Enormous Garden Tick

For more than a year I have been aware that seeing a White-tailed Eagle locally was now a possibility, due to the wanderlust exhibited by young birds from the Isle of Wight reintroduction scheme. A couple of times at least there has been a social media 'heads-up' along the West Dorset and East Devon coast, as satellite-tracked individuals have been noted heading this way, but thus far nil contact. I have wondered how I would feel about seeing one. Now I know...

At 14:20 yesterday afternoon I set off on a walk at West Bex. Normally this would be the whole afternoon gone, but for a variety of reasons I cut it short. It was really hot, there were very few birds, and I was still feeling a bit rough. The heat, stillness and blue sky got me thinking about comfy chairs, long cold drinks and a bit of back-garden skywatching. By 16:30 I was home.

From the cool, shaded spot with my back against the garden cabin I get a well-lit but fairly limited vista. Nearby roofs and trees cut out quite a lot of sky, but what's left is enough to keep an eye on quite easily and has provided plenty of decent birds. The weakest aspect of my position is the total blind spot behind me. Any bird that comes through the airspace hidden by the cabin is likely to be missed...unless the gulls go off. Our local gulls have been a life-saver many times, but they cannot always be relied upon. As we shall see...

A trickle of hirundines and a couple of distant local Buzzards were all I managed in the first 20 minutes or so. Honey Buzzard is very much bird of the moment right now, so both Common Buzzards triggered a mental reference to the relevant search image, which was still on my mind when the next bird went over.

Coincidentally I had just been viewing a Twitter photo of a dark juvenile Honey Buzzard which had been misidentified as a Common Buzzard, when a large shape flew from left to right over the garden. Its altitude seemed to be as low as the local Buzzards ever get, it was gliding rapidly and directly, and was going to be out of view over the treetops in just a few seconds. I hadn't picked it up until it was heading away, in fact I almost hadn't picked it up at all. Had its flight line been just a few metres different it would have gone behind me, unseen. As it was, I was struggling a bit. The underparts were in shadow, but I was sure they were dark. Where were the pale areas of a Common Buzzard? But the wing shape...? Definitely a bit arched, like a regular Buzzard, not the flat profile I imagined a Honey Buzzard would present.

All this talk of Buzzards gives away the telling fact that I simply had not got an accurate impression of the bird's size. With hindsight I can only surmise that its flight attitude and lack of company had hoodwinked me. Anyway, it sailed over the trees to my right and - thank goodness - began to bank left and rise slightly. At this point (and still thinking Buzzard) I could see it was entirely dark brown, and that the tail looked very unbuzzardy. It began a wide, slow loop...

No, not just slow. Ponderous! Strewth! This bird was huge! And, finally, I got there.

'Come out in the garden! Quick!'

'Why? What is it?'

'An eagle!'

[Sound of scurrying, gasping and dropping jaw...]

'It isn't...?!!'

Together we watched the beast circle a few times, low, beautifully lit, and no more than 3-400m away. Then it switched back in to 'motoring' mode and headed away in exactly the same fashion it had arrived: fast and direct.

I managed four bursts of photos, and there is just one minute and nine seconds between the first and the last...

Oof!

Catching the sun absolutely perfectly

Probably my favourite shot. Like something taken on North Uist

And away it goes

At this point I became aware of some gulls alarming. Just four of them, up over our little estate, and a very half-hearted effort it was. There are low hills either side of our valley, bordering a band of habitation (where the gulls also reside) perhaps 300 or so metres wide. I reckon the eagle was across the estate so low and rapidly that the gulls didn't really notice the bird until it reached the farmland beyond us and began to circle. And it struck me how close I had been to missing it entirely...

Just a guess, but I reckon this would be the approximate flight-line, with the circle marking the spot where it...er...circled. Erroneously I reported the bird as flying east. I always forget that our garden actually points SW.

Had that White-tailed Eagle not paused to inspect the local sheep for a potential meal (or to admire their fine, glossy fleece) I am pretty sure that the biggest garden tick I am ever likely to get would have slipped through unnoticed. Sobering.

