Chats, Flys and Ears

A few snippets from last week - a single Green Sand flew on to the spit on the morning of the 22nd and a nice flock of 8 Yellow Wagtails flew off north from Pump Lane paddocks later the same day - I've never seen them at this site before.  The following morning, before a long weekend away over the bank holiday, I looked out of my bedroom window and saw an Osprey flying steadily southwards, this was at 8:45am.  Not quite on patch, but it may well have been a few minutes later if anyone was there to look.  This is my 4th Osprey from the house since 2010, all in the period August 19th-23rd and all flying south or SSW, so it does make me wonder whether it is the same bird.

One of the riverside meadows has a large expanse of metre tall dying vegetation in it.  I have been hoping that this might attract Whinchats and have been checking it regularly.  It was therefore a bit galling to find that 2 Whinchats were seen over the weekend whilst I was away.  What's more, a Spotted Flycatcher was seen in the hedge of the same meadow and is a bird that I keep missing on patch - it is barely annual on site now.

So after my return, I paid a visit on the morning of the 27th.  I was hopeful of some interesting tern, wader or gull movement, as the wind was SE, however, there was little of note on the lake, though it was apparent that the Common Tern colony had largely departed, with just an adult and 3 juveniles present.  I made my way to the weedy meadow, which has slightly restricted viewing from the railway crossing, but could find nothing within it (not surprisingly!), so I continued along the southern bank to view the east side of the spit - nothing there either.  There were a few warblers about, with a Reed Warbler in one of the reed beds, a couple of Willow Warblers and into double figures of Chiffchaffs.  On my way back, I stopped to watch the hirundines over the lake.  There were maybe 100 birds milling about, predominantly House Martins, but with many Swallows and some Sand Martins too.  My attention was drawn to the hedge behind me, as a couple of Blackbirds were making a bit of a racket in the hawthorns and as I watched, a Spotted Flycatcher was silhouetted against the sun at the top of the bush.  I moved slightly to get some sort of view of its plumage and then it vanished - still, this was a much wanted patch tick, so I was pretty happy.  I decided to go back to the railway crossing to see if it was working its way there and was glad that I did, because although there was no further sign of the Spot Fly, a small dark dumpy bird appeared on top of the weeds in the meadow not too far from me.  Half expecting it to be a Dunnock due to its colouration, I was delighted to find that it was in fact a juvenile Stonechat.  It had no real distinguishing plumage features, being fairly dark and mottled all over, but did show a nice chestnut orange tertial patch.  This is only my second patch Stonechat - not an easy bird to get.  I attempted a record shot in a fairly stiff SE breeze, but it was fairly flighty and soon moved out of sight - my one record focussed on the weeds and not the bird, though you can make out a pale tertial patch if you look hard enough!

A quick look at Pump Lane paddocks found a single Wheatear

More Blackwits

18th August - some obvious passage this morning.  My first Yellow Wagtails of the Autumn flew south over my head calling as I stood in the meadow.  Two birds that rather than continue their passage, veered sharply right at the river and descended to the cattle field where they were soon lost in the long grass.  Two separate Hobbies flew over south during the morning and the tit flock that I watched along the railway hedge held a single Willow Warbler and at least 10 Chiffchaffs.

Hirundines were noticeably flying through in pulses, mainly House Martins, but also some Swallows and Sand Martins and 4 Swifts.  200-300 House Martins went through in a couple of hours, often flying in from the SE and flying NW into the stiff breeze.  Amongst one group of 10 birds was one that when it flew over my head had a very long tail!! This gave it a Swallow sp look, but from the upperside it looked like the House Martins it was with, including a pure white rump.  The tail itself showed feathers sticking out at the base - a very odd feature.  The views I had gave me no reason to think that it was a Swallow or even Red-rumped Swallow, other than the tail was long.  It flew straight through, so went down in my book as an aberrant House Martin, but a frustrating sighting.  Whilst waiting to see if this bird would return, I watched a couple of Black-tailed Godwits fly in from the north and descend to the spit.  I went back round to the west bank and took a couple of record shots and confirmed that they were both adults.

It's been a long time coming

17th August - Osprey is one of my bogey birds on patch, I always seem to arrive just after or just before one has flown through.  You need a bit of luck with this species, as they almost never linger and you just have to be there when they fly over.  This morning I had been on site for about 5 minutes, viewing from the western bank, when I saw a large bird flying towards the lake from the east.  A quick look through my bins confirmed that it was an Osprey - get in!! I watched it flying closer and saw it looking down at the lake, probably trying to spy a fish.  It veered slightly southwards over the lake and then continued westwards.  It had put all the birds on the spit up in the air and the large gulls were half heartedly chasing it on.  I attempted to catch a record shot with my point and shoot, which suffers with a lack of zoom, so the shots below are quite heavily cropped, the first one massively so, hence the pixilation.

