Steel City Birding

Today I had a trip out for a few dirty twitches round West Yorkshire to look for some of the good birds that have been hanging round and that I haven’t had time to go and see yet.

We started at Sands Lane GP near Mirfield to look for the ring-billed gull that’s been there recently, but there was no signs of it, despite our attempts to turn the common gulls into one. There were a couple of goosander on the river, but apart from that sadly not the best start to the day…

Next stop Calder Wetlands, where we picked up a nice range of wildfowl that included more goo sander, gadwall, wigeon, goldeneye and tufted duck, but a passing birder put us on to the fact that the bird we were looking for - the great northern diver - was back on the lake at Pugneys. We caught up with it giving great views on the opposite side of the lake, and on the way back to the car at the Swan & Cygnet spent some time with a very photogenic kestrel.

From there it was a quick drive round to the other side of the river to Millfield Lagoons, where after a bit of a search we found the two drake scaup that had been reported, tagging on to a flock of tufties.

Then on to Wintersett Res, where our two targets - a handsome drake smew and a winter-plumage black-necked grebe - showed well without too much fuss. Sadly the smew took flight with a flock of goldeneye before all our party could see it however.

Finally on to Anglers CP, for the American wigeon. There were loads of European wigeon there, and it took a while to find it, but we eventually did, and a cracker of a bird it was too. And as a bonus the smew put in an appearance too, obviously taking a break from Wintersett, meaning we all got to see it. Other highlights included willow tit and tree sparrow on the feeders.

A great day, with some great birds seen, and all without travelling further than 40 minutes from home. Tallying up, today’s sightings bring me on to 121 for the year. Sadly this excellent start has ignited the yearlisting bug in me for 2012… I wonder if it’ll last?!

Some pics…

Jan 16

Norfolk

I’ve not posted here for a while, have I? That’s because most of my birding has been on patch, the exploits of which can be found at http://wharncliffewildlife.wordpress.com. However yesterday I made an exception, and had a dirty day’s twitching in Norfolk.

I stayed at a relative’s house in Leeds, and got picked up at the ungodly hour of 4.50am by Keith, Ken and Rob, getting a singing robin as my first bird of the day. The trip down was mainly, of course, in darkness, but as the sun rose we picked up a few of the usual birds such as jackdaw, rook, woodpigeon, blackbird, carrion crow, black-headed gull, magpie, starling, mallard and collared dove. Getting lost slightly just before our first destination proved a bonus, as it meant we got our only Egyptian geese of the day, as well as pheasant, dunnock and a large group of red-legged partridge. We got our bearings, and arrived at around 8.20am at…

Buckenham Marshes

We left the car into the freezing morning, very happy to stretch our legs after the journey, and the first birds we saw from the car park were overhead flocks of lapwing and golden plover, a few blue tit and greenfinch in the bushes, and a flypast by a snipe was a nice way to start the day.

On crossing the railway line on to the reserve itself we were greeted by hundreds of wigeon in the ditches, and moorhen, wren, pied wagtail, greylag, mute swan, shelduck and shoveler were also picked up. About this time we also met up with the other carload of Yorkshire pilgrims - James, John, Mike and Jess, who had come from East Yorkshire.

We soon found what we were looking for - the reserve’s regular flock of taiga bean geese, which also contained some slightly less exciting Canada geese and feral barnacle geese. They were at quite a distance, so it was a challenge to pick out what we were most looking for, but eventually we scoped the lesser white-fronted goose which is wintering there. It was hard to pick out its salient feature (the yellow orbital ring was impossible at that distance) but its size, structure, lack of belly-stripes and white far on to the forehead made us certain it was the bird we were after. First target down, albeit not in fantastic views.

While squinting through the geese we heard a sharp call from the foliage, which was quickly identified as Cetti’s warbler, and many of us actually got a brief glimpse as it flew between two patches of vegetation. Other birds before we left included barn owl, grey heron, pink-footed goose, great black-backed gull, herring gull, skylark and stock dove. Then on to our next destination (a flock of house sparrows from the car was a tick on the way) which was…

Cley

On arrival at Cley, we made our way straight to Arnold’s Marsh, picking up little egret, marsh harrier, bearded tit and another (this time heard-only) Cetti’s. The bird we came to see - a western sandpiper - didn’t show immediately, but the wait gave us a long list of waders, including avocet, bar-tailed godwit, black-tailed godwit, curlew, redshank, spotted redshank, oystercatcher, dunlin, grey plover and ringed plover, as well as brent goose, cormorant, teal, little grebe, and linnet. James also picked out a stonker of a yellow-legged gull sat on the water.

