Baikal Teal, Swine Moor

There's been a couple of Baikal teal in the UK this winter, with the closest at Swine Moor near Berverley in East Yorkshire. I've been keeping my eye on this bird for a few weeks now and have contemplated going for it while I've been over that way surveying near Selby, but I always put it off for one reason or another. However, after a couple of weeks of poor weather, a decent forecast for today offered a good opportunity for me to catch up with the bird before my afternoon survey started. 

Swine Moor is basically an area of flooded fields between the west side of the River Hull and the town of Beverley. It was a beautiful sunny day but there was a stiff breeze blowing and it was very chilly as I walked south for about 1km down the western bank of the river to where there was a large flock of ducks. The flock largely comprised of wigeon, teal and a few shoveler, but there were also a few waders including a small flock of dunlin and about 50 golden plover. 

After about 20 minutes somebody picked out the Baikal teal but it was asleep. We watched it for quarter of an hour hoping that it would wake up and it did, but only because a peregrine came over low and put the whole flock up into a dense swirling mass of birds. The teal was of course now lost and we had to start the search for it again.

Eventually we found it and now it was more active, mainly preening but also swimming and once it flew a short distance. With a bird like this there's always the doubt that it might be an escape but it is with the correct carrier flock of wigeon so as long as it disappears before the end of May I can see no reason why it wouldn't get accepted. A really beautiful bird and well worth the effort. My third Baikal teal following birds at Crossens (2013) and Ouse Washes (2014), both of which were accepted.

St Kilda 1987 - A journey to the edge of the World

Photo: Boreray and the stacs from Conachair
St. Kilda 1987

In June 1987 I ignored a mates advice that as a young man in my mid-twenties I "shouldn't be going camping to St Kilda, I should be going on a lads holiday with him to Malta" and decided instead to head for the island on the edge of the world. Looking back on it, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Most of my photos from that period are on slides which I very rarely look at, but recently I've been thinking that I need to get copies of them before either the slides deteriorate or my ancient projector stops working. So I present them here for posterity with a short(ish) write up before my memory fades also. The photos are of generally poor quality, but they've been kept in the attic for 30 years and subject to extremes of temperature, so I'm happy enough with them. I kept meticulous notes of my trips even then, including departure and arrival times, weather and exactly what birds and plants we saw and that's what I've based this post on.

There were 12 of us on a private charter organized and led by my friend Jon who knew more about St Kilda than was good for anybody. This was to be about his sixth visit to the archipelago and it certainly wasn’t his last, it was more-or-less an annual event for him back in the 1980’s. He had arranged for our party to camp on the archipelago's main island Hirta for nine nights but it was a long journey from Oban and would also require two days each way on a boat.

Our boat was a converted fishing boat, the "Danbrit". Looking at these photos now I find it quite alarming that we were about to undertake a 26 hour journey in this especially since a large part of the journey would be out into the open Atlantic ocean! I think that's Jon sitting on the quay but I can't be sure.

These were our sleeping quarters on the boat. We were to spend at least one night each way in here, but St Kilda is a difficult place to land due to swell and wind, and it was perfectly possible that when we arrived we wouldn't be able to dock for a day or two.

Darwen service, M65

An adult yellow-legged gull which has returned for its second winter at Darwen M65 services showed well at lunchtime today albeit in terrible light.

Belted Kingfisher, Roach Bridge

So today I arrived at Roach Bridge  at 9:30am with no great expectations because we've had some heavy rain recently and river levels were likely to be high and I didn't expect the belted kingfisher to show. However, as soon as I arrived I checked my phone to find that the bird had been reported at about 8:45am so that was positive at least. Unfortunately though, on speaking to birders on site it seemed to be another example of a copy and paste report which these long stayers often lazily deteriorate into. The truth was that the bird hadn't actually been seen so far, it had only been heard. None of the five or so birders on site had seen the bird and it seemed that the person who had heard it had left, or at least I didn't speak to him.

Fortunately at about 10:15am I happened to be looking in the right place at the right time and suddenly I saw the bird fly out from the cliff right below us and away down the river towards the weir. For two seconds it was a truly awesome view, breathtaking in fact, what a bird. For a moment it was there at close range, slate blue upperparts with white patches in it's primaries, a white ring around its neck and a slate blue head with a large bill. Wow, it was like a different species to the bird that I've seen here distantly on several occasions recently. Most noticeable of all was it's large size which was really obvious today but not particularly obvious previously. But then it was gone and we couldn't relocate it in a three and a half hour search. It wasn't seen again all day and as far as I know, I was the only person to see the bird today, for all of two seconds.....

I do have a very poor photo of the bird in flight from another day which I did consider using here for illustration purposes, but the trouble is if I do that, that will be the (false) image from today which will stick in my mind forever. It's better if I don't post any photos and keep the real image from today stored safely in my memory.

Also today, two common kingfishers and five mandarins.

Snow Bunting, Southport

The snow bunting flock at Southport continues to show well, with five birds now present. As is the norm with this species they're very confiding and look great among the shells on the tide line.

