May 2016 archive

May 31 2016

Summary May 2016

Summary May 2016

Species this month = 132

New Species added to 2016 Year List in May= 41

Barn Owl at Thornham on 8th May, Bar-tailed Godwit at Minsmere on 3rd May, Bearded Tit at Titchwell on 7th, Blackcap and Common Tern at Rutland Water on 13th, Black-throated Diver and Common Sandpiper at Lochindorb on 31st, Common Crane at Horsey Mere on the 6th, Common Cuckoo at Upper Goyt Valley on 20th May and on 30th May at Laggan but lots of them heard at various locations. Dipper also at Goyt Valley on 20th, Dotterel at Chosely Drying Barns on the 9th and 11th May. Egytian Goose at Holkham Hall on 9th, Fulmar at Hunstanton Cliffs on 8th, Grasshopper Warbler heard at Thornham on 8th but surely just a mattter of a foot or so away, Also heard Green Woodpecker at Thornham on 7th. Grey Plover at Titchwell on 7th and 11th. Hobby at Lakenheath on 2nd, Minsmere on 3rd and Horsey Mere on 6th. Lesser Whitethroat on 5th at VCovehithe and 9th at Holkham NNR, Little Tern at Blakeney Point on 11th, Mediterranean Gull at Minsmere on the 3rd,Osprey at Rutland Water on 1st, Red Kite around Norfolk, Red-crested Pochard at Titchwell on 7th, Red Grouse at the Cat and Fiddle on 20th, Red-legged Partridge on 9th and 11th at Choseley Drying Brns but also at Fring on 10th, Redstart at Goyt Valley on 20th, Ring Ouzel at Cairngorm on 31st, Ringed Plover at Covehithe and other places, Sandwich Terns at Minsmere on 3rd and other places later in the month, Slavonian Grebe at Avielochan on 31st, Spotted Flycatcher at Upper Goyt Valley on 20t, Stone Curlew at Weeting Heath on the 10th, Swifts first at Rutland Water on the 13th, Whimbrel at Thornham on the 7th, Whitethroat at Thornham on the 8th and Yellowhammer at Weeting Heath on the 4th.

New UK Life List Birds In May = 5

Temminck’s Stint at RSPB Titchwell

Corn Bunting at Chosely Drying Barns

Turtle Dove at NWT Holmes Dunes

Black Tern at Rutland Water

Icterine Warbler at Laggan

Running Total for the 2016 UK So Far = 165

 

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May 31 2016

Scotland Holiday Day 3: Anagach Forest, Lochindorb, Carrbridge, Avielochan and Cairngorm, 31st May 2016

Scotland Holiday Day 3: Anagach Forest, Lochindorb, Carrbridge, Avielochan and Cairngorm, 31st May 2016

I started off the day with an early walk from 5.45am – 7.15am in the Anagach Forest. This time the first animal I encountered was a Roe Deer and in the woods the bird feeders were dominated by Red Squirrels – I saw around six of them. Still no Crested Tits but a few birds in the woods and on the golf course next to it.
We decided to head to Lochindorb to look for Divers, one of my favourite birds. En route to Lochindorb , on the Old Military Road, we got Red Grouse and a very large flock of Common Gulls. At Lochindorb we got of a Black-throated Diver and also got Oystercatcher, Common Sandpiper and Buzzard.
We took a drive from Lochindorb to the little loch on the left of Loch Allan where we had previously seen Red-throated Divers but we had no luck. We continued down that road until we found the left turn cut through that leads to the road that runs past the other side of Lochindorb and ends up at Carrbridge. There we found a Siskin and Swallows and House Martins and a Dunnock but not much else.
At Avielochan we got just the one Slavonian Grebe but there were other attractions including Goldeneye, Little Grebe and some Common Gulls amongst the Herring Gulls. The bird feeders had plenty of Siskins and other finches and tits. Willow Warblers were singing all the time.
Our next port of call as we headed off for Cairngorm was Craigelachie Nature Trail at Aviemore. Unfortunately we didn’t get the Peregrines we expected but we did, at least, get Spotted Flycatcher.
At Cairgorm we eventually managed to meet up with John Poyner who was heading up a hotel sponsored couple of hours bird watching at Cairngorm. We got the funicular railway up (now about £12 concessions each!) and the last trip back is 4.30pm. Anyway we met up with him and some other hotel guests, one for whom said he had seen a Ptarmigan on the train up but he was the only one. John said he had heard at least one calling but we didn’t see anything except a very cute young Mountain Hare right in front of the viewing platform. When it came to birds, however it was more disappointing and a couple of Meadow Pipits was the lot. It was made all the more difficult by the fact that a heavy fog came down at the observation deck level and this came and went making viewing hard work.
This was slightly compensated for when we saw Ring Ouzel at the bottom. In fact a pair had taken to nesting in a tree in the formal garden at the back of the train station. We walked round there and got views of both a male and a female. I also got probably my first actual view this holiday of a Willow Warbler singing right in front of us.
We returned home via Loch Morlich which was very quite (no Divers) and Nethy Bridge (only a Grey Wagtail) and got home pretty tired. After dinner I sat down to write up the last three days of birding and was thoroughly beat at the end of it.

