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| Rainbow over Portland Bird Observatory |
I've had some rather good birding trips away from Oxfordshire over the last few weeks, which I'll aim to summarise in this combined set of trip reports. I've also had a totally unsuccessful weekend in Cornwall failing to see any large shearwaters (perhaps some sort of record for longest time spent staring at the Cornish sea without any reward), so will gloss over that - although did see the Scillies for the first time.
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| St Mary's Harbour from a day trip on the Scillonian |
The Suffolk double of Black Stork and breeding Zitting Cisticola (both seemingly settled and easy to twitch) was too enticing to pass up, so I decided to head down for a day trip with James Hammond on 23rd August. Due to some poor planning we only arrived in Suffolk at 3pm, and by this time our first target, the juvenile Black Stork, was nowhere to be seen. We found a loose group of people milling around on top of the dyke looking at nothing in particular - always a bad sign at a twitch. Luckily, after about half an hour I picked up the bird flying in high from the west. Pterodactyl-like in flight, it then proceeded to land right in front of us and began feeding along that famous ditch, the subject of so many tepid social media posts recently. I tried to motivate myself to take a few photos.
As I was watching the Black Stork, I heard an unfamiliar yet strangely familiar call ring out overhead. I looked up and saw two distant waders circling behind the dyke. It took a few seconds for my brain to connect the call with these birds and I realised that it was two Dotterels, having clearly just flown in-off. I panicked slightly trying to get a photo - the birds were specks, but luckily they dived low over the fields, perhaps looking for a place to settle, and I managed to get a few shots before they disappeared inland. I wandered over to some of the assembled twitchers further down the path and sheepishly enquired as to whether they had seen the two Dotterels fly straight over their heads. "Oh, really?" They hadn't, and didn't seem to care much either!
From the photos, at least one of the birds is an adult, evidenced by the traces of red on the underside and active primary moult. I was especially pleased to have picked up the calls on my sound recorder, as I wasn't sure that they would be loud enough. There is the typical flight call (like a short, buzzy Redshank or Golden Plover) but also a series of Oystercatcher-like contact calls interspersed between these, which I haven't heard before. Overall a great experience.
It was already getting dark as we headed to Walberswick but thankfully there was enough light left to connect with one of the Zitting Cisticolas. Initially heard-only, it then perched up on the reeds for 30 seconds, offering some decent scope views. A near-adult Caspian Gull was also sitting on the beach.
All target birds acquired and back in Oxford before midnight. This trip has convinced me that twitching is acceptable so long as I find some good birds along the way!
I timed my autumn Portland stay for the second week of September this year to coincide with some decent passerine passage for ringing. Last year I was there at the end of August, where numbers can be high but potential for scarcities a bit lower. In any case, a run of easterlies the week before gave me some hope, and I booked in for 6th to 13th September.
Day one kicked off with a Wryneck trapped at Culverwell - although I've seen them in the hand before, this was the first that I have ringed, and I felt quite privileged to do so.
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| Ringing the Wryneck with Mark Cutts and Roger Booth |
Despite the promising weather, the quantity of birds in the nets was disappointing, as was the quality of overhead passage. This mid-morning lull was shattered by a call from Martin saying that he was "99.5%" sure" that he had just flushed a Booted Warbler in the Crown Estate Field! Utter panic in the Obs as everyone raced down the drive, finding Martin standing near a net running through some low crop. Apparently the bird had flown from these crops into the hedge bordering the field, and therefore should still be possible to flush towards the nets. However, the next twenty minutes of slow walking around the field by the assembled ringers failed to pin it down, and I wondered if it had managed to sneak along the hedge away towards the Top Fields.
Suddenly a shout from Martin alerted us to the bird flying from the hedge back into the crops, and everyone surrounded it. I had my first subliminal views of it in flight, and having previously seen neither Booted nor Sykes's Warbler, I was struck by how pale and obviously different it looked - slightly larger than a Phylloscopus, and perhaps slightly lumbering, but it was the colour that really stood out. Unfortunately this brief view ended with the bird flying not into the net, but straight over it towards the pond! After another ten minutes of it evading the nets, but thankfully staying in the area, a monofilament mist net was erected in the crop ride. Being much less visible than regular mist nets, this was successful in capturing the bird. A fantastic moment when Martin lifted it out of the net - finally my Portland visits coincide with the discovery of a proper rarity! If I had been in a blogging mindset, I might have thought to take some photos of the scene, so some photos in the hand will have to suffice.
