2013, the story so far...

I am still here.  It just felt that at the end of 2012, after five years of blogging and pretty much non-stop, the time was right for a bit of a break.  But not a birding break, certainly not.  Isn't winter a drag?  I'm just glad that we're now back into spring, and enjoying the lovely spring-like weather!  Ah.

Just a couple of miles from home.  Look a little closer however, and those drifts look more serious.

So being confined to home today, it looks like a good opportunity for a catch-up on what I've seen so far in 2013.  Which included a couple of January gull roost visits to Chasewater, on New Years Day and on the 13th.  Iceland (adult), Glaucous (2nd winter pictured below) and Caspian Gulls were all seen over the course of both visits.

Saturday 5th January was spent watching the mighty Brewers at Leicester City.  But before the game I paid a visit to Swithland Reservoir, and a look at the two female Velvet Scoters that were present at the time, at the dam end.

The weekend of the 12th and 13th January was quite productive.  The major highlight was the reappearance of Uttoxeter Quarry's overwintering Common Sandpiper, which hadn't been seen since the beginning of December.  The pink legs and long tail projection still meant that it wasn't a Spotted Sand!  Alas, the bird was never seen subsequently, following the first major snowfall a few days later.

Other highlights that weekend included an adult Med Gull at Blithfield, and the appearance of a Red-necked Grebe at Belvide on the 13th, along with other year ticks like Jack Snipe, Brambling and Little Owl.

February began with an adult Whooper Swan and a Jack Snipe at Uttoxeter Quarry on the 2nd.  Then Sunday 3rd February was an enjoyable day out in Derbyshire.  It all started with a Hawfinch at Cromford, then a Great Grey Shrike on a misty Beeley Moor.  Next was a visit to Ogston Reservoir, whilst enjoying the Red-necked Grebe here there was also an encounter with master story-teller, Mr George Brian!

Onto Carsington Water was next, where one Great Northern Diver was visible.  Finishing off with some wild swans at Twyford, between Willington and Swarkestone.  5 Whoopers and a family party of 7 Bewick's finished off an excellent day.

As for March so far.  The main highlight at the beginning of the month were flocks of Waxwings making their way back north.  A flock of 35 birds in Hilderstone on the 3rd, then this flock of 18 in Cheadle on the 9th.

I was very kindly invited to a little twitch mission to the Somerset levels on Sunday 10th March with Martyn and Kay, plenty of birds to see and in a wonderful place to go birding.  The main highlight being the Pied-billed Grebe at Ham Wall RSPB reserve, which showed well albeit briefly.  Also intruiging was the bird's call, which Martyn thought was a Crane and I thought was a speeded-up Donkey!

Other birds on offer were drake Ring-necked and Ferruginous Ducks, NINE Great White Egrets at Shapwick Heath on the other side of the Ashcott Corner car park and the first Sand Martin of the year.  And all to the backdrop of Marsh Harriers, booming Bitterns and cettying Cetti's Warblers.  A fantastic area which I can highly recommend.  Also good to see fellow blogger and Burtonian, Karen Woolley.

The return journey involved a stop at Aust Warth, next to the first Severn Bridge.  Eventually the rather bizarre sight of two Twite appeared out of nowhere, circled around and landed in a Blackthorn bush for a short time, then took off.  They were Twite alright, but I can't ever recall seeing Twite in trees and bushes, only on the ground.  They are finches after all, so why not?

And so to last weekend.  A usual Saturday morning spent at Uttoxeter Quarry yielded a decent selection of birds but nothing out of the ordinary, or any summer migrants.  What on earth can I do now?  The RBA pager had the answer, "1st winter drake Lesser Scaup at Ogston Reservoir".  Hallelujah, praise the lord, that'll do, I'm off.

And surely enough, the Lesser Scaup was still present and showing well in Chapel Bay, with Tufteds and Pochards.

It turns out that this was Derbyshire's first Lesser Scaup, and only stayed for the one day on the 16th.  Finally, on Sunday 17th March, some time exploring the Trent valley gravel pits revealed 2 Ringed Plovers at Branston GP's, and with the last look, 2 Little Ringed Plovers in the flooded field opposite the entrance to the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas. Wonderful!

So despite all the snow that's currently around, the first few summer migrants are battling their way back.  Good luck to them.

The end of 2012

Well, christmas festivities are done and dusted once again.  The following few days mainly involved a piece of the dreaded DIY.  No getting away from this one, as the bannister fell off the staircase wall, suppose I'll have to stop sliding down it from now on.

The fix involved drilling new holes into the wall and new screws to attach the bannister back on, whilst being ingeniously propped up by lots of books on the stairs!  Wow it worked, usually my DIY adventures end up like this.



