Fun Powder Plot

Otter

2012-02-07T19:57:00.000Z

Today involved stonking views of an Otter

Watched me for about 10 mins doing a cough and staring right at me!

After following what I presume are Otter prints in the snow, any opinions?

Also Woodcock over Aughton and the Knot still at Hes East minus the Dunlin.

Awesome Weekend

2012-02-05T20:36:00.000Z

For now some pics from this weekend, write up to follow...

Local GGS

2012-02-02T15:17:00.001Z

Up early this morning and headed over to Copmanthorpe to try and connect with the Great Grey Shrike that was reported here yesterday afternoon.

After about an hours searching and being asked if a 'special one' was coming by a passer by!

I picked it up very distantly! From SE562457 looking at SE570453

We got the OS map out and figured out where it was a tried to get a closer look. A quick chat to a friendly farmer and we soon had stonking views of this stunner!

Cracking bird and a nice bonus for my York area year list!

2 Whoopers over, c500 Golden Plover and 50+ Yellowhammer made for a nice morning!

minimus magic

2012-01-31T19:34:00.000Z

Video here

Weekend

2012-01-30T16:12:00.001Z

Did a fair bit of birding in the York area this weekend.

Saturday began with a search for Firecrest around some local parks, starting where one had been reported at the back end of last year proved frustrating being next to a busy road and no access into the area it was reported then I couldn't find Clifton Park and Rowntree Park doesn't have the right habitat! Frustrating morning so I headed off to Hes East where there wasn't a lot around so got bored and took some photos of a known Snow x Barnacle hybrid!

Nothing of note on the lake, so over the other side of the A64 but still no
Brambling. A walk from here over the Tillmire produced a large flock of Tree Sparrow, displaying Kestrels and plenty of Goldcrest.

Someone was not phased by the cold weather!

By this time it was 2 o'clock so decided to go on a random drive a short way up the A64 to see if I could find a nice game cover strip with finches to try and find Brambling, found one spot but couldn't park anywhere near it! Feeling pretty frustrated I drove off only to notice a decent sized flock of finches flying round a field, pull over and most of the flock land in an alder tree

Redpolls, score! After about 10 minutes managed to pick out a Mealy, nice larger greyer bird but too distant for photos and dropped out of sight too quickly. A game shoot came through the field scattering the flock and so I headed home.

Sunday was spent around Hes East, Redshank was still on the main lake, 4 Tufted Duck and a new Little Owl sharply spotted by Jack!

After a report last night of a Bar-tailed Godwit at Wheldrake yesterday evening and it being a decent York area bird and one that might be tricky to catch up with for my year list I headed over there this morning.

Plenty of birds still about considering the lack of water there at the moment, but no Bar-tailed Godwits! Searching through the waterfowl for unusual head patterns and vertical stripes also drew a blank

Good numbers of waders included 80+ Dunlin, c15 Ruff, 30 Golden Plover and 26 Curlew as well as the usual couple hundred Lapwing and my first Oystercatcher in the area

In amongst the Greylags and Canadas was a single juvenile European White-fronted Goose.

Not a bad morning all round and always nice to get down to Wheldrake. Managed to read 2 Mute Swan rings which I presume are both from the valley but I'll double check. 195 and 351.

Finally a juv Grey Heron posed nicely in front of Swantail hide, still improving my digiscoping skills!

All in all Mealy Redpoll and Oystercatcher new for my York area year list taking me onto 104.

Year list update

2012-01-27T21:30:00.000Z

So nearly a month gone on my York Area Year list challenge and I'm up to 102 species managing to add Kingfisher at Redhouse Resv and also more views of the Adult Caspian at Upper Poppleton and a second poss adult! 1st winter YLG was a nice bird as well, tomorrow I'm off to look for Firecrests, Brambling and Mealy Redpolls!

Birds that I should to catch up with by March are;

Brambling
Mealy Redpoll
Woodlark
Chiffchaff
Stonechat
Egyptian Goose

Species that I'm gonna be targeting trying to find are

Glaucous Gull
Firecrest
Bean Goose
Waxwing
Twite
Hen Harrier
Scaup

Apparently Darren Starkey who jointly holds the previous record of 170 with Russell Slack was on 120 by the end of March, so during March I'll hopefully get

Blackcap
Little Ringed Plover
Oystercatcher
Goshawk
Marsh Harrier
Ringed Plover

plus possibly

Swallow
Sand Martin
Lesser Spotted Woodpecker
Hawfinch

So thats a potential 23 species to take me to 125 by the end of March! A couple of unexpected bonuses would be good!

Askham Bog

2012-01-25T13:02:00.000Z

Went over to Askham Bog this morning

in an attempt to find Mealy Redpoll or Lesser Spotted Woodpecker for my York area year list, didn't succeed but added Jay finally and played around with the macro on my camera.

Another Caspian

2012-01-20T17:24:00.000Z

Went down to Poppleton this afternoon where the gulls often linger in this (SE.548.540) field mid afternoon after visiting the tip.
Was hoping for a bit more white-winger action and getting Glaucous Gull on my York Area Year list, didn't manage that but Chris did manage to pick this out!

initially picked up by Chris around 14:30 and was present until 15:15 when it flew off south presumably to the tip. Fairly distinctive bird, with narrow longish straight bill, small dark eye, sloping forehead, high chest, overall leaning foward stance, legs not visible but when bird moved could tell that it seemed to have a broken left leg. Wing tip showed large white mirror to p10 with a narrow black band just short of the tip, could just see some dark markings on p5 beyond the tertial step but didn't show the extent of this despite preening! When it took flight, luckily only with a few birds, could see how long winged and pale in the wing tip it looked.

Also present was an adult Iceland Gull

and an adult Yellow-legged Gull, awesome!

Along with a Grey Wagtail over the house this morning the Yellow-leg takes me onto 98 for my York Area year list.

Caspian Gull

2012-01-15T19:40:00.000Z

Jammed in on finding a 1st winter Caspian Gull at Wheldrake yesterday, managed to leave my memory card in my laptop though!

Went back this afternoon with my memory card and luckily it was still there and got these record shots.

This weekend involved- adult Med Gull at Hes East, 450+ Pinkies over East Cottingwith, 1w Caspian and 2w Iceland Gull at Wheldrake, 5 Goosander at Castle Howard and 2 White-fronts over Wheldrake.

York area year list is going pretty well, after the bird race last weekend I've since managed to add the above birds taking me onto 95.

Bird Race

2012-01-09T13:37:00.000Z

So yesterday I did the Michael Clegg bird race. The idea of the day is to see as many species as possible on the day to raise money for a wildflife cause in East Yorkshire. This year the money raised will go towards the Heslington East site of York Uni where tern rafts and a sand martin bank will be put in!

So we wanted to do well! In the months running up to it between the 4 of us we put in a lot of work finding sites for certain species and planning out a route that we see us get as many as possible!

After birding all day on the 7th we planned out a target possible 92 species if we managed to see everything that we knew was in the area! Hoping that we might jam in on something to boost the total!

The previous York area record was 86 and apparently the 80-mark had only once been broken when this record was set! So we aimed for a total of 80+ with an eye on the record!

The day started well at Buttercrambe Woods, a private site to the north of the city where luckily one of our team members works!

We arrived at the woods at 06:45 with our eyes and scoring plenty of woodland species and getting the day off to a good start!

Wondering around the woods and checking out the feeding station that Jack had set up scored us some good species; Tawny Owl, Marsh TIt, Woodcock, Green Woodpecker, Crossbill, Siskin, Lesser Redpoll and Song Thrush only missing one target, Jay!

Moving on towards Castle Howard a few tactical stops got us Tree Sparrow, Meadow Pipit and Stock Dove.

A quick stop and scan of the main lake at Castle Howard got us plenty of duck species such as Goldeneye, Gadwall, Wigeon, Teal and Pochard, again missing one target, Goosander.

From Castle Howard we then headed south to Heslington East. Getting out of the car we noticed a 'Buzzard' over the fields, this Buzzard quickly turned into a Red Kite! Bonus species! Buzzing from that we quickly added Snipe and Jack Snipe and Red-legged Partridge. Getting back in the car and heading off site we flushed a falcon out of a tree alongside low lane, we quickly realised it was a Merlin! We all scrambled to get out the car to see it fly back along the lane towards the lake. A quick jog up the lane and we soon nailed it as a stunning female Merlin, my second campus raptor tick of the day!

On a high we headed over the other side of the A64 quickly bagging Little Owl, Corn Bunting, Reed Bunting, Great-spotted Woodpecker and Linnet, we couldn't pick out a Brambling in with the good numbers of finches but it doesn't seem to be the best winter for them!

New Leica and Canon work well together! Just need an adapter and practice now!