Pockets

Small children are toxic. Less than seven weeks after going down with a dose of manflu that scuppered me for a fortnight, my tiny grandchildren gave me the cold from hell. Thankfully my immune system seems to be functioning a bit more effectively this time, and I only had a couple of really grim days. I'm still a bit fragile, but this afternoon my itchy, itchy feet took me to West Bex and made me walk a short, flattish route for what they called 'a bit of active convalesecence'...

It often strikes me that even on a good day, birding can be very patchy. This autumn I've noticed it many times. You get a few decent birds in one spot, then nothing for a while, then another little cluster. Birds simply are not evenly distributed. Rather, they are in pockets. That was very much a feature of today's little outing.

There's one area of West Bex which always reminds me of birding some of the 'inland' parts of St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly. If I called it 'gateway birding' I'm sure you'll get what I mean. There's a dead-end lane which runs parallel to the sea, and both sides of it are lined mainly by hedges with the occasional gateway, and give views over fields running either down towards the beach or up towards the coastal ridge. For me it is simply a case of ambling along, stopping at every gateway (or anywhere else which gives you a view) and carefully scanning every field, plus every distant hedgerow, treetop and skyline. It's a slow, easy way to bird, and today was a perfect option for someone feeling well below par.

The very first gateway overlooks a small paddock. I've always fancied it, and one August day last year I had a single Pied and two Spotted Flycatchers from this spot, so it always gets at least a few patient minutes. Within a short time today I'd seen a Chiffchaff and a Blackcap, then a flitting shape up the far end became a Spotted Flycatcher, which was soon joined by second. And then...

Probably well over 100m away, so maximum zoom, but when it's a lovely male Redstart, who cares?

I loitered here for a good 15 minutes, by which time I'd added another Chiff and Blackcap, plus a Lesser Whitethroat. And I'd barely started. Naturally enough I concluded that I was in for a migrant-filled walk. Well...

The rest of the lane provided me with a hefty acreage of lovely fields, hundreds of metres of absolutely impeccable, sun-kissed hedge and panoramic views in all directions. But by the end I had added no more than another Blackcap or two, a handful of Chiffs and a couple of Kestrels. I could hardly believe it.

And then I spotted a distant shape flit up above the hedge top briefly. I deviated off my route a little to look at the area properly and suddenly found myself knee-deep in Chiffchaffs! By the time I'd finished, my Chiffchaff count had gone up by more than 40! Plus at least another 7 Blackcaps. All in no more than about 150m of hedge and scrub.

The flavour of this afternoon: fresh Chiffchaff

My tally looks like this: 50+ Chiffs, 10 Blackcaps, 2 Spotted Flycatchers, 1 Redstart, 1 Lesser Whitethroat. Which sounds like a nice sprinkling of autumn migrants. But a 'sprinkling' it certainly was not! Basically it was two discrete pockets about half a mile or more apart, with hardly anything in between. Fascinating...

Anyway, a few bits and bobs from the last time I was out, pre-lurgy...

Two White Wagtails on the beach at West Bex

Still the odd Sedgie to be coaxed from the reeds. Too late for an Aquatic?

One of five Whinchats at Cogden

Friendly Painted Ladies always worth a snap

And before I close, the garden has provided me with what I'm pretty sure is a bee tick. We tried a Sea Holly cultivar in a pot this year, and it is flowering nicely just now. These bees don't seem to be interested in anything else...

If I've got it right, this amazingly stripy job is an Ivy Bee Colletes hederae

Notching Up Some Good Grades

This afternoon's plod around Cogden was the only birding I managed all weekend. Although it was generally quiet, the modest tally of migrants included another 2 Redstarts and a Pied Flycatcher. Last year I saw just one Redstart all year. One. This year I am up to 23 so far: 6 in spring and 17 since August 23rd. Either it's a very good year or I've got much, much better at noticing them...

The first of today's two Redstarts. The second would not perch up for me at all.

Last Friday morning (another two-Redstart day at Cogden) I saw my first autumn male...