Massive crop

Approaching west bank being followed by a LBBG

 

Further crop of above photo

Disappearing westwards

A few minutes later a Green Sandpiper flew over calling and later still, a Common Sand flew around the lake looking for somewhere to land, though I don't know whether it did or not.  The spit is suffering with overgrown vegetation at the moment, as the gravel company will not let any of the usual volunteers out to mow it and keep it in check due to Elfin Safety.  Consequently, the usual gulls, geese and Lapwings have all been forced to the edges which gives little space for any passing waders to utilise.  I think that this has definitely had a detrimental effect on wader passage recently, with waders either stopping for a few minutes and being chased off, or more often, just flying straight over.

Other snippets from the past week were 2 Green Sands early on Thursday morning before a Lapwing took a dislike to them and chased them off and a small passage of warblers on Friday morning including 2 Sedge Warblers in the southern reed bed and a Willow Warbler and Whitethroat in the railway hedge.  Yesterday afternoon, I visited Pump Lane for the first time in a while and found a couple of Wheatear in the horse paddocks and also a Clouded Yellow in the field by the vineyard.

 

Blackwit

11th August - an early afternoon visit was slightly more productive than normal in that a Black-tailed Godwit was present amongst the Black-headed Gull flock on the spit.  It spent most of its time whilst I was there either asleep or partially hidden within the gulls, but I did manage some record shots.  It was an adult, but in heavy moult, and only had a few retained summer scap feathers.  Not much else seen in a fairly quick visit and only viewing from the western bank.

First wader in a fortnight

9th August - finally got a wader on site this morning, the first recorded since July 26th!! Only a Green Sand, but nice to get a wader to look at at last.

Teal were up to 5, plus singles of Pochard and Gadwall.  Still a few Little Egrets dotted over the site and plenty of Common Tern activity with about 13 or so juveniles still present with similar numbers of adults - I expect that they'll be off soon.

It's all gone quiet

There has been very little of note to blog about, hence the lack of posts.  I don't think there has been a single wader on site for over a week or more, apart from Lapwings, which given the time of year is rather depressing.  This little chap didn't help things yesterday evening and apparently stayed the night as he was still there this morning, though appeared to have departed by this evening.  He was merrily trotting up and down the spit putting everything up as he went.  He has a collar, but not sure where he came from.

There have been 1 or 2 Yellow-legged Gulls loafing around, an adult and juvenile, though I'm not entirely sure these are always the same birds.  The juvenile seen a couple of days ago had typically already moulted several of its scaps, unlike the many juvenile Herring and LBBG on site:

On the wildfowl front, 4 Teal were new in this week, but that's about it - come on birds, where are you?

This large caterpillar crawled over the path in front of me this evening, it's a Lime Hawkmoth larva.  Shortly later a Hummingbird Hawkmoth was seen nectaring on willowherb and bramble flowers, so there are still things to keep me happy!

Early Pintail

25th July - I went down early afternoon, but only had about 30 minutes before I had to leave.  There were the usual BHG and LWHG to look through, though smaller numbers than of late and I didn't see anything unusual amongst them.  The only wader on site was a single juvenile LRP.  Shortly before I had to leave, the darkening sky began to rumble with thunder and a storm was obviously nearby.  A small flock of Mallard were flying over the east side of the lake - not unusual and I didn't pay much attention to them.  However, when they banked round on the southern side, I noticed that there were some Gadwall with them, showing their obvious white wing flashes.  I looked at them through bins and then realised that there was also a Pintail amongst them, showing its distinctive long-winged profile and white bordered outer speculum.  I followed the group as they flew round the back of the island and out of sight towards the works bay.  They then reappeared and flew back past the island.  I could see that rain was falling, though it hadn't reached me yet and the flock landed on the southern side of the lake.  It comprised 4 Mallard, 4 Gadwall and a single Pintail, the plain brown head and dull greyish bill of the Pintail was now obvious.  Suddenly the heavens opened and a deluge ensued.  I sheltered under trees, waiting for the worst to pass, but then had to leave - any record shots in the conditions and at distance would have been a waste of time.

I returned later in the day hoping to grab a record, as July Pintail is pretty unusual.  My previous earliest local bird was late August.  The Pintail was still present, but roosting at the back of the spit with the 4 Gadwall.  I attempted a record, but it doesn't show any diagnostic features at all.  It eventually woke up at about 9pm when the light was fading and a mist was appearing over the water, so again no conditions for my camera to take anything recognisable.  From what I could make out, it looked to be a female type rather than an eclipse male based on the bill looking fairly uniformly dark grey, the rather uniform plumage and the tail although fairly long and pointed, probably not long enough for a male.

For what it's worth, the record shot is below - the Pintail is the left hand bird asleep at the back (200yds away)

Bits and pieces from the 24th - a Redshank was another migrant wader just present for a single day, along with a Common Sand and single juv LRP (there had been 3 juvs on the 23rd), whilst the LWHG flock held an adult and juvenile Yellow-legged Gull.  The leucistic BHG from the other day was also present.