By this point we we're up to 74 species and we hadn't even got into the LDV! Feeling confident we arrived at Bank Island and added Shoveler, but the Willow Tits weren't playing game on the feeders. Undeterred we headed onto Wheldrake and a quick walk out to the hides saw us add Peregrine, Dunlin, Ruff, Redhshank, Pintail, Shelduck, Whooper Swan and Pied Wagtail! (our 82nd sp!)

Up the road to Elvington for a shot at Geese we bumped into the rivals! A claim of the being on 90 whilst we were on 83 saw our spirits drop! Walking back gloomily to the car, Oli came running back announcing that they were actually on 80! Game on, quick dash round the corner to get Little Grebe and we were on our way back towards the city. A lucky Grey Partridge on the way equaled the record, then a quick stop at some gulls gathered in a field near Poppleton scored us LBBG to break the record!

We now had our eyes on 90 but with half an hour of light left could we do it?!

Racing down the road where SEO had been showing but wasn't now, a quick tactical decision and we headed round the corner to Redhouse Reservoir, potential for Goosander and Jay a run down to the Resv got Oystercatcher but no Goosander! Back round the corner where we needed 2 to get to 90 would the owls preform?!

We quickly got SEO for 89, but would Barn Owl show?! They weren't particularly regular so should we move somewhere else to see them?! 15 mins to go so we stayed put and luckily the Barn Owl hopped out of its tree before quickly dissapearing again! We'd managed it!

A fantastic day had by all and despite the rivals only being on 80 something before it got dark they somehow managed to pull out 90!

As the totals were rang in later on it turned out that we'd managed to come 3rd in Yorkshire behind Scarborough and Filey!

Anyone for a May-day bird race?!

Species list in post below.

Michael Clegg Bird Race

2012-01-08T23:01:00.001Z

Did the bird race around York today managing 90 sp beating any previous York record by 4!

Highlight was a double Campus raptor tick! Red Kite shortly followed by female Merlin!!!

Competed with Andy Walker, Russell Slack, Jono Leadley and John Beaumont who also managed 90 sp!

Between us we managed 98 species!

Both teams saw;

Little Grebe

Great Crested Grebe

Cormorant

Grey Heron

Mute Swan

Whooper Swan

Greylag Goose

Canada Goose

Shelduck

Wigeon

Gadwall

Teal

Mallard

Pintail

Shoveler

Pochard

Tufted Duck

Goldeneye

Red-legged Partridge

Grey Partridge

Pheasant

Sparrowhawk

Buzzard

Kestrel

Peregrine Falcon

Moorhen

Coot

Golden Plover

Lapwing

Dunlin

Ruff

Snipe

Woodcock

Black-headed Gull

Common Gull

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Herring Gull

Great Black-backed Gull

Rock/Feral Pigeon

Stock Dove

Wood Pigeon

Collared Dove

Barn Owl

Tawny Owl

Short-eared Owl

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Sky Lark

Meadow Pipit

Pied Wagtail

Wren

Dunnock

Robin

Blackbird

Fieldfare

Song Thrush

Redwing

Mistle Thrush

Goldcrest

Long-tailed Tit

Blue Tit

Great Tit

Coal Tit

Marsh Tit

Nuthatch

Treecreeper

Magpie

Jackdaw

Rook

Carrion Crow

Starling

House Sparrow

Tree Sparrow

Chaffinch

Greenfinch

Goldfinch

Siskin

Linnet

Lesser Redpoll

Bullfinch

Yellowhammer

Reed Bunting

Corn Bunting

then we gripped them with

Red Kite

Merlin

Oystercatcher

Jack Snipe

Redshank

Little Owl

Green Woodpecker

Common Crossbill

and they gripped us with

Bean Goose

Pink-footed Goose

Goosander

Water Rail

Curlew

Kingfisher

Willow Tit

Jay

Stonking day, detailed write up tomorrow, oppositions write up on Andy's blog here

Local Gypos

2012-01-04T16:52:00.000Z

Thought I'd have a check of Bittell Reservoirs today as its only down the road and even if there is something good there then news doesn't always get out!

Started at Lower where there were 8 Goosander, several Pochard, Shoveler, Tufted Duck and Teal, a single Little Grebe and a bit of a surprise in the form of

County tick an' all!

Carried onto Upper where there were 123 Greylags but nothing scarcer, plenty of Lapwing and Great Crested Grebe and a scattering of gulls including an adult GBBG.

Back round to Lower where a mini twitch had developed, turns out these were a Bittell tick for quite a few regulars!

Good days birding and the year list bumbles onto 52.

Got my hands on a Leica APO-televid 77 to try out for a few days, anyone reccomend or use one of these?

2012

2012-01-03T14:00:00.000Z

Happy New year!

So what will 2012 bring?!

I've decided to do a York area year list, going to actually attempt to see a decent number of species in the area! Previous record is around the 170 mark! So lets see if its possible in 2012! Any help with tip offs most appreciated!

Having said that I'm not back in York until the 7th so lets hope I don't miss much in between now and then!

Gulls

2012-01-01T21:07:00.000Z

Apologies

A nice gull from Bartley this evening, didn't pick it up until 16:15 and was a bit wet and cold so just thought it was a hooded argentatus, thought I'd rattle off a couple of photos just in case! It was basically dark by this point though!

Have left top photo cropped, lightened and sharpened, second photo cropped and lightened all others just cropped to try and show 'true' colours and range of mantle shades, I think there is an adult Yellow-legged in the photos, didn't notice it in the field so not definite but looks good from photos.

Interesting bird? I'll be back tomorrow!

2011

2011-12-29T22:59:00.000Z

So seen as everyone else in Bloggerland is summarising their year I thought I'd join in.

This year saw me discover my own proper patch at my Uni lakes and so allowing me to find my own birds!

Talking of finding my own birds I managed a whopping 42 self found ticks! Of which 8 were lifers! Highlights being;

Ad Caspian Gull at Rainham, bit dodgey but a first winter at Bartley last week made it proper
Family party of Whooper Swans on a Scottish Loch- STUNNING!!!
Black Tern on my Uni lakes with an Osprey on my first day back from Easter- WAHOOOO
Wood Sandpiper- 2 on my Uni lakes
Water Pipit- at Frampton RSPB whilst watching 7 Temminck's Stints!
Quail- just like everyone else!
Great Shearwater, Sabine's Gull and Pom Skua in Cornwall, seawatching 'self found ticks' always feel like cheating, although a Roseate Tern flypast was immense!
Little Stint on my Uni Lakes in late autumn after chasing round a flying stint after there were semi-p's everywhere, still stonking!
A new coastal patch (hopefully) added Black Redstart and Snow Bunting
Bean Goose and White-fronted Goose, like everyone else I just strung some flyovers...

And my self finding highlight a Rough-legged Buzzard at Donna Nook, you just can't beat it can you?!

What will next year bring? A self found BB rare? (isn't this how everyone finishes their yearly summary?)

Upton

2011-12-27T16:56:00.000Z

Popped down to Upton this afternoon, not much of note bird wise but good to be back!

Some more photos with the new camera attached below, shame the light was rubbish!

ISO: 400

Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec

F stop: f/2

distance to subject: 30ft

ISO: 400

Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec

F stop: f/2

distance to subject: 30ft

ISO: 400

Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec

F stop: f/2

distance to subject: 30ft

ISO: 400

Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec

F stop: f/2

distance to subject: 30ft

Canon S95

2011-12-26T20:38:00.001Z

Got a new camera for Christmas, the Canon Powershot S95.

Had a play around with it today and its brilliant! Here's a few shots I managed in the awful light today with my dodgey old Kowa TSN-2 will hopefully be upgrading this and getting a proper digiscoping kit in January for my 21st.

ISO: 400

Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec

F stop: f/2.8

distance to subject: 750ft

ISO: 400

Shutter Speed: 1/25 sec

F stop: f/2

Distance to subject: 20ft

ISO: 400

Shutter Speed: 1/25 sec

F stop: f/2.8

Distance to subject: 50ft

ISO: 400

Shutter Speed: 1/60

F stop: f/2.8

Distance to subject: 1500ft

ISO: 400

Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec

F stop: f/3.2

Distance to subject: 40ft

ISO: 400

Shutter Speed: 1/320

F stop: f/2

Distance to subject: 30ft

ISO: 400

Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec

F stop: f/2

Distance to subject: 40ft

Not sure I like Photoscape that I'm using to edit the photos or maybe its just my editing skills!

I've added some detail underneath each photo, any advice appreciated! Will keep posting on here my efforts and hopefully I'll improve as I keep practicing!

