Portland Delivers

Pre-booking two nights at a bird observatory is always going to be a lottery. Will it be birdy fireworks, or a damp squib, or something in between? It is easy to assume that the number and quality of birds seen will be what make such a trip enjoyable or not, but reality is more nuanced than that...

Prior to Monday, the last time I went seawatching from Portland Bill in spring was almost exactly 20 years ago. And there is photographic proof, with a date stamp and period brown hair...

May 3rd, 2004. At the Portland Bill Obelisk. That's me on the far left.

I've written about that particular seawatch previously, but it was too good not to revisit occasionally. One highlight was a rare dark-phase Pom Skua - the only one I can recollect seeing - but the icing comprised two adult Long-tailed Skuas, my first ever in that plumage. All skuas are pretty awesome, but some especially so. On Monday morning I was surprised to overhear a birder in the Obelisk crowd talking about that seawatch. It sounded like he had been there too, and that those birds had left as vivid an impression with him as with me. On Monday afternoon I bumped into Seaton birder, Mike, at the Obelisk, and learned that he too had been present on May 3rd, 2004. There are only a dozen or so birders in that photo, and three at least were there again on Monday. Small world.

Monday

Monday's weather forecast made seawatching the obvious option. I started at 05:45 and packed up at 10:00. Initially there was just Somerset birder Paul Marshall and myself, but soon quite a crowd, including a guided party...

April 29th, 2024. The Obelisk crowd at 10:00.

More than four hours standing in one spot is not really my kind of birding, but it was okay. However, fast and furious it was not. My tally was 2 Arctic Skuas, 4 Bonxies, 8 Bar-tailed Godwits (flock), 29 Common Scoter, 25 Manxies, 4 Red-throated Divers, 13 Sandwich Terns, 1 Common/Arctic Tern and 1 Puffin. Thank goodness for all the to-ing and fro-ing of local auks, along with plenty of Gannets and Kittiwakes. There was always something to look at. Even so, the 'quality' birds were few and far between.

A lengthy plod around the Bill area produced 35 Wheatears, a female Redstart, 2 Whimbrel and a single Willow Warbler. Clearly the bushes were pretty dead. Back to the sea then...

Paul and Mike had been rewarded with a Pom just before 15:00, so hopes were high for an evening bird, but it wasn't to be. I added another Artic Skua and Bonxie to my tally for the day, plus 130 Manxies, and spent a fair bit of time mucking about with the camera...

This incredibly obliging Whimbrel was on the Bill rocks, looking fantastic in the early-evening sunshine.

Passing Kittiwakes. A novelty to have them at such close range.

Adult Gannet. Always impressive.

Photographing the passing seabirds was ostensibly so that I might get my eye in, and be ready for that Pom when it came. Photographing birds in flight is not the P950's strong suit but, hey-ho, I am ever the optimist.

At 19:30 it was back to the Obs for a curry, alcohol, and a fitful sleep. And a masochistic 04:30 alarm.

Tuesday

Once again the forecast dictated a seawatch. The first skua, an Arctic, passed at 05:54. Just over 20 minutes later, a message from Joe on the Chesil: 'Close Pom East 06:17'. Excellent. How long would it take to reach the Bill? Just minutes, surely. Ten? Fifteen? Anyway, I prepped the camera and waited. And waited. Finally, at 07:28 Roly spotted it. The bird was close-ish, but I found myself more anxious to scope it than worry about a rubbish photo. It had stumpy little spoons but looked awesome all the same. A Pom at last. By now there was quite a crowd at the Obelisk, including the previous day's guided party, and it was clear that more than a few had missed the bird entirely. Having arrived before sunrise I had a prime viewing spot, and felt a tiny bit guilty that others were less sheltered or had an obscured view. By 09:00 three more Arctic Skuas had gone by, including a lovely light-phase adult, and a fair few missed one or more of them too.

I have to confess, although birding in a crowd is very much not my thing I do enjoy eavesdropping on the chatter. Often I learn something, or hear entertaining stories. I sympathised with the bloke who lamented how he'd arrived moments after the Pom passed, but not so much with the one who grumbled about poor directions being given - there was literally not a single marker out there.

