13th August 2011 - Blithfield, Branston & dancing at the Bloodstock Festival

Well for the fourth weekend running we stayed in Staffordshire and plodded the same old familiar route. We weren't expecting much today, although there had been a little bit at Blithfield recently. Westport was quiet today, and so we were down at Blithfield before 0900hrs. The sun was out so we headed over to Blithe Bay first where the light would be better. It was not a bad start to the days birding with five Dunlin, fifteen Ringed Plover, a Green Sand and two Black-tailed Godwits.

Black-tailed Godwit in Blithe Bay

We walked round Beech Tree Point and saw the ever faithful "Bird of the Day" - the Osprey perched in his usual tree, surveying the world and thinking what was for dinner today.

Osprey in Tad Bay

From the hide in Tad, where we met up with Graham, Roger & Steve, we had a Black-necked Grebe, two fem-type Garganey and seven Ringed Plovers flew in. It turned into rather a good visit this week.



Two Garganey (above) and the Black-necked Grebe

And so it was onto Branston for our next stop. The field still hasn't been cut yet, but I now know where the tracks are that run through it, so it wasn't so much of a slog this week. (If you are reading this Mr Farmer at Branston, the field on the way to Stansley Wood with the same crop in it as yours was cut a fortnight ago! Have you forgotten about it this yr?). There were six Little Egrets on the first pit but that was about all. I walked round to the Sandy Pit, had my usual chat with the nice security guard (bit serious this week - warned me about the moving vehicles on the track. I told him that they don't work on a Saturday afternoon. He laughed then promptly told me he'd just seen four Buzzards! Bless him). There was a Greenshank, but it walked beneath the reeds in front of me and out of view. A quick scan revealed two Green Sands, but that was all, as per usual. Then, I presumed the Greenshank had come back into view. When I lifted my bins, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was a juv Spotted Redshank. At last, a semi-decent wader at Branston. I managed to take a few shots, but it was flushed by two Greenshank and flew off.


Spotted Redshank at BGP

I decided to walk back towards the bridge just in case any waders were down the bottom corner. To my complete surprise, there was a whole flock sitting roosting on a bank. It was just like Minsmere, except it was a gravel pit in Staffs. A scan thru revealed the two Greenshank, ten Green Sands and a Wood Sand all roosting on the bank. It had turned out to be rather a good visit for a change.


So we headed off to another pit nearby to see what was there. Pops joined me after his nap. There was another reason for him joining me - it was the Bloodstock festival again, and the stage is clearly visible from where we were going to. Pops is a thrash metal fan, and his favourite heavy metal group, The Evil Slashers were playing. We could bird, and listen to thrash metal at the same time. As I set my scope up to scan the lagoon, The Evil Slashers belted out their iconic hit, "Slash, acid and death". Pops was in heaven, dancing away. Now, being 77, he's not the dancer he used to be. I tried to warn him, but he slipped, and ended up in a heap at the bottom of a slope. Now, those of you who know the area, realise its about a one mile walk back to the car. Pop's ankle was at a different angle to what it should be and minor panic set in. I'm not sure how, but we managed to get back to the car after an hours struggle, and Pops was clearly in a lot of pain. I drove home, got changed and we were up the accident unit for five hours. Pops had managed to break his ankle!

Saturday 23rd July - A quiet day in Staffordshire

Not much around locally at the monent so we visited the usual haunts on a Saturday. After a very quiet visit to Westport, we were down at Blithfield for about 0830am. As we walked down to Tad Bay, Martyn, Kay and Richard Powell were already walking back up - not a good sign! But we soon found out the answer - we were looking straight into the sunlight (is easy to forget that when you arrive early at Blithers, you go to Blithe Bay first!). We had 8 Common Snipe and a Redshank in Tad, but Blithe Bay was fairly quiet, with just a Greenshank on show, and as we walked back round Beech Tree, a Kingfisher flew past. From the point, we could see an adult Yellow-legged Gull on the causeway. By the time we returned to Tad Bay, the light had improved. The Osprey was perched up, and Richard managed to find a Dunlin.

And this was about as good as it got. I headed off to the pits, and in 4hrs, all we managed were two Green Sands, a couple of Little Egrets and another Kingfisher.

Especially for you Martyn - hybrid geese!


