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!

Finally!

By failing to respond to any number of snoozed alarms, I missed out on the chance of a really smart 2nd-winter Little Gull at Cogden this morning. So I hoped an afternoon walk from West to East Bexington and back might offer some compensation...

Driving past the Freshwater Beach Holiday Park was a revelation. Yesterday it was rammed, with a 'Full - No Vacancies' sign which had been in place for weeks. Glancing at it today, I could see many patches of faded grass where once were tents. I reckon two-thirds or more had gone. The summer season is over for another year.

The best bird at West Bex was a Redstart, yet another one 'pished' from a thicket of foliage. It almost posed for a photo, but changed its mind, darted round some buildings and vanished. Otherwise there was just a thin supply of migrant warblers: 4 Blackcaps, and singles of Chiff, Whitethroat and Reed Warbler. A bit more life down by the coast path though, with the magic Whinchat field producing at least eight birds, and the beach Wheatears bringing my tally of that species to 21 for the day...

The magic Whinchat field is pretty enormous, which enables all the birds to be as far away from you as they fancy. Which seems to be very far. The field is packed with flowery growth, as this photo shows, and must be home to a zillion tasty invertebrates. No wonder the Whinchats love it.

A little hint of white tail flash on view. Mmmmm.

Bird of the day was at East Bex, and almost slipped past me...

In late July and on into August my Twitter feed presented me with a steady stream of juvenile Yellow-legged Gull photos. Everyone was seeing them. Meanwhile I saw absolutely none at all. A bout of illness coincided with some of that period, but before and since I have been making at least a bit of effort to try and find one. To no avail though. Until today.

As usual I had checked the beach. Nothing. But good gulls don't necessarily need a beach, so I wasn't that surprised when a really good YLG candidate flew past me and across the farmland. It plonked down with a few Herring Gulls in the middle of a huge stubble field. Not close, but yep, I was sure. A juv Yellow-legged Gull. At which point something spooked the gulls and it was off again...and away.

My handful of tenth-rate flight photos just about saved the day...

This collage shows a surprising number of excellent features, despite how tiny the images are. The usual superbly black & white tail for example.

And from below

It felt good finally to see one of these, even if the whole event was a bit subliminal.

So that's August done and dusted. Let's see what September has to offer...

Wired For Sound

Yesterday morning was the first time this year that I've gone birding with the digital recorder running. Unfortunately I still had it switched to 'external mic' as per nocmig set-up, so actually recorded nothing, but my intention was good. No such schoolboy errors this morning, and I got a couple of corkers...

That was Tree Pipit followed by Yellow Wagtail. The wagtail went over within a minute of switching the recorder on, but despite its loudness I couldn't actually see it! The Tree Pipit calls were recorded later, when two birds flew over together. Out of curiosity I went through the whole recording, nocmig-style, to see if I'd missed anything in the field. Some of it was uncheckable due to the massive amount of noise I make just walking about - shingle is deafening - but I did find two Tree Pipit calls which I hadn't heard at the time, and what sounded like a small flock of Yellow Wags.

It really is satisfying to capture a decent sound recording of birds you see in the field, but there is another reason I like the idea of using a live recorder...

Many years ago I found a Dotterel on Beer Head, and my first views - just after first light - were of a plover circling the Head, calling. I couldn't place the call and, when the bird went out of view, found myself stumped. I put it down to odd Golden Plover. Thankfully it had landed close by, and was waiting for me to stumble across it a little later. In situations of that kind I see my recorder as the audio version of a camera, ready to capture the event in a way that leads to the solid identification of a bird which might otherwise slip through the net. Hopefully I'll one day get the chance to test it out in that fashion.

Apart from that single Yellow Wag (or flock?) that I didn't see, I can add flocks of 19 and 11; also 8 Wheatears, an alba wagtail and the 2 Tree Pipits. That was it. Apart from a few [probably] local Whitethroats, not a single warbler. The bushes were anything but leaping.

A long walk this afternoon produced a few bits and pieces, but it was very slow going. Best were singles of Hobby, Spotted Flycatcher, Whinchat and Sedge Warbler...

Spotted Flycatcher at Cogden

Makes a change from 'Wheatear on the beach' pics

Whinchat beside the West Bex Mere field

Almost a really pleasing shot. Curse that blurry reed

A Bizarre Fluke

Just for a change I walked the beach first on this morning's visit to Cogden. Apart from a few Yellow Wagtails over, and three Wheatears on the deck, it was very quiet. Back along the coast path was little better. At first. And then suddenly there were Whinchats everywhere. In no time at all I'd counted seven. Where had they come from? And then my phone rang. It was James M. He'd just found a Melodious Warbler near the car park!

