A new feature on the blog and hopefully one that I will be able to share with you more often, is a quick sketch and description that I did of the Pec Sand at Upton this morning. Should do this more often and when I do I'll pop it on here seen as not many people seem to, this is where I say that you might be able to learn something about taking descriptions for rarity submissions but hopefully it will be the other way round with you the reader giving me hints and tips on what to add etc to my sketches for that day that I need to do a proper description of a BB. So comments on how rubbish/good you think it is will be most appreciated and really helpful, cheers.

Oh and also here is a little treat for you all, to say thank you for all the helpful comments!

Image Copyright Kris Gibb

Everything in one shot! White on the outer tail feather, slim trailing edge, white on the coverts, barring on the belly and underwing! This is what makes me loves birdwatching and gets me way more excited than Empidonax sp.

A Quick One

I heard this story whilst on Fair Isle so thought I'd share it here. It goes like this, group of birders on Fair Isle claim a Blyth's Reed they get all excited and ring the obs and let them know, more people go and see the bird and confirm that it is indeed a Blyth's Reed, more people get excited but they soon realise that the bird doesn't look very well. But it's still a Blyth's Reed and are really excited. Deryk turns up looks in scope at said bird ''that's a Reed Warbler'' takes another look ''thats a dead Reed Warbler'' goes and picks bird up and proves it was indeed a Reed Warbler.

Morale of the story, don't think that any bird you have in the field is gonna be rare just because you're on Fair Isle and elsewhere always presume its the common alternative and prove it otherwise. 

Lapland Buntings

So I saw my first Lapland Bunting of my stay in Fair Isle on 27th August, it started with one on Golden Water that flew around for a bit before departing south, Deryk then had one at the obs then Simon had one flying south later on. Then one of Jack's mates had it on North Ron, at the time we thought that all these birds could be the same bird. Oh how wrong we were, as the next 2 weeks proved. For everyday following on from this initial sighting I would see Lapland Buntings! They were everywhere, mainly in the North and West of the Island where the best views were to be had with birds seemingly happy to stay on the deck until about 5ft away sometimes! After about the first week we'd be walking round on census and hear the familiar trill and chip and just casually say lap bunt and note down how many we'd seen! Whilst on the island we all thought that we would be able to break the previous day total for the island of 90 set 13th September 1960, but we managed to equal it two days on a row! With exactly 90 on both 29th and 30th! Then we finally managed to smash it on the 1st with 142 then double a 50 year old record with 184 on the 2nd! The number for them then levelled off to around 120-110 across the whole island for the rest of my stay. During this time we took the opportunity to try and trap and ring some, one cause it would be cool but also to see if there were any of the subcalcaratus race. On the whole we were very successful managing to process probably around 30 birds of which several had large wings with some of ones around 101mm, I'm sure more will come of it soon so lets see! My daily totals for Lap Bunts were as follows-


27th- 1
28th- 10
29th- 51
30th- 55
31st- 74
1st- 35
2nd- 12
3rd- 25
4th- 34
5th- 28
6th- 10
7th- 15
8th- 34
9th- 49
10th- 19

You can see why they are also called Lapland Longspurs

Arctic Warbler

So I decided that a full trip report of Fair Isle is gonna take a while to do, so while that is in progress I thought I'd share some short stories of my time in Fair Isle.


It was the morning of Tuesday 31st August and me and Jack Ashton-Booth were in the office at FIBO doing various tasks when Carrie the ranger came in and said that Ian, one of the candidates for the wardens job had just caught what he thought was an Arctic Warbler in the Vaadal Heligoland! So we both flew across the obs to the ringing room where Ian and his wife were standing holding a bird bag, Jack asked to see it and Ian pulled out a stunning ARCTIC WARBLER!!! WOW cracking little bird and now we confirmed it was indeed as Ian thought an Arctic Warbler we started ringing everyone on the Island that would want to see the bird. Within 15mins everyone had assembled in the ringing room and Jack got to ring the warbler, one of his dream birds! A quick description was taken for the formal submission and photos taken and the bird was released into the plantation. Very elusive throughout the rest of the day, but showed well the following day in lovely sunshine along with Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff.

Deryk holding the Arctic Warbler with Ian the finder in the background.

The warbler close up, mega!!!

Sweet.

A special little warbler turns up....

A sheep walking along a wall....

Ringing Lapland Buntings..... they are everywhere!

Shocking photo of a beast bird....

Lazy evenings spent trapping Lapland Buntings before heading back to the obs for a beer, quality

Today it was windy, a lot....

Fair Isle Photos

Just a quick one before going to play football!

