A good couple of days

24th February - I was standing on the western viewpoint this morning at just after 9am, scoping the birds on the spit, when I noticed a Chiffchaff flitting about in the over hanging willows in front of me.  In the bins I could see it was a collybita.  Then another one appeared, which was obviously paler.  This was the pale buffy tristis type that I had seen exactly 4 weeks ago about 100 yards away in the STW complex and despite frequent searches since had not seen it again.  I assume that it had wintered within the compound and for some reason the Chiffchaffs had chosen today to change their behaviour, as there were at least five and maybe more flitting and fly catching along the western bank.

The Siberian Chiffchaff showed well for about ten minutes coming within a few feet of me and I was pleased to see all the features I would expect to see on a tristis in much closer detail than my previous view in January.  The mantle was a pale buff with a hint of grey.  There was no obvious green feathering at all except slightly on the remiges when viewed front on - when side on, this seemed to disappear.  It had an obvious creamy buff super, a dark eye stripe and darker buff ear coverts.  The undersides were fairly clean and whitish, looking cleaner white on the belly and under tail coverts.  The legs were black and the bill was blackish, though showed some orangey tones in good light.  This last feature, I was slightly unsure about, as I was expecting a solid black bill, but I'm sure this feature shows some variability.  The bird was typically silent.  It flew off along the bank and I assumed that that was that, but found out during the day that it and the Chiffchaff flock  would remain faithful to this hundred yard stretch of bank all day.  The Siberian was often on its own not particularly associating with the collybita and also seemed to like the area around the viewpoint where it afforded good views, though slightly against the light.  It was incredibly active and often difficult to keep up with through bins.  LGRE turned up early afternoon and managed some decent photographs that my camera would have failed to do - they are here:

Shortly after my initial view of the Sibe, when it had flown off, I continued my scanning of the birds on the spit and picked out a winter plumaged 2nd winter Med Gull amongst c1000 BHG.  It was about 200 yards away and not particularly obvious, but I grabbed some record shots:

You can just see the distinctive black and white primary pattern of a 2w

The bird stayed about an hour before departing.

Other birds seen today included a nice Water Rail walking along the western bank, a single Shelduck and just a single Snipe.

The previous day, the 23rd, I had popped down just before midday and was pleased to see this beauty fly in at 11:40am.  A lovely 1st winter Caspian Gull that arrived on its own, spent about an hour on site, mainly washing and preening before inexplicably departing on its own.  I watched it fly off high to the east and maybe back towards Hedgerley landfill.  It was one of only 30 LWHG on site and a little distant for photographs, but I took the following records:

this gives an idea of the white underwing

this shows the tail pattern

Not a particularly big bird, so presumably a female.  It does show some similarities to one of the birds I photographed at Hedgerley, but I'm not convinced it's the same.

On the 18th, I took a walk around Emmett's fields looking for farmland birds.  The game cover has now all been cut down and I could not find the pair of Grey Partridge.  I was pleased to see 4 Yellowhammers  feeding amongst a small flock of 20 Chaffinches.  There were 26 Stock Doves feeding on a crop field and best of all was an immature Peregrine, presumably the one seen several times over the lake (but not by me yet!).  It spent several minutes circling low over the southern edge of Bloom Wood before flying off rapidly to the east.