Happy With One's Lot

I needed to be in Seaton this morning, so for a change began the day at Black Hole Marsh. I had the Island Hide to myself, and was 100% ready to take on the responsibility of finding, putting a name to, and circulating news of, a rare Nearctic wader. While I waited, this Curlew Sand crept right under the hide, nearly...

Juv Curlew Sandpiper, Black Hole Marsh

That photo was taken in pretty dismal light at about 07:00. The poor camera had to struggle with ISO1000 and 1/30sec shutter speed. I'm amazed it captured anything remotely sharp.

No Nearctic waders, but I still had time to play with, so ventured up Beer Head...

Beer Head, looking west. I love this place...

I was amazed to see zero Wheatears. In fact it was very poor for grounded migrants, but overhead there was a fair bit going on. Lots of hirundines moving W, and Meadow Pipits. I didn't count anything properly, but Mipits were certainly in excess of 500, and shortly before 09:00 I made an effort to estimate House Martin passage at the time; it was 'hundreds' of birds per minute, which is quite a spectacle.

I forget what this derelict chunk of WW2 concrete was actually for (a radar mast or something?) but it's a bit different to the usual pill-boxes, bunkers and whatnot that litter this coastline.

Spotted Flycatcher in the Beer Head sheep walk. Best bird by far.

Results from this morning's Beer Head plod were typical for your average E Devon/W Dorset coastal walk I guess. Yesterday I was at Cogden first thing and did much the same, with 4 Wheatears and a dozen Chiffs for my pains. On Sunday morning Cogden gave me 5 Wheatears. On Sunday afternoon I managed a few Yellow and White Wagtails at the Bexingtons (East and West) plus a meagre helping of Wheatear, Chiff and Blackcap. And largely, that's how it is. Much slog for a few bits and bobs...

Probably I could do better if I worked harder, or perhaps worked smarter. You know, covered more ground, different habitats, scanned the sea more often, carried a scope, etc, etc. But do you know what? I don't care. I am happy in my little world, and as far as I'm concerned that is all that matters.

Cogden Wheatear. Almost the perfect pose.

Looking towards Portland from the East Bexington high ground. Abbotsbury Swannery and the Fleet in the foreground.

Spot the Curlew Sand. Last Monday at Black Hole Marsh.

Also last Monday, a smart juv Ruff.

Juv Ruff again.

Jam, Thickly Spread

Bird-wise it's been a good year. I've probably had more than my fair share of jammy stuff already, but that didn't prevent another big helping today...

I was a bit slow getting out, and when I switched on my recorder at Cogden it was 07:08. There was barely a breath of wind, and the sea was almost flat. So ambient noise was minimal. The 'seep...seep' of Meadow Pipits cut cleanly through the morning air, and the 'hweet' of a Chiffchaff in the bushes. Two Chiffchaffs. Three.

It felt birdy...

I was well along the beach when Mike called with news of 17 pale-bellied Brents heading west. Normally when Mike calls, I am at home, at work, or in some other way a million miles from the action. This time I simply had to raise my bins and look...

17 pale-bellied Brent Geese heading W

Adult, juvenile, adult

A lone Wheatear on the beach, and very few gulls, but there was constantly something going on overhead. Mostly Meadow Pipits, but several Swallows too, and lots of distant unidentifiables. I heard Siskin occasionally but didn't see any until I was on the return leg of my walk, when 25 belted past just overhead. Silently. Honestly, I have checked the recording and there wasn't a peep out of them. Even though I probably exaggerated things in the last post, it's true that I have been a bit concerned about my hearing. However, as I made my way through the boardwalk sallows I heard a crest calling. Heard! And it didn't sound like a Goldcrest. Sure enough, in the canopy above me was a cracking little Firecrest. Much too mobile for photos, but there is this...

Shortly afterwards I climbed a stile and headed inland a bit. Plodding slowly along the edge of a field I was suddenly aware of a bird flipping off the deck and onto a bramble. Bins up, and...a Wryneck! Get in! It was back on, and peering at me over its shoulder. Although I was nowhere near it, the bird clearly thought I was way too close, so hopped through a gap and disappeared into the foliage.

I've had Wryneck encounters like this before, where I've disturbed a bird but not actually flushed it, and my memory told me that if I were to back right off, it might reappear. So I did. And...eventually...it did...

It's a long way off, but I don't care! It's a Wryneck!

I'm fairly sure I saw three Wrynecks during my Axe patch years. One on Beer Head, one on the Seaton tram line and one at Seaton Marshes. This is my first since moving to Dorset, and it was very, very welcome! And of course, to find your own is the icing on the cake. What a brilliant morning!