Also present at Bittell today were 2 interesting 2w gulls. One I am sure was a Yellow-leg and the other I think was an large NW argentatus type, poor photo of the second bird attached

Predictions

2011-11-29T20:52:00.000Z

At the start of 2011 I got bored and made 25 predictions of rare birds that I thought might occur in 2011. Out of these 25, 16 have occured not a bad hit rate! Those 16 were;

Bufflehead (1w female, Cornwall)
Pallid Harrier (Millions of juvs & 1 ad male Norfolk)

http://www.nature-shetland.co.uk/naturelatest/pics11/Pallid%20Harrier%20Northdale.jpg

Greater Sand Plover (ad male Highland)
Upland Sandpiper (juv Scilly)
Marsh Sandpiper (ad Lincs same East Yorks, ad Kent and Norfolk)
Ross’s Gull (probably stringy Cumbria bird but oh well)
Roller (adults in Suffolk and Mull)
Crag Martin (brief Dorset bird)
Veery (1w on Muck!)
Pied Wheatear (females in Gloucs and at Spurn)
Pechora Pipit (Foula, Gulberwick in same garden as Rubythroat! and trapped on North Ron)
Rose-breasted Grosbeak (brief 1w male on Orkney)
Pine Bunting (fem Shetland and prob on Scilly)
Yellow-breasted Bunting (Foula)
Black-and-white Warbler (1w female, Scilly)
Northern Waterthrush (long stayer, Scilly not bad predicting this pair!)

Of all these birds I managed to see... 1!

Birds predicted but haven't occured yet;
Little Bustard
Black-winged Pratincole
Black-billed Cuckoo
River Warbler
Desert Warbler
Rufous Bush Chat
Black-eared Wheatear

Still time?!

Northern Harriers

2011-11-22T20:19:00.000Z

Seen as I'm on reading week from Uni, thought I best do some reading/research!

S.YORKS 2w MALE HEN HARRIER DONCASTER AT OLD BRODSWORTH PIT TIP

This got me thinking about the 2w male Northern Harrier that was kicking around Tacumshin not long ago and how at first glance it could be dismissed as a 2w Male Hen Harrier.

Searching through Surfbirds I quickly found photos of the Doncaster 2w male Hen Harrier taken by Ron Marshall who has kindly granted me permission to reproduce his images here.

As you can see obviously a non-adult male harrier, but why is it cyaneus and not hudsonius? By comparing photos of the Doncaster bird and male Northern Harriers from the US, I'll try to highlight the differences with the help of some brilliant images courtesy of Bob Steele http://www.bobsteelephoto.com/home/home.html

Doncaster bird © copyright Ron Marshall

Male Northern Harrier © copyright Bob Steele

Comparing these two photos the two birds look fairly similar, darker headed appearance and brown flank barring. However further photos show;

Doncaster bird © copyright Ron Marshall

Male Northern Harrier © copyright Bob Steele

These two photos show the extent of black on the underside of the primaries and how it varies from one (sub?) species to another, with cyaneus showing extensive black reaching a lot closer to the underwing primary coverts. The line of black could be described and being parralel with the wing base on cyaneus and diagonally away from the wing base on hudsonius.

Doncaster bird © copyright Ron Marshall

Male Northern Harrier © copyright Bob Steele

These two photos show how the Doncaster bird has dark tips to the upperwing coverts similar to adult male hudonius, however note the black patterning on the top side of the primaries. In cyaneus the primaries are black through to p5 whereas hudsonius only to p6 (with only a small black tip on p5). Also note the extent of the black, in cyaneus it extends right up to the upper primary coverts but in hudonius it only reaches it in p10 showing grey bases to the primaries from p9 onwards.

Male Northern Harrier © copyright Bob Steele

As can be seen in the above photo ad male hudsonius show barring on the tail feathers, ad male cyaneus do not show this, however 2w male cyaneus do which can be seen on the Doncaster bird here although this is a lot more faint than hudsonius.

(So would that make this cyaneus a 3cy due to the barred retained outer-tail feathers?)

So although it seems the Doncaster bird is indeed a 2w cyaneus, how many ad male hudonius have been overlooked as 2w male cyaneus?! Hopefully not too many!

I've never been lucky enough to see a hudsonius, so info here taken from various books and internet searches!

Many thanks to Bob Steele and Ron Marshall for allowing me to use their photos on this post.

2011-11-18T20:12:00.000Z

Some pictures from a day around the North Lincs coast on Wednesday starting at Donna Nook, then Saltfleet then ended the day at Tetney Lock. Highlight finding a Rough-Leg wahoooooooo

Shrike was in the bush on left amazing close views!

Seals are awesome!

Twitter

2011-11-14T21:47:00.000Z

2011-11-13T20:42:00.001Z

Today was an ace day, travelled to Northumberland for first light and saw Greater Yellowlegs and Grey Phalarope at Hauxley NR, then headed off to Marden Quarry where the 1w Lesser Scaup showed nicely amongst a whole array of 'interesting' wildfowl!

Then a quick stop at Boldon Flats saw some stunning White-fronts really close to the road! No sign of the Nightingale at Whitburn CP, so we headed down the road to Marsden Quarry to do some proper birding!

What an cracking place! Habbo looks spot on and its had some birds over the years! After 15mins of only seeing one Blackbird we picked up a Swift over the quarry top!!! 13th November and a Swift! Luckily it stuck around and allowed us to have great prolonged views, but the conditions were rubbish! Thick fog and no light but the bird seemed really brown and blunt wing tipped, in the end we erred on the side of caution and think pekinensis could be a good shout! A Sparrowhawk gave a scare when it went for it! But it evaded capture but dissapeared off just as the light was improving! Hopefully it will be relocated in the morning! Whilst watching it we had a large Pipit go over call once and dissapear into the fog, further attempts to track it down were fruitless!

Benny Hill

2011-11-07T01:04:00.000Z

Check out this

http://vimeo.com/31702527

Isabelline Wheatear at Spurn, 5th November. Bird had a feeding circuit of about 200m and would constantly move up and down the beach, the crowd of 50+ twitchers would follow it up and down getting brief views at each end. We stood by post 33 and it would land right in front of us each time allowing for cracking views! Thought I'd put this video together to show how funny it was, they must have gone back and forth about 6 times in the hour that we stood there for!

2011-11-05T20:42:00.002Z

Video of the Isabelline Wheatear at Spurn today, stonking bird

http://vimeo.com/31656883

2011-11-01T18:10:00.000Z

Woo

Cheeky

Possibly my last post, although long dark nights might change that

Scope

2011-10-30T20:57:00.002Z

Gonna get a new scope, any recommendations on make model and where to get one?

2011-10-24T12:53:00.000+01:00

một

hai

để các bờ biển, sự bùng nổ

Spurn Pic

2011-10-20T23:00:00.000+01:00

Seen as I am too lazy to upload my own pictures here's one that Jack Ashton-Booth sent me

Suppresex

2011-10-17T23:27:00.000+01:00

if only

Rock Pipit

2011-10-13T20:27:00.000+01:00

Today I had a stint fly in at Hes East after a bit of excitement and a run around manage to nail it as a Little.

yeah record shot!

Then whilst videoing it had a Rock Pipit flyover, flew over several more times and showed on the deck several times briefly and even managed a sound recording of it here

http://soundcloud.com/timmyjones1234/rock-pipit-hes-east

Curlew Sandpiper

2011-09-19T20:10:00.000+01:00

Popped out for a quick bit of birding this morning so decided to go to Upper Bittell Reservoir where 2 juvenile Curlew Sandpiper had been seen this morning.
After a quick check of Lower Bittell where a Wigeon and a weak attempt at stringing a Ferruginous Duck were the highlights.
Arriving at the dam at Upper it shocked me how low the level of the reservoir was. I've never seen it this low and thinking about it now I should have taken a photo of it!
Anyway a small flock of waders was on the far shore at a range of 13 miles and the 2 Curlew Sandpipers picked out.

Honest it is a Curlew Sand!

Anyway after checking the gulls and the rest of the banks where nothing much else was, we headed home.
So why did I go and see 2 Curlew Sandpiper at 1,500ft range?

Who knows, answers on a postcard!

Shenstone

2011-09-18T23:34:00.002+01:00

Today involved getting up early and heading to Shenstone to look for the juv Black Redstart thats been kicking around there for a while.

Arriving fairly early 06:45 we waited about 30 mins until we managed to see the bird. Initially picked up at some distance it eventually came a lot closer and showed really well. Right nice bird and I've only seen 1 before! Shocking.

Borrowed, thanks

Apparently its a juv as it was fluffy and spotty when it first turned up, I couldn't see why it was one today! Pale wing panel was a feature I wasn't expecting but being a complete novice with Black Reds a quick google shows that female types can show this.

Borrowed, thanks

Photos of the actual bird here http://shenstonebirder.blogspot.com/ seen as I couldn't be bothered.

Also; 2 Goldcrest, 9 Meadow Pipit over, 2 Jay and Grey Wag over.

Nice year tick and was back home by 08:30!