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| Grahame Walbridge pointing out some features on the Booted Warbler |
Although no calls were heard,
Sykes's Warbler, I think, was eliminated on the basis of a combination of biometrics, and the bird was left unaged due to an odd state of wear/moult. See the Portland blog for a more in-depth analysis (
here).
A check of Church Ope Cove and Coombefield later produced a single Pied Flycatcher and two Spotted Flycatchers although very few warblers.
Day two proceeded in much the same way as day one, but without any scarcities materialising. I therefore decided to leave the garden mist nets to Roger on day three, and headed down to the Bill to check the thousands-strong gull flock that had been building up on the sea off of the West Cliffs throughout the morning. Some of these were settled quite close off of the eastern side of the Bill and amongst them was a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull.
On the western side of Pulpit rock a few gulls were flying in and I was rewarded with the sight of a fantastic male Caspian Gull in the melee - the size of Great Black-backed Gull and carrying a stick in its beak, as they so often do. Amazingly it flew closer and closer until it was right over my head.
With a bit of editing one of the last photos in the sequence has turned into my favourite-ever image of Caspian Gull - with the white head appearing from behind the clean brown wing almost like a shawl. Plus it shows their curious tendency to carry around objects and defend these from other gulls!
It is a running joke that I cannot go to Portland without finding a Caspian Gull, which is usually a scarce bird in Dorset. Therefore having achieved my mission for this trip, I headed back to the Obs for lunch. However, it seems this was only the start of the day's strange cachinnans "event": Mark texted me a picture of another individual in the fields at Culverwell, whilst Jodie found a third whilst twitching it. I hadn't managed to see a juvenile Caspian Gull in Oxfordshire yet this autumn, so was pretty pleased with this nice little run of birds.
As the wind picked up and a belt of rain rolled in I had a short seawatch from the Obs and got lucky with a brief juvenile Sabine's Gull, which unfortunately no one else saw as it disappeared in and out of massive wave troughs. A single Bar-tailed Godwit also flew south, which was corroborated by a flock of 13 at Ferrybridge. A final check of Culverwell in the evening failed to produce any more gulls but I was treated to the incredible sight of a migrating flock of Grey Herons heading southeast - 14 at first, which were joined by another five over the sea.
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| All carefully checked for Purple Herons! |
On day four I decided to try and capitalise on this potential Caspian Gull influx with a thorough search of the East Cliff fields before heading to Ferrybridge. I was pleased to find another pristine juvenile showing at close range next to Culverwell, and a further two on the lagoon a Ferrybridge (one of which was another brutish male and could have invited confusion with Yellow-legged Gull). All of these were different birds to the three seen yesterday!
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| Bird 2 |
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| Bird 3 |
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| Bird 3 |
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| Bird 4 - again carrying a fidget toy around! |
A surprising number of gulls were coming and going from the lagoon that evening including a few Yellow-legged Gulls, and amongst the waders were the two Little Stints and a fresh Curlew Sandpiper.
Also had the fantastic experience of watching some Tuna leaping on a seawatch, which I managed to capture on video.
With strong winds overnight, day five started with the news of a juvenile Sabine's Gull wrecked in Chesil Cove. As with many birds on stormy days in the Cove, it was a struggle to locate at first, but then showed beautifully, flying back and forth along the surf.
I saw another Caspian Gull distantly on a morning seawatch from the Obs, along with the usual Balearic Shearwaters and Arctic Skuas.
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| Caspian Gull - not sure whether this is one of the previously-seen individuals |
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| Balearic Shearwater |
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| Pale-phase Arctic Skua |
The rest of the day was a bit of a non-event in the wind, but I did my evening check of the East Cliffs gull flocks and found another three juvenile Caspian Gulls - extraordinary stuff for Portland!