Eventually the western sand showed, a tiny little thing, dwarfed by the ringed plover and dunlins around it, and seemingly hopping around on one leg. After we’d all got our fill we walked back to the cars, picking up a stonechat on the way back.

It was then decided to have an unscheduled stop to see some snow buntings at…

Salthouse

Well they were right by the car park, it would have been rude not to! We pretty much immediately got on to the snow buntings, 30 of which were a stunning sight flitting among the dunes, as well as several turnstone. We had a quick look out to sea, and picked up a few grey and common seals, a guillemot, a couple of flypast red-throated divers, and another diver we couldn’t identify by bins alone. At this point Rob was the only one who’d lugged his scope up the shingle, and it was revealed to be a black-throated diver, and after we’d all queued to have a look (with me probably queue-jumping and lunging in for a lifer) we realised it was daft sharing when we had two cars-full of scopes, and a bit of a more concerted sea-watch turned up a few more red-throated divers and a few cracking Slavonian grebes!

Goldfinch was also added, with kestrel and song thrush from the car on our way to…

Holkham

We were, of course, greeted at Holkham by the thousands upon thousands of pinkfeet. A walk down Lady Anne’s Drive turned up a rather beefy-looking peregrine, sat, in a rather un-peregrine-like way, in a field, and walking down the gap on to the beach saw rock pipit added to the day’s tally. The target for here was shore lark, and it looked for a while like a needle in a haystack. When the other car-load, which were straggling after a tea and cake-stop, texted in to say they’d had a rough-legged buzzard in a tree near the peregrine, I nearly rushed back to see it, but glad I persevered as the shore larks eventually showed brilliantly, and super little birds they were too. I never got the rough-leg, as it had gone when we got back, but the views of the shore larks were too good to have missed for distant Buteo, lifer or no lifer!

Heard-only treecreeper and goldcrest were added on the way back up the gap, and on to our final destination…

Titchwell

Chaffinch, great tit and long-tailed tit pushed the tally onwards as soon as we reached Titchwell, and after a bit of a wander we found the small redpoll flock which we hoped would give us our final target for the day. Lesser redpoll. Check. A couple of classic mealy redpolls. Check. And then we found the 1st winter Coue’s arctic redpoll. A tricky ID though, as this wasn’t your classic “snowball” arctic redpoll, with much subtler differences to the mealies, but we nailed its very pale colours, very clean underside, slightly larger size to the mealies, and at one point quite handily had all three species together in one binocular view.

That wasn’t the end of the birding, though, as a greenshank and another spotted redshank were seen on the way down to the beach, pintail, pochard, coot, tufted duck and ruff spotted on the lagoons, and goldeneye and red-breasted merganser squinted out to sea in the fading light. But best of all was probably a fantastic Chinese water deer mooching round, a bizarre-looking cross between a deer and a dog that most of us had never encountered before.

And then it was back to the car park after a packed day, entertained by up to four marsh harriers on the way back through the reserve.

And that was it - I ended the day with 91 species, and I know there were a good few others saw I personally didn’t get (including the rough-leg, meadow pipit, knot and a few others). An excellent day out, in great company, with some cracking birds seen.

Sep 17

Kilnsea

I had a great day out today at Kilnsea and Spurn. The weather forecast was gloomy and I wasn’t expecting much, but we escaped the rain (bar one very brief but heavy shower), and saw a great selection of species.

Things were relatively quiet out to sea, but we still managed to pick up several flocks of common scoter and a flock of eider, plus the odd sandwich tern, guillemot, gannet and kittiwake. Waders on show included whimbrel, knot, redshank, greenshank, turnstone, oystercatcher, curlew, dunlin, grey plover, ringed plover and black- and bar-tailed godwit. Sadly we didn’t get on to the curlew sandpipers that were around Beacon Ponds, but a juv knot somehow did a good job of fooling us for a moment! There were also plenty of little egrets and a couple of grey heron.