I had planned to pack up at 10:00 again, but as the crowd dwindled I found myself chatting with Julian from Somerset and enjoying his fascinating tales of overland skua passage in autumn. Whereby, in certain weather conditions, skuas fly overland from the Wash to the Bristol Channel, allowing clued-up Somerset birders to roll up at Minehead around midday and enjoy some terrific seawatching. Anyway, I decided that while Julian stayed, so would I. And unbeknown to me, Julian had decided that while Gav stayed, so would he. At 10:20 Julian declared, 'Skua! It's a Pom!' I raised my bins and saw there were actually two.

Julian had spotted the first bird early enough that I could prep the camera. And they were nice and close...

What a bird! Adult Pom Skua with a lovely set of spoons.

Well, that's about as good as I could reasonably expect with a superzoom and, as very few skuas indeed pass within half a mile of shore locally, about as good as I'll get for the foreseeable future! Incidentally, opportunities like this absolutely beg for some sort of 'burst' setting. All the above were taken with a single press of the shutter release.

Interestingly, the last three frames had no bird in them, and demonstrate one of the harsh realities of seawatching in a lumpy sea. Even when birds are close, they can vanish. You could so easily be looking at exactly the right spot, but at exactly the wrong moment...

This is about 75% of the full frame, and the final shot where the bird is visible.

Literally a fraction of a second later, this...

Note circled bit of foam, and compare with photo above. The Pom is still comfortably in that frame but hidden in a trough, behind a wall of water that to my eye is not even slightly obvious in the photo. It simply vanished!

So the Tuesday morning tally was 3 Poms, 4 Arctics, 4 Sanderlings (flock), 3 Whimbrel (flock), 8 Sandwich Terns, 5 Common/Arctic Terns, 180 Kitts, 3 Manxies, 1 Red-throated Diver and 14 Common Scoters.

And on the rocks were 2 Purple Sandpipers and a Turnstone...

Two Purps and a Turnstone.

In the end, Julian and I stuck it out until 10:45, but that was plenty. Despite the undoubted highlight of 3 Poms and 4 Arctics, there was an awful lot of not much in between.

In the afternoon I did a bit of lazy watching from the Obs, and jammed a 3cy Yellow-legged Gull. There are a million gulls around the Bill, and though I had looked carefully at lots and lots and lots of them, a needle in a haystack would be easier.

Land birds were very few and far between. I don't think I saw a single Wheatear on Tuesday, and the Obs nets had been woefully quiet. Then, out of the blue, a Pied Flycatcher appeared in the garden, and eventually in a net...

Not the most dapper of Pied Flies, but this first-summer male will surely look fantastic next year.

Tuesday evening was great. No birds, just people. Peter, the PBO Chairman; John, a writer from Wales; Pete and Nicky from St Albans, and me. And a drop or two of wine. Entertaining and memorable, and an unexpected trip highlight.

Another 04:30 alarm...

Wednesday

Calm, and a bit dismal...

Sunrise from the Obelisk.

Apart from a nice trio of Arctic Skuas past at 06:35 (one light-phase, two dark) there was almost nothing moving apart from Gannets and a few Kitts. The Gannets were dribbling by at a slow enough rate that I decided to count them, and to pack up when I reached 200. At roughly 199 I spied a distant pod of 10+ Common Dolphins, so stayed a bit longer than intended. At 07:19 I surrendered: 215 Gannets, 3 Arctic Skuas and a Med Gull.

Light but annoying rain made for a rather miserable and birdless plod about the Bill area. Though I did come across one of the colour-ringed Rock Pipits from a project which began last year...

Though never close, 'black AAJ' was quite readable with the help of a camera.

Despite talk of it being 'oriole weather', the closest I got to gaudy yellow thrills was this lot...

This bizarre convoy of oriole-coloured tankers followed one another into the Bill car park, before returning whence they came.

And so, home.

A great trip. I shall go again.

No Portland trip account would be complete without a snap of one of the Obs Quarry Little Owls.

Slim Pickings, But...