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| Bird 5 |
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| Bird 6 |
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| Bird 7 |
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| Bird 7 |
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| Bird 7 |
On day six I went back to Chesil to see if the Sabine's was still present - it wasn't, but I was pleased to pick up a distant Grey Phalarope bobbing between huge waves some distance out in the bay. Apparently found independently by others that morning, it showed rather better after I left. My views were limited to just bins and without the 2x extender on my camera, so the photos are shocking. Still, pleased to add this species to the self-found list.
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| Spot the Phalarope! |
Two Firecrests at Pennsylvania Castle were the first of the autumn for me and on the way back to the Obs I chanced upon a couple of birders watching a new Dutch-ringed Caspian Gull (Darvic code A:9) in the fields at Culverwell - very nice. A final evening check of Ferrybridge revealed three more juvenile Caspian Gulls including a fantastic advanced individual with loads of moulting coverts (bird 9) and a second Dutch-ringed bird, which was a bit more difficult to be sure of the identification at first as it was so dark, especially on the underwing.
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| Bird 8 |
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| Bird 8 |
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| Bird 9 |
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| Bird 10 - Dutch-ringed |
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| Bird 10 - note dark underwing |
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| Bird 10 |
The Little Stints were still present and an Arctic Tern flew through at dusk.
The wind finally dropped on day seven, and I had a pleasant walk around the Top Fields and Slopes in the first properly bird-able conditions for several days. Overhead passage was evident, and I counted approximately 190 Meadow Pipits, and handful of Tree Pipits (hard to count as a couple were obviously grounded and flying around), 13 Grey Wagtails (a real feature of autumn vismigging at Portland) and a few oddities - Marsh Harrier over the Crown Estate Fields, heard-only Ringed Plover and high-flying Bar-tailed Godwit over the land.
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| Standard flight views of Tree Pipit |
Late morning a band of heavy rain set in and further attempts to find Caspian Gulls were scuppered, so I headed home. A really good mix of birds this trip and so lucky to jam in on the Booted Warbler being found. In addition to the ten individual Caspian Gulls which I documented, there were also at least three more found whilst I was there and a couple more afterwards, which is an exceptional number. Having been branded "Ein Autistischenverstandfurcacchinnans" by Martin on the Portland blog, I was tempted to respond with a satirical piece about the curious association between Caspian Gull records and my presence at the Obs. However, it does seem that my trip this year genuinely did coincide with some sort of Caspian Gull influx to the southwest, with Steve Waite on the Axe in Devon and Steve Lavington at Keyhaven in Hampshire both reporting multiple individuals at locations where they're still a decent bird to find. In contrast, numbers have been low in Oxfordshire and other inland sites this autumn - presumably something to do with the recent weather conditions has pushed loads of gulls down the Channel.
You may have noticed that some of the photography in the last two blog posts is not up to the usual standard. The reason for this is that some of them are video stills using my new dual camera/scope setup, which enables me to get footage of birds seen on seawatches or distantly in gull roosts. The resulting images are jpegs and therefore cannot be run through the DXO denoising software that I used for all my other photos. Despite being of relatively poor quality, I've found it incredibly useful and far better than phonescoping in almost all situations. With the 2x extender on the Olympus 300mm F4, plus the MFT 2x crop factor and 1.4x digital teleconverter (I know the latter is simply pixel interpolation but it's super useful for getting 4k video which you can then crop down further), the resulting magnification is approximately 35x - similar to a spotting scope. I've tried using the same setup for conventional photography at these distances as well and the results are mediocre even with DXO processing - the bird is just too small in the frame. The Zitting Cisticola, for example, was an absolute speck, and that video grab is already amongst the better images available of it.
The benefits of this setup really paid off on a trip back to Kent last week. With a fresh north/northeasterly blowing I decided to head to Reculver for a seawatch. It's a favourite location of mine as I like how you can basically see all of the vertical height of the sea from beach to horizon in a single scope view, and the birds are often at a nice distance. A bit like the view from the Portland patio, in fact, although much closer. Cornwall seawatching frustrates me in comparison as there is just so much sea to look at - it's a lot easier to miss things, and at sites like Pendeen I feel like I have to keep switching to bins for birds passing inside of the rocks.