Male Redstart. Even when they do perch in view for a moment, it will likely be at considerable range and partially obscured.

The Pied Fly was my fifth, and an absolute pig as usual. Only one of those five has given me any kind of photo opportunity, and today's was impossible, almost completely hidden by foliage. The moment I moved to try for a better angle, it was gone. Again, five feels like a decent total. In 2020 I also saw five, but all on August 11th and 12th, following a fairly widespread influx.

I always think of Redstart as a B+ kind of 'common' migrant, and Pied Flycatcher as a solid A, so this year's grades are already looking very good.

Whinchat is another species which seems to be quite numerous this year. Although I only counted three today, last Friday morning there were at least 11 at Cogden.

One of today's Whinchats

Three photos from Friday to end with...

This beefy Yellow-legged Gull was among a good number of gulls on the beach. It was pleasing to match the bird to one of the two I photographed eight days earlier, on September 2nd.

A bit distant, but the camera still managed to nail that colour-ring: Yellow 2N69. The only other yellow-ringed Med Gull I've seen had been ringed at Pagham Harbour. I've yet to hear back on this one.

A young Cormorant. But...

Yes, a young Cormorant. But...

What is even more of a niche activity than cricket identification? Sub-specific Cormorant identification. I couldn't help thinking it looked quite diminutive in the field, and when I examined the photo, well, that gular pouch angle...

The Dorset Bird Report doesn't appear to bother much with sinensis Cormorants. Which is probably the sensible way to go.

A First For Dorset

The story begins on 31st August, at roughly 16:30, with a discovery that is related in this post.

While trying to photograph some distant Whinchats at West Bexington it seems I had chanced upon a good candidate for Tree Cricket Oecanthus pellucens. Unfortunately I couldn't find it again on 2nd September, and put the event down as a one-off. I didn't write it off completely though, but opened an account with iRecord and entered the record for posterity.

On 6th September I was in the same area once again, in the early evening this time. It was hot and still, with an almost flat-calm sea. Approximately 150m from that encounter a week previously, I heard the sound again. It was close to the path but just the other side of a fence, and quite loud. Once more I recorded it with my camera's video function. The resultant mp3 was much better quality than last time, and there was quite a surprise in store when I looked at the sonogram closely...

A second, much quieter cricket was singing too!

I hadn't heard a second cricket in the field, and even on the recording it was quite hard to detect by ear because the close one was so loud, but it is perfectly visible on the sonogram.This little discovery was just the encouragement I needed, and the following evening I was back down there. This time I took my nocmig kit, the digital recorder and Sennheiser microphone. I was going to do this properly.

Tuesday evening was delightfully warm, but very breezy. The recordings are somewhat blighted by wind noise, but the outcome was still better than I could have hoped: I heard and recorded at least four different individuals.

All good, but what next?

Mike Morse kindly sent me an email address to try. It turns out there is a very good recording scheme for grasshoppers and related insects which has been running for more than 50 years. I composed an email, attached my recordings, and the following day received an exciting reply...

First: yes, these are definitely Tree Crickets.

Second: yes again, they are the first records for Dorset.

Third: the fact that there are at least four 'singing' males suggests the possibility that there may already be a small population in place. But even if that isn't yet the case, it soon could be.

Just to put things in context, this is basically the story re UK Tree Crickets...

The first for Britain was one at Cambridge in 1996. The next was at Sittingbourne, Kent in 2005. Then a breeding colony was found on Jersey in 2010, and another at Dungeness in 2015. According to iRecord, the only other records are two from 2018, either side of Brighton. Here is the iRecord map...

So there it is. Tree Cricket Oecanthus pellucens at West Bexington. The first Dorset records of a species which is actively expanding its range in Europe. Found by a birder. While birding. Talking of birds...

Now, if this had been a bird and not a cricket, some of Dorset's birding population would have been all over it. A county first usually prompts a major mobilisation, and I imagine West Bex would have been stiff with twitchery for a few days. But a cricket? Yeah, okay. Yes, the fanfare might be muted, but I have to confess that I've thoroughly enjoyed the whole event. The initial discovery, the detective work...and as the story unfolded it became increasingly satisfying. Though I am not yet morphing into anything other than a birder. At least, I don't think so.