One of the highlights of the day was a single pink-footed goose, which came into land briefly on the Canal Zone pond, and other waterfowl around included a single wigeon, two brent geese, a flock of teal and several shelduck. There was a smattering of migrants about in small numbers, the undoubted highlight being three Lapland buntings at Beacon Ponds (a much sought-after bogey bird of mine!), and outgoing migrants included whitethroat, lesser whitethroat, pied flycatcher, whinchat, chiffchaff and yellow wagtail. There were also plenty of swallows and house martins around, and a single sand martin was seen.

Another great bird to see was a juvenile cuckoo, which gave great views around Beacon Ponds.

Raptors around were a couple of sparrowhawks (including one with a kill near the churchyard), a few kestrels, a marsh harrier and a probable peregrine that was a bit too far out to call with certainty.

The guillemot above was on the beach, and looked distressed, with two herring gulls closeby watching menacingly on. It didn’t appear to be injured, just looked unable to stand up in the wet muddy sand, and so I gently ushered it into the sea where it would stand a better chance. However looking at the photos I took I wonder if it had an injured wing and if I did the right thing - it’s so hard to know what to do in these circumstances sometimes.

A slightly more comical event was earlier on in the day when we were investigating Kilnsea Churchyard. We could hear an Acrocephalus warbler singing from the behind the churchyard, intespersed with what sounded like scratchy but expert mimicry of birds such as blackcap and magpie. The only bird we could think that would use such good mimicry was a Marsh Warbler, but it was confusing as the song didn’t seem right. So I tweeted the Spurn birds obs to tell them there was an un-ID’ed Acro behind the churchyard… only to hear back there were some tape recordings of various species being played in that location (presumably for ringing purposes)! Oh dear, not my finest birding moment…!

An excellent day, though, which continued on the journey home, with a very late swift seen over Hedon, and a hobby later on. Over 80 species seen or heard during the day, with a full list below (in rough chronological order).

Sep 05

Skua Cruise 2011

This weekend I had my annual pilgrimage to Flamborough and Brid for the Skua and Shearwater Cruise.

I arrived on Saturday lunchtime, and made it up to Flamborough in time to learn I’d just missed a buff-breasted sandpiper at Thornwick Bay! Ah well! I met up with fellow birder Jason, and had a very pleasant afternoon, although it has to be said that it was a very quiet day indeed bird-wise. We spent quite a bit of time seawatching, but apart from a few sandwich and common terns, and the obligatory species such as gannets, fulmars, cormorants, guillemots, kittiwakes and oystercatchers, nothing came into view. Other stuff around included a nice pair of whimbrel, a trio of bar-tailed godwit, the usual turnstones, a small group of red-legged partridge, and a sedge warbler (practically the only migrant all day), plus a few grey seals bobbing around and giving good views.

However the lack of seabirds (even ones I couldn’t identify!) didn’t bode well for the next day. Would the Skua Cruise be equally bereft of birds?

Getting up first thing on Sunday for the 9am cruise, I joined the usual BirdForum regulars on the North Pier, stopping off to have a quick look at the easy purple sandpipers on the harbour wall. Kittiwake was also got before we left the harbour, and common and sandwich tern followed very shortly. It wasn’t long into the cruise we got our first arctic skua, giving great views as it bobbed around in the water next to the boat, and shag and common scoter were soon picked up too, fulmars were drifting around the boat, gannets were plunge-diving, ridiculous amounts of harbour porpoise gave cracking views as they broke the water, and the odd grey seal popped its head up. Despite my misgivings this was showing early promise… and it was only going to get better!

The boat drifted off to explore a huge raft of auks, mainly containing thousands of guillemots, but also a good few hundred razorbill (and two puffins were also seen later). Very quickly we got our first shearwater of the morning - a sooty shearwater sat in the water a few metres from the boat. A much sought-after lifer for me, and I got cracking views. Soon Manx shearwater was called too and distant birds were seen, another arctic skua seen, and a couple of arctic terns were picked out among the commons.

Exploring the auk raft further, we came along a second sooty shearwater. Or was it? Regular seawatchers on the boat realised it was too small, stumpy and - most tellingly - had a pale belly. The penny dropped and it was reidentified - Balearic shearwater, giving equally cracking views as the sooty! And mere minutes after we were all onto this the fella calling birds shouted at the top of his lungs, barely containing his excitement… SABINE’S GULL!!!! Most of us managed to whip round from watching the Balearic in time to see it just as it passed the boat, only brief views but enough to see its distinctive all-grey ‘W’ markings which differentiate it from the confusion species of juvenile kittiwake.