Ruff

2011-09-15T23:30:00.001+01:00

Having not being able to get down to the lakes since Monday my first chance was this evening so I headed down to see what was about.

Pulling up by the western flashes a quick look up shows a largish wader but my bins were still in my bag! Quick panic to get them out and get on the bird (whilst thinking poss Whimbrel) get on the bird and its a cracking juv male Ruff!

This is my 18th sp of wader in under a year of watching my University lakes! (missed Knot and Black-tailed Godwit)

definition of a record image not what they call record shots on surfbirds

By the time I'd set up the scope, had a look at the bird and then realised I'd left my camera at home! The bird then flew towards the Wood Sand pool. Quick move and the bird was showing well feeding away. Great big stunning thing.

http://www.vimeo.com/29116268

Walking along the main lake a juv Little Grebe was on part of the main lake, only my second record on site.
5 Tufted Duck plenty of ducks, geese and gulls going over and 3 Common Sands on the main lake.

!!! Hes East mega

Grey Phal will have to wait till tomorrow

Update!

2011-09-13T14:59:00.000+01:00

Right time to sort this blog out!

Went to Cornwall for bank holiday weekend, drove down Thursday 25^th night and did various seawatches between Pendeen and Porthgwarra up until Tuesday 30^th August. Birds seen from seawatching included;

Great Shearwater- 7 (lifer)

Sooty Shearwater- 245+

Balearic Shearwater -47

Manx Shearwater-upto 10,000 in one morning at Pendeen

Roseate Tern-1 (ad)

Storm Petrel- 14+

Sabine’s Gull-1 (1s)

Med Gull-5 (juvs)

Pomarine Skua-4

Bonxie- 18+

Arctic Skua-27+

Chough- 2

Whimbrel-50+

Sanderling-1

Overall very nice seawatching highlights personally being Great Shearwaters, a stunning intermediate morph Pom with spoons, large numbers of Sooty Shearwaters, self finding an ad Roseate Tern and Chough flying past about 15ft away.

Sunfish-2

Basking Shark-2

Never seen Basking Shark before so was great to see one really close at Pendeen.

Quick early afternoon visits to Drift Resv, Marazion and Hayle Estuary produced

Little Stint-juv

Curlew Sandpiper-juv

Good selection of waders but we missed finding the Baird’s Sand by a day!

Quick detour one afternoon to the Lizard to see the Black Kite, great views of it flying low over a field and even catching a vole!

Then on way home stopped off in South Devon to see some lovely Cirl Buntings by third lifer of the trip and then stopping off in Somerset to try and see the Spotted Crake and Great White Egret at Shapwick Heath NNR. Spotted Crake didn’t show but Great White Egret did which was my 4^th lifer of the trip.

Since getting back from Cornwall birding has mainly involved going down Hes East pretty much every day to see what I can find down there. So far Little Stint, Garganey, Whinchat and 2 Raven are all new for the site along with Knot which I missed out on.

Went for a seawatch one afternoon at Filey after a Fea’s had gone past Flamborough, but quiet wasn’t the word! Several Arctic Skua, Purple Sandpiper, Whimbrel and a juv Med Gull were the only real highlights.

Had an afternoon twitch up to Greatham Creek where the ad Sharp-tailed Sanpiper showed well! Then further on up the coast to Whitburn where we dipped American Golden Plover and Bonaparte’s Gull, however nearly 1000 Golden Plover on seaweed covered rocks were nice and an ad Med Gull that Ollie thought could have been a hybrid but I think it was just a runty winter Med.

Life List-288

Year List-230

Campus List-115

Semi-palmated Sandpiper is slowly getting closer and hopefully it will be relocated at Blacktoft soon!

Posting

2011-09-07T23:15:00.002+01:00

So my last post on here was on 16th July, so here is a post...

Well maybe tomorrow, have seen some good birds recently. Including 2 local megas on the patch in last 2 days, intrigued? Tune in tomorrow (unless I just go birding instead)

Honest Mistakes

2011-07-16T09:46:00.000+01:00

Interesting

Greetings All This morning, I heard a summary of a study re: perception.Students (college, I believe) were asked to follow a jogger and count how manytimes he touched his hat. This was done to simulate a police officer followinga criminal and focusing on whether a weapon was in hand or evidence discarded.The jogger and student ran past a loud fight between three people near theirpath. Even in daylight, FIFTY PERCENT of the students did not notice the fightin any way. Furthermore, many (most?) of that 50% were CERTAIN there was not a fight they ran past. Bear with me, I will get to the frontiers of ID part. Another study that I read some time ago -- and I might get somedetails wrong, but the message is well ingrained â€“ looked at the effect ofclothing on racial identification (again, this was done with regards to policework). A white man was dressed to fit the stereotype of an inner city African-American male. The man walked past the test observers. SKIN COLOR WASNEVER VISIBLE. A large percentage ofobservers stated with certainty that they saw a black man, and that they actually sawthe skin color. So, if one ties these two studies together (and Iâ€™ve seenother studies similar to the second one regarding recognition of other people) acouple interesting conclusions arise: As birders, we probably only accurately note those marksthat we truly focus on. If we have prior knowledge of/experience with thespecies, the other details may well be filled in automatically by our brainsbased on what we expect to see, which may not necessarily match reality. Far worse, our brains may notrecognize, NOR EVEN BE CAPABLE OF recognizing that those other details werefilled in, not actually observed. Therefore, totally honest reports may well beinaccurate, even though the observer is â€œcertainâ€ that particular details werepresent. When documenting rarities, especially those seen relatively briefly,it might be worth stressing which marks were specifically focused on. We probably use context much more often than we are willingto admit. In Colorado, when driving through a town on the eastern plains, aChaetura swift flies by and most observers (myself included) would enter it asa Chimney Swift. In reality, we probably have not seen enough to make thischallenging ID with certainty. Since moving to Colorado, my brain is in â€œthisis where I live mode,â€ which for the prior 20 years was Washington. Alas, I nowlive in Colorado. During the first couple months here, this subconscious effectcaused me to initially misidentifying birds. Now, with context better ingrained, those types of errors are much less frequent (the rumors that I called a duck an alcid are ALL LIES I tell you :o) In any case, being aware of these factors may help us avoidmisidentifications, and I hope some of this information is new and interestingto Frontiers subscribers. Best Wishes Steven Mlodinow

YLG

2011-07-13T11:56:00.000+01:00

Some shocking photos of the near ad YLG that was at Hes East the other day

Smelly Twitch

2011-07-03T23:26:00.000+01:00

Today I saw a Western Bonelli's Warbler, awesome.
Today I stood around with a load of old smelly men, rubbish.

Twitching?

2011-06-21T15:05:00.000+01:00

hy·per·bo·le

[hahy-pur-buh-lee]

–noun Rhetoric

1. Obvious and intentional exaggeration

2. An extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally as ‘’to wait an eternity’’

Having just watch Channel 4’s Dispatches: Conservations Dirty Secrets, I thought I’d have a go at a blog post with my opinion on it.

I’ll start with the presenter, oliversteads.com ‘’is an explorer and investigative journalist. He's presented critically acclaimed series in the US, UK and worldwide for Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, BBC World and Channel 4. He's rated as one of the world's 50 Most Extraordinary Pioneers alongside living legends like Ranulph Fiennes and Buzz Aldrin. His news reports feature on Channel 4, ABC & al Jazeera.’’ The general impression I get on him is that he is a journalist that likes to present his view of the story (oh wait isn’t that what they all do?) and the way that will make it most appropriate for dispatches which only really reports on shocking issues that they can make a programme out of. So maybe I should stop my post here as anything shown in the programme obviously doesn’t reflect the true picture of conservations secrets?

Look at me I have a machete

Check out the two stripes on the jacket. Cool.

Anyway enough about the contentious presenter, more about the programme.

He starts off looking at the AWF- African Wildlife Foundation http://www.awf.org/ and begins to investigate a series of events surrounding an area of Kenya that the AWF had asked the local tribe if they could develop it as a conservation area, the tribe said no and this is shown to lead to the huts being burnt down, locals evicted, murdered and raped. ‘As they are filming’ they notice smoke in the background and realise more ‘crude shacks’ have been burnt down. They notice 3 military police in the background and in true Ross Kemp style ‘could see it was about to kick off, so we got out of there.’

Later an interview with Helen Gichohi the president of the AWF goes in the usual way of Oliver Steads trying to be the badass interviewer and ruffle her feathers. A few prying questions into the land acquisition and she is soon shaking, hesitating over words and asking for the cameras to be turned off. Seems a bit of a cop out to not have even gone in with secret cameras, this kids obviously no Dominic Littlewood and actually all the accusations were based on very flimsy evidence and nothing was said of what came to happen later on...

It then goes on to point out that large mammals are 500x more likely to receive scientific research compared with other animal types. Shocking right?

