Bonus Bittern

We headed up the A11 this morning stopping to dip Golden Pheasant again on the way up to Sculthorpe Moor. At Sculthorpe we located the Waxwing at the very top of a tree just behind the visitor centre. It dropped to feed on a couple of occasions but spent seconds on the berries before returning to the safety of the trees.

The solitary Waxwing at Sculthorpe Moor

A walk around the reserve gave great views of upto ten Bullfinch and three Brambling to add another two year ticks. Marsh Tit, Treecreeper, Great Spotted Woodpecker and Nuthatch the other stars of our visit.

Bullfinch

Feeders were buzzing with Bullfinch

Our first Brambling of the year

From Sculthorpe we moved on to Titchwell where we failed to find the Woodcock that was supposed to be "showing well" but did pick up our first Chiffchaff of the year and a real bonus with a Bittern feeding along the close edge of the reeds on the walk up to Island hide.

Bittern

Bittern

Bittern

We had another search for the Woodcock which ended in disappointment before starting the journey home dropping in to Cockley Cley for another go at the Willow Tits and this time with the feeding station set up we had better luck enjoying a large tit flock taking advantage of the basket covered seed. The tits included Willow, Marsh, Coal, Great and Blue and ID was made a little easier due to how vocal they all were with the Willows really performing well for us.

The Cockley Cley feeding station with thanks to Ashley for his work here.

Year list now 163

Hudsonian Whimbrel is on the list

At last an IOC update in my favour with the split of European and Hudsonian Whimbrel and my life list has jumped to 411 with the Hudsonian seen back on 11th June 2015.

Oh and the 2015 year list jumped one too.

Onwards and Upwards

My terrible record shot of the Hudsonian Whimbrel back in 2015

No surprise

Siberian Stonechat Hollesley

As we expected it's now confirmed as Siberian

Walthamstow Wetlands

A nice local trip down to Walthamstow Wetlands this morning delivered a couple of early ticks. First we had to sort out the early permit entry (8am with permit 9.30am without) with the Thames Water guys and then we had an hour or so searching for Firecrest around the car park and Engine house without joy. We decided to move on and walked down to Lockwood were we quickly found the Black Redstart feeding around the towers at the south end.

Black Redstart at Lockwood Reservoir

Lockwood Reservoir

The favoured Feeding location

Whilst here we bumped into a few locals Dave B, Lol B and Dominic M and had a good chat as we watched a Peregrine playing with the local crows.

What a beast and with a full crop too

Lockwood Peregrine

Playing with the Crows

Following this we marched back around to the Engine house where a couple of Bearded Tits were showing in the reed bed just across the bridge on reservoir three. Before we left we had one final search for the Firecrest and found it flitting about high up in the trees along the river from the car park boardwalk.

Distant shot of the pair of Bearded Tits

Grey Heron

A very pleasant mornings birding in beautiful weather at what is becoming a very smart venue.
Year list now 157

First trip to Dunge this decade

I last visited Dunge way  back in May last year so it was nice to return today where we enjoyed a very brief and very cold sea watch that provided us a couple of year ticks with Razorbill and Gannets. Also noted were lots of Guillemot, seven Red-throated Diver and a couple of Kittiwakes but otherwise it was very quiet with no sign of Black Redstart, Peregrine or Raven around the power station.

Great White Egret on ARC pit

We moved on to the reserve where we failed to find a single Tree Sparrow with only House Sparrows on the feeders by the farm which was disappointing as we've connected with Tree Sparrow here on every previous visit. We had a Great-White Egret on ARC and another on the small pool by the farm. A drake Smew was a welcome surprise on the the next pool down the track and then a walk out to the viewpoint at Hookers gave us our first Cetti's Warbler and Bearded Tits. Marsh Harriers and a large mixed flock of Lapwing, Golden Plover and Curlew the only other thing of note.

Hythe (Purple Sandpipers on this rock groyne)

The journey home was broken first by a stop at Hythe were we quickly found two Purple Sandpiper on the farthest of the beach rock groynes and then a stop at Chatham Marina were we found a couple of Shag on pool 2.

The year list moves on to 155 and equals my best ever January total.

Shag at Chatham Marina

Shag

Shag

Hunting Grebes on Alpha Pool

Any visit to the Alpha Pool at Cliffe is a challenge firstly in getting out to the water through the footpaths running and then scoping the vast area looking for wintering Grebes. To add to the difficulty the place is alive with Little Grebes and Great Crested Grebe with well over a hundred of them on Alpha pool alone and then the task of finding a single Black-necked and a single Red-necked among them. Just to make it that little more difficult the two birds in question are at either end of the pool too, oh and the sun is against you.

Alpha Pool

Cliffe Creek

Map of the pools

So that was our morning.....a long muddy walk out to the pool and a lot of scanning to nail these two year ticks but we pulled it off and the Jims even managed a third tick with a fly over Green Woodpecker.

The famous Black Barn from the back of Flamingo pool

Following the eventual success at Alpha we took a second long walk out to the back of Flamingo and although it was teaming with waders we found nothing to add to the year list. Of note were a large flock of Golden Plover and Lapwing, a good size flock of Blackwits and a single Avocet with a few Redshank. Marsh Harrier, Buzzard and Skylark made up the best of the rest but we are remarkably still to bump into a Cetti's this year.

Year list now 149

Rainham

We took a walk from the stone barges down to the RSPB visitor centre and back this afternoon and managed to pick up a few year ticks along the way.

The Stone Barges at Rainham

Five of the seven Snipe seen today

Stonechat

Yellow Legged Gull, Snipe, Rock and Water Pipit along with a couple of Ruff hiding among the Lapwings on the reserve were our prizes for the long walk. Despite a good look we failed to find the Iceland Gull that's been seen recently and was our main target but it was an enjoyable afternoon and of course it's nice to be local too.

Year list now 147