But as there was a bit of daylight left on Friday afternoon, there was time for a quick look round Brookleys Lake.  Sadly, a small oil spill has appeared.  It would be easy for any flood water to pick up a patch of oil and for it to make it's way into the lake, but it looked like more than a small patch.  Lets hope it doesn't do too much damage, particularly to any fish in there.  As can be seen a boom has been put up at the lake's mouth where water flows in.

Perhaps it's just as well there wasn't very many duck around at all, with 12 Mandarin, 4 Goosander and a drake Gadwall of note.

Saturday involved an afternoon at Blithfield.  A few Goldeneye dotted all around the reservoir, an absolute stack of Teal in Tad Bay, could easily have been 600, no green-winger though.  The gull roost in Tad held up to seven different Yellow-legged Gulls.

And as for today, it's just been Uttoxeter Quarry.  Which contained 179 Wigeon, 10 each of Goosander and Pochard, 1 Goldeneye.  Unfortunately for 2013 listing purposes, no sign of the Pink-footed Geese in the Greylag flock and no sign of the Common Sandpiper for a few weeks now, presumed drowned!  No I definitely hope not.

And that's it for 2012, a memorable year for many different reasons.  But can 2013 have less rain please?

On this special night..................

He's on the way you know, as long as you've been good all year!  No, I don't mean Bob Dylan.  Happy Christmas reader!

Caspian Gull, this time in technicolour!

He's not got another Caspian Gull has he?  Oh, I think he has.  Stick with it though reader, it's not a dot in the dark this time.

Even though birding time is at a premium at this time of year, restricted to weekends and approaching the shortest day.  It really is a case of not knowing what to do with yourself, things are pretty quiet, and not until January will the same birds become a year tick again.

But the weekend began with a usual check of Uttoxeter Quarry.  With Andy already around, 3 Pink-footed Geese were with the Greylag flock.  Two of those birds are definitely new in, and plenty of duck around.  But the undoubted highlight was the sight of a small, dark falcon going full pelt, a female Merlin!  Shortly after losing the bird, a flock of Starlings and Lapwings in the next field scattered themselves and took to the air.  After that little triumph it wasn't going to get any better, so time to move on. 

The next port of call was Silverdale Country Park, where recent goodies have included a juvenile Iceland Gull and two different Caspian Gulls.  On first sight of The Void, plenty of gulls were still on the ice, but by the time of getting to the water's edge and setting the scope up, the vast majority of them took off, typical.  Thankfully however, the first-winter Caspian Gull remained, and that was the bird I wanted to see, never seen a first-winter before.

A really distinctive gull, especially at this distance.  And what a massive hooter!

Gulls in Monochrome

Only out on the Sunday this weekend just gone.  Saturday was a complete write-off, due to waiting for a chimney man.  After Jackdaws nested up there this year, I'm after one of those mesh things to put on the chimney pot.  Sorry Jackdaws, but I don't want to end up with loads of smoke in the house.

Despite being told someone would appear and waiting around home all day, no-one turned up.  That's someone else added to the list when the revolution comes, it's getting a rather long list.  Anyway, hopefully there'll be better luck trying someone else, onto Sunday's birding. 

Duck numbers are building up a bit at Uttoxeter Quarry, with 26 Goosander, 63 Teal, 30 Wigeon, 81 Tufteds and 3 Pochard.  Also two Willow Tits around, and a third GBB Gull over the last few weeks.

With the wind picking up in the afternoon, it was over to Tad Bay at Blithfield and wait for the gulls to come piling in to roost.  Which they did, Tad Bay being more sheltered than the deep end.  The adult Caspian Gull was eventually found, and eventually came nearer to the hide.  However, it was getting darker:

...and darker...

...and darker!

Must admit though, I didn't realise it was getting quite so dark.  Is there a problem with the camera?  Everything's in black and white!

November in a Nutshell

Rumours of my demise are premature!

So what's gone on then?  Well, a bit of post-Scilly blues, how on earth does this blog top that?  But mainly it's been the state of the laptop that I bought earlier this year.  A couple of days after finishing the Scillies blogging it completely packed in, probably had enough of me writing nonsense and piffle.

It should've been fixed and returned last week, but when turning up at PC World:  "We're extremely sorry, there's been a mix up.  A Miss Powell dropped a computer off at the same time, which got sent away and yours is still here!"  Talk about exasperating, to quote Victor Meldrew:

So I've not been best pleased, but I'm informed that it's on the way back in a couple of days time.  In the meantime, thankfully I kept hold of "old laptop", but the dear old thing is powered by a hamster in a wheel these days, and is prone to crashing.  In fact, it's already crashed once whilst getting this far, so I'd better get a move on.

Throughout November, checking at weekends of course at this time of year, the best bird around Uttoxeter Quarry (but not today by the look of things) has been an extremely late Common Sandpiper, looking set to overwinter.

Just hope it can survive.  Every time this bird has pink legs and the tail stretches beyond the primaries, so it's still not a Spotted Sand.

Back in Burton for the evening of Sunday 11th November, but before that the afternoon was spent on the banks of the mighty River Trent, taking a butchers at a Great White Egret.

