Black-throated diver, Crosby marina

This juvenile black-throated diver has been at Crosby marina for a couple of weeks and is only the second that I have ever seen in Merseyside. The first was in 1996 and spent most of its time on Prescot Reservoirs, but also visited Eccleston Mere and Taylor Park.

Little egrets, Mossley Hall farm

Seven little egrets at Mossley Hall farm this morning were an impressive sight and my biggest count ever at Pennington Flash. Also this morning, four wigeon, 14 pochard and 27 goldeneye. Merry Christmas everybody!

Barolo shearwater and some dolphin photos, Madeira

My only new species from this holiday turned up towards the end of what had so far proven to be a slightly disappointing whale watching trip out of Calheta. To be fair, we had started off with fabulous views of a pod of about 30 bottlenose dolphins, probably showing better than I'd ever experienced previously with the species, but we had seen none of the hoped for whales. 

We had reached the furthest point from land, about 4 miles out from Jardim do Mar and stopped the boat for a final look at a more distant pod of dolphins when I noticed a shearwater on the opposite side of the boat, unfortunately about to fly into the glaring sunlight. This was exciting because by mid December virtually all seabirds have left this area and I didn't expect to see anything avian at sea. However, there was perhaps one possibility....

The bird had an odd fluttering flight low over the water, followed by more typical shearwater glides, but then it was frustratingly lost in the glare. Fortunately a few moments later it flew back out of the sunlight briefly and allowed me a better look. It was clearly a small bird of the Manx shearwater variety, and not one of the larger shearwaters such as Cory's which also breed around these islands. 

My excitement levels went up a notch, because before we travelled to Madeira, I'd done quite a bit of research into which species of seabird, if any, I had a chance of seeing in December. There was really only one, Barolo shearwater, and if I was lucky enough to see one, I didn't want to tick it based on just an assumption, I wanted to know exactly why it was a Barolo. So for weeks I'd studied the finer details of identifying this particular species because it was the only lifer I was likely to get on the holiday and if I did see one, I wanted to be able to eliminate the doubt of an extremely out of season Manxie.

Barolo shearwater © madeirabirds.com.
Click here to open their website in a new window.

Little egret, Jardim do Mar

This little egret was at Jardim do Mar today and was the only egret we saw during the whole holiday. I learnt something about little egrets today.......

......who knew that they had red orbital rings?

Spotted sandpiper still, Calheta

The spotted sandpiper was still showing well at Calheta today.

Atlantic canaries

Atlantic canary is a species of finch which is very similar to serin, in fact it's scientific name is Serinus canaria. It's easily the commonest town bird on Madeira and occurs almost everywhere. It's the ancestor of the birds which are kept as pets, though it's more streaky and less bright than those birds.

They're lovely little birds with a nice song. They can be quite approachable but they are small, active and often in dense vegetation, so difficult to photograph. Often they will sit on wires but then then are just silhouettes. These are the best photos that I've ever managed of the species.

Spotted sandpiper, Calheta

This morning I found a 1st winter spotted sandpiper at Calheta, Madeira. This North American bird  averages about one every two years on Madeira. When we arrived on the island 10 days ago, I was hoping that there might be a chance of finding a bird from across the Atlantic, after all the relatively nearby Azores does pretty well, and though this might not be the rarest, I'm made up with it. It was catching crabs on the rocky groynes adjacent to Calhau Beach Club.

I love this photo. Note that the white wing bar doesn't reach the body, immediately ruling out common sandpiper.

Posto florestal fanal

Today we headed for Posto Florestal Fanal, with it's ancient, twisted laurel trees. One of the most amazing places in Madeira. Madeira chaffinches are common here and will show very well, I guess that they're used to the visitors and today I had them almost walking over my feet! Really lovely birds.

Ponta do Pargo lighthouse, Madeira

Ponta do Pargo lighthouse is at the extreme south west point of Madeira and only about 7km from our accommodation at Faja do Ovelha. It's a good place to find the Madeiran race of spectacled warbler, Curruca conspicilatta orbitalis which is said to have a darker plumage than those found in mainland Europe. I've seen spectacled warbler in several places previously, including once in the UK, but I've not seen very many and it's always a nice bird to see. Three in the same bush just next to the lighthouse car park were the first that I have seen on the island.

