The Great Fall

Not long now. Spring is coming and, with it, an influx of migrants. At least, we hope so. On the local coast here in West Dorset, decent arrivals seem a rare thing. And autumn is little better. In twenty years I can remember very, very few autumn days when the number of grounded migrants has been anything but underwhelming. My records tell me that my best Wheatear tally is 100 at Beer Head on 22nd August 2008; Willow Warbler, 60 at Beer Head on 2nd September 2005. And locally I've never seen more than three Redstarts or Pied Flycatchers in a day. Maybe I've just been unlucky, and there have been monster falls that I just wasn't around to witness, but I doubt it.

Still, this is the Southwest. Maybe things are a lot different on the east coast. Well, possibly. But I would be surprised if it wasn't a similar story there. The numbers might be bigger, but I'll bet they are still not a patch on what they once were.

An autumn Redstart. Always a nice prize.

An autumn Pied Fly. Just one is a treat.

On 3rd September 1965 I was six years and four months old, and blissfully unaware of the birdy drama unfolding that day in East Anglia. Following ten days of rubbish weather in Scandinavia during the latter part of August, things had suddenly changed. Anticyclonic conditions set in over central Scandinavia at the start of September, and the impatient birds responded instantly. There was a mass exodus.

At the same time, a curved band of heavy rain was stretched from south-east England and the Low Countries to north-west Germany. It moved slowly north up the English coast, as the cloud of migrants came south and west, being squeezed ever closer to East Anglia. On 3rd September, hundreds of thousands of birds were grounded by the weather, with an immense, unprecedented concentration in Suffolk.

The heart of the action (with thanks to Google)

Along that 24-mile stretch of Suffolk coast, an estimated half-a-million birds dropped out of the sky on 3rd September. Early the next day, at Walberswick, one observer (D. J. Pearson) estimated the following along two miles of coast: 15,000 Redstarts, 8,000 Wheatears, 4,000 Pied Flycatchers, 3,000 Garden Warblers, 1,500 Whinchats, 1,500 Tree Pipits, 1,000 Willow Warblers, 500 Whitethroats, and smaller numbers of Spotted Flycatchers and Robins. Oh, and not to mention at least 40 Wrynecks, 20 Ring Ouzels, 20 Bluethroats, a Great Reed Warbler, an Icterine Warbler and two Barred Warblers. Is it worth mentioning the glut of waders too, including a Kentish Plover and three Temminck's Stints? Probably.

At Minsmere, observations by  H. E. Axell (the warden) and colleagues over approximately 150 acres of the reserve on 3rd were equally staggering. The arrival began very suddenly at 12:15, just after the wind had freshened from the south-east, and birds were still trickling in come the evening. Again, numbers had to be approximate, but 7,000 Redstarts, 4,000 Wheatears, 2,000 Garden Warblers, 1,500 Pied Flycatchers, 750 Whinchats and 500 Willow Warblers are hard to count. Rarer birds included 25 Wrynecks, 25 Bluethroats, two Icterine Warblers, ten Red-backed Shrikes, three Ortolans and a Tawny Pipit.

At Covehithe the fall was estimated at a density of approximately 100 birds per acre, which closely matches the Minsmere figures. And it is this description of bird density that allows me to get some sort of handle on the frankly incredible numbers...

A regulation soccer pitch is not far off two acres, so we're talking almost 200 migrants per soccer pitch. If that's hard to visualise, try 16 migrants per penalty box...as far as the eye can see! I don't know the Suffolk coast very well, but can certainly picture the walk out to the old lifeboat station on Blakeney Point, a bit more than three miles from the Cley beach car park. Though the Norfolk coast didn't get more than a tiny fraction of the birds, just indulge me for a moment. Imagine that shingly slog being decorated with migrants at the kind of density seen in Suffolk. Extrapolating Mr Pearson's Walberswick counts, you would wind up with c23,000 Redstarts, and...er...yes, ridiculous, isn't it?!

Half-a-million birds over a 24-mile stretch of coast is one bird every three inches, or 7.5 cm. Mind officially blown...

Incidentally, it wasn't just Suffolk that experienced this fall, though it had by far the biggest numbers. For a jaw-dropping read I do recommend the British Birds paper on the event. Entitled 'The great immigration of early September 1965', you can find it in BB Vol 59, no 9 (September 1966).

Sadly, after reading that paper, you are left with the overwhelming sense that this can never, ever happen again. There simply are not enough birds any more.

