13/01/2024 Lunt Meadows, Sefton ecks

Green-winged Teal: Between the family duties around the festive break and now being back at work its took me a while to get myself over to Lunt. 

This yank teal has made itself at home here for a few months now and I'm glad its stuck around so  I could go and see it. The bird was associating with the Eurasian teal on the great-white egret pool at the far end of the site. 

It eventually showed really well after drifting in from the submerged vegetaion and took a power nap on the nearside bank close to the sluice. 

Richardson's Cackling Goose: Another bird that has taken up residence at Lunt, albeit for a much short time so far is this diminutive cousin of the Canada goose, the cackling goose. With stubbier bills, steeper foreheads and a shorter neck they side by side they really do stand out.

Cackling geese that frequently in the wild in the UK, usually associate themselves with either barnacle or pink-footed geese. However there has also been a number of records of birds appearing on their own or with feral geese and these are often assumed to be escaped birds - this may be the case but it is entirely plausible that at least some are wild birds too.

Smew: A good morning spent on the reserve topped off by a drake smew, this bird initially gave me the run around and I saw it fly off from the main lake land on one of the border pools. 

09/01/2024 Heybridge Maldon, Essex

Northern Waterthrush: Local birder Eddie Aldridge first saw the bird when he captured it on a wildlife camera in his back garden and showed it to a man walking nearby, then the chaos broke loose. 

The next day more than a hundred birders braved the damp and dreary weather hoping to get a glimpse, descending on the small village in search of a rare American warbler. They relocated the bird foraging within a ditch close to the house it was first seen. 

 This rare American passerine was one bird I wouldn't have dreamed of seeing this January, the first big big of 2024. So keen to go down I shook off what was my lingering cold and headed down. 

This bird is well at home on this small ditch where it has been roosting at the base of the concrete culvert for over a week. The bird has been fairly reliable, returning to its roost site and leaving each morning before foraging along the damp banks of the ditch and the floating vegetation around the mouth of the culvert. 

This bird is not actually a thrush species but a warbler, one that has a close relationship with its waterside habitats or which comprise of boggy thickets, especially willows and alders, and wooded swamps. At other times, it also frequents mangroves. In migration and winter, it uses a variety of wooded habitats, near water.

The bird gets it name from its thrush like appearance, it is beilved that they resemble spot-breasted thrushes (e.g., wood thrush and hermit thrush) from which they take their name. 

No bigger then a water pipit the Northern waterthrush doesn't look or act much like other warblers, which typically are flitty, fast-moving birds. Perhaps as an adaptation to their ground-feeding habits, they are brown and white and streak-breasted and they walk about slowly on the ground, constantly bobbing their tails. 

The fist recored Northern waterthrush was back in 1985 on St Agnes, Scilly's and the last one in the UK was recored in 2011 again on Scilly so it's been sometime since the last one. 

The bird was relatively close and confiding, despite the large crowds of onlookers, the biggest issue was the weather, cold, freezing an dull, with grey clouds is was difficult to get a high resolution image. I'm not complaining, just always wanting better from my photos. 

Good to see that 2024 is off to a great start, let's hope this is a first of many new ticks for the list this year and a good sign of things to come. 

02/02/2024 Martin Mere WWT, Lancashire

Red-breasted Goose: Happy New Year. Here we are are in 2022 and I ended the year with 25 new lifers, putting me on 450. One of my most successful years with too many highlights to name.

No New Years outing with any birding chums, so instead it was a New Years day trip to Martin Mere with the family. The hope was to see the long staying RBG which was taken up residence on the Mere and I wasn't disappointed. 

Plastic fantastic or the real deal.....?

I saw this same bird back on the 3rd of December, on the edge of a vast salt marsh with tens of hounds of pink-footed geese. Seemingly acting like a truly wild bird, albeit it not with its peered carrier species such as Brent geese or white-fronted geese. 

Now its settled at Martin Mere and is feeding right in the open and close to the viewing screens, foraging on the grassy bank. it still comes and goes with pink-footed geese but now its showing this well.

A lovely looking bird but surely not doing itself any favours regarding its provenance! I know fly who have ticked it and I know some folk who still need it but won't entertain going to see it as its now acting more like one of Martin Meres captive birds.  

After watching the bird I headed back over to the park and collected dawn and Autumn before having a fun and enjoyable walk around the duck pens. 

Brambling: We eventually checked out the other hides were we had two marsh harrier and a nice kingfisher from the Harrier Hide.

Autumn was getting restless so we move don to the Janet Keir Hide.

It was here we had two brambling that were visiting the bird feeders, another reason I chose a New Years walk at Martin Mere. These brambling have been around for a few weeks now and if you get lucky and time your visit right they can be pretty showy.

So another year over and on to the next, what will be the big bird of 2024?

23/12/2023 Crosby Marina, Sefton, Merseyside

Black-throated Diver: With Christmas fast approaching I have been keen to get out and bird, it won't be long and I will be back in work so decided to meet Kristian and had out loacally starting with the long staying black-throated diver at  Crosby Marina Lake.

