just how little the original authors knew about birds. In this, a good couple of pages before Natalie’s detective work, they introduce a bright red songbird, which she later, by sound, has to identify as...

A blue spotted egret?!?

Yeah, that needs a whole paragraph to itself. Then Alex (Lucy Liu) pins it down to Florida. If nothing else, this demonstrates the huge gap that can grow between script and final cut. Speaking as a wannabe film-writer, I say, “Don't shoot the author!”

Sabine’s Gull, Upton Warren

My good friend, Midlands Birder, was at the twitch for tonight’s flight in of this handsome arctic breeder. It must be a little way off its course from Greenland or Canada to Africa: some birds skim our western shores but rarely reach as far inland as Worcestershire. I was lucky enough to pick it out as it flew and so got the full benefit of its striking black, white and grey wing pattern.

It’s a beautiful thing. And British bird number 277 for me.

Little Egret, Upton Warren

Spotted crake was top of the menu, but was off, for this morning’s visit to Upton. A couple of reports late yesterday had driven the early birders in at half-past-five but the crake hadn’t shown by the time I arrived at ten. (I've done my crack-of-dawn starts for a while.) Nor did it oblige later.

A little egret, however, did show to become my 119th species at the site, the only wonder being that I have missed it all this time. Upton has hosted the odd individual recently but the egret doesn't seem to have taken to the place despite becoming increasingly common in Worcestershire.

Little egrets officially became British breeders in the mid-90s on Brownsea Island and, since then, have established themselves widely. Even now their generally accepted UK headquarters is the Island but it seems that not all is well there. As far back as 2005, ravens predated all the nests and it’s hard to find any more recent information. I only went digging because a bloke in the hide today (yeah, the same one as down the pub) asserted that the egrets had failed for the same reason this year. Is it so?

As I was about to call it a morning a splendid kingfisher whirred up to perch for a minute in front of the hide. According to my Collins Bird Guide, it’s possible to separate the sexes when breeding by the colour of the lower bill – pale red for female; black for male. I didn't note that detail on this bird but wonder if it holds outside the breeding season.

So many questions!

Wood Sandpiper, Upton Warren

What is it about this wader, apart from its scarcity relative to common and green sandpipers, of which several also pecked and probed at the Flashes this afternoon? The bird is certainly handsome with its clean supercilium, mottled upperparts and more slender build than the green, which is the only other medium-small tringa sandpiper regular in this country. Really it’s misleading to lump the common sandpiper in here, being on its own of the genus actitis in the Western Palaearctic. And it does look quite different.

The woodie today seemed to show brown in the mottling – hard to judge at the distance it was keeping – but a faint smudge of tawny beside the breast also suggested that it’s a juvenile. It has been mentioned on BirdForum as such.

The Collins Bird Guide notes that it will have been born on bogs and marshes in the taiga. Until I started to rewrite my SF novel, which posits that the Gulf Stream will cut out, I'd have been hard pushed to say what taiga was. Well, here's the lowdown: the sequence in the arctic runs, from coldest down, something like ice cap, tundra, taiga, boreal forest, steppe. Taiga does have trees but not so many as the forest and principally conifers. So, now you know how to make a wood sandpiper feel at home, or a taiga bean goose presumably, as opposed to a tundra bean goose.

But I digress. Whatever it is about tringa glareola (which seems to have no meaning other than pratincole), the bird is still drawing the crowds at Upton. Enough that the hide was full, although partially with tripods straddled across benches, a breach of etiquette, surely, also mentioned on the BirdForum thread.

I stopped at the Cuckoo Hide on the way out and got my reward in a snake swimming towards me. Lord knows what it was but it had an orange nape. That should nail it for someone out there.

2008: Herdsman Lake Land Birds, Perth

The stilts weren't my first bird identification problem. As soon as I got clear of the car park, a raptor tilted and wheeled over sedge beds across the lake. That behaviour back home would have made it all harrier but I was getting some distinctive underwing patterns that didn't match any of the circus genus in the field guide. These birds of prey do indirectly get that taxonomic label from their performing skills: they circle round each other when courting. This bird didn't circle. It disappeared.

No matter. I wasn't going to win them all and I hoped to get a more comfortable view from the Visitor Centre. I had no problem getting in but a sign demanded a gold coin to use the facilities. What was this? A pirate economy? Did I also need a tot of rum and a dead man’s chest? I wondered where to get these gold coins. Tourist Information? It was too late for that, so I roughed it outside.

My raptor, or maybe another one, reappeared and by dint of checking a very useful four pages of overhead drawings in my Morcombe, I pencilled in little eagle for another lifer. I was still racking up the waterbirds with ease but I had more trouble in an area of paperbarks and flooded gums right by the Centre. Various wee birdies there would only keep still long enough for me to be certain of one new species – western gerygone (pronounced jerry-gone-ee with the stress at the end of jerry; I only learned this a month later).

In the more open areas I made the reacquaintance of willie-wagtail. This bold, little, black-and-white, long-tailed flycatcher, not a million miles unrelated to the magpie-lark, would also be a constant companion the breadth of Australia. I added further lifers with a flock of little corellas and, disappointingly, laughing doves. They should have been no closer than India. Finally, a singing honeyeater became world bird number 870 for ten lifers in a couple of hours.