Following this excitement, stuff still tricked in, with a flypast by the one and only great skua of the trip, we finally got a cracking view of a Manxie, and a flock of little gulls found among the terns. A quiet spell followed, but on the way back things went a bit mental as Brid loomed back into view. A black tern was called, which turned out to be the first of at least nine seen (a remarkable number for the cruise), arctic skuas were appearing left right and centre, a flock of teal bobbed past (the only thing I’ve mentioned I didn’t get on to, and the one I can live with!) and five red-throated divers went past.

This is the fourth cruise I’ve been on, and while I’ve always enjoyed them a lot, I’ve always got the sense I’ve picked relatively quiet cruises, with only a handful of skuas or shearwaters seen. But this year more than made up for it - it’d take a lot to beat this one!

My camera’s not good enough for seabird photography, but Michael Flowers has kindly let me use some of his, which are below. (Check out Michael’s Blog for his own version of the day, and loads of other info on his birding and the nature courses he runs).

(You can see a pic of the Sabine’s on Martin Garner’s blog - also see if you can spot me in the short video of the boat crew!)

Brilliant stuff! After the cruise some of us went up to Thornwick Bay on the remote chance the buff-breasted sand was still around, but no avail! Consolation was a smattering of stonechats and whinchats on the way to the hide, and little grebe was added to the day’s tally, but Flamborough was just as quiet as the day before, and nothing could top the rush of such a fantastic skua cruise - a brilliant birding experience!

You may think I’ve been pretty quiet of late, and you’d be right! But I have been out and about, mainly patch-watching in the local area in Wharncliffe and Grenoside.

The area’s well-watched by other birders, and I’ve joined forces with three of them - Dave Woodriff, Andy Hill and Dave Simmonite - to create a multi-author blog to show off our sightings and photos. This blog will be used for the times I go off-patch, but if you want the day-to-day goings on from Wharncliffe, updated very regular by the four of us, then that’s place to go!

Aug 12

A long time coming…

Whoops, it’s really been a while since I last posted, hasn’t it? One of the main reasons is late in June I went over on my ankle while walking on the Chase. This wasn’t a very dramatic injury, but I really didn’t look after it. I basically ignored I’d sprained it, and a mixture of a trip to London with obligatory tourist-style wandering, an all-day music festival, drunken dancing at a wedding disco and finally a walk round Blacktoft Sands and Hatfield Moors meant I knackered it good and proper and was out of action in terms of going birding for most of July.

Incidentally the trip to Blacktoft was a good one, with a large selection of waders on display. 12 were counted, namely wood sandpiper, green sandpiper, greenshank, redshank, spotted redshank, ruff, dunlin, avocet, common sandpiper, black-tailed godwit, golden plover and lapwing, plus honorary waders in the form of spoonbill and little egret. Other highlights were bearded tit and marsh harrier, and at Hatfield oystercatcher and little ringed plover were added to the day’s wader count. Not bad for an day inland.

But like I say this finished my foot off for a while, which wrote off most of July for any significant walks. In August so far I’ve mainly been patch watching, and the highlights have included two crossbills over Wheata Wood, and a very surprising sedge warbler by the pond on Wharncliffe Chase - you may not think this is a very exciting bird, but it’s a patch mega round these parts!

So hopefully as autumn descends and migration gets under way I’ll start writing on here more often. Promise!

Jun 14

Jun 03

A quail!

Last weekend I had a trip to Orgreave Lakes, getting the usual species I expected including common tern, ringed plover, redshank and oystercatcher, as well as hundreds of swifts. While walking around the lakes I heard what I was sure was a brief snippet of a calling quail, and eventually tracked the bird down to a grassy area on the hillside west of the small lake, where it called a again for a good few minutes. It being a quail, I never actually saw it, even though it wasn’t very far away at all!

Quails have been recorded in good numbers nearby recently, including very close to home at Brightholmlee and Peat Pits in recent evenings, as well as several sites in South Yorks, West Yorks, Derbys and Notts. It seems there’s a mini-influx going on!

On Sunday I also had a trip to Old Moor, where I got a good look at the site’s avocets and Med gulls, with another highlight being two unseasonal pintail.

Tomorrow I’m off to Spurn for the day, so will hopefully see enough good birds for a good blog post when I get back!

A Pintail at Old Moor - a slightly unexpected sight for late May, as these birds are more common in the area during winter.