Bird Sightings : Anagach Forest

Species Count
Common Pheasant 1
Eurasian Oystercatcher 2
Common Wood Pigeon 8
Eurasian Jackdaw 6
Coal Tit 1
Great Tit 2
Eurasian Blue Tit 1
Eurasian Wren 1
Willow Warbler 3
European Robin 2
Eurasian Blackbird 4
Mistle Thrush 1
Common Chaffinch 10

Bird Sightings : Lochindorb

Species Count
Greylag Goose 40
Mallard 8
Red Grouse 6
Black-throated Diver 1
Common Buzzard 1
Northern Lapwing 2
Common Sandpiper 1
Common Gull 100
Eurasian Jackdaw 10

Bird Sightings : Carrbridge

Species Count
Great Tit 1
Barn Swallow 4
Common House Martin 8
Dunnock 1
Eurasian Siskin 1
House Sparrow 10

Bird Sightings : Avielochan

Species Count
Greylag Goose 12
Common Goldeneye 2
Little Grebe 1
Slavonian Grebe 1
Northern Lapwing 6
Black-headed Gull 6
Mew Gull 2
Herring Gull 20
Sand Martin 20
Barn Swallow 6
Willow Warbler 2
Song Thrush 1
Common Starling 2
Common Chaffinch 6
European Greenfinch 1
Eurasian Siskin 10
European Goldfinch 2

Bird Sightings : Craigelachie Nature Trail, Aviemore

Species Count
Common Sandpiper 1
Willow Warbler 1
Spotted Flycatcher 2
European Robin 1