Charismatic mega fauna and disneyfication of large mammals are then discussed but we already knew about that anyway. A clever (or not so) way of thinking about it (well at least that’s what I thought) is to compare it to triage in a hospital. In a hospital patients are ranked into severity as treated in order of who is most likely to die the quickest. Now this initially seems like a good idea to apply to conservation, however conservation isn’t about individual animals but a whole species. This raises the question of should certain species be allowed to become extinct and our funds and conservation efforts focused on species that actually stand a chance of surving. The main example of this is the Giant Panda. It is at this point that I will link you to someone who can say it better than me, I don’t really like the guy 90% of the time as he does say a lot of incorrect facts but never mind here’s Chris Packham http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/6216775/Chris-Packham-Giant-pandas-should-be-allowed-to-die-out.html

Letodactylus fallax is used as an example of why Giant Pandas are the logo of the WWF and not them. Sums up their plight when you Google Dominican mountain chicken and the first page that comes up is this. Oh dear.

Why not?

Since 2004 African Elephants are no longer endangered but are still listed by the IUCN as vulnerable just as they were in 1994 then endangered in 1996 so is there really no need to conserve these animals? African Elephants and other charismatic mega fauna although getting a tough ride in this programme are actually great for wider conservation roles, as the millions that they can generate goes into the ecosystem as a whole and so benefits a wide range of organism. This is precisely the reason why companies like WWF have their adopt-an-elephant scheme as they know that this benefits the whole ecosystem as well as generating a lot more money than a adopt-an-endangered-worm scheme.

A bloke representing WWF, was asked about why they don’t cater as much for amphibians as they do for large mammals? He then replies with ‘’We love turtles’’ need I say anymore? Probably just harsh editing from Channel 4 anyway.

They then try to get an inside scoop on Conservation International as they are funded by large international corporal companies by interviewing Christine Macdonald, someone who briefly worked for them. She then gives an interview saying how in a large board meeting that no one questioned BP and how they pollute the world... her tag line is ‘An environmental insider reveals how a good cause has gone bad’ was there really any point in interviewing her for this show?!

So the overall message of this show is that we should stop focusing on the cute fluffy Pandas and Tigers and instead conserve plankton and mountain chickens? Well that’s never going to happen, so lets just fly all around the world, talk a load of crap and ‘’see if we can track down some lions’’

True conservation secrets are magic gems like this one.

More on that when I can next be bothered to blog.

6th June 2011

2011-06-06T20:45:00.000+01:00

The day the Spring turned proper MEGA!

Awoken by Oli telling me of a mega bird nearby, he'd couldn't make it out till 5 so wouldn't tell me what it was just that he'd pick me up at 5 and we'd go. Hang up expecting it to be something miles away quickly see that its a White-throated Robin at Hartlepool... a 1hr 20mins away! That got me out of bed and a quick couple of phone calls and I was meeting Chris and we arrived on site before 11:30 to see it sitting in the sun at the base of the bush!

Watch the bird feeding in the bushes on edge of the east Bowling Green then it goes missing until I managed to pick it up flying across the road over our heads! Me and Chris promptly head over the road to the west Bowling Green and quickly re-found it and had nice views as it fed along the hedge row.

We then headed up to Blackhall Rocks to see if the Surf Scoter was around as there had been no news so far, turned up to see a flock of c100 Common Scoter but no Surf. 5 Manxies passed south, 3 sum plum Red-throated Divers and plenty of Gannets, Auks and Kittiwakes were passing by.

News of a Red-backed Shrike came across from Seaton Carew so we headed off to see if we could see it. Parked up and walked through the dunes to see what we could find. Soon we were watching a stonking male Red-backed Shrike as it worked along a fence line in the dunes.

Slightly smaller twitch than earlier!

Cracking bird and second lifer of the day, we headed back to the car happy with both birds and news came out of a Spoonbill at Saltholme RSPB, 2 mins down the road

Get to Saltholme quick park up and through the visitor centre to the hide and see the Spoonbill is asleep on the causeway, lifts its head up several times, lovely adult.

All in all a cracking day!

Alaskan Megas

2011-06-01T11:38:00.000+01:00

Just had a look at the Surfbirds North American Stop Press Gallery and some of the British Megas in Alaska wouldn't go a miss at the moment!

Lesser Sand Plover

Great Knot

©Bob Trotter

Long Toed Stint

©Bob Trotter

One that I can see...
Terek Sandpiper

©Bob Trotter

Siberian Rubythroat

©Bob Trotter

Also Colorado Universites East Campus has some good birds

Blackpoll Warbler

Alder Flycatcher

''Not currently on Colorado Field Ornithologists' Boulder County list- a first in this intensively-birded county''

Could the University of Yorks East Campus get a first for Yorkshire! If only!

Today

2011-05-31T18:12:00.000+01:00

Today in a nutshell

Dipped Terek Sandpiper at Hauxley

Saw my first Roseate Terns at Couqet

Year ticked Stonechat!, Sandwich Tern, Puffin and Sanderling takes me to 198

Good laugh with Jack Ashton-Booth, Chris Gomersall and Jono Leadley getting stuck on A1 for 10mins and getting excited over Sand Martin!

Now I have an exam tomorrow, best get working!

Thrush Nightingale the Barcelona Fan

2011-05-29T22:19:00.002+01:00

Gotta be one of my favourite blogs at the moment

http://fair-isle.blogspot.com/

Tommy has a way of writing down his observations thats pretty unique I think, anyone thats met him will back me up on his unique-ness!

Keep up the great work Tommy!

Last Week

2011-05-17T01:24:00.000+01:00

So this last week...

Started with a top secret trip down south to a secret site to see a life tick, something that the grandkids won't be able to see!

Wednesday saw Me, Oliver Metcalf and Chris Gomersall heading to Flamborough head in late morning hoping to catch up with the Bee-eater but mainly to see if we could find anything good, all was going well until I got a text alerting us of a Calandra Lark that had been seen this morning at Gibraltar Point. A quick look at the map and we we're off, taking Chris out of his beloved Yorkshire! We continued to Gib even after further negative news to see if it was still about. Arrived at Gib about half 1 and we headed towards Greenshank creek to start looking.

It was a bit dissapointing to see only about 6 other birders on site trying to look for this Mega Lark, only 2 previous mainland records, 2008 a fly over at Spurn and 1961 a one day bird at Portland Bill. We spread out and covered as much ground as we could but after several hours of searching with only Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, a couple of flyover Cuckoo's and an Avocet also news that the Warden had seen it the night before as a 'possible' we decided that it had cleared off this morning, oh well worth a try.

We decided to head further south along the Lincs coast at an attempt to see some birds! Frampton Marsh RSPB was our next stop. Pulling into the reserve and scanning over the lagoons you could see straight away how good this reserve was! Last visited it back in Feb '10 where we saw Lap +Snow Bunts, Twite, White Fronts etc but this was even better. Scanning the pools showed 5+ Temminck's Stints (lifer!) male Red-necked Phalarope, drake Garganey, plenty of Blackwits, Redshank, Avocets, Brent Geese and Yellow Wagtails. Oli picked up a different wagtail but lost it to view and thought it could have been a Water.....

We walked round to the 360 hide to see what was showing from here, we counted 7 Temminck's Stint!, 1 Little, a male Channel type wagtail and several flava type females. Best of all however was a bird that I managed to pick out and instantly thought Water Pipit... it then dissapeared behind some vegetation but soon re-appeared and confirmed itself as a near Summer Plumage Water Pipit! Brilliant finally one of my biggest bogeys!

We hung around here for a white enjoying cracking views of the Temminck's Stints and dodgey female flavas. As we we're leaving we noticed news of the White-tailed Eagle at Ruckland again, sat in a field!

Seen as it was on the way home we called in at Ruckland for the 2nd time this year and started to scan for the Eagle. No sign of it though and it had presumably gone to roost already.

Still a brilliant day, saw some quality birds, 2 lifers and the year list moved onto 189.

I've now managed to find my camera charger so you won't have to suffer woeful video grabs much longer, just woeful digiscoped pics now!

Today

2011-05-11T23:16:00.000+01:00

Got half way to Flamborough, went to Gib Point dipped Calandra Lark, went to Frampton Marsh saw 8 Temminck's, 1 Water Pipit, male Red-necked Phal, Garganey, Little Stint and Channel Wag. Came back via Ruckland and dipped White-tailed Eagle again.

Tomorrow morning, Bolton Abbey nice and early more tomorrow.

Escape

2011-05-08T13:26:00.001+01:00

13:22 08/05/11		Garganey		Hants		Titchfield Haven NNR		12:00
						drake from Spurgin Hide at mid-day; also escaped Cinnamon Teal there So why isn't the Garganey an escape?

Water Vole

2011-05-04T18:57:00.001+01:00

Went out this morning, highlights being a Grey Partridge finally! Lesser Whitethroat mobbing a Little Owl, Buzzard stooping on a Grey Heron and a pair of Lesser Redpoll.

