New bird for the George

I've walked the local reservoir for about sixteen years now with Jim who has walked it longer than that. The reservoir attracts around 130 species of bird a year most of which are pretty predictable and new birds don't come along very often so it was nice to get one this weekend when I saw my first Barn Owl. I was standing on the NE corner known by the locals as "magic corner" and another birder that's equally if not more enthused gave me the shout "BARN OWL!" and as I turned I picked out the ghostly figure of the Owl as it flew over Sewardstone marsh.

I've also had Whimbrel, Common Sandpipers, Yellow Wagtails and an LRP of note. The Ravens have been elusive since leaving their nest but over the last few days I've managed to find them mostly feeding begging young on the pilons and on one occasion the four birds together on the ground. Garden Warblers are singing now as the Lesser Whitethroats seem to have gone quiet. I'm seeing around 60 species on my visits at the moment but numbers are down within most species but in particular the Tufted Ducks are now down to around just 20 individuals. The Gt crested Grebes are still present in numbers up towards 50 birds. 

I'm still enjoying walking the George and remarkably I'm still quite enjoying counting the birds there each visit which has surprised me.

On Friday I took the Jims to look for Dotterel in Cambridgeshire but the birds that had been there for three weeks had a day off only to return two days after our visit. We did see remarkable numbers of Skylark and a few Corn Buntings and I found my 26th Wheatear of the year. On the way home we stopped at Ouse Fen where Jim picked out a drake Garganey for a year tick.

Year list now 202

Raven

Raven

Raven

Raven

Raven

Barn Owl

Great Crested Grebe

Great Crested Grebe

Oystercatcher

Whimbrel

Whimbrel

Whimbrel

Cormorants

Common Terns

Another Essex tick

Following close on the heals of my last Essex tick with the Ross's Gull on Sunday yesterday saw me grab the time to take Dad and Jim to Old Hall Marshes where an American Golden Plover had recently been discovered. The reserve doesn't open until 9am so we started the morning at Abberton where we enjoyed nesting Spoonbills, Little Egrets, Herons and Cattle Egrets. Two Great White Egrets flew in and settled too. A lovely visit before we headed off to Old Hall where we found the gate unlocked as we arrived at 8.45am. The walk out to the area where the American Golden Plover has been was about a mile but littered with the sound of Whitethroats, Sedge and Reed Warblers. As we reached the breach area opposite the bale fields another birder told us he'd seen the AGP earlier but not for a while so we set about scoping the area and Jim very quickly picked it out beyond the broken wall "the breach". It was distant but distinctive. We also picked up 2 Whimbrel, a Spotted Redshank, 3 Barwit, a Blackwit, 2 LRP, 2 Ruff and a Snipe with the resident masses of Redshank, Oystercatcher, Lapwing and Avocet.

My Essex list now sits at 286

Record shot of the American Golden Plover

Bar tailed Godwit

Oystercatcher

Little ringed plover

Cattle Egret

Cattle Egret

Spoonbills

Pied Wagtail

Great White Egrets

Cattle Egrets

Spoonbills

Spoonbills

Heron and Great White Egret

Essex tick

I'd just finished another four mile stroll around the George with little reward when news arrived of a Ross's Gull on a lake at Thameside in Essex and although I'm not in the habit of dropping everything on these first reports when news came through that it had flown but returned to the lake the twitch was on with just one small problem in that I had a lunchtime appointment with my grand-daughter in Little Easton and I never let the grandchildren down. I made the call to say I'd be there as planned and set off with Suzanne to Thameside knowing my time on site was limited to around fifteen minutes so I needed the bird to be there or I'd have to leave with no time to wait for it's return and luck was on my side. I parked up in a small parking area with room for just two cars and with Suzanne staying in the car we had the option to move if required and this cut a few hundred yards off the trip but more importantly a few minutes were saved. After a walk of about a mile I found the twitch of around thirty birders and to my relief the Ross's Gull was sat on the water about 50yards out and even flew closer after a couple of minutes. I grabbed a few poor record shots (the light was challenging) and after twenty minutes left for the walk back to Suzanne so we could continue our trip to Little Easton. They say fortune favours the brave and on this occasion things worked out for me. I encouraged the Jims to make the trip from home and I'm happy to say they did and they connected with what was a life tick for Dad and an Essex tick for both obviously as the bird is a first record for Essex and gave me my second Essex tick of the year after the Red-rumped Swallow at KGV. My Essex list now stands at 285.