At this point in the season, a birder here in my West Dorset/East Devon locale might reasonably expect to have encountered at least a few of the following so-called common migrants: Whinchat, Grasshopper Warbler, Garden Warbler, Yellow Wagtail, Redstart, White Wagtail, Swift, and maybe Cuckoo. Less likely are Pied Flycatcher and Ring Ouzel - I might have seen more Hoopoes locally than springtime individuals of either - though I guess they ought probably to be on that list. In which case I suppose Hoopoe should as well! So there we are, 13 species, of which several should have fallen by April 27th.

Yet I have seen just one of them. And bizarrely it is Ring Ouzel. Twice.

The first time was last Tuesday. On afternoon visits to Cogden I like to work the hedges inland of the coast path. I realise that by this time of day many migrants will likely have moved on through, but there are sometimes a few stragglers to be found here. In the few years that I've been birding Cogden, a number of spots have been noticeably consistent producers, and it was from one of these that a silvery-winged thrush burst forth and flew about fifty yards away from me before diving into a hedge. I knew it was a Ring Ouzel, but views were so fleeting and poor that I couldn't even sex it. Ten minutes later it still hadn't emerged, and that was that.

Amazingly, the same thing happened this afternoon, roughly 400m west of Tuesday's occurrence. Again, rear views of a silvery-winged thrush piling into a hedge, though this time I could see it was brown. However, ten minutes later it did the decent thing and flew straight across the field, giving excellent side-on views, and perched up in the far hedge about 80m away, facing me. By the time I had the camera ready a few seconds later it had dropped out of sight, or so I thought. But maybe...maybe...could that be it?

I have seen some great Ring Ouzel photos on Bluesky lately, lovely portraits of this striking migrant. This photo is not like those ones...

Full frame at 2000mm zoom. Spot the Ring Ouzel.

Anyway, the bird was brown, with a dull, off-white bib, so presumably a female. Although four days have elapsed since my first Ouzel encounter, the species is scarce enough here that I cannot help wondering if it is the same bird. In view of the season's conjugal urges it seems unlikely, but quite a coincidence if not.

Just for clarity...

Facing right, but looking at the camera. Silvery wing edgings, scaly underparts, off-white bib and dull yellowish bill, all visible. Just.

By quite a big margin, these two encounters are way ahead of the rest of my own spring birding results. Dribs and drabs would be a generous description of things so far. To be fair, I haven't been out much, but the local WhatsApp chatter - or rather, lack of - tells me I'm not missing a lot. An hour at West Bay shortly after sunrise this morning gave me one Whimbrel, one Common Sandpiper, four Brents, and three single Wheatears which materialised out of thin air on various bits of rock armour...

Female Wheatear views the shore ahead and thanks its genetic programming for omitting West Bay from the list of potential breeding spots.

A few more recent pics...

Yellowhammer this afternoon, uttering its single-note call. With reference to the previous post, without using a 'burst' setting on the camera it is highly unlikely I would have caught it with its bill open, as intended.

Willow Warbler. At least there have been a few of these.

Thank goodness for Wheatears.

My first Whimbrel of 2024, one of five on 21st April.

A proper fat soldier of a Wheatear.

Another one...

...and one more.

The first passage Pom Skua passed Portland this morning. Lovely. Yes, it might have been a bit slow to get going this year but I'm sure there are plenty of springtime thrills to come...

Photography Tips for the Not-a-Photographer

Like loads of birders, I take photographs but am not a photographer. I like to decorate this blog with them, and a visual record of any unusual birds I am jammy enough to encounter is always nice to have. As regular readers will know, since the death of my Nikon P900 super-zoom, I now use a P950. Like the P900 it is lightweight and quite versatile, but a DSLR it ain't. To be the relatively inexpensive Jack-of-all-trades that it is, serious compromises have been necessary. For example, low light and birds in flight are a massive challenge. Even so, on the very rare occasion that a bird presents the opportunity for an exceptional photo, it can do a pretty good job. The object of this post is to demonstrate that decent pics can be had from these super-zoom cameras, and to offer a couple of suggestions for maximising one's chances of a nice result.

Back in the spring lockdown of 2020, I stumbled across a singing Lesser Whitethroat that posed perfectly. The following snap involved no playback or any other nefarious activity, just jam...

Singing Lesser Whitethroat, April 2020

I am confident that I'll never better that shot, and the same is true of the following Whinchat pic from May 2021...