I thought I'd close with one final photo. I'm sure I'm not the only birder who regularly scans hedgerows for pale blobs, or who, when spotting such a blob with the naked eye, instantly raises their bins to check it out. Well, here's why...

Just a little pale blob, patiently awaiting a 10x lens and massive appreciation

Not Hearing Things

My Twitter time-line has been busy with quality birds lately. Autumn is upon us...

Locally, there has been modest excitement. Today I was working in Seaton, so news that Joe Stockwell had a juv Montagu's or Pallid Harrier heading W along the beach from Abbotsbury didn't galvanise me into action like it would if I'd been at East Bexington, say, but I still contrived to have lunch next to the Axe Estuary and look at the sky a lot. Twelve years ago to the very day, I had a juv Monty's fly W through Axmouth village and out over the estuary, and I would have been thrilled to repeat the experience. Instead I tried to be thrilled about my cheese & pickle roll, cold pizza and lots of drossy gulls. A challenge, that.

Richard found a Wryneck at Charmouth yesterday, a fine reward for many hours of patch birding. My own autumn reward is as yet undisclosed. I have been making an effort though, and most mornings have seen me pounding some nearby coastal habbo. However, I think the early starts have caught up with me. This morning my eyes wouldn't open, so here's a hotch-potch from the last few times they did...

Last Friday morning I had my first autumn Siskins, a flock of 18 W through East Bex. Another flock of 20-odd small finches were almost certainly Siskins too, but they didn't call. Or rather, I didn't hear them. I suspect the latter, and as you will see, this is going to become a theme. Also at East Bex were two Great Northern Divers together offshore, a couple of Ringed Plovers, and single Wheatear and Whinchat...

East Bexington Whinchat, version 1

...and version 2

When the record shot actually is not a record. GND x 2. Or whatever you want, really. Grebe sp? Auk sp? Plastic flotsam sp?

On Saturday I gave East Bex another go, intending to walk to West Bex and back from the Abbotsbury Beach car park. A highlight was meeting Dave Chown for the first time. He's been doing autumn vismig here for 22 years, and was a fount of interesting gen. After a chat, I left Dave to his counting and headed off, my secret, furry-headed weapon clamped to the camera bag and switched on. I was eager to see how the recorder performed on a day when there was a bit of bird movement, and Saturday was ideal. Just to give you a taste of what it can do, here are four clips from that morning, pasted together in a single spectrovid. See if you can tell what the four species are. Nothing too tricky, I promise...

The first three clips are passing migrants (although one did choose to land right in front of me) and the last involves two birds on the beach. Answers at bottom of page...

So, was it worth lugging the recorder around? Yes. Yes, it was. Up until now I've been a bit lax when it comes to daytime use, but now that autumn is up and running I really should make the effort. One obvious reason is the possibility of recording a super-cool flyover, like a Lapland Bunting or Dotterel or something. That would be brilliant of course, but there is another, rather more prosaic reason...

The recorder hears better than I do.

When you are standing right next to a fellow birder who picks up a flyover on call, while you hear nothing, or at best a faint, unidentifiable squeak, it is time to admit the obvious. Your hearing is knackered. Maybe not fully, but enough to be a handicap. This has happened to me twice recently, and I can no longer fob it off. However, I'm already on the varifocals (cf the 20/20 vision of youth) and am very reluctant to further bolster my dimming senses with technology. Therefore I have chosen a birdy yardstick to tell me when hearing aids are a must-have. Cetti's Warbler. When I can no longer hear a Cetti's at 10ft, yes, that's the day.

In the meantime, my recorder can pick up the flyovers for me. At Cogden yesterday morning I had a flock of 20 Yellow Wagtails go past. I didn't hear a single call, but could nevertheless see what they were. I made a note on my phone: 06:44 Yellow Wag 20. Back home, and the recording at this point was full of faint but very obvious Yellow Wagtail calls! Strewth! There were also two pairs of flyover wagtails which I left unidentified. Again I noted the time. Checking the recording revealed them all to be Yellow Wags, calling merrily. Not good, is it...?

Anyway, among the bits and bobs of recent days are a Rock Pipit which paused briefly at West Bexington (quite scarce there I believe), a Kingfisher flying through Cogden, and a sprinkling of Wheatears and Whinchats. When I returned from my walk on Saturday morning, Dave Chown had tallied well over 300 Siskins, and 49 Grey Wagtails. Without trying, I'd managed 100+ Siskins and 10+ Grey Wags. It's great to witness birds on the move, and to hear a couple of them occasionally...when they're really close and loud.

West Bex Rockit

Wheatear on the West Bex shingle

Burton Bradstock Yellow Wag

Cogden on Sunday evening. Pretty much had it to myself. Bliss.