That was until I spotted this!

Sat in the open for a good 10mins munching on grass! My first sighting of a Water Vole, Mega!

Was out checking out what species I could find for my all day bird watch this Saturday, more on that later but I managed 70 sp in 4 hours with many easy species missing, watch out Upton lads!

Also one of the Wood Sand from last week

Sneak Preview

2011-05-04T18:16:00.000+01:00

Cracking morning out today, highlight being a little furry mammal!

Video to follow later, watch this space!

Hes East

2011-04-27T12:34:00.000+01:00

This morning around the pools, starting from the car park picked out a single Redshank but the back lighting from the sun really didn't help, cycled down across the turning circle and had a look, Yellow Wag over pair of Great Crested Grebes mating and a male Kestrel hovering over Low Lane. Cycling on to the small muddy pool showed a Redshank and single Wood Sand. 3 House Martins were over the lake and another Yellow Wag over.

Making my way along Low Lane, plenty of Yellowhammers and Whitethroat singing further along produced a single Oystercatcher and 2 Common Gull. A pair of Teal were at the far end of the lake and a Snipe was on one of the small islands on the east pools. A single Corn Bunting was on the deck by the edge of the lake in with the Linnets and a 2 male Yellow Wagtails were singing/displaying over the fields. Cycling back towards BP to get some milk for breakfast showed there were in fact still 2 Wood Sandpipers on the small pool, so many rocks for them to hide behind!

Video of Wood Sand will be added later.

Grabbed some breakfast and headed back out, most notable thing was a Small Copper butterfly and a freakishly gigantic dandelion flower head!

Seriously fast flutterby!

You can see how big to is compared to the normal one to the left!

Monday was a great day with 80 sp. recorded including 2 lifers! Dotterel and Tawny Pipit!

Male

Female

Little Owl staring me out at the Tetrad.

This morning

2011-04-26T08:56:00.000+01:00

Went out round the lakes this morning, nice to see the wood sands sticking and few other bits and bobs. A bit of rain got me excited and around 20 Swallows and 20 Sand Martins were hawking low over the lake along with a single House Martin.

This however was not so good to see

This is a local birdwatcher, who should know better

Thats him standing in the middle disturbing the waders on the pool to the left

Enough said.

Cracking Day

2011-04-25T23:44:00.000+01:00

Day started off with 2 Wood Sands, Green and Common Sand as well as Weasel, Little Owl, Wheatear and Yellow Wag all local.

Set off at mid day from York and saw the 6 Dotterel and Tawny Pipit at Tetney lock, tried for the WTE and Black Kite at Ruckton but no luck, cracking day and will update with more info and videos/picture laters

Shocking

2011-04-23T22:36:00.000+01:00

Okay so this is the dodgey Wagtail from yesterday, shocking I know and its embarising posting this on here but would be good to get some other peoples opinions on this.

So a shockingly bad paint job has been applied over my sketch done after seeing this bird, make of it what you like, feedback from someone more experienced grateful!

Just the 1 Wood Sand stuck around after about 08:30 with a single Green Sand, cracking photo by Paul Reed here

Much better than my attempts first thing!

Will be down early-ish tomorrow to see if its still there and anything else!

Wood Sands

2011-04-23T08:37:00.000+01:00

Woke up before my Birdnet shift today for a quick check of the lakes, nothing much doing on the scrapes and main lake so last check before heading back is a small muddy pool that looks immense for waders but a little disturbed.

Quick scan with bins from distance scores 2 Green Sands, new bird for campus for me and my 11th species of wader on campus! Get off bike to get a proper look, wait a minute that looks like a wood sand.... Proper look, defo looks like a Wood Sand surely not on Campus! Set up scope, its a Wood Sand!!!

Get round the other side and start getting some video footage of it and another one bird flies into view, surely not another Wood Sand?! And it was!!! Class, get some video of that and then I have to get back to the flat to start work, awesome start to the day!

Not One

But 2! Wood Sands.

My 12th wader sp. on Campus and I can see this pool from my kitchen window!

Black Tern and Osprey

2011-04-20T22:36:00.000+01:00

First full day on campus today and found Osprey and Black Tern

Don't you just love record grabs!

bored.com/whatsgonnabethenextfirstforwesternpal/britain

2011-04-13T12:19:00.000+01:00

Virginia Rail?

More later after I've recovered from last night, oh no wait I'm off to play football... I will die

Over and out

oh listen to this

Redears and Wheatstarts

2011-04-08T22:06:00.000+01:00

Decided to get out the house today in the glorious sun and knowing I'll be spending the next 4 inside.

Explored a new area over some public footpaths near me with 3 target birds Ring Ouzel, Redstart and Wheatear.

After scanning many fields one came up trumps. First picked out a single male Wheatear, score!

Continuing to scan the field I managed to pick out another 7! Result!

Then a flash of red in the hedge behind the Wheatear, REDSTART. And a male at that, cracking. Turns out it was a county tick and my earliest ever Redstart.

Got sunburnt and walked far to much... worth it.

Scotland day 1

2011-04-06T11:14:00.000+01:00

So its 4 o'clock in the morning and me and my Dad are on our way to Grantown-on-Spey.

We arrived at the Glenshee Ski centre around 1 o'clock that afternoon and began to scope the ridges surrounding the centre. Not long after we'd started we picked up 1 then 2 then 4 Ptarmigan (263) They were pretty distant but were feeding away and perching up on rocks, brilliant.

Plenty of Red Grouse were lower down and we also picked out 6+ Mountain Hare which was a new mammal for me.

Travelling further up to Braemar we found a large group of Red Deer on the hillside, the stags being particularly impressive even at a fair distance.

On the way to Grantown we managed a fly over Osprey somewhere south of Grantown and a Nordic Jackdaw on the roadside. 2 Dippers and a pair of Goosanders on the Spey and a flock of Crossbills.

Once in Grantown we found where we were staying and decided to get out into the woods and make the most of the daylight hours. Within only 10mins of parking up we had heard Crested Tit, getting views was another matter! Patience was rewarded and we soon managed one bird that showed really well (263) carrying on round the woods there were plenty of Crossbill, Siskin and Coal Tit.

We still had a couple of daylight hours left we thought we'd check out a site for lekking Black Grouse to make it easier to find it in the dark when we'd return one morning. We quickly found the area and to our suprise managed to get views of a male! (264) He sat around preening for a while then flew off.

So the first day had started well! 3 lifers for me

Sonograms

2011-03-23T22:11:00.000Z

So with Scottish trip next week I thought I'd look into Crossbills (que everyone giving up on this post)

I have a fairly basic microphone that I attach to my iPod touch and will spend at least sometime next week having a bit of a laugh and hopefully chasing round some Crossbills pointing it in their direction!

Quick bit of Internet research and Raven lite sonogram creator is being downloaded from here

5 Seconds of playing and I have manged to produce this from a Great Reed Warbler recording that I made using my iPod and microphone last year.

Just a shame the IQ 40 club haven't split Scottish Crossbill, oh no wait the BOU have.

Why I'm a Dude

2011-03-22T16:46:00.000Z

3 Reasons Why I am a Dude.

1. I have seen more thunbergi (Grey-headed) Wagtails (15+) than flavissima Yellow Wagtails

2. I have seen as many Dartford Warblers, as Marmora's Warblers, 1

3. I have seen as many Great Grey, as Lesser Grey Shrikes, 1

And I have equally bad photos of each!

Shocking

Dude out.

Uni

2011-03-21T21:11:00.001Z

A lovely essay I have to do this week...

Why did Cresser et al. (2008) suggest that the N cycle might be regarded as being the heart of Gaia, and conclude that urbanization and sewage were more of a problem to sustainability than atmospheric N pollution?

If only it was.

Why has Spurn Bird Observatory only had 2 records of white-spot Bluethroat (L.s. cyanecula) and yet red-spot Bluethroat (L.s. svecica) is a scarce passage migrant?

Why did autumn 2010 produce record numbers of Lapland Bunting (Calcarius lapponicus) and what is the potential of some of these birds being of the ssp. subcalcaratus?

Oh thats it I'm doing environmental science not Ornithology of the British Isles!

subcalcaratus? Fair Isle September 2010

Birdforum

2011-03-19T22:58:00.002Z

Its when you read posts like this, it just makes you think whaaaaaaaaaaaa!

''Has anyone heard anymore about the rumours of the 3 GB's in the brecks or the TO calling in NE norfolk in the last week ?''

Great Bustard and Tengmalm's Owl?!

Proper Megas! Okay so theres been about 104846 records of GB but not since 1987!

Tengmalm's only a handful of modern record, suppressed Spurn record sticks out but last twitchable one was 1980.

Will the news of these birds break or are they just rumours?