From what I could tell, those viewing this bird from Clay Mills were getting rather distant views.  I knew that you could get to the riverbank from other side, at Newton Solney in South Derbyshire.  Luckily, much better views could also be gained from this side of the river too.  The Egret happily feeding in the ditches of the field by the river, and also walking around, sticking it's leg out like John Cleese's ministry of silly walks.

Around this time, the national invasion of Waxwings had reached this neck of the woods.  But personally they weren't easy to catch up with to start with, the first seen being a flock of seven in Cheadle.  Additionally, a White-rumped Sand had been discovered at Drayton Bassett during the Tuesday of the week.  Oh no, would it stay until the weekend?

Thankfully it did, and two visits were made, just to the south of Tamworth, on Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th.

En route back to Drayton Bassett, I got a little distracted just before reaching the A50 at Uttoxeter.  This was due to a fine flock of Waxwings!

At least 16 birds, perched in trees just by the roadside, next to JCB's world parts centre (not world darts centre, if only!).  It was discovered they were feeding on Yew berries, which I've never seen Waxwings feed on before.  When eventually back at Drayton Bassett, a nice little bonus to the White-rumped Sand was the discovery of a Long-tailed Duck.  Or if any Americans are reading this, that's Oldsquaw to you (what's one of those?).

Finally, catching up on last weekend.  On the Saturday, unfortunately the Snow Buntings up on the moors, around the Mermaid Pool, had disappeared.  Into the afternoon, surprisingly Uttoxeter Quarry hadn't yet flooded, the Common Sand still around, along with 10 Goosanders.  In addition to the Waxwing invasion, the midlands has been getting a mini-invasion of Great Northern Divers of late.  Not sure whether I'd be needed for some DIY help on Sunday, there was enough time for a look at the Blithfield Diver by the dam.  The bird showed really well between the angling club and the dam's valve tower.

Very wisely, my DIY skills weren't required for the Sunday, so I went birding instead.  By this time Uttoxeter Quarry was flooded out.  The path through Cotton Mill farm and over the River Tean was accessible, but not knowing how much higher the river may get put me off crossing, don't fancy getting swept away and drowned!

So most of Sunday 25th was at Blithfield.  The Diver was still around the deep end, but now further in the middle because of sailing boats.  Two female Scaup were discovered in Tad Bay, and about an hour before dusk, along with Martyn, Kay and the Proud Potter, two adult Yellow-legged Gulls and a pretty good candidate for an adult Caspian Gull appeared in the Tad Bay pre-roost, before eventually flying off towards the causeway.

So that was birding in November, and rather good it was too.  Just want my laptop back.

The 2012 Scilly Season. Part 4, All the fun of Blackpoll.

There's not much left to mention on this year's Scilly trip reader.  With only one full day left, a calm, sunny day was forecast for Thursday 18th October.  The Blackpoll Warbler was still being seen on Bryher too, so a whole week after seeing the bird in flight, it had to be a return to Bryher for better views, hopefully.  But the main thing to do is to just enjoy your last full day on Scilly for this time.

There was just enough time before catching the boat, for a walk to the dump clump where a Red-breasted Flycatcher was showing well, and a Snow Bunting on Porthmellon beach too.  After about an hour and a half on Bryher, the Blackpoll Warbler was re-discovered just to the south of Veronica Farm.  Oh oh, where am I?  Stuck on a path by Samson Hill, Scilly-ticking the Hooded Crow!  Somehow I got back to the coast path rather quickly, and may have involved a bit of tresspass round a field and over a gate, but I did walk along the edge.

The Blackpoll Warbler showed absolutely brilliantly, probably the best it had shown all week, with it's full set of colours on show.  The dark wings with two white bars, yellow underneath and bright orange legs!  There's plenty of photos of the Blackpoll Warbler around the internet that do this bird justice.  It was one of those times when messing about with photography was unneccesary, just enjoy a fantastic bird.

Other birds seen on Byrrr that day included another 2 Coal Tits, a female Merlin and a selection of waders including Redshank, Greenshank and one each of Knot and Bar-tailed Godwit.

Due to the pager mishap the previous week, Friday 19th October had to be spend on St. Marys, to eventually find Dick Filby who had my new replacement pager ready.  All sorted, and a big thank you was given.  Not only for the pager, but for all the hard work he puts in there every October.  Not sure what would happen, with regard to bird news and arranging extra boats, without him.

During the day, the main highlight again was excellent views of the Red-breasted Flycatcher in the dump clump.

But with a heavy heart, aching limbs and sore feet, it was time once again to board the Scillonian ferry back to Penzance.  But even on the ferry that wasn't quite the end of it.  A pod of about 50 Common Dolphins were spotted.  But best of all when approaching Lands End, 3 Balearic Shearwaters flew south, in front of the ship!  And with them, a long overdue British tick.