Puzzling On...

First, the exciting stuff. A long-awaited 2023 Patchwork Challenge tick sailed over West Bay yesterday afternoon: Lesser Black-backed Gull. Get in!

I fear that NQS posts for the next couple of months are going to try the patience of any reader with an aversion to pipits. Sorry, but I am neck-deep already...

Last night I went through all my Rockit pics so far. I seem to have photographed seven different birds. One of them I have photographed on two dates, and another on three. And both those birds were pictured in two different spots, as shown on the following image...

West Bay

Location A is a wet field, extremely popular with dog walkers, who mainly stick to the perimeter but not always. I am not much cop at botany, but am pretty sure I was told that some of the plants (grasses?) in this field are typical saltmarsh species. Whatever, Rock Pipits can often be found feeding here, and being as unapproachable as Rock Pipits reasonably can.

Location B is the pier, or outer harbour wall, with rock armour all along the west side. The far end is roughly 600m from point A. So far I have photographed three Rock Pipits here, and two of them also in the wet field. For some reason, birds are noticeably less wary here.

Rock Pipit 1

The top photo was one of the first I took, back on 29th January, and featured in this post. At the time, I noted that the bird looked fairly swarthy in the field. Certainly it never gave me any littoralis vibes. Yesterday it was on the far end of the pier, and looked quite different. For starters, it has the strongest pair of supercilia that I've seen on any Rock Pipit so far this year...

Rockit 1 yesterday.

Rock Pipit 2

The same day that I first met Rockit 1, I also met the next bird. At the time, I was so smitten by its appearance that it went down as littoralis straight away. Since then I have unwittingly photographed it twice more. But on neither occasion did it particularly stand out to me as obviously littoralis. At the moment I don't know whether this says more about the bird or about the (in)consistency of my field skills. Either way, it is a warning to avoid becoming complacent. Clearly, when it comes to the separation of littoralis and petrosus in winter plumage, I have so far solved nothing.

I am having a lot of fun though.

And I am so glad that individual birds can be identified from photos!

If this collage teaches me one thing, it is this: never trust a photograph's depiction of subtle browns and greys.

My gut feeling is that both the above are littoralis. I hope they hang around long enough to show me a bit of pre-breeding colour. We'll see...

In the meantime, there are sometimes other birds to get excited about...

108 Lapwings. They hang around in the field immediately north of, and across the river from, location A. It is largely undisturbed, thank goodness. It would be nice if someone could just buy it, please, and turn it into the wetland it so wants to be. If any reader has a few bob going spare...?

The Odd Couple. Two months now.

The droopy-winged female-type Black Redstart again.

The male Black Redstart yesterday. Two months since my one and only previous sighting, though it has occasionally been seen by others. Where does it get to?

Finally, and with apologies for this super-early lepidopteral digression, the moth trap went out last night for the first time since December. Just a single moth, which didn't even get inside the trap. A garden first though...

Pale Brindled Beauty. Very nice.

Very little birding time this weekend, and already I'm getting Rockit withdrawal. I do sometimes wonder what I would get up to without these silly puzzles to keep my brain ticking over...

One Month Done

So that's January done. I feel like I've missed almost a third of it, but I doubt my Patchwork Challenge totals would have been vastly different even without the man-flu.

Bridport North - 50 species/52 points

Best 'expected' bird: Dipper. Best unexpected bird: Firecrest.

West Bay & Eype - 63 species/78 points

Best by far: Leach's Petrel. Little Gull also excellent. Firecrest, Goosander and Cetti's Warbler very pleasing too.

Both patches have been a joy to work, and produced one or two nice surprises. Neither is exactly romping away numbers-wise, but I am quite happy to plod along at a modest pace.

Failing at Woodcock bothered me briefly. I wondered about trying dusk watches, or even asking to borrow Tom's thermal monocular, but soon realised I don't really care enough. A big species count isn't that much of a motivator for me, but rather the unknown potential, the surprises I might encounter while birding somewhere that I've largely neglected. I suppose I'm not much cut out for a listing competition...

My points target for each patch is 100 and 215 respectively. I'll be pleased if I achieve or get close to them. In the meantime, let's just see what comes along...

Felt a little better this afternoon, so risked a walk around West Bay. A total of four Purple Sands was my best count yet, and a nice surprise. Also, the femalest of the female-type Black Redstarts was by the slipway.

Purple Sand at the end of the harbour wall - one of four.