Berthelot's pipit are common in the right habitat and often very approachable. This is a species endemic to the Canary Isles and Madeira, with the subspecies Anthus berthelotii maderensis present on Madeira  Great little birds.

Paul do Mar and vereda dos zimbreiros

Madeira firecrest.

Vereda dos zimbreiros is a footpath which starts just 100m down the road from our accommodation. It starts out as a relatively flat cobbled path, around 2 or 3m wide, but don't be fooled, it quickly turns into a steep, narrow descent into the fishing village of Paul do Mar. 

Canarian kestrels and their prey, Fajã da Ovelha

Canarian kestrels Falco tinnunculus canariensis, are a race of common kestrel and are everywhere on Madeira, from the highest mountain tops to the centre of Funchal. Their favoured prey is Madeiran wall lizards which like the kestrels are numerous across the whole of the island, indeed they are the only lizard on the island.

Short-finned pilot whales, Madeira

Today I took a whale watching trip out of Canical in the east of Madeira, run by Sea Emotions.  Really enjoyable, they found us around 15 each of short-finned pilot whale and bottlenose dolphin. The pilot whales came very close to the boat and had at least a couple of calves with them.

This was my first encounter with this species. I have seen long-finned pilot whales previously off southern Australia, and I have to take the word of todays guides and the Australian guides that they are the species they claim, because separating them is virtually impossible in the field. However, on range short-finned are by far the most likely off Madeira and long-finned most likely off southern Australia. These pilot whales are resident around Madeira and have been well studied.

A few endemics on a tour of eastern Madeira

We're currently on Madeira for a couple of weeks and started off today with a drive around the eastern part of the island, with our first stop at the magnificent Pico do Arieiro. At 1818m (6000ft) this place is often above the clouds and it's a bit of a hair raising drive to get here with hairpin bends, steep drops and in places toboggans coming down the road at high speed towards us! It's worth it though, because often when low level Madeira is covered in cloud, it's glorious sunshine up here and the views are just spectacular. 

A few endemic birds today as well, but obviously not the star species which is the endemic Zino's petrel for which this is the only breeding site in the world. A seabird breeding at 1818m above sea level! I saw them on a previous visit to the island in May 2016 (opens in a new window), but they only return to their nests at night and in any case they're not here in December.

This Berthelot's pipit showed really well, and on the drive up we also saw a couple of Trocaz pigeons fly across the road. Hopefully I'll see more of these in the coming days. A few Madeiran race kestrels were also seen, in fact they're pretty much everywhere, from the highest mountains to the heart of Funchal.

Waxwings reach Warrington at last

Hardly an invasion but three waxwings at Battersby Lane, Warrington today were at least a start and a welcome sight!

Bittern in Rammies

A bittern sunbathing in Ramsdales reedbed was the highlight of a glorious morning at Pennington Flash today. I first saw the bird distantly flying across the reedbed on Saturday, and today I saw it again distantly standing on the edge of the reeds. I walked back to Rammies but by the time I got there the bird was still visible but deeper in the reeds and quite hard to spot. 

Another "scaup", Pennington Flash

This morning I saw what I thought was the now regular female scaup at the western end of the flash from Mossley Hall farm. I didn't have my scope with me, it was just through binoculars. Then I walked around to the ruck where the light was better but still not good and took these photos of what I assumed was the same bird. Except that on examining the photos this evening, they're clearly not of the same bird.

The most obvious difference is the extent of white on the face, which is more extensive on this bird and unlike the other bird, it goes right under the bill.

I always think that scaup look like real bruisers when compared to tufted ducks, they are larger, more robust and sit higher in the water. This bird is very petite for a scaup.  It appears to be about the same size as a tufted duck and look at the bill, if anything smaller than the adjacent tuftie. Compare the bill size to that of the female in the next couple of photos.

This is the first bird. Notice that the pale patch on the ear coverts is also a lot larger, and the eye is brighter than todays bird.

Continuing scaup and common scoter, Pennington Flash

The female scaup us still at the western end of the flash, along with three wigeon. Three common scoter were in the middle.

These scoter must have dropped in at some point as I was walking round, because I certainly didn't see them first thing, but when I got back to the boat club they were pretty obvious in the direction of the point.