Unfortunately there is no fairy-tale ending here. The Melodious Warbler performed a vanishing act, so my morning's final tally was 17 Yellow Wags, 3 Wheatears, 4 Sedge Warblers, 2 Willow Warblers, 2 Blackcaps and a Lesser Whitethroat.

It's worth mentioning that I wouldn't have seen a single Sedge Warbler if I hadn't bothered with a bit of pishing...

Hypnotised Sedge Warbler catches the early-morning sun.

I ended up at West Bex for an afternoon walk, and made up the route as I went along. Apart from a trickle of hirundines overhead, migrants were at a premium, and by the time I found myself in the Mere field I had just ones or twos of Willow Warbler, Whitethroat and Chiff noted. At which point I saw a bird flick into a hedge, and lifted my bins to check it out. But the bird had gone deep, and never reappeared. While I was waiting hopefully, peering at a birdless bit of hedge, I suddenly realised there was a dragonfly in my field of view, hanging on the twiggage...

A recent happening at West Bex has been the appearance of at least one male and one female Southern Migrant Hawker, a rare but increasing vagrant to the UK. Despite the upward trend in occurences it is still a rare enough insect that Steve recently discovered the first ever for Devon at Beer Head (write-up here) and needless to say, I've never seen one. But the striking, blue-eyed male is the latest addition to my tiny gallery of Odonata search images. The other day Mike Morse posted a photo of the female which he and Alan found at West Bex, and I remembered two things about it. One: it was a dull thing. And two: it had a long, pale triangle on the upper abdomen, a bit like the male's (though not blue) and noticeably different in shape to the Migrant Hawker's 'golf tee'. Through bins, my dragonfly definitely satisfied thing one. It was dull. For thing two I needed a photo...

My first shot, from some distance, definitely shows a pale triangle.

I got a bit closer and took some more, downloaded one to my phone and sent it to Steve.

'...what do I have here? Please say Southern Migrant Hawker.'

Long story short: my photo does indeed depict a female Southern Migrant Hawker. I am slightly blown away by the bizarre flukiness of my discovery, but to be honest it fits the pattern of how so many good finds occur. Like the Red-backed Shrike that appeared in my field of view last year when I lifted my bins to look at some Linnets. Nothing clever, just complete and utter jam. The only constants are being out, and looking at stuff.

So that was the high point of my afternoon, the discovery of my own Southern Migrant Hawker, a very smart dragonfly lifer. But there was more...

Although it was slow going, I did wind up with a few quality migrants: a Whinchat, 2 Redstarts and a Spotted Flycatcher. The first Redstart prompted a comedy moment. It whizzed behind a short hedge, and I realised that a good photo opportunity was up for grabs if I sneaked carefully round the far end of that hedge. I prepped the camera and eased slowly forward. But before I'd rounded the corner the Redstart suddenly popped into view and perched on a twig, quivering, no more than 15 feet away. I was mid step, front foot literally in the air. I froze. The Redstart froze. I lifted the camera slowly to my eye and tried to swivel my body, all the weight on my back foot. The camera was waving about so much that I couldn't even find the bird in the viewfinder. Three seconds felt like an aeon of time, and I had to plant that front foot. So I did...

Needless to say, you're going to have to make do with a photo of the second Redstart, which was hundreds of metres away...

This afternoon's Nanostart

The Spotted Flycatcher wasn't much closer...

This bird was in exactly the same bit of hedge which produced my first Spottted Flycatcher of 2020

Finally, here is probably the best pic of the dragonfly. I've carefully compared it to Mike's photo, and they are two different individuals. Interesting...

Female Southern Migrant Hawker. West Bexington, 29th August 2021.

There's plenty of autumn left, and I don't mean to sound ungrateful but I hope this jamminess also manifests itself in a birdy way over the coming weeks...

Effort and Reward

Much quieter at Cogden first thing, but there was a major prize even so. As I walked the coast path a bird flushed noisily from the adjacent hedge and headed off over the reedbed. It was a Cuckoo, my first for a year and three months*! Silhouette views made it impossible to age, and as it approached the beach I was fumbling with the camera for a record shot. It was easily in the air long enough for a photo, but I couldn't lock on to it. Chance blown. It appeared to land on the beach just beyond the reeds, but there was no sign when I eventually made it round there.

Otherwise it was definitely a lot quieter than the last time I got out early. Just 5 Wheatears, 2 Whinchats and 10 Yellow Wagtails, plus a few odds and ends like 7 Med Gulls, 3 Manxies and a Little Egret.