Black Redstart - much less of a poser than this pic would have you believe. It was in almost perpetual motion.

Almost no white at all in the wing of this one.

Naturally I looked at Rock Pipits. There were at least nine on the field behind Rise restaurant, though four flew off, and none let me get close. Typically these birds are difficult to approach, and take flight quite easily. I struggled to get any photos at all today. Just a handful at range, like these two...

Same as the closer bird in the photo above. Could be littoralis...or not.

A little later I came across three more on the rock armour of the harbour wall. These were far less shy. Was that because of the habitat? Or because they were petrosus? Or because they were littoralis on a wind-up? Who can say? Anyway, I got decent photos of two of them.

Slowly I am building a pictorial library of West Bay Rockits. Like the Burton Freshwater birds I spent time with last year, I would like to work out how many individuals I am playing with here. Whatever comes of it, I know it will be fun...

This one is the first I've noticed with a pinkish base to the bill.

Same again. In this shot the flank streaking appears to coalesce into a messy dark patch. Compare with photo above.

And again. A distinctive little notch in the tip of that inner right greater covert.

The second bird. A more typical yellow bill base on this one.

Same again.

On a completely different note, I'm currently revisiting a BB paper on a massive fall of migrants that occurred many years ago. I was six years old when it happened, but reading the account makes it hard to believe that I was alive at a time when there were actually that many birds. One thing is for certain: it will never happen again in my lifetime. Scratch that. It will never happen again, ever. Hopefully this mind-boggling event will make for an interesting NQS post soon...

A Tale of Two Books

This morning brought lovely news: Low Carbon Birding has won the British Birds & BTO 'Best Bird Book of the Year' prize for 2022. What a well-deserved accolade. To my mind, the book is unique. The ideals it promotes are gaining ever more traction in birders' discussions and - more to the point - actions, and its diverse collection of essays offers a thought-provoking taster for anyone interested in the topic. To have been personally involved in it was a privilege I treasure.

Low Carbon Birding is the second book I have contributed to; the first was Best Days with British Birds, published in 1989. Back then, a typescript was truly a typescript! In fact, my chapter was written almost 40 years ago, in late 1983. Reading it now, I do cringe a bit. Too wordy by far, a weakness that still afflicts me today. My essay is sandwiched between two illustrious names of the ornithological world - Ian Lewington and Guy Mountfort - and many of the other authors are equally well known.

At the time of publication, my favourite chapter was the tale of an epic twitch, from Scilly to Fair Isle in October 1980. I haven't read the whole book for many years now, but plan to rectify that soon. I can absolutely guarantee that I will end up with a new favourite chapter. Yes, the twitch account is a thrilling roller-coaster ride, and very relatable, but in my view belongs to another era. My circumstances back then would not have allowed such weapons-grade twitching anyway, but if they had, would that have been me? I was very surprised to read the following in my own chapter...

The sort of feeling that I enjoyed that morning comes far more often, and with far less-rare birds, on a well-loved and familiar local patch, than it does on infrequent visits to Cley or Dungeness or wherever...So, although I frequent the odd twitch and visit the various coastal hot-spots from time to time, I still find the most satisfaction is to be had locally, and would recommend the patch-flogging philosophy to anyone.

Following several years of dabbling, I had been birding intently for about two years when I wrote that. Twitching did get a stronger grip for a while from the mid-1980s, but it is heartening to know that in older age I seem to have got back to my roots. A nice place to be.

Let the Games Begin

Back to the dull, innocent stuff today. Finally ventured out this afternoon for an hour at West Bay. Mostly I mooched about the field behind Rise restaurant, trying to sneak up on Rock Pipits. Revisiting photos from last spring's 'find a littoralis' project the other day did fire me up - as it would anyone - and I was eager to make an early start this year. Little blighters were not cooperative, and the light was dire, but I got a handful of useful shots. After that I had time to walk to the seafront, see the broad, grey wall of damp approaching from the west, and quickly turn tail so that I could spend at least a few minutes with the River Brit gulls before the drizzle got too soggy...

This one was a bit distant, but always looked pretty swarthy through bins. Never saw the underparts that well.

Assuming I've got the exposure about right, this one is in a different class altogether. Paler uppers, pale ground colour below, and dark flank streaking seemingly quite narrow. Going by last year's experience I would happily call this littoralis right now. If it's this pale in January, by March it should look great.