Bird Sightings : Cairngorm

Species Count
Willow Warbler 1
Ring Ouzel 2
Meadow Pipit 2

May 30 2016

Scotland Holiday Day 2: Laggan and Anagach Forest, 30th May 2016

Scotland Holiday Day 2: Laggan and Anagach Forest, 30th May 2016

On our way to Grantown on Spey we saw a Raven, a pair of Red-legged Partridge, a Buzzard and a few other birds. We were in plenty of time arriving at the hotel so we came off the main road to Grantown on Spey and took a detour to Laggan. This was really just a tea stop on our way to Spey Dam (which we heard was a potentially good site for birds) but we didn’t get any further than Laggan because, as we neared a layby, we saw a chap who had a camera out and he was obviously taking pictures of birds. We stopped next to him and he said that he had a Cuckoo on one side of the road and an Icterene Warbler on the other. To say that we were overjoyed would be an understatement as we had never seen an Icterine Warbler before and, although we have been getting better views of Cuckoos of late, we have not seen an adult bird this close before.
We parked in the lay-by just after the toilets and café (closed) and walked a bit back towards them. The Cusckoo had gone so we turned our attention to the Icterine Warbler took some locating but eventually it came out into the open and showed itself really well at the top of a tree. You could actually see it clearly with the naked eye but I did get my scope on it for a good minute or two. Fantastic to look at, the bird was also easily identifiable by its unique song which it gave us examples of for the next few minutes.
It eventually disappeared into the trees and so we returned our attention to the Cuckoo which had returned by now and, in fact, it spent the best part of half an hour or more perched on the “telegraph wire” and dropping down occasionally to pick up a morsel from the ground. It was probably also keeping an eye out for Meadow Pipit nests as the field below was full of them.
We watched for so long, and even got many photos of it, that we were able to show a passing family with children the bird in my scope, now lowered to a few feet from the ground to allow the children to see it in close up. As ever with Cuckoos (and we had this experience recently at the Goyt Valley when we were able to show a couple of people a Cuckoo in the scope, people are amazed because whilst everyone has heard a Cuckoo, few have ever seen one.
We stayed for a long time entranced by the Cuckoo and the appearing and disappearing Icterine Warbler. We thanked the chap for his help and decided we needed to get to the Grant Arms Hotel at Grantown on Spey before the afternoon wore on too much.
Rather amusingly there was a story attached to the chap who had shown us the Icterine Warbler. We met him again at the hotel and he was actually heading up a guided party of birders and even giving a talk in the hotel cinema / lecture hall. His name is Jim Almond and he goes under the title “The Shropshire Birder”. He is a pretty good photographer as well. When we first met him, we took him for a local patch birder who had found this bird himself. Conversely he thought that we had seen the bird listed on the “Rare Bird Alerts” web site/app. When we met at the hotel we were both amused when we found out that he had gone there because he had seen the Icterine Warbler listed on the “Rare Bird Alerts” app and he was amused to find out that we had stopped next to him entirely randomly and I hadn’t even looked on the RBA site yet. We continued to meet Jim during our stay at Grantown on Spey and even ran into him after we had left but more of that later.
We eventually got to the hotel and settled in to a nice room on the front right corner of the first floor as you look at the hotel. This meant that we actually had three windows in the room; one looking onto the grassy area at the front of the hotel, one on the corner looking down the street, and another one overlooking the side of the building and with a good view of the big clock on the building next door. We never worried about knowing the right time.
After getting settled in at the hotel and went for a walk to the nearby Anagach Forest where the first animal we saw was a Red Squirrel. In the forest we saw Treecreepers, Coal Tits and a Song thrush amongst other birds but no Crested Tits which we had seen there before.

Bird Sightings : Laggan

Species Count
Common Merganser 4
Eurasian Oystercatcher 2
Lesser Black-backed Gull 1
Grey Wagtail 1

Bird Sightings : Anagach Forest

Species Count
Coal Tit 3
Great Tit 2
Eurasian Treecreeper 3
Eurasian Blackbird 2
Song Thrush 1
Common Chaffinch 4

May 29 2016

Scotland Holiday Day 1: WWT Caerlaverock : 29th May 2016

Scotland Holiday Day 1: WWT Caerlaverock : 29th May 2016

On our way up to Dumfries we stopped off at WWT Caerlaverock. It was a lovely day but there wasn’t anything special on show just a smattering of ducks and hedgerow birds. We took the path down to the Avenue Tower and diverted, halfway down, on to the “Summer Walk” that leads through meadows down to the river where we saw Otter tracks and heard plenty of Sedge Warblers. It goes a long way following the river but we did not have time so returned the way we came (you cannot get to the Avenue Tower from this path) and went down to the tower.
In truth it was a pretty unspectacular day and this site is probably more interesting in the winter but it was such a lovely day we could not resist going there and we had a really nice walk.
After our break we continued on to Dumfries where we were staying at the Premier Inn but we stopped for a recce at the weir on the River Nith. This area is a spectacularly under-developed area and it looks like a prime place for riverside restaurants and bars etc. but, as a local we met later on our holiday informed us, it has never been developed because the whole area is subject to regular flooding and the water comes up our of the sewers rather than over the river banks! We did, however, see some interesting birds at the weir including a nice family of Goosander and a Grey Wagtail.