80 degree bank over north haven in an 8 seater plane, mega!!!

Young Fulmar that got stuck in a field and couldn't take off so what do you do? Throw it off a cliff! Seriously cool feeling!

Self found lifer! Digibinned as it fed with twite through the obs window! Just a little bit of Fair Isle Magic!!!

Quick visit to the Flashes this evening after dipping on the Tardebigge Garganey.

1 Juv Arctic Tern was on the mud looking like it was roosting with the Common Terns but then flew off south at 8:45pm. Have been checking out the Juv Common Terns to try and pick one out and making myself familiar with the plumage so that I could pick one out so it was really nice to find one this evening. All dark bill, no gingery/brown across the back, shorter legs all noted while the bird was on the deck and also the cap seemed darker and more well defined. Then when it flew the jizz was more bouncy and also an all white rump, no dark bar on the trailing secondaries and a more diffuse front black bar on the front of the wing all noted. A plumage I hadn't seen before and also an Upton lifer taking me to 136 life and only 108 for the year.

Also 3 Greenshank had passed through earlier by 3 people in the hide (none of whom had put it in the book!) Other wise 8 Green Sand, 8 Teal, 1Little Owl on the Chimney and 28 Curlew roosted.

Cornwall 23rd July-5th August

So in this post I will write a summary of what birding I managed to get done in the 14 days I spent near Penzance, Mousehole on a family holiday. (Square brackets after a bird either mean number on life list in red or year list in green)


Day 1 23/07
From House
100+ Manx Shearwater [170]
1 Shag [171]
24 Common Scoter [172]
30+ Gannet
50 Curlew


Day 2 24/07
From House
5+ Fulmar [173]
25 Common Scoter
100+ Manx Shearwater


Day 3 25/07
Gwennap head
1 Balearic Shearwater [245] [174]
500+ Manx Shearwater
15+ Razorbill [175]
3 Guillemot [176]
1 Great Skua [177]
250+ Gannet
20+ Fulmar
10+ Kittiwake
5 Rock Pipit
2 Med Gulls (Ad, Juv)
1 Stuart Croft! (Spooky coincidence from Upton Warren!)


St. Ives
2 Med Gulls (Ad, Juv)


Day 4 26/07
Marazion Marsh RSPB
Beach
c20 Sanderling [178]
5 Dunlin
4 Med Gulls (2nd Summer, 3 Juvs)
5 Ringed Plover


Reserve
1 Sedge Warbler
4 Reed Warbler
2 Blackcap


Day 5 27/07
Pendeen
1 Balearic Shearwater
150 Manx Shearwater
100+ Gannet
20 Fulmar


Cornish Headland
3 Chough [179]
5 Raven
1 Roe Deer


Day 7 29/07
Sennen Cove
3 Med Gulls (Ad, 2 Juvs)
10+ Gannets, flying over head whilst body boarding


Hayle Estuary
5 Whimbrel
20+ Curlew
4 Redshank
5 Little Egrets
5 Med Gull (3ad 2juv)
3 Common Sandpiper


Day 8 30/07
From House
4 Common Sandpipers
1 Juv Med Gull
1 Commic Tern
4 Rock Pipit


Day 9 31/07
Gwennap Head
2 Sooty Shearwater [246] [180]
2 Storm Petrel [247] [181]
3 Balearic Shearwater
500+ Manx Shearwater
5 Razorbill
2 Guillemot
1 Minke Whale


Fishing Trip out of Penzance
1 Balearic Shearwater
5 Manx Shearwaters
2 Storm Petrel


Day 10 01/08
Mousehole
2 Med Gull (ad, juv)
11 Turnstone
20+ Manx Shearwater
100+ Curlew roosted on St Clements rock


Day 11 02/08
Praa Sands
2 Whimbrel
1 Common Sand
6 Med Gull
2 Shag
Most seen at close range from a kayak


Hayle Estuary
2 Whimbrel
1 Dunlin
11 Greylag Geese
1 Common Sandpiper
2 Little Egret


Day 12 03/08
Mousehole
11 Turnstone
Juv Med Gull
Hummingbird Hawkmoth
100+ Manx Shearwater


Day 13 04/08
Gwennap Head
Puffin [248
6 Sooty Shearwater
15 Storm Petrel
5 Balearic Shearwater




Day 14 05/08
Sennen Cove
3 Med Gull 
1 Whimbrel
5+ Kittiwake (over head whilst surfing!)

From House
60+ Manx Shearwater (Means that I have now seen Manx Shearwater everyday for 2 weeks, awsome!)