Riches

I sympathise with those living in densely populated areas, far from the birding locations they love. In that respect I have an embarrassment of riches locally. I'm going to spend the rest of this post spreading some of it out before you, and I really hope it doesn't provoke envy, or any other negative feeling. My intention is simply to share it, to offer some vicarious birding for those less fortunate than I am right now. Please accept it in that spirit.

Very early this morning I took a walk...

Written on a sheet of paper, my tally of birds would look pretty unspectacular. A few Wheatears, 3 Swallows, my first 2 Whitethroats of the year. Some other bits and bobs. But in glorious Technicolor it looks a whole lot different. I love this modest camera...

First Wheatear of the day, in classic pose...

I counted 10 Wheatears in total. Here are two more of them.

And by way of a change...Rock Pipit.

Then came a non-birdy interlude. By complete fluke I came across some adders. I haven't seen an adder for quite a few years, and had forgotten how splendid they are. To be fair I rarely make the effort to look for them, but after this encounter will try harder I think. The photo shows a pair. The male is the silvery-grey one, and the browner, enormously fat one is the female. If you click on the photo and look at that little dark area at the tip of the arrow, you can see reptilian scales. Although I didn't realise it at the time, that female extends well beyond the frame of my shot. She is massive.

Adder pair

Beady red eye of the male

Obviously that was the stand-out highlight of my walk, but Wheatears continued to parade shamelessly, and I could not resist...

And to finish off, there were also fish...

Grey Mullet - quite large ones too.

I'm pretty gutted that Steve Gale's Wheatear Challenge is no longer a going concern, because this year I would be romping it. Well, maybe not, but I cannot seem to leave them alone.

Pandora's Box?

This lockdown thing is quite evidently encouraging many of us birders, naturalists, etc, down paths we never saw ourselves taking. In my case, it's got me garden listing. And I'm pleased to say that my #BWKM0 list crept up to 41 today, via Kestrel and Mallard. But keeping a garden list is something which probably the majority of birders do anyway. Hardly a big deal then.

But what is a big deal, and as far as I am concerned has prompted a paradigm shift in birding behaviour, is nocmig. To be honest I had rarely given much thought to what might fly over my garden after dark, and I certainly never envisaged myself sitting outside in multiple layers, ears cocked in anticipation. But that's what I've been doing. And following hours of nothing, on Monday night a Moorhen flew over calling. Wow! And last night two did likewise. And I caught one of them on a basic voice-recording app on my phone, and was pathetically chuffed.

Anyway, even before this cornucopia of nocturnal avian riches, I had already taken the plunge and ordered a proper digital recorder. It arrived today...

Oh dear... 

It was not cheap, but my philosophy with kit like this is to buy something decent if I can, knowing there will always be a market for it second-hand if my enthusiasm proves to have overreached itself.

I am now at the bottom of yet another steep learning curve. My intention (at least initially) is to use it in harness with my ears. I would equate it with a birder using a camera. Identifying a tricky bird from images later is perfectly okay with me, and on that basis I would happily 'tick' anything I recorded and heard, even if I couldn't ID it at the time. Of course there are other scenarios re nocmig, but I'm steering well clear of them just at the moment...

Naturally I have carefully retained the packaging. Just in case.

PS. It is 20:55. Guess where I am sitting right this second.

Includes a Garden Whale

On Monday night I settled down for a bit of naked nocmigging, expecting the usual silence, and within a few minutes a Moorhen called, directly overhead! Unmistakable, just the sort of noise you'd hear if you startled one out of the bankside vegetation during a stroll round your local lake. I was ridiculously chuffed, out of all proportion to the status of the species involved. Number 36 on my #BWKM0 list, and a new one for the garden.

Last night I gave it an hour. Within seven minutes I heard a faint, presumably distant, Canada Goose. Number 37.

Sitting in the garden after dark, ears cocked, has become slightly addictive. My hit rate is dire, yet I keep trying. I simply cannot help myself. However, I am not the world's best at calls, and need to up my game. And I will. More on that later...

This morning it was another long walk. A chap in West Bay noticed my bins and said "Are you looking for birds?" Responding to my affirmative, he went on: "There's a nice Sandwich Tern perched on a buoy in the harbour." It was great to get gen from a fellow 'exerciser'. There currently seems to be a marked increase in friendliness (in a two-metres-plus kind of way) when locals encounter one another. I don't think I'm imagining it. And if it helps me see birds, terrific...

Phwoarr! Sarnie. What a cracker.