Butterfly pics for all those who give up birding in the summer and wait for those who are still birding to find something for you

One or two Cormorants

An almost in focus Yellow Wag - at least the pebbles in the background are in focus

Saturday 16th July 2011 - Arnfield Resv & Blacktoft Sands

No, don't worry. I'm still here and I haven't resorted to chasing round after butterflies, worms and dragonflies yet (nor racehorses!) . The previous two weekends I spent at my usual haunts in Staffs, seeing a few bits and bobs but I didn't manage to take any pics. This Saturday, the Clayheads (this week - myself, GAS & CJW) decided to hit the road. First stop was for the summering WESTERN BONELLI'S WARBLER in North Derbyshire. This bird turned up on a Sunday, and so I decided to wait until the following Saturday to go for it (bit too far for an after work trip and it seemed to be a morning bird). Last Saturday however, I couldn't make it until mid morning and so I left it. Fortunately for me, there was only one sighting all day, but then on the Sunday, it was reported three or four times. The bird was starting to bug me. So we made plans to go this Saturday. However, as has happened quite frequently this summer, the forecast was bad. I thought there was a possibility that it would be dryish from 0700 - 0900hrs, so I knew we had to be early. We arrived at Westport at 0530hrs, did a quick walk round, picked CJW up and headed up to Tintwhistle.

There was a small crowd when we arrived, but there had been no sign of the BONELLI'S so far. We walked around, got a feel for the area and even found a warbler flock. Then, following a few showers, more persistent rain came, and by 0900hrs, we were soaked and headed back to the car. We knew there was no chance of seeing it in this weather. We sat in the car, dried out and waited.

Our idea was to pop up to Blacktoft to see the MARSH SAND, but even that hadn't appeared on the pager yet. So we just sat and waited. CJW even tried to ring Blacktoft, but they couldn't answer the phone as they were "out on the reserve". Eventually, positive news came thru and we set off for East Yorkshire/North Humberside, arriving on site at 11-30hrs. And it was pouring down.

We walked towards the Ousefleet Hide but no one appeared to know where the MARSH SAND was. We found the screen from where the last sighting had been, but all three seats were taken. Then a birder from the hide came out and said he'd just seen it. We went into the hide and waited. Eventually, the birders moved out, and we managed to get a front row seat. (The hide faced forward overlooking a field. It was only a side window that overlooked the scrape, and together with the three seats at the screen, viewing the area was limited!) And so we waited. We must have sat there for an hour, seeing several Little Egrets, Ruff, Dunlin, two Green Sands, and an almost black Spotted Redshank. Then we spotted what we initially thought to be a Greenshank. We sat and watched it, and slowly we realised several things weren't quite right with it. Its beak was very fine, its legs were spindly, and although it was feeding away from the other waders, I realised it was actually smaller than a Redshank. We realised we were watching the Marsh Sand! (it was our own version of the Daventry Greatershank). But no one else in the hide said anything, no one else spotted it, they were quite happy to scan the empty field in front of them.



The Marsh Sandpiper at Blacktoft.

We had a quick walk round the other hides, and we had quite a good session, despite the appalling weather. We saw two Spoonbills, several Marsh Harriers with young, an Avocet, more Spotted Redshanks, two Wood Sandpipers and a Black-tailed Godwit.






Images from Blacktoft

So despite the weather, we had seen one of our targets for the day. We decided to head back to Derbyshire. As we drove back, it did stop raining, and in parts, there was a bit of blue sky. We parked up by Arnfield Resv at 15-30hrs in beautiful sunshine. As we walked back along the path, we saw loads of warblers feeding. Things were looking good. Then, five minutes later, it poured down again. Even after it stopped it took ages for the warblers to come out again. There were five of us wandering up and down, but there was just no sign of the BONELLI's again. We stood on the bridge, and despite the fact it had been dry for nearly an hour now, we were facing defeat. I walked up towards the barbed wire gate and immediately heard a short burst of song. I picked up some bark, a few strands of grass and managed to imitate exactly the call I had heard. Amazingly, it responded. CJW heard it and pin pointed it to a lone hawthorn bush in the field.


The lone hawthorn where the Bonelli's Warbler was skulking.

CJW managed to get everyone together (all 5 of us) but there was a small bit of disbelief that we had heard it sing from an isolated bush. We all agreed that we would imitate the song once more (this time CJW whistled the song). It sang again, and soon we were watching the Western Bonelli's Warbler sitting in the tree. It was an incredibly skulking bird, and so inactive for a phyllosc warbler. It came out again but then it disappeared again and it was time to head for home.

Two modern day birdwatchers!

Look at these two. They don't even know a rare bird is watching them from a bush. One is even looking at his phone. And no bins in sight at all.


Then the one suddenly spots the rare bird. But what does he do? Get his notebook out? No, because modern birders don't carry notebooks! He tries to take a picture with his phone! Modern birders hey

Saturday 6th June 2011 - Murcar GC, Aberdeens

The WHITE-WINGED SCOTER had been showing offshore all week but sightings were dependent on the right light and tide conditions. I started to plan a trip up to there for the weekend but all week, a wet, windy day had been forecast, and I didn't fancy trying to see the bird in these conditions. PJ decided to opt out of the trip, and so that just left CJW, GAS and myself. It wasn't ideal for CJW, as he was finishing work at midnight on Friday, and therefore wouldn't be getting any sleep before we were due to set off.

