21/12/2024 Southport, Merseyside

Snow Bunting: Now an annal visitor to this stretch of Southport beach I couldn't resist a morning visit just after the high hinds and while Dawn have the baby for the day giving me some free time. 

Snow bunts are cracking little birds, often on the whole they aren't camera or person shy so if you approach slowly and carefully you can get pretty close to them. 

The area of beach it favours is south of the pier, opposite the cinema and retail park feeding close to the sea wall and strand line. 

Snow buntings are predominantly a winter visitor to Britain and Ireland although a tiny breeding population remains amongst snow fields on the highest peaks in Scotland. 

They do disperse and can be found regularly along the north west coast. 

25/03/2024 Aviemore, Cairngorms National Park, Scotland

Capercaillie: The always excellent Damien Young is due to tie the knot in April, so we organised a stag weekend in Aviemore with the hopes of seeing some of the Scottish specialties. With a few notable absences the stag party consisted of Toby Young, Kristian Wade, Patrick Earth and of course the stag.

We got lucky with this bird as walking through some undisclosed Caledonian forest hoping to see our first crested tit and walked right up to this resting bird off the public footpath. Astonishing crazy scenes! 

Crested Tit: Although other types of crested tit occur in Europe, Scotland has a special subspecies of crested tit called Lophophanes cristatus scoticus. 

They are mainly found in large areas of ancient pine forest and newer Scots pine forestry plantations across central and eastern Highlands, from the River Spey catchment to the Dornoch Firth.

The white cheeks and lack of wing barring identify it at this range. More closely it has a very distinctive black and white crest, which it can fan and raise upwards. 

We checked the feeders at RSPB Loch Garten in the rain while standing under the small shelter beside the visitor centre with was closed. We gave it enough time before the rain settled down but only got a skip full of coal tit and a few chaffinches before moving on. Our next stop was Nether Bridge, a Caledonian pine forest just north of Loch Garten. here we had two cresties attending the bird feeders. 

Snow Bunting: Our next target bird was the ptarmigan a bird most of the lads needed so I took them to Cairngorm Mountain where I saw them back in 2016. Apart from a large herd of reindeer all we couldn't find any ptarmigan, so we had to entertain ourselves with a large flock of 36 beautiful white snow buntings that are resident around the ski centre. 

Ptarmigan: We had to travel over to Glen Shee and scale the munro mountain's Cairnwell Pass at the head of Glen Shee. This was a tough, hard hike to the top and not for the weaker legged. We scanned them scree and searched all over before stumbling across a couple of birders viewing the northern slopes where two birds hundred down.

Their unusual name comes from the Scottish Gaelic meaning ‘croak’, in reference to their grumbling, croaking-like call.

Ptarmigan usually live above the treeline, in the hills and mountains. In Scotland, they usually occur above about 800m, moving up and down the mountain in response to weather and food availability. 

The pair had seemed to have lost their pure white plumage that they had only thee weeks ago or so and were now perfectly camauglaged against the patches of snow amounts the loose boulders and rocks.  The walk down is always good for the soul. 

Golden Eagle: On the way over to Glen Shee we kept out eyes open for any large reports, we had dozens of buzzard and a few red kite  until we got to the upland moors near the A93 Military Old Road, here we spotted two golden eagle. A juvenile and an adult, of which had. statute tracker on its back. 

There are no particular ‘hotspots’ for seeing eagles and their eyries are a closely guarded secret, but if you spend time in the uplands and keep looking up you may be lucky enough to see this great bird soaring around ridgelines, catching the thermals and looking for prey.

Ptarmigan: Saturday evening I booked us all in to the Speyside wildlife pine marten hide on the Rothiemurchus estate near Aviemore. Their hide regularly gets badger and pine marten can also be seen. 

Badger: Each evening wildlife watching experience lasts approximately two and a half to three hours. Our guide for the evening was chap called Harris, an extremely pleasant fellow with a. wealth of knowledge.

Pine Marten: Harris even took his time to show us a resident Scottish wildcat that they have currently in the grounds close to the hide, unfortunately it evaded us on this night, but Harris did get us two plant ticks, including holly fern and twinflower.  The pine marten were the highlight of the evening but the new hide is poor for photography and not great for phones either, both these images where taken with my iPhone. 