Already said to Dad that if news comes out then we're going! Both species in a day?! We can all dream!

Or maybe he meant Tawny Owl...

Makes Spring Even More Exciting

2011-03-18T14:24:00.000Z

''It was interesting, however, that despite initial appearances, the bird could be aged as a first-summer based on the pale edgings to the greater coverts and tertials and it is tempting to speculate that this was a bird that was displaced westwards in the previous autumn and survived the winter on this side of the Eurasian landmass. Whatever its exact route to Flamborough, BOURC members were unanimous in their belief that this was a genuine vagrant and that it should be admitted to category A of the British List''

Any guesses to the species involved?

Mega at Druridge Bay

2011-03-04T13:03:00.000Z

Again....

Also

http://www.irishbirding.com/birds/web/Display/sighting/31677/Kestrel.html

Interesting

Bogeys

2011-03-02T20:54:00.002Z

So at the moment my life list stands at 264, its BOU (apart from White Wagtail and Black Brant ticked back in the days when I didn't realise they weren’t full species but oh well, I'll pluck up the courage and delete them someday)

Last year, 2010, I managed an impressive 32 lifers manging to shift some of my biggest bogeys. 2011 is now here and so what bogeys need to fall this year?

Well Water Pipit, Nightingale and Ring-necked Parakeet are all obvious ones and so will be my top priorites to try to see those.

A well planned trip to Scotland at the end of March and I could see Ptarmigan, Black Grouse, Capercaillie, White-tailed Eagle, Golden Eagle and Crested Tit with Parrot and Scottish Crossbill as a long shot.

A couple of well timed trips to the East coast and I could see Yellow-browed Warbler and Red-backed Shrike along with a whole host of other possibilities that I won’t bore you with here.

Getting down to the LDV over the coming year a bit more and a bit of luck and I could see some quality birds and getting into Norfolk a bit more than last year (grand total of zero trips) could see Spoonbill and Dotterel fall.

Leach’s Petrel, Roseate Tern and Cirl Bunting are individual trips to known sites at the right time and maybe combine them with a twitch for another species.

Of course the best thing about birding is the unpredictability of it all. Who knows what I’ll see if I manage to get back to Fair Isle or somewhere new?!?!

If you would have told me this time last year that in the next year I would see Marmora’s Warbler, White-tailed Plover, Pallid Swift, American Robin, Pied-billed Grebe, Great Reed Warbler and Arctic Warbler I definatly wouldn’t have believed you! So who knows! Already seen Oriental Turtle Dove, didn't see that one coming!

Which kinda makes this post redundant but oh well.

Also the sharper eyed of you may have noticed some new pages up there at the top ^ let me know what you think of them.

LGRE Special Access

2011-02-25T13:36:00.002Z

Lee Evans was sighted the other day getting special private access into Rainham tip. He was spotted riding on the back of his own private dump truck.

The witness asked to remain anonymous and said ''We were all scanning the tip the other day in the hope of picking up the Slaty-backed Gull with no luck, having to make do with a gammy Caspo. Then Lee Evans came past riding on the back of a dumper truck. We thought it was a bit harsh seen as he'd already seen it previously and hadn't asked any of us if we'd like to rid in on his truck.''

Another witness said that ''He seemed totally at ease in some sort of gay pose as he rode past the despondent crowd''

When contacted LGRE declined comment....

New ID tool?

2011-02-18T15:35:00.000Z

Recently I have read a few different discussions about white wingers and whether or not they were Iceland or Glaucous. Now although most can be assigned to species level pretty easily, there are always a few that verge on large (male) Iceland and small (female) Glaucous. So after having a quick think I managed to make a link between keeping corn snakes and Bird Identification! When I used to keep quite a few corn Snakes there was a programme that you could download for free that would tell you how long your corn snake was. A quick internet search and I had found said programme and quickly downloaded it.

So what is this programme? Well you can download it here http://www.serpwidgets.com/Apps/measure.html and it works for snakes by taking a photo of a snake next to a known length ie a ruler. Then you measure the length of the snake and it uses ratios to tell you how long your pet is.

Now this got me thinking, Glaucous Gulls on the whole have a deeper bill than Iceland Gulls (don't have BWP/i or any ringing books so can anyone confirm this for me?) and so could I use this programme to get some kind of comparison between two different photos?

Now the first flaw to this is that it would be kinda tricky to take a photo of these gulls conveniently posed next to a ruler! However I thought maybe I could use the eye to get a scale of eye to bill depth.

So heres how I did it, I got some photos of the internet of various Iceland and Glaucous Gulls and used this programme to obtain a ratio for eye size to bill depth. Eye length was measured from the bottom to the top of the actually eye in a vertical line and bill depth was measured from the tip of the gonys angle vertically up (so on some I had to compensate depending on the angle the bird was holding its bill at)

So the results from a quick experiment involving 3 Glaucous Gulls and 3 Iceland Gulls from google images.

Ratios as Eye:Bill Depth

Glaucous Gull 1= 1:1.911
Glaucous Gull 2= 1:2.408
Glaucous Gull 3= 1:2.058

Iceland Gull 1= 1:1.991
Iceland Gull 2= 1:1.701
Iceland Gull 3= 1:1.756

So even in this tiny study size you can see that Glaucous Gull ratios range from 1.9-2.4 and Iceland 1.7-1.9.

Of course it would be a lot more accurate to do more birds and maybe I'll get round to it at some point.

Now the whole inspiration for me to do this was a post by Alan Tilmouth (nothing to do with me having a reading week at uni!) of a bird he'd seen and wasn't sure if it was Glaucous or Iceland. http://dustybins.blogspot.com/2011/02/not-every-matchstick-is-swan-vesta.html

So I thought I would use the programme on a photo from this post and got a ratio of 1:1.608 so from my small study above falls into the Iceland Gull category.

Also found this thread on surfbirds http://www.surfbirds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7932

Again even though this bird was settled as a Glaucous Gull I did the ratio on the bird above and it came out as 1:2.423 so in the Glaucous category.

Be interesting to hear of some feedback of what people think to this.

Could this be a useful tool for IDs of birds like this and similar?
Anyone else wanna have a play with the programme and see if you get similar results as me?
Any other species/taxa groups this could be useful for?

Iceland Gull

2011-02-15T22:55:00.000Z

Saw a Juv Iceland Gull in Scarborough Harbour 13th Feb and took some video footage here

Also did a sketch of it the day after, shading is crap need better pencils but thought I'd post it any way. I like the legs the best!

Swarovski EL50 Swarovisions

2011-02-11T22:15:00.000Z

So I caved in and got a pair, there so good and the light gathering is amazing! Being a poor student however....

Abberant Herring Gull

2011-02-10T18:31:00.001Z

Went to Wheldrake on Monday and had a dogey gull, just done some quick sketches. Seen as they weren't done at the time they aren't 100% accurate but gives you an idea of how wierd and abberant gulls can be!

Comments welcome

Afterthought http://www.westmidlandbirdclub.com/bibliography/british-birds/71-338.htm woah

Gyr Crakes

2011-02-05T21:06:00.002Z

Gotta be more around

2011-02-04T18:47:00.002Z

schistisaviour

2011-02-03T17:19:00.000Z

Ruddy Canadians

2011-02-02T15:30:00.003Z

cedrorum

2011-02-02T15:30:00.000Z

Flamin goes north?

2011-02-02T15:27:00.000Z

Who Knows

2011-02-02T01:14:00.002Z

Where

2011-02-02T01:08:00.002Z

Don't forget

2011-02-02T01:00:00.000Z

2011-02-01T21:35:00.000Z

Sorry for the lack of posts dudes, suppose that living in York and discovering how many awesome birds I can see close to home I've been busy in the day either at lectures or birding then on the evenings going out! (Only reason I'm doing this post is cause I can't really afford to go out tonight!) Hence the lack of posts, but never fear I may actually do some decent posts soon...

Anyway local birding is good and year list is up to 95. Video camera is good even without a Tripod as I'm still a poor student check out some shaky videos that are nearly always shot in crap light due to me being too lazy and only going out in the afternoon although talk of a 6am fire drill might get me out of bed a little earlier, or where are those ear plugs at! But check out those videos here http://www.vimeo.com/timsbirdingvideos

Video camera picture... designed to take videos not pictures....

Erm what was I gonna write about? Oh I'm off to South West Turkey in July anyone been before? Any site or book reccomendations?

Birdy highlights recently have been juv Glaucous Gull, Male Merlin, Mealy Redpoll, Corn Bunting, Willow Tit, Ruff, 20+ Brambling, 16+28 Waxwing and 40 Pink-feets over the flat. Not bad considering all were seen from places I got to on a bike!

Using a car I managed Rough-legged Buzzard at Hatfield, looking forward to spring now

Suppression

2011-01-07T18:06:00.000Z

So everyone does it?