Before I forget, I must acknowledge Steve Gale's part in this. Firstly, in putting me on the Tree Cricket trail. Until he suggested it, I was stumped. And secondly, in sending me a copy of Dave Walker's account of his discovery of the Dungeness colony.

And while we're talking 'firsts'...

At West Bex this afternoon I was watching a Wheatear and a Pied Wagtail feeding on an area of short grass when I noticed some odd-looking plants poking out of the sward. Many recent photos on my Twitter feed helped me recognise them - or at least I thought so. Thanks again to Steve Gale for confirmation...

Autumn Lady's Tresses

Autumn Lady's Tresses is a new orchid for me. There was quite a big patch of them, with several outliers too. Unfortunately they were on private land, so I couldn't give them the usual 'close-up' treatment.

An insect and a plant. On a birder's blog in the height of the autumn migration season. Should I be concerned...?

Birds...and Only Birds

The last two or three of days have been lively, so I'd better get some writing done or there'll be a depressing backlog...

Monday was lovely, which allowed for an al fresco lunch and some garden-based idling. The sky was very quiet though, until this dark shape that wasn't a Buzzard...

Female or juv Marsh Harrier, a delightful garden first.

Sadly the bird was not hanging about, and I just about managed to grab a burst of shots before it vanished. This happy event galvanised me into a fairly protracted bout of skywatching, for which I was rewarded with 2 Black-headed Gulls.

A late afternoon visit to West Bex was pretty good, with 7 Spotted Flycatchers, a typically uncooperative Redstart, 5 Whinchats, 2 Wheatears and singles of Chiffchaff and Blackcap. Also a Clouded Yellow, and an orthopteran encounter which I'll return to in a bit...

Spotted Flycatchers have been a very welcome presence this year

Always the annoying twig...

Typical Whinchat view

Not sure if the focus fail on the bottom bird is heat-haze or...er...focus fail

Yesterday was mostly spent building Ikea wardrobes with my son in Lyme Regis, but there was still time for an early jaunt, and for a change I went to Burton Bradstock. In autumn 2020 I was there quite often, but this was my first visit for ages. The problem is how busy it gets. A massive holiday park and a million dog walkers. But it does get birds, and an early start always bags a few.

Yesterday's prize was an elusive Pied Flycatcher, my fourth of the autumn. Burton Bradstock seems to have an attraction for them, with up to three together last year. Back-up was provided by 13 Wheatears, a Spot Fly, 20+ Yellow Wags, a Garden Warbler, 2 each of Chiff, Willow Warbler and Blackcap, and my first 3 autumn Meadow Pipits.

The sun's first rays illuminate a clifftop Wheatear. Lovely light...

Spotted Flycatcher with touring caravan backdrop. I wish Pied Flycatchers posed like this.

I know. Another Wheatear. But just look at it!

And in the evening I was at West Bex again. I did see approximately 15 Yellow Wagtails going to roost in a field, but I wasn't there for birds...

And so to this morning. For some reason I fancied a seawatch. After a bit of a walk at Cogden I plonked myself on the beach and spent almost an hour and a half just chilling. The seawatching was dire really, and from a purist's standpoint probably a waste of time, but there was enough going on to keep me sitting there, quietly content.

The main event was a steady stream of hirundines - mainly Swallows - heading into the brisk easterly. They were skimming the waves up to well over half a mile out, and if I turned around I could watch them pass along the beach too. A broad-fronted movement of driven migrants is a compelling sight, and had there been nothing else happening I would have been quite okay with that. But there were several gulls on the move too, including a few Meds. A Dunlin, a Little Egret and 3 Teal all made it into my notes for the morning too. Rarity-wise though, this was the prize...

Such a slender bill is an unusual sight in this neck of Lyme Bay...

..and I'm pretty sure I didn't see Shag locally at all last year.