Year list now 200

KGV wader fest

Popped over the George for a couple of hours at 6am today with Jim and we had quite the visit.

Three Arctic Terns flew north at around 6.30am whilst seven Commons lingered for a bit on south basin before also heading off. Two Whimbrel were roosting on the east bank as we approached the causeway and an Oystercatcher flew south calling. As we neared the NE corner we stopped to scan some Common Sandpipers and counted sixteen in one group which when added to the one on south and two further round the north basin we knew we had at least nineteen although there were probably more as small groups of three and fours would fly from the bank as we walked the rest of the reservoir. With the Sandpipers we found two Greenshank and later a Redshank joined them too.

A couple of Cuckoo, a Peregrine and both Yellow and Grey Wagtails added to the mornings birding before we spotted what I believe is my 24th Wheatear of the year. We didn't see any Raven today and not even a sign of the nest or anything which was odd. A Thames water employee stopped to ask us to ID a bird he'd seen on the Girling, the bird was a drake Hooded Merganser which the reservoir has history of attracting from a nearby collection.

The Arctic Terns were a year tick having missed a few reported birds at Rainham and failing until today to make any Comics into Arctics. 

Year list now 197

My 24th Wheatear of the year

Grey Wagtail

Grey Wagtail

Grey Wagtail

Grey Wagtail

Common Sandpiper and Greenshank

Greenshank and Common Sandpiper

Greenshanks and Common Sands

Greenshank and Common Sandpipers

Whimbrel

Cormorant

Twitched a Hoopoe tonight 30minutes from home at Hunsdon in Hertfordshire. Distant scope views in a large private garden where the owner wasn't open to visitors going onto the lawn which bordered the public footpath. Year list now 198

Tawny Pipit at Landguard

Minding my own business today when Jim called to ask if we were going for the Tawny Pipit at Landguard. Of course the answer was yes so we met up and set off up the A12 arriving at Landguard at 11.15am. We walked out to the beach and found about ten birders/twitchers gathered near the roped off area in front of the observatory. News was promising with Raphael telling me the bird had been showing in spells but would then go missing in the grass for a while. We waited and after about half an hour the bird came out for a feed and we all managed to get views of it before it was flushed by an aggressive Ringed Plover which was probably holding territory where the Pipit had chosen to feed. 

Ringed Plover

Tawny Pipit

Tawny pipit (can you see it)

Tawny Pipit

Tawny Pipit

Tawny Pipit

Tawny Pipit

The bird was relocated out on the grassy area behind us before it returned to hide in the grass along the beach and became even harder to relocate. The Tawny Pipit was my biggest bogey bird having dipped one at Barking and another on the south coast and it's nice to finally connect with one and remove it from my "dipped" list. Also on this visit to Landguard was a Wheatear, a Lesser Whitethroat, 3 Ringed Plover and good numbers of Linnet. My pictures are pure record shots due to the distance to the bird and the fierce wind that made it difficult to hold the camera still.

Year list now 196 Life list now 454 with the Tawny Pipit and Killdeer being this years new birds and here's hoping for a couple more opportunities in the coming months.

Whinchat at Rainham

Took the Jims to Rainham today only to find the reserve was closed for the day but we made the best of it and scoped from the river wall. The Grasshopper Warbler was reeling well and the Corn Bunting was also singing as we got out of the car too. The walk down the river allowed us to enjoy many Greater and a few Lesser Whitethroats with Sedge, Reed and Cetti's warblers all calling too along with the odd Blackcap.

At MDZ we found a Greenshank and one of the Black-winged Stilts and a later scan of Winter pool allowed us to see the other two Stilts, a Wood Sandpiper, a Blackwit, another Greenshank and three Ruff. Over the reserve we saw Buzzards, Kestrels, Marsh Harrier and at least three Hobby. We also noted several Butterfly species with Wall Browns evident along the footpath.

Our last point of call was a walk up the hill to the tip where we found three Whinchat, a Stonechat, Corn Buntings and five Red Kites to end a good visit.

Year list now 195

Black-winged Stilt

Lesser Whitethroat

Wall Brown butterfly