Red Kite: This was a top weekend spent with some of the best humans I know. Here's to Damian and Helen and to their big day in April. 

For the pine Martin hide check this link below out. www.speysidewildlife.co.uk

03/12/2023 Southport, Merseyside

Red-breasted Goose: Every year migratory wintering geese make the 500-mile journey from Iceland to spend the next couple of months feeding on the arable fields around Southport and east Lancashire. Most of the pink-footed goose population will spend the majority of the winter down south. However, they’ll take a break in their long journey here in Lancashire so that they can refuel for a few weeks before they continue.

On occasion these large flocks of migratory pink-footed geese can pick up and pull in other rare geese species.

There are fewer than 40,000 red-breasted geese in the world and the species is listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list.

Red-breasted Geese are highly sought after in wildfowl collections and are now becoming more prolific in captivity. They have a beautiful and bold pattern of black, white and chestnut plumage and are the smallest of the northern geese.

There is ways discussions of a bird wild validity but this bird is being pulled in with a decent carrier species and associations well with pink-footed geese it looks good so far. 

Snow Bunting: I like Bank Marsh and envy the likes of Stuart Derbyshire (who found the RBG) and who has Banks Marsh as their local patch, not only do they have the chance to find rare geese like this RBG, but they get to see such great spectacle of tens of thousands of geese flocking over the marsh and forming large grazing carpets of geese. 

The long walk down from the car park was pretty productive as we had some large flocks of twine moving between the marsh and the arable fields before connecting with Beth RBG and watching it as it flew around with around five thousands pinkies. 

From here we walked back to the car and drove down to Southport Pier where a single female snow bunting had taken up residence. The Birx has been around for about a. week or so favouring the area of the beach infant of the KFC north of the Pier. 

Carl found the bird foraging within the strand line vegetation and in typical snow bunting fashion it wasn't particually shy of the camera, or dog walks and passersby. 

Although the mountains regions where they breed and migrate from have a resident population augmented by high altitude winter visitors, the snow bunting is better known to birdwatchers as a winter visitor to the chilly coasts. 

And with the low lying snow and frost dusted over the strand line and sandy-shingle beech the bird looked perfect in it setting, opposite KFC in the middle of Southport. 

A great winters morning birding with Kris and Carl and we were back home intimate for lunch, in the warm, here's to next time lads. 

Shetland 2023

Veery: Autumn migration in Shetland is one of the ornithological highlights of the birding calendar! And part of the year I have really been looking forward to for some time. This would be my 4th year on the run top here and I had big hopes for finding rare birds and ticking a few new ones. 

This year, six top birders and friends booked the trip with me. A group which included Patrick Earth, Gary Edwards, Damian Young, Kristian Wade and Rob Black. A top bunch of lads and top birders, great to spend a week away birding them all. 

 

Rob and Patrick headed up a day earlier then the rest of us opting to fly, so they connected with this American mega while we were travelling up via car and ferry! Bring a day behind and knowing we may miss out on what could be the b best bird of the trip was giving me some serve anxiety!

Patrick and rob were sending us some crippling pictures too which wasn't help, Guess I would have done the same if the situations were revered, nothing like a bit of banter. Luckily the veery did the decent thing and stayed, it was favouring the same line of sycamore trees we had a barred warbler in the years previous. 

The veery is a medium-sized member of the thrush family with a plump body, long wings and legs, a small head, and a straight, narrow bill.

It has cinnamon brown upperparts and pale underparts, grey flanks, and indistinct spots on the cream-coloured breast. 

They get their name “Veery” from the song that males use to defend territory. A series of variations on veer, the song descends slightly in pitch, and resonates as if whirling around inside a metal pipe.

The veery showed astonishingly well and hopped out on the damp muddy field in-front of the sycamores right infant of me.  The bird actually reminded in the area right upon I rill the end of the week before disappearing at the weekend. 

Yellow-browed Warbler: This year we stayed in Scalloway at Easterhoull chalets's self-catering accommodation which was split into three people per chalets. They got a mixed reception from the guys but I liked then, they were warm, clean and really central to Lerwick and some good birding locations. 