Birds in the vid: Grey Wagtail, Rock Pipit, Siskin, Common Sandpiper.

Just Cattle Egrets

I popped in to Black Hole Marsh after work yesterday. It seems hardly possible that until a few short years ago this was a damp field with three or four sedgy ditches. It was quite popular with autumn Whinchats I recall, and at least one jammy local has a patch Corncrake from those days, but now...

Well, it was heaving. I didn't count much, but loads of Black-tailed Godwits and Redshank, more than 50 Dunlin, 20-odd Ringed Plovers, 2 Little Stints, 2 Curlew Sandpipers, 3 Knot, a Greenshank, a couple of Common Sands, and whatever I missed. And that's just the waders. Among them was a colour-ringed Dunlin. Even with a scope I struggled to read the ring, but in spite of the range, unhelpful light and a Dunlin's typically jerky movements, the camera nailed it...

Yellow 27E appears to be from a Welsh ringing project. Details awaited...

While I was fiddling about with waders I heard my phone beep a couple of times. One function of the modern smartphone is to let you know exactly what birds you are missing right now. And as a rule, after waiting until I'm back in Bridport after a day's work, that's precisely what it does. However, on this occasion it boobed, because I was only a few minutes walk away from the action. I'd bumped into Tim White just a short while earlier, so it was great to go and enjoy the seven Cattle Egrets he'd just found on the estuary from the Tower Hide. Initially they were in the middle of the river, but as the rising tide covered their gravelly ridge they were forced to move...

Six on the left, one on the island. Seven is the most I've seen on the Axe patch.

Cattle Egrets always strike me as looking a bit shifty...

Around 18:25 they all headed S down the estuary together. Although eventually obscured from view, they did seem intent on departure. Apparently there were two on Black Hole Marsh at dusk, but I'll bet they were not from this party. Presumably they all (and a juvenile seen at Colyford Common the previous evening) were from the ever-growing Somerset Levels population...

Coincidentally there is currently a thread on Twitter which makes reference to some of the depressing changes in status and population of several formerly common species. Frequently this negativity is contrasted with the rise and rise of Little, Great White and Cattle Egrets, as well as Red Kites, Buzzards, and many other species. In other words, 'Look at these fantastic success stories! It's not all gloom and doom you know!' I'll admit, I do enjoy things like the spectacle of Cattle Egrets locally, because they were until very recently a genuine rarity. And I enjoy the relative ubiquity of Buzzards and Red Kites, and so on. But I also lament the loss of many small birds which used to be more abundant when I was younger. And I get the feeling that they were much, much more abundant. If I had to choose, I know which I'd rather have...

Bring Me Sunshine...

So that's it then. Summer's over...

Autumn began with a pre-work look at Burton Bradstock. A bit quieter than I was hoping, with 7 Wheatears, 3 Chiffs, 2 Blackcaps and a Whitethroat, though a nice gang of some 40 Yellow Wags pulled in by the cattle once again. Swallows, and a few Sand Martins, trickled through into the breeze. Pleasant, but no fireworks.

I took just two photos. Here's one. Straight off the camera, unedited...

Yellow Wagtails in the early-morning sun

It's 07:07 and the sun is shining brightly, but low. It bathes everything with a beautiful warm glow, which I love. However, exactly how much of a warm glow is not particularly apparent until I view photos on the laptop and fiddle about with the colours a bit. To illustrate, here is the same photo as I might crop and tweak it before posting on the blog...

And here is the same version, with Picasa's 'autocolour' applied...

I guess this is what you might call a more 'accurate' depiction of the birds, and in some ways I prefer it, but that early-morning warmth is nevertheless rather lovely. I've no idea which version a proper photographer would consider the better option, but I suppose you actually have to know the super-warm photo was taken in early-morning sunshine to appreciate that it shows reality rather than a processing error.

Vole for Breakfast

I planned a long, slow walk along the coast this morning, and a hefty tally of migrants. In the event it looked like there were few new arrivals, and I'm fairly sure that most of the 10 Wheatears and 6 Whinchats I counted were yesterday's birds. Never mind, it was a lovely morning and there was plenty to look at...

Highlight was a cracking Barn Owl at East Bexington, hunting in broad daylight. It promptly caught a vole and perched up quite close. Camera out...!

A bit overcast and gloomy still at 07:05, but the camera didn't do too badly.

I very rarely see Barn Owls locally. My last was in early summer, while out listening for Quail one evening, but it was almost dark. The one before that was...er...years ago. So forgive me for including a couple more photos of what is for me a novelty...

I suddenly realised it was going to consume the vole right there in front of me, so switched to video mode...