Bird Sightings : WWT Caerlaverock

Species Count
Mute Swan 10
Common Shelduck 2
Mallard 20
Common Teal 4
Common Pheasant 1
Little Grebe 1
Grey Heron 1
Common Moorhen 2
Eurasian Oystercatcher 4
Northern Lapwing 6
Black-headed Gull 10
Rook 8
Carrion Crow 8
Common Raven 1
Barn Swallow 10
Willow Warbler 4
Sedge Warbler 6
Eurasian Blackbird 4
Pied Wagtail 1
Meadow Pipit 2
Common Chaffinch 6
European Greenfinch 4
European Goldfinch 4
House Sparrow 20

Bird Sightings : Dumfries Weir (River Nith)

Species Count
Goosander 4
Eurasian Oystercatcher 2
Lesser Black-backed Gull 1
Grey Wagtail 1

May 21 2016

Upper Goyt Valley & Dane Bower Quarry : 20th May 2016

Upper Goyt Valley & Dane Bower Quarry : 20th May 2016

We are due to go to Scotland at the same time as the birding group has scheduled Upper Goyt Valley so we will miss it. We decided to go there, a little earlier than usual) in the hope of seeing the usual species we like to think we will see there; Spotted and Pied Flycatcher and Redstart and Tree Pipit. We were partly succesful but also had an added fantastic sighting that I can’t really believe I managed to make.

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May 16 2016

Summary of East Anglia Holiday

Summary of East Anglia Holiday

Our holiday was to be roughly as follows; a travel day with an overnight stop at Peterborough Ferry Meadows Premier Inn. with a visit to Rutland Water reserve en route. The next day we headed for Halesworth in Suffolk where we stayed at Poachers Cottage, a place we had found online. We hired a cottage in this location so we could go to some of the birding sites we wanted to visit and also to catch up with friends who lived in the area. We stayed here for four nights before going on to spend a week in Thornham in North Norfolk, We hired a cottage,4 Elder Cottages, situated about a mile from RSPB Minsmere.

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May 14 2016

Hambleton Woods : 14th May 2016

Hambleton Woods : 14th May 2016

After breakfast we fancied a bit of a walk and we had wanted to check out the nearby Hambleton Woods which is famous for its Nightingales. We really didn’t fancy our chances of hearing or seeing Nightingales as late in the morning as it was but it was a chance to find out where the paths were and so on and, in the end, it did give us another holiday tick in the form of a Treecreeper – our last bird of the holiday as it transpiered.

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May 13 2016

Rutland Water 13th May 2016

Rutland Water 13th May 2016

To break up our journey back home we decided to stay overnight at the Barnsdale Lodge Hotel at Rutland Water and this would give us a chance to look at the Ospreys again. We had seen them at the start of our holiday so it seemed appropriate to have a go at them again and Rutland was an ideal half way home for us. The weather was rather different this time, being much cooler and more windy and overcast, and it looked like there might have been quite a bit of rain since we were last here.

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May 13 2016

Thornham 13th May 2016

Thornham 13th May 2016

On our departure day from Thornham and Norfolk I took one last morning walk along the marsh and then through the reed beds up to the harbour. There is a change in the weather and, although it is still nice and sunny, a cold wind is blowing off the sea. This meant that a lot of smaller birds were hiding away in the bushes or reeds but I still saw a few and, as so often here, the first bird I heard as I left the house was a Cuckoo

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May 12 2016

Holmes Dunes NWT 12th May 2016

Holmes Dunes NWT 12th May 2016

We wanted to do something that involved as little driving as possible this day, because we were heading homewards the following day, so we decided upon Holmes Dunes NWT reserve. As it happens, we had already walked from our cottage in Thornham to one edge of the reserve and back and it would have been easy to walk all the way to the visitor centre from Thornham. We didn’t know that but in some respects it was as well that be did because it led us to a “life tick”.

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