By Thursday, I was beginning to have big doubts about the trip as the forecast was not improving. By Friday, after much discussion, I was virtually certain that the trip was off. The only problem was that it could be up to 4 weeks before we could go again. My concern was that I thought the "shelf life" of this duck was not going to be long, and I had visions of walking along the coast for 2.5miles alone searching for the duck in July!

On Friday dinner, after checking every single forecast I could think of (all saying the same - wet morning up to possibly 13-00hrs, stronger wind and a larger swell than earlier in the week), I sent a text to SR to ask if he was going. He certainly was going up, and whats more, he said according to the Met Office website, the forecast was for a dry, cloudy day. That made my mind up - the trip was on.

We arranged to pick CJW up at 02-00hrs on Saturday morning. Due to the location on the East coast and looking into the rising sun, there had been no early morning sightings, with the first ones usually at about 10-00hrs. Therefore, by setting off at 02-00hrs, we aimed to get there for 08-00hrs ish, in plenty of time for the first showing. Also high tide was at 15-29hrs, and this was the best time to see the Scoter flock as they all came in closer.

I walked out of the house at 01-50hrs and received a text from CJW. He had arranged for someone to come round and pick his dog up as we were probably going to be out all day. However, the person had not turned up. CJW was walking up and down the street looking for anyone to who could help, but, not surprisingly, there was no one about. Reluctantly, having waited to see if the dog sitter turned up, at 02-30hrs we had to set off without CJW.

The journey up was straight forward, but we hit heavy rain just south of Perth. We still had a long way to go North, and we hoped we would drive out of it. However, when we arrived on Murcar GC at 08-25hrs, it was still raining. We made contact with SR and we already knew that the WWS had been seen. We headed out to the dunes to stand with the crowd on the 4th tee, overlooking the flock. Moments after I arrived, the WWS was spotted again. It was down from the red boat, just left of the two GUILLEMOTS. I scanned frantically, but I just couldn't find the Guillemots. The sighting was brief and I had missed it.

While quite a few of the birders who had connected earlier wandered off, we stayed on the 4th tee to try and relocated the WWS. It was raining persistently now, but fortunately GAS had bought his umbrella with him. We learnt from our mistakes we had made at the very wet ALDER FLY twitch, and we put his scope in a bin bag to keep it dry. My scope was under cover.

For the next 6+ hours, we stood in the rain, continually scanning the flock. Conditions were appauling. When it rained heavily, visibility was further reduced and the Scoter flock would become black silhouettes. The swell was heavy, and duck would simply disappear in the waves and you wouldn't pick them up again. There were two drake Surf Scoters in the flock, but you could loose these birds and not see them for half an hour at a time despite continually scanning. If it was easy to lose one of these, what hope had we in seeing the WWS.

Then, at just after 14-00hrs, a small miracle happened. For about ten minutes, it actually stopped raining. We even dared to put the umbrella down. But it soon started again. The flock now was coming in quite close, as we were nearing high tide. SR, AA and JA had come back from seeing the KING EIDER, and so we walked down and stood with them. It was still raining on and off but conditions had slightly improved nevertheless. A small group of birders headed off down the dunes to view the main flock from a closer position. We followed them. After about 1/2 mile, we stopped and started scanning again. Times like this I find its useful to people watch as well as birdwatch, and I was soon aware that a birder to my left was on to something. SR was alerted as well. SR was soon onto the WWS as well, and it was quite close in, in with a group of four Scoter. I asked for directions, and was told the WWS was next to two Great C Grebes. I could see the flock through my bins, but for the life of me I couldn't find the grebes. I couldn't believe I was going to miss the WWS again after all this time. Directions were repeated. It was now swimming away from the small flock on its own, and then I picked up the 2s AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER. It was side on and the head/beak profile was clearly visible. I moved away from my scope to let GAS had a look, but he couldn't see it. The WWS was spotted again in with the Eider, but despite its location being shouted out (off the right hand end of the boat), I couldn't get onto it again.




The crowd watching the WWS in the afternoon

Mixed emotions then at finally seeing the duck, but GAS had dipped. We were cold, wet and hungry, and at 16-00hrs, we finally hheaded back to the car. I had also seen two drake Surf Scoters, 30+ Velvets, 5+ Red-throated Divers, four Red-breasted Mergs, a Great Skua, five Arctic Skuas plus endless auks, Gannets etc.

We got changed into our dry clothes (again learnt from the ALDER FLY twitch) and headed up the coast to Newburgh. We soon found the King Eider, asleep on the sand bank. In fact, I only saw it lift its head twice. Oh well!