Unfortunately that's as much as I got. Stupidly I attempted to shift a few feet to where I could rest the camera on a rock. The Barn Owl thought I was taking liberties, moved its meal to a more distant post, turned its back on me and did the deed off camera.

So, other than missing the big swallow, a brilliant start to the morning. Although it failed to deliver the migrant numbers I was hoping for, there was a steady flow of hirundines overhead, and by the time I headed for home I had a nice list of bits and pieces, in addition to the Wheatears and Whinchats noted above...

Best was a Grasshopper Warbler, seen really well but all too briefly, only my second of the year. Also a Spotted Flycatcher, 11 Willow Warblers, 7 Chiffs, 13 Blackcaps, Lesser Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler. 22 Yellow Wags (including a flock of 18) were all flyovers, heading E, as was my first Wigeon of the autumn, heading the other way.

East Bex Whinchat. I've a feeling this might have been a new one.

And the West Bex version.

The other day, as I was fiddling with yet another Wheatear pic, Sandra asked what I was going to do with all these photos. I was a bit stumped for an answer. The vast majority are just record shots really, and I have no plans for any of them. When opportunities arise I enjoy trying to get a photo, and I enjoy illustrating this blog with some of the results. I realise most are pretty naff, but do I care? Clearly not.

If I stop and think about it, all the shots of common birds, distant birds, birds in flight, birds I've photographed a thousand times...they're just so much practice for the day when some crippler pops up in front of me. I take photos all the time, frequently with no hope of anything decent. The camera has become as important to me as my bins are. On occasion I have reached for it first! If I scanned through NQS I can think of several birds whose photographic images are even more impressed upon my memory than the visual ones. Without the photos, the experience would be diminished somehow. The Cogden Red-backed Shrike springs to mind as an obvious example, also the Seaton Serin, and loads of gulls...

Strange isn't it? From a cumbersome, expensive luxury years ago, a camera has now become such an indispensable part of my birding kit that I would seriously struggle without it. In fact, I don't think I could bear to go gull-watching with no camera. The thought of finding a Caspian Gull and not being able to get photos is too hideous to contemplate.

Does any of this make me a photographer? Definitely not!

Mostly Chatting

Slightly photo-heavy post coming up. Lovely sunshine today, and quite a few birds demanding camera time. Give the P900 a bit of light and it does a nice job. Not being a proper photographer I expect I am easily pleased, and I've no doubt my sense of composition isn't great, but boy, it's good fun...

I started early this morning at Burton Bradstock and Cogden, and got out again late afternoon/evening, taking in a bit of East and West Bexington. Mostly it was a day of Wheatears and Whinchats, with a few other bits and bobs to spice the mix.

Overall totals as follows: 59 Wheatears, 32 Yellow Wagtails, 10 Whinchats, 2 White Wagtails, and singles of Spotted Flycatcher, Great Northern Diver and Merlin. Waders were represented by a Sanderling on the beach at E Bex, plus Dunlin and Ringed Plover, both heard only. Regular warblers were thin on the ground, but included a Lesser Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler. Basically it was one of those days which feels quite birdy, but holds back the really good stuff. Very enjoyable though.

First, let's get the Wheatears out of the way. All photos from Cogden Beach this morning...

Almost uncropped, this one. Ridiculously obliging for a Wheatear!

Okay, so none of those were particularly 'birder's photo' type material, but Whinchats seem to be even more skittish than Wheatears, so one or two of the following are a closer fit...

Cogden Beach. A very blurry Beer Head in the background

Again, lovely blue sea in the background

East Bexington, in a maize field

West Bexington

Finally, a few odds and ends...

Great Northern Diver off East Bex

One of two White Wagtails at East Bex. Much range, much heat-haze.

Sanderling, also at East Bex.

Being the August bank-holiday weekend it is heaving with tourists down here. The nice weather has encouraged many to basically camp out on the beaches, so here are a couple of photos to illustrate what it's like right now. Both taken from the same spot at East Bex...

Looking E towards Abbotsbury...

...and W towards Burton Bradstock

The red arrow in the last photo is pointing at yesterday's Burton Bradstock rock fall. It is 4 miles away, but that massive pile of collapsed cliff is really obvious. Mind you, it turns out I wasn't in quite as much potential peril as I may have suggested in yesterday's NQS post. I had a look at it this morning, and the fall was closer to the car park than I thought, slightly E of where I actually join the clifftop path. Also, no way is the cliff as high as 160ft at that point. Mind you, it truly is an enormous rock fall, and if anyone had been on the beach below when it collapsed, well, that would have been curtains for sure...

So, finally finally, the evening draws in at West Bexington, and the birder wonders what tomorrow will bring...