The morning's tally is completed by 14 Wheatears, 2 Whinchats, 3 Chiffs, a Willow Warbler, 2 Blackcaps, 12 Yellow Wags an 2 alba Wags. Which brings the birdy happenings up to date once more.

In other news...

Tree Cricket happenings have been happening. But I won't sully a nice birdy post with six-legged shenanigans. Another time...

SMH Action

Friday and Saturday were pretty full-on with work and grandchildren, and it wasn't until after lunch yesterday that I got a chance to chill in the garden, with bins and camera close to hand. Highlights were a distant Hobby NE at 14:07 and another (or the same) SW at 14:40, a lot closer...

Hobby. Close enough for some poorly-exposed flight shots. Interestingly this bird appears to have very similar primary damage to an individual I saw at Cogden on 21st August (here) but it's just a coincidence; the Cogden bird had a red undertail, which this one lacks.

In addition there was a Peregrine, several Buzzards and a sprinkling of hirundines in a pleasantly idle hour.

Which brings me to today...

A morning walk at Cogden was nice but uneventful, with 12 Chiffs, 4 Whinchats, 2 Sedge Warblers and 8 Wheatears. But this afternoon's effort was a different matter...

Bird-wise it was slow but steady, and the final tally looks quite decent on paper:

11 Wheatears, Redstart, Pied Flycatcher, 7 Spotted Flycatchers, 2 Lesser Whitethroats, Sedge Warbler, 3 Willow Warblers, 8 Chiffs, Blackcap and Reed Warbler.

Spotted Flycatcher - one of seven this afternoon

Wheatear on hay bale for a change

In reality, there was one hot area, which produced the Redstart, Pied Fly and all 7 Spot Flies; and all the Wheatears bar one were in a single field of hay bales. Other than that it was a long, sticky walk for not much. However, that's true if you only count birds. Because today's big event did not involve birds at all.

Last Sunday I got all excited about discovering my first Southern Migrant Hawker, a female. Since then I've learned there are a few around, and this afternoon I fancied the idea of searching out a male if I could. The first dragonfly which posed for me was this one...

Male Migrant Hawker

Close, but no cigar. But the photo is handy to illustrate a crucial difference from Southern Migrant Hawker - that contrasty thorax with the two pale, diagonal stripes split and bordered by dark areas. On Southern Migrant Hawker it is pale and lacks the contrasty patterning.

Soon after taking that photo I began to see the odd blue-bodied hawker with striking blue eyes, and guessed these were the real thing. But I needed one to land for me. Finally...

Initial views. Note vivid blue eyes and plainer thorax pattern. Male Southern Migrant Hawker.

Best angle I managed before it flew

As you can imagine, I was chuffed with that. I'm not sure how many I saw, but definitely more than one. However, there is a bit more to tell. Prior to spotting the settled male, I had seen another Southern Migrant Hawker, a female. A busy female...

Ovipositing female Southern Migrant Hawker

Wow! I hadn't expected to see evidence of breeding - I can only assume that egg laying is evidence of breeding - but it got better still...

Pair of Southern Migrant Hawkers in tandem, the female laying eggs.

And again. They were very tricky to photograph, landing only occasionally and invariably somewhere masked by a canopy of leaves.

I felt very privileged to have witnessed that event locally. I know the species is spreading quite rapidly now, but until this year I think there had only ever been a single local record.

There was one final encounter with the common or garden variety of Migrant Hawker too...

Mating pair of Migrant Hawkers.

I spent ages watching all the dragonflies, and getting the occasional photo opportunity. It was worth the dark looks when I was late for dinner.

Buses and Cricket

First, a few pics from a brief visit to Cogden after work today. A group of 3 Spotted Flycatchers provided a photo opportunity of the kind I rarely get. Normally I'm too busy birding to want to spend much time sneaking and creeping, but this afternoon a whacking great gatepost was almost big enough to hide me completely...

Two of the three Spotted Flycatchers...and a Robin

I think the blurry yellow fly highlighted against its belly is the object of this bird's gimlet gaze.

Spotted Flycatcher - a rare portrait.

Apart from two Whinchats I saw little else in a quick tour of a handful of fields, but down on the beach...