Same bird again. Much paler above than first bird. Interesting that its supercilium is nothing special.

In the literature there is a lot of 'you cannot safely tell littoralis from petrosus in winter', and for decades that has been my mantra too. Last year's Rockit games made me wonder about that. Is there really too much overlap? I know that far better birders than me think winter littoralis is doable. I suspect I am going to wind up agreeing with them. The bird in those last two photos cannot be petrosus, surely?!

Here it is again, in a collage shot with yet another bird which only gave me a brief chance...

These two are not side by side in the field; this is a collage. The bird on the right is my littoralis candidate pictured above. Look at those underparts! And if I have the colour balance reasonably matched on both sides of the collage, that bird has a subtle, but noticeable, warm buffy tone to the ground colour.

I am so convinced that this Rock Pipit is a littoralis that I entered it as such on BirdTrack. So if I did have any reputation as a reasonably cautious observer left, it is now flying in tatters. Ah well.

Expect a lot of Rockit stuff...

Before I got too cold and damp, a quick couple of gull photos...

View up the Brit from the harbour bridge. There was a constant trickle of gulls dropping in, with maybe 30-40 present at any one time. Newlyn it is not, but with gulls...well...you never know. One day there will hopefully be a nice prize. Today though...

...just Herring Gulls.

When it does happen, at least the photos should be okay.

Birding off-piste

According to Google, 'off-piste' simply means 'away from prepared ski-runs'. The term is frequently applied to all sorts of non-ski activities of course, and here is a lovely example from my Twitter feed yesterday...

Living and birding on Barra is pretty off-piste in its own right but, as Bruce demonstrates beautifully, it is still possible to take things to another level.

In the definition above, the word 'prepared' struck me. A huge amount of birding could be classed as 'prepared'. An obvious example being your local reserve, with its circular walks and hides. In fact, almost any popular location, be it a coastal hot-spot or inland reservoir, is 'prepared' to some extent. A maybe less obvious example: the ubiquitous bird news that impels us to go here or there, to see this or that, in company with many others. Yep, 'prepared ski-runs' is arguably what this all is.

I've never been skiing, but assume that folk are encouraged to stay on the prepared runs because going off-piste could be dangerous. Birding-wise ditto. Very dangerous. You might miss stuff, or see less than everyone else. And there is another danger, which I'll come to shortly.

In truth, off-piste birding can be very rewarding of course. There might be the odd, crazy rarity for some. But Harlequin Ducks and their ilk are exceedingly few and far between, so what else can we expect? I suppose that depends on how broadly we apply the principle. A step further than off-piste locations are off-piste topics. Last year's littoralis Rock Pipit project springs to mind. I mean, who does that? To a lesser extent, sinensis Cormorants too, I guess. I enjoy this kind of stuff very much.

On Twitter I follow one birder who studies the movements and habits of birds using a stretch of the N Kent coast; how they are influenced by tides, disturbance, etc. Very off-piste. And another who enjoys working out the vis-mig flight lines in his local Surrey hills, and umpteen other off-piste activities...

I mentioned another danger, didn't I?

I cannot help noticing that the few NQS blog posts which feature big rarities, or some other unambiguously spectacular content, generally get the biggest viewing figures. I have to accept that my writing is unlikely ever to appeal to the masses. Because, yep, off-piste is largely boring to others.

Recently, my Twitter feed has been full of two particular birds. A stunning adult Sabine's Gull and, until its recent departure, a 2nd-winter Laughing Gull. Both undeniably photogenic and lovely, yet I did not for a moment feel inclined to visit either. I honestly cannot explain why. Don't get me wrong, this is not a moral choice or an anti-twitching thing - far from it - I simply am not interested. No, I would rather bore my small and sorely-tried readership with 'Continental' Cormorants...

A few days ago, before I got this stinking cold, I realised that my walk up the Mangerton River valley could be spiced up massively by squinting through the hedge around the two-acre Mangerton fishing lake. While trying to work out whether those two Cormorants on the distant, unfrozen bit might be sinensis, a Kingfisher flew in and perched up in the bankside vegetation behind them. Result! No pics of the Kingfisher, but...

Well, that Cormorant on the left is sinensis, for sure.

And earlier that day, in West Bay Harbour...

Definitely sinensis, this was one of [probably] two.

Suddenly they're everywhere. Mind you, they're only visible because I'm off-piste right now.

While I'm in West Bay I ought to show you these pics too...