Olive-backed Pipit: This was one of the highlights of the trip, I don't think I will ever see an OPB, a bird which is famous for being skulky and elusive as well as this bird.

This bird was right out in the open, walking and  foraging on the ground among the grass and close to the cover. It wasn't shy in coming right out in the open, a brilliant experience and like I said, a high light of the trip.

A fairly characteristic pipit due to the fresh plumage tones, defined facial pattern and marked breast streaking. Back olive-coloured with only faint streaking. Rump lacks streaking. Usually shows a pale and a black spot on rear cheeks. Legs pinkish, with short hind-claw, similar to Tree Pipit. Similar behaviour as Tree Pipit. 

Just like tree pipits they readily enter trees, and will also walk along branches. This bird was regal;y seen hopping and fluttering up on to perched in trees.

The bird took up residence at Voxter House & Walled Garden close to Brae, a grade A listed building and random rubble wall enclosing rectangular garden to south west of the main building. 

Coming back to our accommodation one evening from here Birdguides tweeted a rare bird, a local rare bird and one of my top most wanted birds, a snowy owl!

Snowy Owl: After getting some gen and figuring out what we need to do we arrived at the top of Ronas Hill and began the long, steep and tiresome hike upwards, towards the bird. 

it would be tough going as the terrain consist of bare, stony tundra; slightly boggy initially. No paths and few landmarks so good navigation.

Ronas Hill is the highest summit in Shetland, rising as a broad dome of stony, granite tundra above the great plateau of North Roe. This is a wild and windswept place but the views are superb, and the track up to the masts on Collafirth Hill makes for a high level start.

I was the first to arrive at the summit followed swiftly by Kristian and Patrick while the others were huffing and puffing their way through the bogs and over the stony slopes to the plateau.

We then found the group of birders who made an earlier start then us and were watching the bird from a very safe and respectful distance to the bird. 

It was hunkered sown out of the wind and rain, sandwiched between two late boulders before flying father uo to and more shuttled area of the slopes. 

They live primarily in the Arctic polar region, but can be seen as a migratory visitor to northern Britain. But I have here'd that this is a resident bird to Shetland. The Snowy Owl hunts by quartering over open land, searching for small mammals, insects and birds.

Snow Bunting: Another snowy bird that's more at home in the arctic from Scandinavia to Alaska, Canada and Greenland and migrate south in winter.

But an annual visitor to the UK during winter they were found all over Shetland, from Ronas Hill to the costal areas towards the south of the island. 

Snow bunting are always great to catch up with, pretty little bird that don't mind being photographed while Pershing on shoreline stones and rocks, it was good to add them to the trip list. 

We did have a few rainy, windy days were out birding was either inturupted or cancelled all together. Like in Shetland I guess, where the weather if fine somedays throughout the year, but the weather can change quickly in a day and you can experiance all season in a day. 

Yellow-browed Warbler: As the week progressed we connected with more YBW's, hearing their distinctive call from sycamores and willows across the island. 

Yellow-browed is the icing on the migratory cake. Where these little noisy warblers are, other great birds will be nearby. YBW's are a fixture in many a happy memory; of bushes humming with hungry birds, berries red and leaves reddening, the camaraderie of fellow delighted birders, the last autumn sunshine and the first storms.

White's Thrush: Another bird that broke during the late afternoon was this White's thrush, a rare Shetland Autumn speciality, considered one of the the "Shetland Big Five".

We got the first ferry across and were joined by most of the riders on Shetland and after a short tense wait the bird was seen well in flight.  Kristian and I went back on one of the slower days and got some better views of it on the deck. Well worth the muddy knees and elbows as he hunched down to see the bird under the woodland canopy. 

The largest thrush of west Palearctic, as big or at least as long as mistle thrush but heavier about bill, head, and body and proportionately shorter-tailed. Structure unusual: bill long and heavy, head large, and wings relatively long (though bluntly pointed) in comparison with tail; combined with undulating flight, gives woodpecker-like appearance. 