1cy Yellow-legged Gull

This bird was very uncooperative and belted off a bit too rapidly, leaving me with some woeful flight shots, but then I spotted another just along the beach with a few Herring Gulls, an absolute peach. No juv YLGs all summer, then three in three days, like the proverbial buses...

Excuse the photographic excess, but it really is rather lovely...

Yellow-legged Gull. Definitely a rose among thorns.

A right poser. It's almost as if the bird knows how brightly it shines amongst its dull cousins.

Okay. Last one.

So. After dinner this evening I spent an hour or so loitering by the magic Whinchat field at West Bex. The best Whinchat tally I could muster was eight, but that's not why I was there...

Two days ago I was in exactly the same place a little after 16:30, making a poor job of getting Whinchat record shots, and became aware that I could hear a cricket 'singing' just behind me. There was something slightly odd about the sound, and I turned around to investigate its source. A few yards away on the main coast path a couple were walking by, and as I struggled to locate where this sound was coming from I suddenly realised it must be a mobile's ring tone, and expected one of them to whip out a phone. But no, they carried on oblivious. Meanwhile, the crickety noise continued, and yes, it was definitely somewhere close by. And then I twigged what was so odd about it, and why I'd thought it might be a ring tone. Basically it was the most clichéd cricket noise you can imagine, like you would expect to hear in the background of a movie scene. Annoyingly, at this point it stopped, so I turned back to the Whinchats.

A few minutes later it started up again and this time I was ready. I fired up the camera's video function and tried to get as close as possible. I recorded about 30 seconds, but probably got too close because it stopped again. Ah well, better than nothing. I carried on birding and thought little more about the cricket...

Yesterday evening I thought I'd better investigate my cricket and extracted an mp3 file from the video. Next step: consider the most likely candidates. How about Great Green Bush-cricket? Nope, it seems bush-crickets all have very high-frequency songs, which this wasn't. So I downloaded a sound file that claimed to include 'all' the UK Orthoptera, and went through the lot. Nope. Maybe it's not a cricket at all? As a last resort I posted it on Twitter and asked for help. Fellow blogger Steve Gale was straight on the case. 'Sounds like Tree Cricket', he said...

I'll cut a long story short, but suffice to say that Italian Tree Cricket Oecanthus pellucens is a European species and recent UK colonist. A whole bunch of them were discovered at Dungeness, Kent in 2015, where there is a now a thriving population. Steve is a Dungeness regular, hence the familiarity.

It seems the insect's arrival at Dunge was the result of a natural range expansion, following a jump to the Channel Islands a few years earlier. Apparently there has been a very small number of occurences elsewhere in the UK...though possibly not Dorset so far. But let's not jump the gun...

First, was my cricket actually a Tree Cricket?

On Xeno Canto there are several recordings of Tree Cricket, and after playing a few it was obvious why Steve had suggested it. Here is a spectrovid comprising a few seconds of the West Bexington cricket followed by a few seconds of a Tree Cricket recorded in Germany...

And here is a bit of spectrogram analysis...

West Bex cricket sp vs Tree Cricket from Germany

Despite my recording being very quiet and blighted by wind noise, it is still possible to discern three distinct bands, beginning with the strongest at just over 2.5kHz. On Xeno Canto the lowest band ranged from around 2.5 to 3kHz, and was always the strongest. The number of notes in each phrase, and the speed of repetitions, is variable from cricket to cricket. The shape of each note is clearly the same as well, again despite the feebleness of my spectrogram.

As far as I can tell, there is no confusion species that might queer the pitch. So. The only conclusion I can draw is this: on 31st August 2021, at 16:45 I heard and recorded a Tree Cricket Oecanthus pellucens at West Bexington, Dorset. Unfortunately I didn't hear and record one on 2nd September.

As one local birder put it, cricket identification is a bit niche. I cannot disagree. However, it must be said that I am not the world's best rarity-finder, and if the only way I can find a first for Dorset is by analysing the stridulation patterns of a random cricket which throws itself at me, I'll take it!