The recent cliff fall. Now that the East Cliffs have got that little unpleasantness out of their system, evidently there is no danger of further collapse anywhere else along this notoriously unstable stretch. I mean, those folk on the beach can't be wrong, can they?

Frost-art

So, yes, I have a stinking cold, and feel lousy. But stir-craziness made me wrap up this afternoon and shuffle off down the river behind our place. Highlights were a Goldcrest, a Bullfinch, 2 Great-spots, and 3 Chiffs. The latter were all together at one point, feeding in a sun-kissed patch of short vegetation. Mostly they were creeping about in it like mice, but very occasionally perched up in view. A sheer joy to watch...

More boring stuff soon.

Definitely no Harlequins.

From Purps to Protractors

Well, the chill came. Sort of. And as I sat down at the laptop earlier, it was actually snowing . Big, fat, wet flakes. The first we've had for about four years I think. It even settled...

Rare Bridport snow in progress.

Bird-wise I can't say a lot happened. Early-morning visits to West Bay have not produced Golden Plover, nor any interesting ducks. By far the best bird was a Purple Sandpiper back on the harbour wall first thing yesterday, which by the afternoon had become two...

Two Purple Sandpipers. Little beauties!

Bird 1

Bird 2

Purple Sanderling

I did visit the spot where I flushed two Woodcock during the mid-December freeze, and put a single bird up. Unfortunately it flew out the far side of the thicket, and I failed to see it. Can I count a loud clattering of wings?

Yesterday I walked the cliff-top coast path which runs alongside the local golf course. A good count of 11 Skylarks on the golf course, and a female-type Black Redstart in exactly the same spot as last time I walked this path, a few weeks ago...

Black Redstart in the act of despatching some small, wriggly thing.

I get an awful lot of Black Redstart photos like this.

So, that happened yesterday.

And this happened today...

That massive rock-fall includes a hefty chunk of clifftop!

I am one of those risk-averse types who keeps well away from cliff edges, but I wonder how close to the path that fall got? And on the rare occasions I have walked the beach there, it has always been at low tide and close to the water's edge. You would not believe how many folk you see blithely strolling along at the foot of those cliffs. And in the summer, whole families set up for the day on that beach. Mad! And it's not like there are no warning signs.

In the case of this particular fall, close to the water's edge would not have been far enough away...

A couple of people circled to give it some scale.

This afternoon I headed up the valley towards Mangerton - part of my Bridport North patch - and was surprised to see a small flock of Cormorants fly over. Ones and twos are not unusual, but there were nine. They circled a couple of times, before dropping in to some riverside trees. Five were perched up in full view, and they reminded me of what is a fairly typical sight on big, inland gravel pits - arboreal Cormorants. In the home counties I would expect such gatherings to include many (mainly?) 'Continental' Cormorants (P. c. sinensis), but here? Three miles from the Dorset coast?

On the Axe at Seaton, and locally in West Dorset, I have checked countless Cormorants for possible sinensis birds. I've had a few reasonable candidates, including one or two probables that I couldn't be bothered to follow through on, but most birds have been unequivocally nominate birds, i.e., P. c. carbo. Sinensis seems to be genuinely rare, at least on the coast. Still, nothing ventured...

So I took some photos...

To my eyes, this bird is spot on for sinensis.

Re the caption above: how can I say that?

It's all down to the gular pouch angle. Thus...

This is dead easy to measure in the field. All you need is a protractor. And a tranquilliser gun.

There is a 2004 paper on this topic (which is where I got those figures) and you can find a link to it HERE. There is a very good article in the Devon Birds journal too, but I cannot remember which issue and no longer have a copy. Basically, any Cormorant with a gular pouch angle pushing 90 degrees (or greater) is definitely going to be sinensis*. The only proviso is that your bird needs to be in perfect profile. I took photos of all five, and these are as close as I got to the requisite side-on shot...

Apart from the youngster, I would say there isn't much argument. The protractor has spoken.

The young bird is probably border-line, but I'll bet it is sinensis too. In fact I would not be surprised if all nine were.

I have no idea what the Dorset status of this subspecies is, because sinensis is not even mentioned in any of the four most recent Dorset Bird Reports (2018-2021 - the only reports I have) and gets very sketchy treatment in The Birds of Dorset (2004), the county avifauna.

So there you go. Cormorants. Common birds, but - if you can be bothered - entertainment a-plenty.

* This is a bit simplistic, but will do for me.