White's thrush are simply stunning birds, with golden- olive-buff above and yellow-white below, copiously scaled with black crescents on head and body and softly banded dark across primaries and primary coverts and along ends of all flight feathers. Underwing striped white, black, white, and grey from front to rear.

In recent years the track record of Shetland is unrivalled, compared to Scilly, or the Western Isles the Northern Isles have run away with the show. Rare Siberian have always been our big thing in the past and perhaps maybe now more than ever, but this year has been all about the New World megas!

Blyth's Reed Warbler: Another example of the Eastern birds we had was this Blyth's reed, a tricky bird to ID but with a call that can seperate it. the bird was agin, typically shy it took a while before it showed well. 

Yellow-browed Warbler: A river warbler was found on our second day but it took us several days to actually connect with it, typically elusive and in an area which was closed down in the afternoon due to its location to a school. 

When we did catch up with the river warbler the heavens opened, it was by far the west day we had for rain, we were all drenched, Garys wellies never recovered and some mositure got into my camera, thankfully only temporally.

My views were pretty poor, especailly compared to the Ham Wall bird I saw. Some folk in the same crowed didn't connect with it at all, disappointed for them the bird remained for a few days so hopefully they had another chance at it. 

Barred Warbler: One of the areas we favoured was Hoswick, a settlement in Sandwick in the south mainland of Shetland, Scotland, on the eastern part of the Dunrossness civil parish. It is separated from the rest of Sandwick by the Hoswick Burn and from Channerwick in the south by the hill on which the settlement is situated.

It was here we had good views of YBW's, barred warbler and RBF's, we spent ages here repeated walking down the streets and pi king birds up in the bushes, garden and roadside vegetation. 

As I write this blog post, sitting at home there has been an American yellow warble found here in Hoswick. Typically. 

Next year I will be looking for one, keeping my eyes open and hoping to struck, gold....no....strike yellow!

Red-breasted Flycatcher: I was lucky enough to find a RBF on a day when none where picked up, a bird hiding from the wind, taking shelter in a small garden. 

There's always a branch in the way! 

I managed to get the gang on t and eventually more birders saw it before it was cashed off by a robin and relocated in a sycamore tree a few streets over. 

Stejneger's Stonechat: This recent split of the former Common Stonechat Saxicola torquata into several species (including European Stonechat Saxicola rubicola, Siberian Stonechat and now Stejneger’s Stonechat) are becoming more common. 

Breeding in in central and eastern Siberia, Japan, Korea, northeastern China, and eastern Mongolia, and migrates south to southern China and Indochina in winter they are a typical eastern bird that can turn up on Shetland during Autumn. 

Magpie: Shetland famed for its for its large falls of Autumn migrants and perhaps not for magpies, this one we saw on Bressay the same day as the White's thrush was the first record for Bessay. These birds in a way are more rare on Shetland than the mega Whites's thrush!

Bluethroat: This long staying bluethroat was happily at home on a large dung pile, feeding and hiding in the tall vegetation in the middle of a sheep pen. 

The bluethroat is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher, Muscicapidae. It, and similar small European species, are often called chats.

It is a migratory insectivorous species breeding in wet birch wood or bushy swamp in Europe and across the Palearctic with a foothold in western Alaska. It nests in tussocks or low in dense bushes. It winters in the Iberian Peninsular, the northern half of Africa, and in southern Asia (among others including the Indian subcontinent).

Eastern Sub-alpine Warbler: Another new bird for me was this eastern race of sub-alp warbler, took a while to see in poor conditions but it eventually gave up hiding and showed  well along a fence line near the garden we were watching. 

Short-toed Lark: Sometimes known as the greater short-toed lark is a small passerine bird. It breeds in southern Europe, north-west Africa, and across temperate Asia from Turkey and southern Russia to Mongolia. This is a small pale lark, smaller than the skylark. 

We had such a good time, finding our own birds and chasing others, I had 4 new lifers including, the veery, White's thrush, Eastern Sub-alpine warbler and the snow owl. 

Marsh Warbler: And as a group we ticked 104 birds for the trip. We drank and ate our way through Lerwick and covered a ton of miles. 

Loved every minute of it, cheers lads. Here's to next year.