Bittern at Fishers Green Lea Valley

A quick trip to Fishers Green today finally delivered a local Bittern as it walked between the reed beds in front of the Bittern hide. Three Goosander were also seen along with the regular birds of the valley.

Bittern from Fishers Green Bittern hide

Blue Tit

Great Tit

Blue Tit

Year list now at 137

Yellow-rumped Warbler at High Shincliffe Durham

As you'll know if you've read previous posts I have a soft two hour twitch rule that keeps both the travel time and costs down and helps me keep a lid on this crazy hobby. Well this week saw me driving up to Coniston for a work "team building exercise" so being only half an hour from the Yellow-rumped Warbler I couldn't resist carrying on up the A1 for it on Wednesday. I left home at 5.15am and parked up in High Shincliffe at 9am covering the 250 miles in good time without a stop. (Technically only an hours drive for the bird) The roads were snow covered and I took note of the request to park at the end of the village and walked about half a mile down the road to find a small group of birders enjoying the bird as it moved along the hedge row feeding on fat filled coconuts when the local Robin allowed it to. A Willow Tit was called by other birders and eventually also came in to feed with the Warbler. I duly dropped a couple of coins in the collection bucket and got on my way again. Several Red Kites were seen over the moors as I cut back across country to my hotel satisfied with the mornings trip and 2014's second lifer in the bag.

Yellow-rumped Warbler (best I could get)

Snow in Durham (the warbler flits about in those bushes)

The Coniston hotel was really smart too sitting right on the edge of Coniston Lake with great views from the bedroom. They have a large clay pigeon shoot which I enjoyed along with Archery and Golf. Food was very good and I'd recommend a visit if you're ever up that way.

The hotel has a Range Rover experience and Falconry centre in it's grounds if that's more your thing.

The Coniston Hotel

Along the way I passed Grassington Moor which I think holds the record for a days Grouse shoot but I failed to see a single bird on this short trip.

Year list now at 136
Life list now at 337

Barn Owl at Wallasea Island

A very short visit to Wallasea this evening gave good views of up to three Barn Owls, a Peregrine and two Ring-tailed Hen Harriers but sadly the wind was too strong for the Short-eared Owls to make an appearance.

Barn Owl at Wallasea Island Essex

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

Peregrine waiting to surprise the passing Lapwings

Photograph included in weekly round up on Birdguides

Pleased to see Birdguides pick my photograph of the Great-white Egret at Dungeness for their weekly roundup.

                                             The section of the BIRDGUIDES weekly round up

Red Kite added to the year list

Red Kite shot from last years trip to Stockenchurch

I saw three Red Kites today whilst driving around the M25 and down the A40 to Greenford for a meeting.

Year list now at 134

Rook

A Rook feeding by the side of the road at Elmley yesterday was just asking for it's photograph to be taken as was the coot below. The colours on the Rook are very under rated as the sunshine bounced off the blues and purples hidden within the black plumage of the corvid.

Rook at Elmley

Coot at Elmley

Dungeness delivers again

We opted to drive south to Dunge again this morning despite the forecast being better to the north of Essex.
The morning saw rain and strong wind in between small amounts of blue sky. From the point we had Red-throated Diver, Gannet, Kittiwake, Auks and the usual gulls before finding the Glaucous Gull in the roost close to the fishing boats. It obliged with a brief flight in dull light but always remained too distant for any real opportunity. On the beach we watched as the gulls took advantage of the tide line to feed and Kittiwake hunted in good numbers too. Scoters and Grebes were also noted before I found myself a very early Sandwich Tern. We bumped into fellow bloggers Lee and Alan B whilst watching the Glauc .

Glaucous Gull at Dungeness

Glaucous Gull at the fishing boats in Dungeness

Great black-backed Gull with catch

Good catch

Kittiwake with a good sized catch

Heading back out to the RSPB reserve we spotted the Black-throated Diver in New Diggings pit and enjoyed more time with the Great-white Egrets on ARC pit. On Burrows Pit we located a Black-necked Grebe, Red head Smew and Goosander before looking for Tree Sparrows again at the entrance track.

Great-white Egret at Dungeness

The Egret has landed!

In flight

We made a quick stop at Elmley where we bagged another year tick when Jimmy found a Little Owl sitting in the middle tree behind the wardens house and I found a distant Peregrine for Jimmy to tick. The fields at Elmley are still flooded and although there are good numbers of birds present they remain distant.
As we headed up the A2 we decided to try Dartford for the reported Iceland Gull and eventually located the Viridor building to find James Hunter present and the bird in his scope. He left and we scoped the juvenile bird for a while before checking the fields nearby for Caspian but sadly none were found today.

Another cracking trip to Dunge and the year list nudges up to 133.