I arrived at around 07:30 and set up my scope along with a few local seawatchers in the ruins of Reculver towers, which provide some shelter from the wind. The morning started slowly, with just a couple of Arctic Skuas, the odd flock of Wigeon and Brent Geese and a few Sandwich Terns. Most of these birds were going west, with a close-in skua one of the first individuals heading back east after presumably U-turning in the Thames estuary or Swale. This bird almost evaded identification as it went by so close and fast, and I only got onto it as it was flying away from us. Luckily, I recorded some video which confirmed it as a Great Skua.
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| Wigeon passing the wind farm - always like seeing duck movements in autumn |
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| Another Wigeon flock |
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| Great Skua |
After a slow first hour the seawatch gradually improved, and we saw a few more Arctic Skuas (including two flocks of three birds), a handful of Little Gulls, Common Terns, Black Tern, Red-throated Diver, Pintail, Teal and Common Scoter - excellent variety although not a big passage day. Whilst trying to get people onto a distant Arctic Skua flying east under the wind farm, a juvenile Sabine's Gull drifted across my scope view going the other way. Slight panic trying to get people onto it as it was disappearing round to the left, where the ruins blocked the view for those sitting behind the wall, but I think everyone saw it and I was glad to get some more video as evidence. I think the recent Portland trip and "subliminal" Sabine's sighting has really driven home the "no photo, no record" mindset!
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| Juvenile Sabine's Gull - showed a bit better than this pic suggests, roughly mid-distance, but they are small birds... |
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| Black Tern |
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| Arctic Skuas |
Two more skuas then appeared from the east and I noted that one was obviously bigger and more heavyset compared to the other - I couldn't see much plumage detail at that distance but suggested to the group that it could be a juvenile Pomarine Skua. I was met with silence so wasn't sure if they had heard. As they got closer I was sure that I could see more white in the underwing than the accompanying Arctic Skua and that its wings were broader. After they went out of view I asked the group what they thought of these birds and was quite surprised when they unanimously agreed that it was two Arctic Skuas, and didn't protest much. I had taken some video and was fully expecting it to be a learning experience when checking later, so I was actually a bit annoyed to be met with these images - an obvious Pomarine Skua... I wish I had stood up for myself a bit more! I've detailed some of the key identification points below but I think it was fairly clear even from the flight pattern that this wasn't an Arctic, almost lumbering with much slower wingbeats. I've not yet worked out how to edit and stabilise my videos properly (Mike McKee style...) so I've saved them all and just exported stills for the time being.
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| Underwing comparison with Arctic Skua - note presence of two white "flashes" on the underwing (caused by white bases to both the primaries and primary coverts - indicative of Pomarine Skua but a combination which, exceptionally, can be shown by Arctic Skua as well). |
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| This photo really highlights the difference in structure - the wings are half again as broad as the Arctic Skua and it is much more barrel-chested. Note also the dark head. |
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| Size difference apparent here and the combination of paler barred rump and dark head/nape basically never shown by Arctic Skua |
Again, this really shows that the "VAR" approach to birding - with continuous sound recording and videoing birds during seawatches - massively improves the quality of records and enables a bit of fact checking especially if there are disagreements. On a personal level it also stops me second guessing anything that I see/hear briefly and reins in any attempts at stringing.
In the afternoon I checked South Foreland in the hopes of vismig and grounded passerines. Very little overhead movement but I chanced upon a Pied Flycatcher in Langdon Hole and a male Black Redstart at Fan Bay. Also notable were three Black-tailed Godwits flying in-off the sea.
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| Pied Flycatcher - didn't really settle nicely, kept bombing around the bushes |
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| Chiffchaff |
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| Black-tailed Godwits |
With a few more trips planned in October I hope to do trip reports in a more timely manner, rather than long summaries like this post. I've got Yorkshire booked for next week and Cornwall directly afterwards - will be a mix of ringing and birding so hopefully still some good birds to come before end of autumn!
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