Those hours had taken a slight toll of my skin too and I could feel my face burning. It was time to spend my last sleepless night in Perth. ⇐ ⇒

Yellow-legged Gull, Bittell

Dave observed that this gull had only one mirror in its wing tips. It was undeniable. My Collins Bird Guide says it has smaller mirrors than the other possible source of confusion, the herring gull, but this bird seemed determined to proclaim its difference. In addition its mantle was a darker shade of grey, but not so dark as to compete with lesser black-backs, and the legs were... well, they weren't pinky. Not obviously yellow either but we were certainly looking at a yellow-legged gull.

I've tried for rarities at Bittell in the past and failed to connect with any. I told Dave this on the drizzly trudge to the upper reservoir and he said, “Thanks. We're not aiming to see a yellow-legged gull, are we?”

“No, we're not. We're going for something else entirely.”

The gull perched obligingly on the buoy where previous birders had reported it and my duck was broken. That was one more to the Worcestershire bird list and another to follow immediately when we got on to the little egrets, also mentioned by those birders. These took me up to 141, just four behind my best English county, Hampshire, but still 37 adrift of Angus. They all pale against my 219 in Santa Clara, California but, hey, everything’s bigger in America.

In a brief respite from the rains, we had earlier dipped on the pom skua reported through Bartley reservoir. It was useful to find out where the place was, though, for future, wintery reference.

2008: Herdsman Lake Waterbirds, Perth

The afternoon was drawing on and I was to collect a car to transport me round the south-west corner of the state. I had to get to Bayswater Car Rental (“No Birds” – hopefully not an omen) in Subiaco, which was a good opportunity to catch a train. I know, I know: I should have outgrown all that. My excuse could be that Perth’s trains work a lot better than its buses but I wasn't to discover that until a week later.

It was too early to park the motor for free back in Northbridge, so I took myself off to one of Bransbury’s top recommendations, Herdsman Lake. He wasn't wrong, nor was his information out of date. Ducks alone added blue-billed, musk, hardhead (aka white-eyed) and Australian shelduck to my world bird list. My 2003 holiday had already given me grey teal and Australian shoveler, so they just joined the trip list. So too did great crested and Australasian grebes, great egret, Australian pelican, white-faced heron, purple swamphen and Australian ibis. Rufous night-heron and yellow-billed spoonbill, however, were also lifers. This was just the waterbirds.

Before leaving them, one enigma remained. My Morcombe guide contains black-winged stilt (himantopus himantopus) but my computer software, Wildlife Recorder, only allows me to enter white-headed stilt (himantopus leucocephalus) to an Australian trip. In other words, the programme counts it as a separate species to the Old World version found in Europe and, very occasionally, Britain. It seems the jury is still out on this one and three other sub-species around the world. You see? Even when you think you’ve nailed a bird, the fluid taxonomic situation can unhinge it.

To confuse matters further, the white-headed stilt is far more likely to have black on its head than the black-winged. Is everything clear now? ⇐ ⇒

Feb: A New Kiwi Bird (but not a Kiwi!)

From Auckland’s Ponsonby Road to the Northern Motorway is a short but intricate journey, especially when night makes street signs hard to see. I think I managed a reasonably direct route and so found myself bowling over Waitemata Harbour and then up the North Shore district. For this the darkness wasn't a problem and I soon got on to the Albany road. Then the lights ran out and navigating to Coatesville became a challenge.

Finding the home of my old Bristol University friend, Tony, was even more so. I had to get out of the car a couple of times to search out house numbers. Just ten miles from downtown Auckland I seemed to be in the bush.

I always get there in the end though and Tony and his exuberant dog greeted me. I had worried about recognising him after thirty-odd years. I needn't have. The fellow facing me could have just stepped out of the JCR at Wills Hall, circa 1975. Life down under had clearly suited him.

I met his wife, Kathy, a northern lass – well, northern from my Winchester perspective – and unloaded what I needed from the car when an unexpected sound broke the air. My New Zealand bird guide describes it as “more-pork, more-pork”.

I don't know. Perhaps I never hear these things the same way as others. Anyway the bird was easy to identify as an owl and on the North Island that means only a morepork. OK, I guess if you're going to hear the call that way, why not use it as the name? It works for chiffchaff; it works for hoopoe; and doubtless many others. It worked for me that night – lifer number 1046. ⇐ ⇒

Green Sandpipers, Upton Warren

At least eight of these handsome chaps (or, more likely chappesses, but there is no visible difference) dotted the Flashes this afternoon. In the bird world it’s autumn already and these individuals are returning from their nesting grounds, leaving their mates, generally the male, to raise the young. You see? Us blokes doing all the hard graft again. The distribution map in my Collins Bird Guide shows the sandpiper’s nearest breeding range as Norway or Sweden, maybe Finland too, so these ladies have flown over the North Sea on their journey back to Africa.

Also recently in from breeding closer to home, on our own upland moors, were a dozen curlews, of which several were identifiably young. Upton’s own little ringed plovers seemed to have one chick – an improvement on last year, if so. Only one avocet remained and one returning shoveler nearly escaped detection among the mallards by being in eclipse plumage.

Far sadder was a lone starling. Have matters come to such a low ebb for starlings that they can no longer find huge gangs in which to roam? It seems almost impossible that these birds could become endangered. A couple of colourful linnets completed the list of birds outside those normally resident.

So, which will be the next southbound migrants?