And another, slightly more distant shot to give it a bit more context...

Great hair-do.

Not too long after this I came across a fresh-in male Wheatear. I will never tire of Wheatears. Especially spring males. They are simply outstanding little things. I spent a bit of time with this bird, and although it was never confiding, the P900 did it proud. I believe there is a saying: 'you can never have enough Wheatear photos'...

There isn't? Please let there be.

I am a sucker for this pose. As you will notice...

Leatherjacket breakfast.

And while we're on chats...

Stonechat. Having them breeding on my doorstep is easy to take for granted. Mustn't.

Most of the rest of the day was spent in the garden. Adding to the #BWKM0 list has been a slow but steady process. As of today I am on 39, with Long-tailed Tit added yesterday and House Martin today. Best bird this afternoon was Red Kite x4. Three came over simultaneously (two went W, one S) and another single S later, encouraged on its way by a Herring Gull.

Red Kites. The two that drifted W

And the one that got grief.

And finally, cetacean of the day. Around 10:55 a plane flew over. Planes are infrequent right now, so I had a look at it. The odd shape reminded me of the subject of a tweet which Cliff Smith posted a few days back, and belatedly I thought to get the camera out and take a snap. This decision coincided with it heading away into cloud, and the two photos are shockingly bad. However, it is pretty amazing what you can extract from a digital image if you're prepared to be brutal...

On the left: my original smear. On the right: Beluga! BGA114D Airbus en route from Toulouse to Chester. With grateful thanks to John Down for the gen.

Needless to say, this is the first whale I've seen from my garden.

Earlier I mentioned upping my game re bird calls etc. Ooh! That reminds me! Today I heard a singing Goldcrest. Which is brilliant. Why? Because I could hear it. Some ears of similar vintage have not heard Goldcrest for a while. So I am pleased. Anyway, I was saying...

I have ordered a digital sound recorder. Living as I do in Dorset, one day something is going to fly over me in the dark, going 'plik'. Once. Faintly. And when that happens I want to be able to save that 'plik' for posterity. To replay it at my leisure, time and time again. To view its smudgy little spectrogram with self-satisfied delight.

After all, one cannot live in Dorset and not have Ortolan on the garden list.

Walking. Not Gardening.

I must write a gardening post soon. I am well aware that many birders are all-round naturalists, and will be very interested in my efforts to tempt creepy-crawlies into the grounds of NQS Manor. Actually I am a shocking gardener, and must tell you about when I...

No. Another time.

Anyway, while I was up to my knuckles in green fingers today, at least 5 Swallows went through, and a bonus Red Kite which actually set off the gulls. The first one this spring to do so; the others have been too high. Swallow brings my #BWKM0 list to 35. Frustration of the day was an egret sp which went over N. Only my second egret from the garden, and I caught only the back end. A two-second glimpse really. Dark feet! Possibly. I ran around to the front, but the bird was hidden behind trees. Yeah. I know. Of course it was a Little Egret, but you've got to take any and every opportunity to gee yourself up a bit in these #BWKM0 times, right?

Yesterday I went for a serious exercise walk. Nice and early, and all the way to the sea. Obviously I didn't actually seawatch, but a couple of scans produced some 30+ Common Scoter heading E. So that's what the treacherous creatures are doing; migrating by day, over the sea, instead of by night, over my house. Two ducks which obviously were not Scoters, but were a little too far out for my bins, succumbed to the P900...

Nikon Coolpix P900 sorts distant ducks. Wigeon.

I am so gutted that the spring seawatching season has been blown out of the water by this poxy virus. I am really looking forward to trying to get skua photos/video with this camera one day. One day.

Other stuff from the big walk...

Confiding Skylark. It was great to hear quite a few in song.

A presumed migrant Mipit having a breather.

One of just two Wheatears seen. A bit coy.

Call that a bill? This is a bill. (Movie reference for the almost-elderly) Raven.

First Holly Blue of the year. Always a real treat.

There was basically nobody about during the outbound part of my walk, but a few more on the return. Living in an area with such a modest population density has its advantages when the only folk you ought to be encountering are locals, because there are relatively so few of them. I would hate to be trying to get some socially-distanced exercise in a city.

Most of the day was then spent in the garden. Bird-wise unexciting, until a dark shape appeared, heading S. I grabbed the camera, switched it on, zoomed, focused, and rattled off a single burst of three shots before it went out of eyeshot. Cormorant! New for the BWKM0 list. We get the odd one in winter, but they're not common.

Cormorant. Sometimes I can do flight shots.

