Great Reed Warbler at Paxton

A 60 mile drive after work this evening delivered another lifer in the form of the Great Reed Warbler at Paxton. The bird could be heard calling above the Nightingales on arrival and was quickly found sitting up in the distant reed bed. The song was loud and distinctive and the sight of the huge warbler was impressive as it climbed the reeds singing it's heart out virtually non stop.

Great Reed Warbler

Great Reed Warbler

On the way back to the car we picked up a Turtle Dove over the car park to add another year tick.

The trip is well worth it as this is a very noisy and showy bird giving fantastic scope views although a little distant for the camera but I grabbed a couple of record shots.

Year list now 240
Life list now 374

Great Reed Warbler

Singing his heart out

GREAT!

Great spotted Cuckoo Portland

I picked up Jim this morning and we headed down to Dorset in darkness covering the 168 miles without drama and arriving on site at around 6.45am to find six other birders had arrived already. I walked up the road to the allotments checking all the bushes without joy before returning to the area that the bird had been seen in yesterday. After a while news arrived that two birders had located the bird at the top of the road just after the allotment so we headed up with a group now numbering around fifteen and quickly found the target with a nesting Blackbird helping our quest as it showed it's displeasure at the Cuckoo sitting in the bush. Eventually the Cuckoo gave in and flew back to the bottom of the hill to feed on the caterpillars again and it was here we sat and enjoyed it for an hour or so keeping a decent distance we managed to get plenty of new arriving birders on target before the bird flew off high towards the observatory where it was reported for the rest of the day.

One of the best birds on my slow growing life list and one I've wanted to see for a few years now so I'm well pleased we took the gamble and made the effort this morning.

Year list now 238
Life list now 373

Great-spotted Cuckoo at Portland

Great spotted Cuckoo

Great Spotted Cuckoo

Showing well!

Great Spot!

Raven

Raven

Red-footed Falcon at Vange Marsh

A quick trip to Abberton today so the Jim's could connect with the Essex Franklin's Gull where we added Arctic and Black Tern to the year lists before making the short drive down to Vange Marsh where we very quickly got on both Red-footed Falcon and a pair of Black-winged Stilts.

Year list now 237
Life list now 372

Red-footed Falcon

Female Red-footed Falcon

Black-winged Stilts

Black Terns

Black-winged Stilts at Vange Marsh

Western Bonelli's Warbler Gibraltar Point

We planned a trip to Norfolk today to catch up with the Dotterel using Choseley as their favoured stop off again this year but with news of last nights little Alpine visitor to Gibraltar Point we changed plan and headed further north more in hope than expectation to be honest.
Arriving at the point at around 6.30am we headed straight down to the farm where around forty birders were already on site and some had already made the call to leave. We stuck it out for an hour or so then decided on a walk around the reserve and were lucky to be around when news broke that a Bonelli's Warbler had been found at the end of the dunes. We marched with the others present and managed to hear the bird singing from a large Sycamore but viewing it proved more difficult.

The bird moved through the reserve and we managed to find it again and got much better views. Talking to the locals who know much more about Bonell's warblers than me it would appear to be ID'd positively as a male Western Bonelli's by call and I'm told as such is a first for Lincolnshire so congratulations to the finder and thanks for sharing news so quick this morning. My only other experience of this species was a dip down at Church Norton in April 2013 so it's nice to put that to bed.

Following this unexpected success and life tick we reverted to the original plan and headed down to Choseley Drying Barns where we quickly found no less than twenty four Dotterel and enjoyed a few minutes with them before moving on to Titchwell where we bagged a few year ticks with Wood Sandpiper, Little Stint, Temminck's Stint, Little-ringed Plover and a nice Whinchat on the way back to the car. (Thanks Geoff for the tip off and good to see you again)

Life list now 371
Year list now 232

Green Hairstreak

Dotterel at Choseley

Dotterel

Dotterel in the heat haze

Cleaning up in the valley

With all the travelling of the last week I fancied a local trip this morning so I popped down to Cornmill Meadow and with a big tip off from Jim I quickly found his Grasshopper Warbler and whilst here a Cuckoo was heard too.

Aggressive Canada Goose

I moved on to Fishers Green and walked the circular route under the pilons back over the bridge and returned to the car park. Surprisingly I heard no Nightingale on my first walk around but in the brambles on the lake side of the river I found two Lesser Whitethroat, four Garden Warblers and a pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers.  Pressing on I soon heard the distinct calls of Reed Warblers and then found a couple flitting about in the reedbed. A pair of Wren were busy nest building on the river bank and another Cuckoo was calling from the picnic area.

Wren

Wren

My second trip around and this time I found Nightingales, three of them singing in somewhat muted fashion in the dull grey conditions. I carried on up the path towards Holyfield Lake stopping to watch a pair of Little Grebe fishing. From Weir hide I scanned the skies finding it alive with hirundines many of which were Swifts and then a single Hobby high up in the clouds to give me my seventh year tick of the morning.

Common Whitethroat

Little Grebe

Year list now 225

Scotland trip 2016 summary

TWO LIFERS: Black Duck (Strontian) and Iberian Chiffchaff (on the way back at Telford)

SEVENTEEN YEAR TICKS: Black Duck, Iberian Chiffchaff, Crested Tit, Ptarmigan, Capercaillie, Golden Eagle, Sea Eagle, Cuckoo, Common Whitethroat, Osprey, Black Guillemot, Black Grouse, Black-throated Diver, White-billed Diver, Eider, Manx Shearwater and Common Sandpiper.

TOTAL BIRD COUNT: 124

A few more pictures from the week.

Logs everywhere

Black Duck at Strontian

Black Guillemot at Oban Harbour

Common Sandpiper at Lochindorb

Crested Tit at Loch Garten

Sea Eagle Ardnamurchan

T  "the special one"

Red Grouse at Lochindorb

Hooded Crow at Oban

The view from the cottage balcony

Blue Tit at Loch Garten

Eider at Portsoy

Otter on Skye

The cottage

Oriental Turtle Dove Otford Kent

News yesterday that the Kent birders had finally pinned down the Oriental Turtle Dove had me twitching last night (to coin a phrase) I woke early and made an easy call to drive the 40 miles down to Kent arriving just before 7am to find a small group of birders on site with news that the bird had just dropped from the dead tree to feed in the garden. Nearly an hour went by before the bird had enjoyed it's breakfast and returned to the dead tree to give me my first ever views of this species having not taken the opportunity to visit the last back garden one in Oxford.

The bird moved to deep cover in another fully leaved tree and could just about be seen with a scope if you knew where to look showing a nice black arrow on the under tail.

Twitching these back garden birds always seems a bit uncomfortable although the small group were well behaved I left them to it and made it home by 9am to put a couple of brownie points back in the empty brownie point bag and the last thing you want is for that bag to be empty. I've now cut the grass and hoovered just to top it up a bit further ready for the next little birding adventure that might take my fancy.

LIFE LIST NOW 370
Year list 218

The view with the naked eye

And at 8x....but better through the scope!