Black-throated divers are large waterbirds, larger than a great crested grebe but smaller than a cormorant in size. They look smart in their summer plumage, with a black throat, silky grey head and neck, and a black and white-chequered back. In the winter, black-throated divers turn a very dark grey above and white below, with an obvious white patch on their rear flanks. 

In their summer plumage they have vertical white stripes at the side and a short collar of white spots, resembling a barcode. Out of breeding plumage black-throated divers have grey-brown backs with white spots and a white patch on their flanks. They have grey crowns and napes and white forenecks bordered with fine black lines.

It took a short while to relocate the bird, walking in the opposite direction din't help. one we found it the bird was far out from the Activity Centre. 

Eventually the bird kept diving and swimming closer and closer and showed really well. 

If I don't manage to post before the big day let say Happy Christmas to all my blog readers, hope you all have a great day and again, thank you so much for liking on my blog links and reading through my posts. 

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. 

12/11/2023 Abberton Reservoir, Essex

Canvasback: There's no other way to spend a Sunday then twitching a rare bird with good friends. This time it was a trip to Essex for a bird that hasn't been seen on our shores for over twenty years. 

Native to North America these birds have a well-established breeding population through central Canada, north through the middle of the continent into central and northern Alaska.

Here is a nice comparrison between our own common pochard and the yanky canvasback which shows that male canvasback have a wedge shaped chestnut red head and neck, a long black bill and black breast.

The bird gave us a bit of a run around as during the morning it was flocking with over 200 common pochard and it wasn't until they dispersed across the water and landed on the smaller reservoir and began feeding. 

Apologies for the poor record shots, all taken at some distance and through my scope, far from ideal. 

 

08/11/2023 Linford Lakes Nature Reserve, Buckinghamshire

Little Crake: News broke the night before of a  with some images following the first reports of a little crake showing incredibly well right infant of the hide at Linford Lakes. Luckily I was already pencilled in for a survey near Kettering so wasn't too far from the bird.

After making preparations to start early I headed down when I was finished. Linford Lakes is a permit only nature reserve and thankfully Simon Nichols and the other volunteers arranged access and worked hard to get folk to man the gates and take donations. 

The reserve is ideal for bird and wildlife watchers, photographers and for those who enjoy nature and the unique environment that is found at the reserve. When I arrived the bird was on full show, albeit further over into the reedbeds and not right in front of the hide like it has been.

Can't complain though as crakes are typically known to be shy, skulking birds. 

These smart little birds breeding habitat is reed beds in Europe, mainly in the East, and just into western Asia. This species is migratory, wintering in Africa.

08/11/2023 Flamborough, East Riding of Yorkshire

Red-headed Bunting: These birds breed way over in Central Asia where it is common throughout most of its range and migrates south to India for the winter. Although this individul has found itself on the Yorkshire coast. 

A particularly tricky bird to pin down on ID as in their winter plumage they can appear similar to their cousins the black-handed bunting.

Fortunately DNA was collected by the way of a feather and sent over to Dr Martin Collinson, a renowened scientist who carries out analysis on bird DNA and has a big part to play in the identification, and sexing of rare and scares birds that find their way on to our shores. 

The DNA results confirmed that the bird was indeed a red-handed bunting, and pending a review from the British Ornithologists Record Committie (BOURC) this could well be a first for Britain. 

05/11/2023 Stodmarsh National Nature Reserve, Kent

Solitary Sandpiper:  This small inconspicuous wader should be halfway on its annual migration between Canada and Central America.

Instated its annual migration has been disrupted by strong westerly winds and storms which has brought it all the way to Kent.

The bird has remained pretty settled and has been here for over a week now, but with work commitments and the baby not being too well with a virus I have been unable to go down until this weekend. 

Stodmarsh National Nature Reserve (NNR), is located just outside Canterbury between Stodmarsh Village and Grove Ferry Picnic Site and is one of the largest seedbed habitats in the South East. The reserve consists of reedbed, open water, and grazing marsh with some wet woodland.

Upon my arrival I headed over to the Reedbed Hide and parked myself on the standard hard wooden benches that you find in bird hides, you know the ones that soon turn into a medieval torture device after a few hours of sitting on!

Eventually a small sandpiper comes flying in low over the hide landing on the area of cut reed in front of the hide. To everyones disappointment this turned out to be a green sand. But with a bit of paitcence and a numb back site the solitary dipped in and started to feed on this cut reed infant of the hide. 

It was good to compare both the green and solitary sand side by side in the same area. The solitary was smaller, greyer then the green sandpiper which has a distinct contacts been the upper and lower parts. 

the solidarity sands legs are typical a dull olive but this bird had almost yellowish legs with spotted striped upper parts of its tail. 

I was blown away by how well this bird was showing for us, all the other previous sightings had been mixed with dissent views. 

After seeing this bird I will be double checking any green sands I stumbled across out in the field, you never know.