Firecrest, Marton Mere

At last I caught up with the elusive firecrest at Marton Mere today, it showed briefly but well as I ate my lunch by the viewing platform. Also in the reedbed nearby three Cetti's warblers and two water rail calling.

Year: 153 (Firecrest). This time last year I was on 168.

Otter and elf cup at Leighton Moss

At long last, after visiting Leighton Moss regularly for over 30 years, today I finally caught up with otter on the reserve! We watched two otters fishing in front of the Public hide for about 20 minutes. A fantastic experience! A bit distant for good photos, but what do I care? These are the first photos I have ever managed to take of otters.

Another first for me at Leighton Moss, scarlet elf cup Sarcoscypha austriaca. The information board on the nature trail refers to this as chicken of the woods, but that species looks nothing like this and it is in fact a bracket fungus! Don't believe everything you read on nature trails!

Three red deer!

Birds were a bit thin on the ground today, but even so we managed to see two marsh tits, marsh harrier, buzzards and various waders including this spotted redshank on the Allen pools.

Avocets are back in good numbers, we counted 30 on the Allen Pools.

Pintail

Iceland Gull, Larne Harbour, Northern Ireland

I really dropped on with the Iceland gull that has been frequenting Larne harbour. I had no idea where to look, so just followed the harbour signs, then turned down a road which seemed to lead to the harbour and when I got to the end of the road, there was the gull on the grass. I just pulled up slowly with the window down, took a few photos, then carried on my way.

Belfast Lough

I picked up a few year ticks on Belfast Lough today, black guillemot, gannet and pale-bellied brent goose. Also today red-breasted mergansers, eiders, little egret and rock pipits.

Year 2015: 151

Belfast Lough from the air.

Cinclus cinclus hibernicus, Draperstown, Northern Ireland

I love this place, Northern Ireland is a beautiful country. There was a vast improvement in the weather today. Following yesterdays storm, today was a beautiful, peaceful day with bright blue skies and warm sunshine.

It was a glorious dawn over Lough Beg and when I went to the car I could hear whooper swans calling right outside my guest house. I walked down to the lough and there they were, about 70 of them, with flocks of wigeon and pintail, and curlew calling in the distance. I'm right by a part of the lough which is called Paddy's Dub, and the above photograph is looking towards the Mullagh, where I saw a pair of ring-necked ducks last year.

But this is what I really wanted to see today. A pair of Irish dippers C.c. hibernicus on a river just outside of Draperstown. This means that I have now seen all three races of British dipper in just four days! Better still, as you can see in the above photo they were displaying, something I don't think I've ever seen before. How you differentiate Irish dippers from the race we get in England, other than by geography, is something I'm not sure about.

I'm over here in Northern Ireland doing habitat surveys, specifically NVC's, and assessing peat quality. You can just make out the blue edges of my quadrat, whilst the pole is used for getting a rough measurement of peat depth. The dark bottom half of the pole is the depth at this quadrat. Most of the white spikey plants you can see are last years dead bog asphodel.

Sphagnum capillifolium and Hypnum jutlandicum.

Ring-billed Gull, Portrush, Northern Ireland

The adult Ring-billed gull which seems to live permanently at Portrush showed well today, on the East Strand car park. There was no sign of it when I first arrived, but I got myself some fish and chips and a coffee and parked up near the small flock of gulls on the car park and waited. Eventually I spotted the bird, one of the best ring-billed gulls I've seen in a while. My second in Northern Ireland, following another long stayer at Carrickfergus in December 2013. That bird is also still being seen.

Year 2015: 148 (Ring-billed gull)

Ring-billed gull.

It was bit windy.

Turnstones.

Tarnbrook Fell

Todays ramble was to the Forest of Bowland where we walked from Marshaw to Ward Stone and back via Tarnbrook. There were lots of waders displaying today, curlews, lapwings and oystercatchers, and there were plenty of red grouse on the moors, but as might be expected, no hen harriers and no short-eared owls. Best of all though, we saw a dipper on one of the streams. Following yesterdays black-bellied dipper in Yorkshire, this means that I now just need Cinclus cinclus hibernicus to complete the set of British dippers this year.

Year 2015: 147 (Red grouse)

A visit to Yorkshire

We decided to have trip over the Pennines and into Yorkshire today, with a view to experiencing the gull fest that has been happening recently at Rufforth airfield. On the way we stopped off at Normanton to see the drake American Wigeon which showed well with a group of about 40 Eurasian wigeon.

We arrived at Rufforth at about 9:45am to find only a fairly small flock of gulls in a field adjacent to the airfield. However after only a short wait a superb adult glaucous gull landed in the middle of the flock and just a few minutes later a 3rd winter Iceland gull landed alongside it. A fantastic opportunity to compare these two white winged gulls. Then at last we saw the bird we had really gone there for. A stunning adult Caspian gull, complete with long parallel bill, pear shaped head and dark beady eye. As if that wasn't enough, close by was a 3rd winter Caspian! Just like buses. My first Caspian gull in the UK and another bogey bird bites the dust.

Having seen our target species so quickly and so well, we decided to push on into enemy territory, and made our way to Kelp Beck near the village of Harpham, about seven miles outside Bridlington. For the past week or two this beck has been home to a continental black-bellied dipper,  only a race and not a separate species from our dipper, but still my first in the UK and a really nice bird to see.

After that we retreated, but not before a brief call in at Fairburn Ings to see a drake smew and three newly arrived avocets.

UK: 407 (Capsian gull), Year 2015: 146

Black-bellied dipper Cinclus cinclus cinclus. As the name implies, this race is completely black under the white bib, unlike our resident and largely sedentary bird which is chestnut immediately below the white, blending into black under parts. I was worried that this might not be a very obvious feature, but as you can see in the photos, there's not a hint of chestnut. Black-bellied dippers breed in the north of Scandinavia and move south in winter to escape the northern winter.

Actually there are two races of dipper in the British Isles, C.c. hibernicus in Ireland and western Scotland, and C.c. gularis in eastern Scotland, Wales and England. I'm not sure what the differences are between these two races, but I'm pretty sure I've seen them both. I've certainly seen dippers in the Inverpolly region of Sutherland which I assume will be  hibernicus. I've never seen this race in Ireland but I might have opportunity to put that right as soon as next week.....

American and Eurasian wigeons.

Adult glaucous gull.

Out and about

It's a great time to be out and about on local farmland. Oystercatchers and shelduck are on the move and likely to be seen anywhere and farmland birds are at their most active, with lapwings already displaying. Today I was in north Lancashire and I came across flocks of 28 whooper swans, 45 shelduck, 30 black-tailed godwits and 20 curlew, all in the same flooded field. A few fields away I found my first green sandpiper of the year on the edge of a flood in the middle of a field, and in the next field I startled a pair of shoveler on a hidden pond, whilst a woodcock flew up from under a hedge as I approached. A noisy flock of tree sparrows chased each other near some farm buildings.

Shoveler

Teal

Lapwing, black-tailed godwits and curlew.