Beach Whinchat

Inquisitive Whitethroat

Late this afternoon I tried West Bex again, where it is dead easy to avoid the bank-holiday weekend crush by staying on the higher ground, well away from the beach or coast path. Very, very quiet. A lot of effort for little more than a handful of warblers - 3 Blackcaps, 3 Chiffs, 2 Willow Warblers and a few Whitethroats. So I found myself checking out the butterflies again. Which paid off nicely...

My first Brown Argus of the year

I was quite surprised to encounter this Brown Argus among the myriad Common Blues, but it looks the real McCoy to me. Unlike these...

This battered specimen had me going for a minute but it looks like there are some blue tinges to the body, so that's a female Common Blue I reckon...

...and this one definitely is.

Despite the lack of birdy action I was still carefully checking every single hedge I could see, and finally...

Tiny Redstart. Yay!

A few minutes later I came across a little tit flock. Among them was a Coal Tit. No big deal probably, but I don't recall seeing Coal Tit at West Bex before.

So that's another day ticked off the autumn calendar, and another decent result. Effort is definitely being nicely rewarded just now. Long may it continue...

 

* Not strictly true! A fellow birder politely reminded me that I saw (and photographed) a Cuckoo at Seaton Marshes back in June (evidence in this post) so the bird mentioned above is actually my first local Cuckoo for a year and three months. That's no excuse though - I had completely forgotten about the Seaton bird. I should probably be concerned...

Lots to Look At

A quick catch-up. In a nutshell, birding is genuinely exciting right now. Not only are there good numbers of regular migrants to bump into, but you can sense the very real possibility of a bit of superior quality too. None of the latter for me just yet, but lots of the former. Cue many photos...

Cogden. It's 06:45 on Wednesday, and I'm nowhere near the beach yet. Whinchat and Wheatear. A flavour of what's to come.

And down on the beach...Wheatear...

...and Whinchat

Nice juv Ringed Plover, evidently weary after its overnight travels

It was also a ringed Ringed Plover, a first for me I think.

Whinchats are even more demanding of camera time than Wheatears. This one on Dock sp(?)...

...this one on Sea Kale...

...and Yellow Horned Poppy.

There were two of these on the beach. I'm a lot more cautious with Alba wagtails than I used to be, but I would probably still call this one a White Wag. Elsewhere on the beach were a local adult and juv/1st-winter Pied, and the youngster was much duskier than this one.

Yellow Wag with breakfast. Great to see a few on the beach.

Oh, and a Whinchat

A totally different kind of Whinchat. A West Bex one.

Wednesday's Whinchat tally was an astonishing 24! And that was the minimum; I'd be pretty confident that the real figure was 30 or more. By location, it was nine at Cogden, 14 at West Bex (including at least 11 in one field!) and one at East Bex. Although I don't have historic figures I'm sure I've never seen more in a single day.

Wednesday basically went like this: 17 Yellow Wags, 47+ Wheatears, 2 White Wags, 3 Ringed Plovers, 2 Dunlin, Turnstone, Water Rail, Sedge Warbler, Willow Warbler.

Thursday and today were pretty full-on work, but I managed an after-dinner walk on both evenings. Thursday to Cogden, where it was obvious that Chiffchaffs are moving now too, with at least five seen, plus a couple each of Willow and Sedge Warbler. Highlight was a party of four Spotted Flycatchers, feeding together in the evening sunshine...

Spotted Flycatcher at Cogden - the 'birder's photo' version

This evening I tried West Bex, parking at the beach and walking east. Four Wheatears was all I could muster before heading inland to Labour-in-Vain Farm for the return leg. It was getting quite late now, and felt very quiet. About half way along Labour-in-Vain Lane I heard a phyllosc in the tall, dense hedge flanking the road. 'Yes', I thought, 'definitely a Willow Warbler'. A quiet, obviously disyllabic 'hoo-eet'. I reckoned it was a nice opportunity to test my pishing skills, and got to work. A few seconds later I spotted a movement in the foliage, then suddenly a head popped out and peered at me. Even before it flicked away with a louder 'hoo-eet' and dazzling flash of red tail I could see it was a Redstart! Well, that was a nice surprise, and a reminder to follow up 'Willow Warbler' calls at all times.

Pishing rules!

Ten minutes further down the lane a movement in the canopy of a small tree caught my eye. Very pleasingly, it was a Pied Flycatcher. Yep, this weather pattern has certainly spiced up the birding right now...