Okay so nobody wants to so ~~everyone~~ no one does, but it seems like quite a few birds have come to light recently that were suppressed. Now I know its an age old topic and one that will also continue as long as birding continues, but why does it occur?

Well there are private land issues. Or are there? Why when a rare bird turns up on private land and the land owner is informed do they instantly say that they don't want the news released? Well in truth they don't and most good birds that turn up on private land are well twitched and the land owner earns a tidy sum either for themselves or a local charity. So again, why would a land owner want a mega suppressed?

Well this would probably be because they don't want a load of people tramping all over there land just to see a bird and give them a quid. Many people would argue this case but I reckon the rich like to get richer. People who own land are rich and therefore want to get richer so you would think that they would allow a small patch of their many acres for a group of old men to wander over and get their fix over seeing a little bird, so why don't they?

Puzzling? Or maybe its just because land owners only ever hear of stories when a twitch on private land has gone wrong? Birders behaving inappropriately and land being damaged. Why would they want this, tyre marks on their pristine green grass, crops damaged and litter strewn about the place. Exactly. They wouldn't and so we miss out on mega birds like Little Bustard, Hawk Owl and Dusky Thrush.

But why can't it be different?

Why do twitchers have to park in the next field to the bird and only have to walk for 10 mins? What's wrong with parking 2 miles down the road, in a proper car park or along a suitable road off the private land and walking? (well that's because twitchers these days are too old to do that and I'm hoping they can't read this small writing or have the internet...(winky face)) I'm sure most twitchers are perfectly capable of walking a distance and would it not make the bird more enjoyable at the end? Ha course not, any walk greater that 500 m is considered a long walk, a long walk is 30km which is what us kids did/do on our duke of Edinburgh award and that's with the prospect of a wet tent and doing the same the next day at the end of it to look forward to. I'm sure it'd be a lot easier with the thought of seeing a Siberian Accentor at the end of it.

But even with this it wouldn't solve the muddy paths and litter, but you know what would? Well litter dropping is easy, don't do it, or if you see someone drop it make them pick it up, or deck them, simple. So as for muddy paths I'm sure that £5 a twitcher would make up for it. Proper accesible mega would probably mean 3000 people (minus the 10 or so that couldn't make the walk from the car) x £5 = £14,950 now I'm sure that could stop the problem of suppression on private land in most cases.

Only 1 problem, twitchers are stingey gets... oh wait no there not, chartering 2 planes to Fair Isle in a week, no worries. Private boat trip to South Uist, easy. (well) They just don't like to pay for things they feel they don't have to, well maybe they should start factoring this into their Trip Cost.

Unintentional suppression, well we can forgive that.

(so I'm guessing this is one of those posts that proves why young kids shouldn't have blogs, but I turn 20 on monday so felt I can get away with it being a teenager for now. Anyway, as ever feedback and followers much appreciated)

Summary of 2010

2011-01-06T17:22:00.000Z

Yer its late but that's because I'm a lazy student don't you know...

Birds = Highlights
Trips = Away from the usual

January- Birds; Bittern, Little Egret, Bewick's Swan, Goshawk, Woodcock and Corn Bunting
   Trips; Slimbridge and Shenstone
Febuary- Birds; Marsh Tit, Merlin, Great Grey Shrike, Tree Sparrow, Black-necked Grebe, Red-breasted Merganser, Hen Harrier, Snow Bunting, Twite, Lapland Bunting, White Fronted Goose, Waxwing, Long-eared Owl and Slavonian Grebe.
   Trips; Morton Baggot, Lincs, Rutland Water and Feckenham
March- Birds; Lesser-spotted Woodpecker, Willow Tit, Brambling and Whooper Swan
   Trips; Ladywalk
April- Birds; Pallid Swift, Marsh Harrier, Bearded Tit, Med Gull and Sandwich Tern
   Trips; Suffolk
May- Birds; Whimbrel, Gropper, Garden Warbler and Red Kite
   Trips; None (A levels)
June- Birds; Marmora's Warbler, Whinchat, Mandarin, Spot Fly, Great Reed Warbler, Woodlark and Red-necked Phalarope
   Trips; Blorenge, Ilkeston and Cannock
July- Birds; Osprey, White-tailed Lapwing, Manx Shearwater, Balearic Shearwater, Chough, Sooty Shearwater and Storm Petrel
   Trips; Rutland, Slimbridge and Cornwall (holiday)
August- Birds; Puffin, Hooded Crow, Tystie, Barred Warbler, Rosefinch, Icterine Warbler, SEO, Arctic Warbler and Marsh Warbler
   Trips; Cornwall (continued) and Fair Isle
September- Birds; thunbergi Wag, Wyrneck, Grey Phal and Pectoral Sand
   Trips; Fair Isle (continued) and Grimley
October- Birds; Pallas's Warbler and American Wigeon
   Trips; Kilnsea and Wheldrake
November- Birds; Red Grouse, Pied Billed Grebe and American Robin
   Trips; Peak District, Hollingworth Lake, Flambrough Head and Devon
December- Mealy Redpoll, Bean Goose and Iceland Gull
   Trips; Redhouse and Clifton Pits.

Well that was 2010, managed 32 lifers and 212 for the year list thrashing my dad by 25.

So what will 2011 bring?

Videos

2010-12-30T12:32:00.000Z

Well there's to much fog to do proper video recording so what else does one do..... collect a bunch of crappy photos I've taken over the last few years and put it to some music, standard.

http://www.vimeo.com/18267003

Compilation from Tim Jones on Vimeo.

Gulls

2010-12-28T22:03:00.001Z

Now I am back in Birmingham I was keen to get to a gull roost. With Bartley Reservoir being only 15mins away we went down yesterday in the hope of finding something unusual in and amongst the larids.

Yesterday we managed to find a juv Iceland Gull! Along with 6 ad Yellow-legged Gulls, 2 Juv GBBG and 3 Goldeneye.

Iceland Gull Bartley 27th December 2010 from Tim Jones on Vimeo.

Then today I went down to try and help Gary Prescott (TheBikingBirder) find the bird again as he needs it for his year list, unfortunately Gary had some problems with his tyre and couldn't make it! So I arrived at Bartley to dense fog.... Still managed to check probably around half the roost when this lifted slightly and even managed to read a ring on a Lesser-black Backed Gull, Blue Darvic with orange code HVP. Submitted the details through Euring and amazingly received and email from Peter Stewart who had let me know that the bird was originally rung 30th 2010 in Gloucestershire, then sighted in Edinburgh in August and Glamorgan on the 4th December 2010 before I saw it today at Bartley. Cool!

HVP through the fog

Also for Christmas I got a Panasonic SDR-H85 camcorder so hopefully will be able to get some better quality videos on here than the Iceland Gull one!

TTV

2010-12-15T19:40:00.000Z

So today I did my first timed tetrad visit. Well not quite a timed visit seen as by the time I'd woken up and got there it was about 30mins from being dark, oh its tough being a student!

But to cut a long story short in the 30mins I did have were very enjoyable. On the bike ride there I managed to cycle straight past a flock of 11 Waxwing until they called making me stop very quickly and enjoy fantastic close views of them feeding in an apple tree, we're they the same flock of 11 I had fly over the flat not 10mins down the road yesterday? At the tetrad highlights were a Barn Owl hunting over roadside fields that flew to within about 10ft when I did squeaky noises! 3 Woodcock that flushed late on from a hedge, 6+ Tree Sparrow, 3 Yellowhammer and plenty of Fieldfare. Will be going back to do the timed visit properly, but I'm glad I don't have to count birds that don't use the tetrad, as thousands of Gulls flew over towards the Humber!

Also last week had up to 3 Jack Snipe in the lake over the back of the flat, 11 Waxwings over the flat and 2 in the car park. Oh and yesterday saw a lot of Mealy Redpoll where's the Arctic though!

And here are a few links that I have found interesting recently and posted onto Twitter so thought I'd put them on here as well.

Podcast by birders loosely about UK birding etc http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/tn012-conference-calls-blatant-begging-stuff-episode2/

Garners put a load of posts on recently on interesting stuff http://birdingfrontiers.com/

From Birdguides, all the reports of Waxwing so far on one map http://twitpic.com/3fjabq

Cracking photo http://www.birdguides.com/iris/pictures.asp?v=1&off=279802&r=1&st=0&q=0

What we all dream of http://corkdudeing.blogspot.com/2010/12/king-of-grebes-2-revenge-of-grebes.html

Another mental raptor photo http://www.birdguides.com/iris/pictures.asp?f=279116

Lotto win well spent? http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/dec/07/world-most-expensive-book-sold

Imagine one of these in your garden with the dunnocks... http://rarebirdsinthewesternpalearctic.blogspot.com/2010/12/black-throated-accentor-in-finland.html