Marsh harrier and woodcock kick-off the new week at the flash

An exciting visit this morning in heavy drizzle, mist and murk got off to a great start when a very dark, almost black juvenile marsh harrier flew over Mossley Hall farm at about 9am. Unlike the hen harrier on Friday which was high and powered through east, this harrier appeared from the west at just over tree height and then lazily disappeared north. It didn't look like it was simply moving through, more like it was hunting the local area, so perhaps it will return in the coming days. Only my second marsh harrier at the flash following another juvenile which flew over the ruck and Ramsdales on 22nd November last year. 

When I set out this morning, I was hoping for a woodcock since I heard that there had been a small influx into the north west in recent days. Sure enough, on visiting a couple of places on the south side where I have seen them in the past, I was able to find two of these wonderful birds for myself. 

Meanwhile, at least one of the 1st winter scaup was still present, and probably the other one was about somewhere. The drizzle really was bad at times and it certainly hindered viewing so that a 1st winter scaup could easily have been overlooked. Other ducks today included eight goosander, including two males, around 20 goldeneye and the usual seven pochard off the car park, including six drakes.

The recent good run of form at the flash continues, with two species of harrier in three days, what a time to be alive!

Jack snipe and hen harrier to end a great week at Pennington Flash

It's been a memorable week at the flash. It started well with the discovery of two scaup with the tufted ducks at the west end on Tuesday, and just got better as the week progressed, with a jack snipe yesterday and a hen harrier today, the latter a site first for me. On top of that there's been a noticeable build up of ducks, including at least 29 goldeneye and 10 pochard. Not big numbers yet but double what there were last week.

No doubt that the hen harrier was the highlight of the week. I was in Horrock's hide this morning and saw a raptor flying towards me over the ruck, high and at first distant, but it clearly had the flight of a harrier on passage, with a few fairly fast wing-beats followed by a short glide, at which time it held its wings in a shallow 'V'. It flew towards the hide and dropped a little before banking slightly left and then heading off east to the left of the hide allowing me a decent enough view to see that it was a hen harrier. What a fabulous sight it was and I wished that I'd been on the ruck to see it better. Any species of harrier is a decent record at the flash, though hen and marsh both occur on the mosslands to the south so are always a possibility.

Scaup, Pennington Flash

Just as the heavens opened this afternoon I managed to find two scaup at the west end, best seen from Mossley Hall farm. The left hand bird looks like a young male to me, whilst the right hand bird is probably an adult female, based largely on the bright yellow eye. Also today, 10 goldeneye and six pochard including five drakes.

Before the rain!

Hilbre Island

Today a brief family walk over to Hilbre Island on a glorious autumnal day. Before the walk started though, I had enough time for a brief look at the juvenile great northern diver that has been present on West Kirby marine lake for about a week. I didn't have time to try to get closer, but on such a calm, mirror like lake it was easy to find, and let's be honest, even if I'd stayed all afternoon I probably wouldn't have got anything much better than this!

This was my 4th great northern diver on the marine lake.

An interesting few days at the flash

9th November is the anniversary of the penduline tit at the flash and although this week has not produced anything close to such a rarity, it's still been an interesting period and not least today. 

I was about halfway down Sandy Lane on my way to Green Lane when two cattle egrets flew low over the road. They didn't appear to have come from or be going to the flash and judging by their flight it appeared to be a local movement rather than a flight of passage, almost as if they were just jumping the road. I walked the fields between Sorrowcow farm and Liptrot farm but could find no further sign of them during the duration of my visit.

At Mossley Hall farm I was watching the family party of four Egyptian geese when I noticed a couple of dunlin flying over in the direction of the boat club. Sadly there was disturbance there from dogs and people so presumably they just carried on since there is currently no other shoreline anywhere at the flash.

I was surprised to hear a chiffchaff singing in the woods behind East Bay reedbed today. Quite a strong song, not just a feeble effort as is sometimes the case at this time of year. Of course chiffchaffs are not uncommon in winter these days, though I personally have no records of birds overwintering at the flash, and this is the latest record I have of a singing bird from anywhere in the UK.

Whooper Swan, Pennington Flash

A decent morning at the flash before the rain set in for the day at 11am. I was on the ruck as a juvenile whooper swan flew over from the north and then dropped down and landed on the flash, joining up with a group of mute swans who seemed less than impressed by the uninvited guest.

