Horned Lark at Staines in the bag for ron.

A quick trip round the orbital car park this morning provided good scope views of the vagrant American Horned Lark at Staines reservoir.

We scoped through the fence from the public causeway but in three hours the bird didn't venture too close instead feeding in the sun light on the west bank with Mipits and Linnets. The only other bird of note was a fly over Peregrine.

Good company with a few Essex birders on site and good to catch a chat with GJ again.

Reading up on the taxonomy of the Horned Lark I found the useful link below on the BBRC site

https://www.bbrc.org.uk/species-information-riact/larks-to-hirundines


So we await the split on this one which will provide a nice armchair tick when it comes.

The view up the west bank the lark just under the first pilon.

The Fence on the causeway!

A day at Dunge with a couple of guys from Dartford

Arriving at Dunge for 7.30am this morning we had a quick search for the reported Dartford Warblers.
Jim spotted a pair of Stonechat and thinking they may be keeping company with the Dartfords I scanned the area finding first one Dartford then the other and managed to capture a few images before moving on. A scan of the gulls at the fishing boats gave up just nothing but the expected.

Dartford Warbler

Dartford Warbler

Dartford under cover

Little Cracker

At ARC we watched a Marsh Harrier take a bath and two of the Great White Egrets dropped in to feed. A Kingfisher called a flashed by a couple of times and a Peregrine flushed everything before we left for Elmley.

Great Egret

Great Egret

Great Egret

At Elmley Six Jack Snipe had been reported but we failed to find them. We did see a Marsh Harrier several Buzzard and a Merlin.

Stonechat

Red-legged Partridge

Herring Gull

Marsh Harrier at Elmley

Unexpected Noteable

Didn't see this one coming

Noteable?

Always nice to see the noteable tag on an image but although this is a great bird I'm not sure it was that noteable as far as the image goes but I'll take it.

The original

Watching the Sea at Cley

With 50 mph North Westerlies forecast for Norfolk today we headed up to Cley for a full days sea watching session.

On arrival the coastguards car park was pretty full and around twenty fellow fools were already on site. The wind was moderate but more West than North but it was bitter cold as we huddled around the shelter eventually managing to get in the shelter as the first birders left.

By around eleven the rain started as the wind started to pick up and twist more from the North so we took brief shelter in the Cley visitor centre where coffee and toasted Bacon sandwich helped take the chill out of the bones before we returned for a little more sea watching before heading home.

Glaucous Gull at Cley

Glauc!

Juvenile Glaucous Gull 

The fruits of our labour today included a single year tick in the form of a single Little Auk.
A juvenile Glaucous Gull flew west down the beach giving the chance of a quick couple of images for the blog as I left out into the rain and wind as it flew by. (I took a bit of a battering)

Great Skua were seen in groups of two, three, seven and then four as well as a few singles and they came very close for a change. Gannets were present in good numbers and Kittiwakes flew west at steady intervals in good numbers and these groups included a good few juveniles.
A couple of Little Gulls plenty of Common Scoter,  larger Auks (mostly Guillemot) and the following others........

Great Crested Grebe
Red-breasted Merganser
Red-throated Diver
Bar-tailed Godwit
Dunlin
Oystercatcher
Shoveler
Teal
Shelduck
Mallard
Wigeon
Brent Geese


A flock of c30 Snow Bunting flew back and fourth in front of the shelter during the morning but retreated to cover as the wind picked up at lunchtime.

A decent day but in truth it didn't quite live up to the one I'd thought possible looking at the forecast yesterday.

Year list now 271

Lynford and Cley

A trip to Norfolk on Monday delivered very little in terms of excitement. It was bright and the tide was really high and quite choppy. After failing to find any Barn Owls I stopped at Stiffkey where two Cattle Egrets were seen before I headed up to Cley.

Gannets flew by and Seals poked their heads out to see the fools standing on the beach watching them. A Great Skua bombed the Gannets and a couple of Red-throated Divers flew east as large flocks of Common Scoter headed West.
On the beach there was no sign of Shorelark or Snow Bunting but a few linnets, Skylark and Mipits kept me entertained as I searched for them. The Turnstones at Salthouse were present and feeding well at the top of Beach road and a Marsh Harrier flew over.
Thousands of Pink Feet gathered and I managed to pick out the Black Brant from the gathered Brents too although the group was quite distant. The biggest movement seemed to be Starlings and Thrushes with Redwing and Fieldfare all moving in big flocks.

I drove home stopping at Lynford where I managed to see a single Hawfinch and found a Firecrest as a little bonus. A Yellow-browed Warbler was reported with the tit flock but when I found the tit flock I failed to locate the warbler seeing just Long -tails, Blue, Coal, Marsh and Great Tits along with Chiffchaff and Goldcrest. Whilst scanning I found Treecreeper and Nuthatch too.

An enjoyable day but with little in the way of real highlights.

Nuthatch at Lynford (dark background is provided by a distant fir tree)

Onwards and upwards!

A weekend visit to Woburn Safari park

Right out of the Lion King

 A little bit of photoshop 

American Black Bear

Zebra

A Dusky Warbler at Sandwich

We left home at 5.30 this morning and paid the toll to cross the Thames and then the toll to get through the barrier of the "private" road at Sandwich.

We quickly found the mound behind the bushes near the Chequers Inn and within seconds had heard and seen the Dusky Warbler. As far as Dusky warblers go this was a very showy bird, never really sitting but it continued to fly around and called all the time to give us a clue as to it's location.
A nice twitch in good company but freezing cold standing on the mound facing the westerly wind.

Dusky Warbler

A Woodcock flew in while we watched and a couple of groups of Brambling flew over but we didn't find anything else of interest here.

We left after a few hours and made the short diversion to Oare Marsh to find the flood full of waders as the tide was in.
Hundreds of Golden Plover, Black-tailed Godwit, Redshank and Dunlin along with good numbers of Lapwing and Avocet. Four Greenshank and singles of Barwit, Purple Sandpiper and of course the Long-billed Dowitcher made this a memorable stop. If you can get down to Oare on hide tide one afternoon just do it. It won't disappoint. 

Golden Plover

Waders....say no more!

Long-billed Dowitcher

Long-billed Dowitcher

Year list now 270