It is now about 22:00. For the last three nights I've been outside about now, wrapped up in winter clobber, listening carefully to the sound of an empty sky. I reckon I've given it a fair crack.

A night off, I think. I'm not a complete idiot.

Naked Nocmig and Other Stories

Last night nearly the whole birding community was mobilised in a shared endeavour: getting Common Scoter on the BWKM0* list. After dark, seething hordes of them lift off from their wintering grounds and undertake a stealth migration. Their nocturnal route takes them overland, and their calls can be heard from the ground. It's a route which carefully avoids Bridport.

I was outside in the amazing silence for two hours from 22:45. The only definite bird noises I heard were an optimistic Robin and something which sounded like a muted version of a Great Spotted Woodpecker's 'kik', presumably a Tawny Owl. Ultra-distant dogs are a pain. Their yaps and yelps can easily sound like an interesting flight call. Or perhaps it's the other way around, and I mucked up several cool birds by dismissing them as dogs.

So, of the 5,320 birders either outside on the patio or recording last night, it seems that just me and three others failed to get Common Scoter.

Naked nocmig? That's the acoustic kind, with ears, as opposed to the electronic version, with its microphones, recorders and software...and blissfully sleeping operators.

I did make one schoolboy error. I thought it would be pleasant to start the session with a nice cup of tea and some biscuits. The moment I bit into my first chocolate and ginger cookie, I realised I shouldn't have. Crunch, crunch, CRUNCH! It's deafening. From then on it was 'dunk and suck'.

I shall try again, but it was not an auspicious beginning...

My BWKM0 list is pretty rubbish. I'm on 33 right now. Today's additions were Coal Tit, Bullfinch and Grey Wagtail. The sky was enlivened by a Red Kite - my first for several days - and up to six Buzzards, plus one or more Sparrowhawks and a Raven.

My first hirundine of 2020 was a Swallow on April 1st while out for a bike ride.

This might be Buff-tailed Bumblebee. Whatever, it's number 2 on the bee list.

Raptor Watch Squad. Very useful to have around.

Nikon P900 on a tripod. ISO 100 and a 2" shutter delay. Very pleasing

I've heard tell that you can set up your scope and point it at the full moon, and then enjoy the spectacle of nocturnally migrating birds passing across its glowing orb as silhouettes. I first heard about this back in the very early '80s when I was quite new to proper birding. The bloke who told me about it was a well-known (at the time) London birder, a lot older than me, and he happily bragged about the two Cranes which had repaid his moon-watching efforts just the other night. I lapped it up of course. The notion of such 'advanced' birding, and the skills it clearly required, impressed me hugely. However, as I later learned, the birder in question was actually a notorious stringer...

For some reason I have never forgotten that little experience, and have consequently not once pointed my scope at the full moon and sat down for a session of moon-migging. Have I missed anything?

Who said 'Loads of Scoter!'?

Blue Tit posing.

Coal Tit. Not an everyday garden bird for me.

Slow worm today. Just look at that slinky perfection.

* That's 'Birdwatching at Kilometre Zero'

Exercise and Birds

Do my fellow bloggers ever wonder, like I do, what impels our audience to click on a post and read it? Sure, sometimes it will be because the subject matter is clearly going to be of interest, something topical or controversial perhaps. But what about the mundane, everyday posts? Because that is what the majority are. Speaking personally, often I click and read because of the person behind the keyboard. The vast majority I've never met, but over time have come to enjoy their virtual company enough to want to spend a few minutes in it, whatever they want to talk about. So if that's why you are reading this, thank you, because 'mundane' and 'everyday' is what we have here today...

For Mrs NQS and me, 2019 was a rubbish year in one or two profound ways. None of this stuff ever makes the blog, and I guess this is generally true for other bloggers too. Life is life, and we all have our various coping mechanisms to help smooth the ups and downs, but baring all on the internet is not one of mine! Last year, feverish DIY helped a lot, but there was a cost; my exercise regime gradually went from regular to sporadic to non-existent. Up until yesterday I hadn't been on a proper bike ride for almost 12 months.

I own three bikes, and watching them grow a fine stubble of dust has been a constant source of shame. A few weeks ago I started running again, and quickly gave myself a knee injury in the usual way - by doing too much, too soon. Being about 20 pounds heavier doesn't help. So yesterday I wheeled out my winter bike, gave it a clean, adjusted the brakes, lubed the chain and took it for a spin.