Two members of the Whinchat display team.

Talking of Whinchats, this one from September last year...

A few more examples of photographs that make this not-a-photographer very happy...

The Cogden Tawny Pipit. May 2021.

Just a female Wheatear with a blue-sea backdrop, but pretty sweet.

Clifftop Raven in monochrome.

So, tips.

Not being a photographer, I always feel a bit of a fraud offering photography tips. All I can say is that what follows works for me, with my camera. DSLR owners would doubtless leave me eating dust, but if you're one of the many birders who carry a super-zoom, here you go...

1. Get off 'auto' if you can. The P950 also has a 'bird-watching' mode, but I've never used it. Learning how ISO, aperture, and shutter speed influence the final image, and how best to employ the various metering and auto-focus options, has been 100% worth the effort. I did write some stuff about my initial steps with the P900, including some settings I used at the time. I've moved on since then, and the P950 is a little different anyway, but the post highlights a few useful principles and might be helpful for anyone starting out. Find it HERE.
   
2. Use a 'burst' setting, so that multiple shots are taken rapidly with one press of the shutter release. The P950 recovers from a burst of shots somewhat quicker than the P900 did, but there is still a brief delay before it is ready for action again. Even so, within a burst there may be one shot that is sharper than the others, or captures the perfect pose.

And that's it. Number one is the key I reckon, but definitely requires the most work.

Woodchat

March came and went in a soggy flash, and April is threatening to do the same. Birding time has been difficult to wangle. At the very end of the month I have a couple of nights booked at Portland Bird Observatory, and cannot wait. Meanwhile I shall scrape what I can get. And on Saturday afternoon there was finally a little window, through which I jumped quite eagerly.

Earlier that morning, Mike Morse posted news of a Woodchat Shrike at West Bex. By late afternoon it had moved west to Cogden. I really didn't think I was going to find time to visit, but somehow did. And boy, was I glad...

Gorgeous! Woodchat Shrike.

At one point it came close enough to get a few proper frame-fillers - like the one above - but mostly it was further away. The resultant photos reflect that, with a lot more habitat in shot. Much as I like to see rictal bristles in my birdy pics, my favourite photos are always those which show the bird in its environment; they seem so much better at conveying that feeling of what it was like to be there...

It was finding plenty to eat. Here with a hefty bee.

Same bee, demolition underway.

What a bee sees, moments before death.

Probably my favourite shot...or maybe that first back-on photo above. Hard to choose.

So yes, this post has just been an excuse to give my choicest Woodchat photos an airing. A lovely bird, and worth every minute I spent with it. Most of which, by the way, were on my own. En route to the bird's location I passed two birders heading back from watching it, and on arrival there were four more. But they too were soon gone, so most of my half-hour there was blissful solitude. I've no idea how many came and went earlier in the day, but I'll bet it wasn't many. If this bird had been in North Norfolk...

West Dorset is such a quiet place to go birding. And so rewarding.

The Problem with Self-Found Listing

I have a love/hate relationship with 'self-found' listing. There is an appealing purity to the idea of keeping a list of birds which are all your own work, so to speak, but for me that idea is notional at best. There are a thousand reasons why I struggle with the whole concept of self-found, and here are a few of them...

First, the term itself. I mean, self-found has more than a whiff of tautology about it, surely? Why not simply keep a list of your finds and call it a Finds List? Why add the 'self' bit? After all, who else's birds would you include in your finds list? The term 'self-found' conveys a teeny bit too much 'Look! I found that bird! Aren't I clever!' for my liking, and doesn't sit comfortably.

Right, that's my Pedants Corner soap-box issue dealt with. So let's get on with the practical problems of keeping a self-found list.

Over the years I have noticed that the main concern of birders interested in keeping a self-found list is this: what exactly can you count?

This is such a burning issue that a whole set of rules was once compiled to address it. It must be almost 20 years ago that the fabled Punkbirders published their self-found rules, to wide acceptance at the time I think. If - like I did just prior to writing this - you google 'punkbirder self-found rules', you will be disappointed. There is no active link, and I suspect the old website may be defunct. However, there is a ton of other stuff on self-found. Hampshire Ornithological Society has its own self-found rules, three-and-a-half pages of them. Various scenarios are dealt with, illustrating what you can and cannot count as self-found. The writer points out that it is just a bit of fun and acknowledges that some birders will choose to be stricter with themselves, or more lenient. And this is one reason I struggle, because when it comes to rare and scarce birds I simply know if I found it or not, and a load of rules (to bend or not bend) are superfluous.