In summer the males are a lot whiter which of course is good when you breed in amongst snow fields, but their winter attire is not bad camouflage either when they're on the tidal wrack.

Even better camouflage when they're in amongst the shells.

I've been going through some old slides recently and came across this photo from Sinclairs Bay, Caithness taken on 29/12/1985. The largest flock of snow bunting I've ever seen, at least 1500 birds.

Pink-feet, Plex Moss

On my way home from Southport today I came back over Plex Moss to check out the geese. I'd spent the morning at Banks looking through very distant geese for a lesser white-front which is in the area, but no sign. I did however manage to see the snow goose flying about a mile away with a large flock of geese against a dark threatening sky before dropping down and being lost to view in long grass.

Then I moved down to Marine drive at Marshide and followed the road south from the RSPB car park to the pier. There were thousands of geese in the saltmarsh here and the lesser white-front could easily have been with them, but many are distant and hidden in the grass and I certainly didn't see it.

Finally I checked out Plex Moss. There were a couple of thousand geese here and the light was good but again I couldn't pick out anything other than pink-feet.

I did however manage to pick out a pink-foot with a neck collar, grey XCB. I've reported it and will publish the results here when I get them.

Russian white-fronted geese, Crossens

It was a bleak morning at Crossens / Banks but I was pleased to see these two magnificent Russian white-fronted geese with a small flock of pink-feet near the pumping station. There  was also another Russian white-front with about 100 pink-feet off the A585 Water Lane.

Whoopers at Banks

There's a wonderful flock of about 400 whooper swans feeding on dumped potatoes on an inland field at Banks. 

Quite a few greylags are with the whoopers as well as these two swan geese.

Martin Mere

Brambling continue to show well on the feeders at the Janet Kear hide at Martin Mere, and at least one Siberian chiffchaff is at the sewage works. Three marsh harriers quartered the marsh but there were no sign avocets yet. Any day now I would expect the first to arrive.

Pishing Sibes at Martin Mere

I enjoy a good pish every now and again, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. My favourite victims are tits (especially long-tailed), crests and small warblers. For those who don't know, the ancient art of pishing involves simply making a funny noise to try to attract birds closer. I'm not sure why it works but probably just because the birds think I've finally flipped and want a closer look.

I use four different methods with varying degrees of success. The least successful is a ticking noise similar to that which a female blackcap makes, usually in an attempt to lure a sylvia warbler out of scrub. I make this noise by either using my tongue on the roof of my mouth or occasionally by clicking my fingers. 

The next least successful method is a low "peeesh, peeesh, peeesh", similar to the sound some people make to domestic cats. This occasionally works but mainly attracts long-tailed tits. However it's always worth attracting long-tailed tits because other small birds often travel with them and a few years back I tried this and a yellow-browed warbler popped up in the middle of a flock.

The final two methods are very similar and really the same. In it's purest form I put together my index finger and the next finger as if I'm making a gun shape and put them flat on my pursed lips and make a high pitched squeaking noise. If you're doing it correctly it should tickle your lips. This is by far my most successful method of pishing and it will sometimes attract tits, crests and small warblers. The problem with this method is that I can then only use one hand to hold my binoculars or camera, so I've adapted it and make a similar noise by just by pursing my lips and not using my fingers. Again it should tickle your lips. This is less successful than the full blown version, so what I tend to do is use the full version to get the birds attention and then when they move towards me I try to hold them there with the lesser version whilst looking at the bird through my binoculars. 

Pishing doesn't always work, in fact on rare occasions it may even cause birds to move away or become more skulking so don't usually try it when other people are around just in case. In most cases though it has no affect and the birds just carry on as if nothing is happening.

Hide and seek with a belted kingfisher

After no reports for about two weeks the belted kingfisher at Roach Bridge was seen again over the weekend so I thought I'd give it a go for a year tick and maybe get some better photos. With the farmer AWOL there's been no entrance fee all week so I've been there for the past three days. The year tick part of the plan turned out fine and I saw it every day and had some decent views of the bird but it's been hard work, whilst the photography part of the plan only produced more of the same really. The photo above from today is about as close as I've come to getting anything like a decent picture of the bird, pity about the branches. I like the picture though because I think you get a good impression of the size of the bird which is twice as big as a common kingfisher and around the same size as a jackdaw.

Since the weekend the kingfisher seems to spend the first hour or two after sunrise tucked into the wooded cliff right below the viewing area (the roosting area?), making it really hard to see, and then from about midday it moves further upriver and is viewable at a distance of about 500m. In the afternoon it flies back to the cliff and again is tucked in so tightly that it could be just a few metres away from you and you wouldn't notice it. I've only heard it call occasionally so you wouldn't even know that it was there most of the time.

On Monday the bird had disappeared when I arrived and I had to wait three hours for it to show. When it did it was a decent enough scope view in good light but way too far for a decent photo. The photo above was taken on 60x scope magnification and 20x phone magnification. After five minutes it disappeared.