There are now six goosanders off the car park, three males, two of which look like 1st winters, and three females. At least five goldeneye are about including a rather scruffy looking male which is probably a new arrival, and two drake pochard. Forty fieldfares went over the ruck in two flocks of 16 and 24, as well as at least one flock of pink-footed geese heading south. The family party of four Egyptian geese remain at Mossley Hall farm.

 

Cattle Egrets, Pennington Flash

Following a totally depressing visit to Flamborough Head yesterday in soaking drizzly mist and a slippery mud  bath underfoot, when none of the birds I hoped to see showed and bird of the day was yellowhammer, it was good to get back to some proper birding at Pennington Flash today.

In glorious, sunny conditions I was delighted to see two cattle egrets on the boat club shore. These might be getting a lot commoner elsewhere these days, but they are still very much a Greater Manchester mega and this was only my 3rd sighting of the species at the flash and in the county.

Other birds seen today included three drake pochard, four female goldeneye, 70 snipe and at least two Egyptian geese still.

Grey, misty days at the flash

We're rapidly leaving autumn behind us and moving into winter as evidenced by the arrival of goldeneye at the flash, as well as pochard and goosander. The gull roost is rapidly building and will soon no doubt lure me back to Green Lane in the late afternoon. 

The weather has been largely dull, misty, murky and drizzly, with the occasional bright sunny day interspersed.  Long dark nights are imminent with Halloween and bonfire night swiftly following. I like this time of year though.

Garganey, Cutacre

A juvenile female garganey on Swan Lake at Cutacre CP was my latest ever in the UK by three weeks and only my third ever in October.

Egyptian geese at Pennington Flash

From the sublime to the ridiculous, last week I'm watching Swainson's thrush and hoping for another vireo or a White's thrush on a Outer Hebridean island, this week I'm making the case for the Egyptian goose. Oh well, such is life in land locked Greater Manchester.

For the past five or six years a small number of Egyptian geese have spent the summer at Pennington Flash.  Occasionally they are accompanied by a juvenile or two. Usually they are gone by the end of September. 

Earlier this year just one bird spent September at the flash and I thought it was probably a sign that this small group was coming to an end. 

However, last Thursday a family party of two adults and two juveniles appeared, all unringed and all wary, at least so far! I have seen them once on the car park early morning, but they won't allow close approach and by mid morning they go elsewhere. Most of the time they are either at the boat club or on the flooded horse field between Mossley Hall farm and Slag lane. 

Obviously they've not flown here from Egypt, but it would be interesting to know where these birds have bred. Apparently there is currently no known breeding within Greater Manchester and the core breeding areas are East Anglia, South London and the East Midlands, the latter probably as close as 80 miles as the goose flies. However there may also be other much closer places where the species breeds, and perhaps there are sites within Greater Manchester which are not presently known. Whatever the answer, these particular birds are probably as good as it gets for a local tick!

Journey across the Sea of the Hebrides

I love a good ferry journey across the Minch or in today's case the Sea of the Hebrides. Today we saw about 30 common dolphins in three groups and I also had brief views of a couple of minke whales. It was very quiet for birds, but I did manage two species of skua, great and a distant pale phase bird that was almost certainly pomarine. Other than that it was mainly just gannets and a few kittiwakes, plus a handful of fulmars and auks.

The last couple of days on Barra - bringing up 100 species

The weather for the past couple of days has been challenging with strong winds and heavy squally showers. Even so we've managed to see lots of great birds and had some wonderful experiences. For example, at Allasdale today we came across a flock of around 200 barnacle geese on the short grass. These geese are newly arrived from Greenland and are resting up before they continue their journey to other parts of the Hebrides, most likely Islay.

Suddenly the flock took to the air as a magnificent white-tailed eagle flew in and tried to take them by surprise. These eagles are well capable of taking a barnacle goose in flight and the flock flew back and forth for 10 minutes as the eagle flew around before heading off empty handed. A different eagle was also seen trying to take a glossy ibis up at Eoligarry two days ago, but not by us! Yesterday we saw a golden eagle on Vatersay, the only one of the holiday for us this year.