For example, if I am birding in company and someone else claps eyes on the Calandra Lark three seconds before me, then I didn't find it, did I? Or, suppose I walk up to someone peering at what they think is a male Pied Flycatcher, and I happen to realise that it is actually a Collared Flycatcher, well, I didn't find that either. Of course, chance would be a fine thing, but honestly, how could I in good conscience add either bird to my self-found list? Yet the rules allow both.

And then we have the grey area of scarce breeders and winter visitors, where the rules state that your bird must be well away from known sites in order to count as self-found. How well away? I have no idea. Rock Dove must be tricky to self-find. And I do struggle with the notion of self-finding common birds. 'Yep, I managed to add Coal Tit to my self-found year list today', said nobody, ever, puffing out their chest a little. I suppose these birds just have to go on the list in order to inflate it as much as possible, so that when you compare your list to someone else's...

And it is here that I completely lose interest. The whole idea of competitive self-found listing seems pointless to me, no matter how much 'just for fun' it is claimed to be. With all sorts of rules being applied - or not applied - at the whim of each individual, how can any comparison be valid?

Still, I am well aware that some birders consider their self-found list to be a sacred document, and totally get that.

Stone-curlew at Cogden, definitely on the finds list that I don't keep.

Obviously, the main reason for my stance on self-found listing is so that no-one ever asks me what my self-found list is.

Avalon Awayday

Yesterday we enjoyed a guided tour of Somerset's Avalon Marshes, courtesy of friends who live in the area. It is hard to believe that this collection of reserves is mostly less than 30 years old. What was once an industrial wasteland of peat extraction is now home to a ridiculous number of quality marshland birds. A quick photographic summary of the day's highlights...

Great White Egrets are a common sight on the Avalon Marshes. This one has the black bill of a breeding-plumaged adult.

Hen Harriers are definitely not a common sight, especially pristine males like this one. Its close pass was totally unexpected, and I was way too slow with the camera. The first 'grey ghost' I have seen for many years.

Two Snipe, probably resting up until nightfall.

Drake Pintail. Always a winner.

Spotted Redshank at Catcott Lows. Sheltering from the wind, it was almost always partially hidden by tufts of sedge etc.

Spotshank is quite a scarce bird locally. Occasional on the Axe Estuary and marshes, but I have yet to see one in West Dorset.

Great White Egret, sporting the more familiar yellow bill.

Marsh Hariers were everywhere; frequently there would be more than one on view at a time.

Another Marsh Harrier...

...and Marsh Harrier again, a 2nd-summer male I think.

This pair of Ring-necked Ducks was accompanied by two other females. Haven't seen many of these locally either. Well, none actually.

We had a great day out. The accompanying soundtrack of booming Bittern was a regular reminder that we were somewhere special. At one point, a tight flock of 50+ Cattle Egrets whisked distantly past like a tattered sheet in the wind. Totally surreal!

Back to reality today, and a local lunchtime walk. A couple of West Dorset buntings...

Lovely male Yellowhammer.

Female Cirl Bunting, showing rump nicely.

In order to separate female Cirl Bunting from female Yellowhammer, field guides helpfully point out that you should be looking for an olive-grey rump. In the photo above, the bird certainly has an olive-grey rump, but it clearly has warm, chestnut upper tail coverts too. I've only checked two field guides (the ubiquitous and excellent Collins Guide, plus the oldie-but-goodie MacMillan Field Guide to Bird Identification) but the Cirl Bunting illustrations in both depict a totally olive-grey area from tail to lower back, including the upper tail coverts. When a birder relatively unfamiliar with the species (like I was a couple of years ago) comes across a putative female Cirl, I guess it might be a bit discouraging to see a bunch of chestnut feathers where the Collins Guide is telling you there shouldn't be any. All I can say is: don't be put off.

Finally, there were three Wheatears. So of course there's a photo...