Saturday 11th June 2011 - Tox Quarry and Blithfield

A rare solo trip out today as all the regular Clayhead members were unavailable. First stop was at the mighty Uttox Quarry. I snook in hoping no one would see me - but it was no problem as I was the only birder on site. I quickly found my target - a Red-breasted Merganser swimming about on the main pit. Looking directly into the sun gave only silhouette views, but its not a bad record for June.

Large Skipper

An arty silhouetted shot of the RBM at Tox

Then it was on to Blithfield. I went straight to Tad Bay where I was met with an ID poser. This is the view I was faced with.

I quickly went through all the white birds I knew and quickly eliminated a cygnet and a white goose. Eventually I managed to see a long leg and I was fairly certain as to what it was. All I had to do was wait for it to wake up and show me its beak, which it duly did.
GJM came into the hide and we walked down to the Forward Hide. Unbeknown to me, Sir Roger Broadbent was in the Forward hide going through the exact same processes and he came up with the same ID just after I did. We were fairly certain it was the same 2yr bird that was at Doxey recently.






Later on, an Osprey came over the bay and circled around briefly.

The White-throated Robin twitch - video

Monday 6th June 2011 - Hartlepool Headland

The beginning of June has recently been quite good and so we were half expecting something to turn up. However, the weekend came and went with nothing doing. Understandably, it was a bit annoying to receive news of a mega on a Monday morning at 09-00hrs. Not the best time of the week. As the morning went by, the reports of the WHITE-THROATED ROBIN kept coming through, and I started to think about going after work. This week, Tuesday and Wednesday were totally out of the question, and I realised it was Monday or bust. Then news came that the bowls match had started and the bird became more elusive. The last sighting was at 13-43hrs when it flew back into the out of bounds Doctor's Garden. I decided to leave work at 14-30hrs but I was still very undecided as whether to make the effort or not. I could only think that the sightings would get less and less as the day went on, and we would not be there until 17-00hrs. I headed round to GAS's flat to discuss the situation with him. As he came down, he jumped into his car with all his gear. The trip was on.

We headed up the A50 and A38 and then received the news that it had been seen again briefly at 15-10hrs. That raised our hope a little, but as we were driving along, I worked out it had been seen once in 4hrs, and that was only a brief sighting.

We hit no traffic and headed out onto the headland. As we got nearer, we could see a crowd in front of us. They didn't look like birders, more like a riot of some sort. As we got nearer, we started seeing a few scopes and we realised we had found the crowd. But what on earth was going on. There were two vans with birders stood on the roofs, and loads more birders just standing around.

Our first impressions

We slowly discovered that the WHITE-THROATED ROBIN was showing in the garden on the other side of a 10ft wall. I then started to think how was I going to get on top of the van, and how was GAS going to get on. Then the ladders started turning up. I noticed one was being set up and we immediately joined the queue. There were only three birders in front of me. We had to wait about ten minutes for the bird to be found again, and then I simply had to wait my turn. Incredibly, after only being on site for less than 15 mins, I was up a ladder watching a female White-throated Robin sitting sunning itself. I reluctantly came down to let the next man have his go, but I joined the small queue for seconds. On my second go, I managed a bit of a video.

So after nearly not bothering to go up at all, we had our tick in no time at all. It really was a bizarre sight and one of the strangest twitches I've been on. Grown men on top of vans, grown men trying to climb wall, some covered in anti climb paint. Unforgetable!
Note the dirty hands These blokes were only popping down to the shop
GAS in the red cap up a ladder

A video grab (well what do you expect when I'm up a ladder!)
The bird is just right of the obvious white rose (This was repeated many times on our ladder)

There was more drama to come. Fellow Clayheads Rich Sutton and Phil Jones had set off at 16-45hrs from work. I had already worked out that it would be nearly 20-00hrs by the time they would arrive. We kept in touch as they drove up. When the Robin flew from the Doctors garden, we all walked round to view the bowling green but there was no sign of it there. I saw quite a few birders walking down the road, so I followed them, only to find they were simply walking to their cars. We walked back to the green, only to find most of the crowd had departed. It was only 19-00hrs, and it seemed that everyone had seen it. I really felt so sorry for the boys on their way up, as they were going to have no chance of seeing it. We headed off for home just after seven. I spoke to Phil; he was still an hour away.

Then, at 19-17hrs, I received news that the WHITE-THROATED ROBIN was back in the Doctors Garden. I sent this to Phil. He arrived in Hartlepool at about 19-40hrs. When he parked up, he saw three empty ladders and so presumed the bird was not showing. A quick question as to whether it was showing was asked, and they got a surprise answer back.

HE WHO DARES...RODNEY...HE WHO DARES!



An ecstatic PJ following his furthest after work twitch ever (finishing work at normal time that is)