Glossy ibis still and another common rosefinch

The glossy ibis at Eoligarry are remarkable birds, they'll stand at the side of the road and allow you to drive right up to them, sometimes as close as 5m away. Even my bright red car doesn't spook them!

In recent days they've changed their behaviour somewhat, and now no longer spend all of their time on the flood. These days you're just as likely to find them in a boggy field or in with a flock of sheep.

Squally, blustery winds and murky mizzle

A difficult day on Barra due to a strong, blustery wind and sometimes heavy drizzle, but we still managed more views of Arctic warbler and Swainson's thrush and found a yellow-browed warbler. Supporting cast included long-tailed ducks, nine glossy ibis, three species of diver plus sooty and Manx shearwaters. 51 brents were on Traigh Mhor and others moving south.

Another Yank passerine on Barra

Another great day birding on Barra as yet another Yank was found in the shape of a Swainson's thrush at Castlebay, now renamed Central Park by the locals. Unfortunately for us this was not even an island tick as we saw one here last year as well, though that was in the hand having been caught and ringed, so it was great to see one walking around in the leaf litter in the woods near the football pitch. This is the 9th North American passerine on the island in the past 5 weeks, of four different species (Philadelphia vireo x 1, Tennessee warbler x 2, red-eyed vireo x5 & Swainson's thrush x1). What else is waiting out there for us, and will we find it?

 
Also today, common rosefinch at Glen, 9 glossy ibis still, 3 drake green-winged teal, juvenile ring-necked duck, a large passage of whooper swans and barnacle geese over the island, a late swallow and our first moorhen on the island! Not seen by us today, the Arctic warbler is still around as well. Not a bad day.

 

The mystery of the green-winged teal at Eoligarry flood

Yesterday a drake green-winged teal was found at Eoligarry, on the flood created by heavy rain over the past two days. It apparently arrived as part of an influx of about 10 teal, more than we had previously seen at Eoligarry. We had a quick look at the bird in fading light yesterday evening and saw that it had quite dull vertical white stripes, which we put down to either the poor evening light or the fact that the bird was perhaps not yet in full plumage having just moulted out of eclipse. 

On returning for another look this morning, we were surprised to see that it actually now had two quite bright vertical white stripes. While we were watching, it disappeared into the vegetation and less than a minute later we spotted a green-winged teal some 50m to the right on the edge of the pool, without us seeing it fly or swim there across open water. Surely that couldn't be the same bird? Where there two green-winged teal present?

Then Ray pointed out another bird which was still moulting, with plenty of brown feathers in amongst the fresh grey flanks, but with a white mark on both sides at the top of where the white vertical bar should be. The rest of the bar was obscured by brown feathers. Was this another drake green-winged teal and if so just how many were there? One thing for sure, there was at least one certain drake Eurasian teal in the group.

The viewing conditions were difficult, the teal were at a distance of about 100m, in and out of the flooded vegetation, it was very windy, misty and dull with some heavy drizzly showers which soaked the optics. Also the birds were just coming out of moult, so it was difficult to be certain if the markings we were seeing, or not seeing, were real or just aberrations of moult. In the end we decided that we could only be certain that there was one bird present because we didn't see the dull and bright birds together.

However, the following day we received a message on the Barra birders WhatsApp group that there were two, probably three green-winged teal on the flood. We decided to head back later for another look, but unfortunately the teal were flushed by a buzzard and flew south before we arrived and were not seen again. Over the next few days the flood subsided to more normal marshy field levels and we had no further sightings of any teal.

I had taken several videos of the teal on my phone and through the telescope, all of which are shaky and of poor quality and don't really prove anything, especially since I had been following around the well marked bird rather than trying to find other birds. 

Most intriguing to me is how many of the females were green-winged teal? The identification of females is very difficult at the best of times and probably impossible in the kind of conditions that we had to contend with here.

However, even before the possibility of there being more than one drake was raised, I had noticed in the field that some of the females looked darker than I would normally expect and some had a well-marked  head pattern of dark crown, pale supercilium and dark eye-stripe. This is a feature, though not conclusive, of female green-winged teal as described by Hugh Harrop in a short paper in British Birds 112, January 2019: 35-43(opens in a new window). 

Apparently the key feature to look out for when attempting to identify female green-winged teal is the pattern on the outermost tertial, something which I was not aware of at the time and which try as I might, I can't see in my videos.