The winter bike? It has mudguards and 28mm tyres, and a steel frame of leisurely geometry. But none of that influenced my choice. No, it has one other, more pertinent attribute. It has low gears. Very low. I am so unfit right now...

Grimly, I took it to Eggardon Hill. The climb that begins with Spyway Road is my go-to fitness tester, and I was determined to somehow navigate its assorted ramps without stopping. The first half is the worst, with a nasty stretch of 16-18%, but I paced myself. My strategy was basic. Engage bottom gear at the foot of the hill and keep turning the pedals. It worked a treat. There is a Strava segment based on the first 2/3 of the climb. Once upon a time I turned myself inside out to do it in 8'15". Yesterday I took a cool 13 minutes plus.

Eggardon Hill. Looking back, a sliver of distant shiny sea just visible.

At the top of Eggardon Hill is an expanse of farmland, and I passed a nice flock of Corn Buntings, with a few Yellowhammers for colour. It was blowing pretty hard though, a blasting cold NE, and the spooked birds were whisked rapidly away. I was glad of winter clobber and thick gloves.

Looking sideways. towards Devon. The view from this road has got to be one of the best in Dorset.

The worst of the climb is done at this point, and through eyes stinging with sweat you can enjoy the stunning view to the west, and up ahead see the looming ramparts that once flanked an iron-age hill fort. It is truly impressive. And knackering.

Looking towards the summit. Straight into a chilly headwind... 

Birds? I've mentioned the best on offer yesterday. Apart from a couple of in-flight Little Egrets I didn't see anything else of particular note. But there were birds. Birds going about their daily routines like the world was normal. Which it isn't. Which is why we need them.

Close to Home

I've never been a garden lister. I can tell you some of the smart birds we've had in/from our various gardens over the years, but I can't tell you numbers. Not even roughly. It's never interested me. However, this lockdown lark has prompted me to join in with Steve Gales's #BWKM0 Garden Birdwatching Challenge. I can't be involved in a competitive way (you need a current garden list for that) but certainly in spirit. So, how's it going?

Pretty slowly if I'm honest. Having lived here for five years I already know we don't reside beneath some birdy M1. If there is a flight line above us it is one of the migrant map's 'unclassified' roads. Skywatching from the garden is akin to the seawatch of death. You know the kind. You sit there, willing it to happen, just another 15 minutes, and another, and another...oh okay, ten more minutes, tops... And before you know it, hours of nothing have passed. Still, I did get a fly-by garden tick on Wednesday. Little Egret. Not a surprise really, because the River Asker runs just to the east of us, a regular haunt of at least one individual. Three Red Kites on Monday were delightful of course, plus I've had Raven most days, and Sparrowhawk a couple of times. But invariably, when the local Herring Gulls go off, it'll be a Buzzard or three.

Our garden is tiny, and extremely unattractive to birds, but at least we have one. I feel for birders stuck in garden-less appartments. After all, I can sit outside...

Mind you, there's been much less sitting than I'd like. Being at home all the time is a fine way to spot the myriad jobs which need doing. Or have them spotted for you. Which is a right nuisance. Today's #BWKM0 tick came during a tea-break. Jay. It takes my total to 30 species.

Being stuck at home is never good for me. I am well aware of this fact, and have struggled to keep the stir-craziness in check. Last night I finally cracked, and decided to take advantage of the 'exercise' concession this morning. I set the alarm and was out pretty early. In my whole circuit I encountered just six other people, all dog walkers. I met the local Little Egret, and was probably its first human of the day. It flew up from the river and perched rather obligingly in a nearby tree...

Little Egret, waiting for me to pass so it can get on with breakfast. Probably wondering why I have no dog.

On some high ground I came across a flock of 50+ Fieldfares, which was a surprise...

Fieldfares. Standard views.

And returning home I spotted something bobbing about in the long grass up ahead of me on the path. I was absolutely delighted to discover that it was a Stoat, the first I've seen in years. And the first I've got any kind of photo of...

Stoat - the only photo I managed

Other highlights were 16 singing Chiffs, my first 2 singing Blackcaps of the year, a Yellowhammer, and nice views of a pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers.

It was nice to get out for a walk, and I shall certainly do it again, but probably not every day.

In the spirit of making the most of the situation, I photographed a bee yesterday. We have three pots of rosemary, and their abundant flowers attract the odd bee now and then. Tentatively we identified this one as a female Hairy-footed Flower Bee, so I was delighted to have this ID confirmed by a helpful chap on Twitter this evening...

Hairy-footed Flower Bee (female)

So that's it. The bee list is off and running...