When in doubt… always go out!

My wife is very good at recognising the symptoms: indecision, increasing irritability, and if left untreated for long enough, bruising caused by a thump to the head with a frying pan. If the weather is ‘birdable’ at the weekend but I’m still indoors, then I’m probably going to be very grumpy. Fortunately, after years of experience, Suzanne knows this and is frequently kind enough to apply the necessary medicine, with gentle words like “Will you just b*gger off out, for God’s sake?” It was something like that today…

My original plans had featured small woodpeckers in a much-blogged London setting – but I put paid to these by ignoring the early alarm and getting another three hours sleep. But then what to do? Could try woodpeckers regardless (no, too many patch birders dogwalkers); could go to north Kent (no, bridge would be hideous at this late hour); could go out Southend way (no, pier closed, less photo opps); could stay in bed even longer (no, that would be outrageously lazy) etc, etc, etc. After some (blunt) words of wisdom from my better half, I leaped out of bed, got in the car and went up to the Suffolk coast.

And it was great! For the first time this year, every single one of my many birding jackets could be left in the car – it felt pretty warm when I arrived at Alton Water, around 14 degrees. The birds on show here still had a decidedly wintery feel, though, featuring Red-necked and Slavonian Grebes and a pair of Goosander. The first of these was quite showy initially but was always drifting further away, and I gather others have seen it closer still.

Continuing north, I had a quick look at Sizewell to see if any Black Redstarts felt inclined to burst into song yet (nope), though the Kittiwake colony was in full swing on the rigs offshore, making quite a noise. Just up the road, a smart male Dartford Warbler on Westleton Heath was typically handsome and charismatic, but the long walk up to Dingle Marshes only resulted in three Snow Buntings, no Twite. (I learned later that they’ve moved to Southwold).

The remainder of the afternoon was spent at Minsmere. I’d intended to have a quick look from Bittern Hide, and then head round to East to check out the gull roost… but got a bit distracted when this guy flew straight at the hide for a moment or two and landed right in front of us:

Oh well, another photo of Mallards ruined, I just had to make the best of a bad job for the next hour or so!

The Bittern paraded around and across the pool in front of the hide as the temperature and light gradually dropped away, with just a very small audience of appreciative photographers and wowed visitors. In fact it was still there when the light had almost completely gone and I left! By way of backdrop, Marsh Harriers gave regular fly-pasts, a drake Smew flew in from Island Mere, Bearded Tits pinged, Cetti’s exploded occasionally, and the Great White Egret briefly deigned to show its lanky neck above the reeds in the distance. Oh, and I saw another two Bitterns – one dropping into the reeds in front, and another continuing on west towards Island Mere. Great stuff!

Yellowthroat in Gwent

Once again, no surprise where I’ve been this weekend. After studying the weather forecast, I bailed out of a planned trip on Saturday (sorry guys!) though it would ultimately have been successful, and subsequently made plans to try today with the Monkey and my Dad. After getting a last minute brownie-point extension, Shaun also joined us to complete the carload.

We arrived just after 8 to find the bird already showing pretty well on and off under blue skies and bright sunshine. It worked its way gradually and methodically up the hedgeline towards a crowd perhaps 150 strong, feeding in the long grass and bramble scrub on the very edge of the pasture – never in view for more than a few seconds, but generally pretty easy to keep tabs on. Lots of tail-flicking to expose the mega-bright undertail coverts, and the occasional charismatic ‘bounce’ from tussock to tussock. Awesome! It eventually got within about 20m of us (and closer still to some well-placed folk at the end of the line), but photos are still no more than record shots for such a small bird. Not complaining though!

After about 90 minutes of sitting in the sunshine, great views and the occasional slightly disturbing “ooh” and “aaaaah” from Shaun when the bird showed particularly well, we decided that it wasn’t going to get any better (and that Shaun might need some new trousers), and made a move onwards. First up, a tip-off for Dipper was spot on – returning from Rhiwderyn towards the M4, where the A468 kinks right at a roundabout, go straight on on Caerphilly Road towards Forge Mews (a dead-end). Viewing upstream here found a Dipper showing pretty well immediately.

Next stop for us, and numerous other Yellowthroat fanciers, was Cosmeston Lakes, where the adult drake Lesser Scaup showed pretty well. Excellent scope views, and a few pics too…

… though a Whooper Swan (ringed black-on-orange Y59) was much much more confiding amongst Mutes! Thanks to the power of Google, I can tell you that it was ringed in Worcestershire in January 2011 and is believed to have originated in Iceland.

Final stop of the day was a particularly foul-smelling and litter-strewn Cardiff Bay, where we couldn’t find either of the recent Bonaparte’s Gulls. With many of the small gulls remaining out of view on the sewage works tanks for >99% of the time, we really couldn’t muster much enthusiasm to stay, and headed home early afternoon to avoid the usual M4 / M25 Sunday night jams and let Dad get back up to Norfolk in decent time.

A cracking day, with a stunning bird that will live long in the memory!

“I jumped across for you
Oh what a thing to do
‘cause you were all yellow”

[though, on reflection, that would be a Yellow Warbler, wouldn’t it?]

Canary Islands trip report

Due to our boiler packing up over the weekend, I’ve been stuck indoors more than usual this weekend, waiting for an engineer to visit – so finished off the trip report from our visit to the Canaries over Christmas.

Click on the Blue Tit for a PDF doc, and feel free to contact me (via email, or a comment on this post) if you want any more details.

Oops.

159.

It’s not a particularly big number, in the grand scheme of things. I mean, take Stephen Hester’s proposed bonus – 3,600,000 shares, worth £963,000 – or the total UK government borrowing, at approximately £1,003,000,000,000. (Incidentally, I don’t think either of these are necessarily anywhere near as preposterous as the media have portrayed them to be… but that’s for another time and a more serious argument than I intend to make today).

But 159 is a rather surprisingly big number when placed in context. It’s certainly more than the equivalent number has been in any of the last 20 years. It’s the number of birds I’ve seen so far in 2012.

And I really didn’t mean to! Allow me to describe this weekend’s events, for example…

Suzanne and I hadn’t been up to Norfolk to see my parents this year, or indeed since returning from the Canaries – so there was plenty of catching up to be done. And with a sunny weather forecast, ample opportunity for some nice relaxing walks in the clean, unpolluted country air, too. Excellent! We left early on Saturday, and arrived mid morning… and no sooner had I arrived but my Dad wanted to go out birding. Outrageous! Clearly I tried my best to resist this anti-social and ill-timed suggestion, but faced with uncompromising determination, what could I do but go with him?

He wanted to take some photos of Wigeon in the sunshine – and on arrival at his chosen venue, grudgingly I could see the attraction. Look, they’re rather smart, don’t you think?

But here it all started to go wrong, alas. An unfortunate scan over the grazing marshes found a mixed flock of geese, some with orange legs and dark chocolatey heads! Of all the Wigeon sites in Norfolk, we’d ended up in the Yare valley, and I’d seen another new bird for the yearlist. And what’s this? A dinky-billed, yellow eye-ringed White-front poking its little neck up from the grassy sward into my field of view? My heart sank, and I insisted that we leave quickly before I saw anything else.

I picked a random point of the compass and drove for quite some time, heading steadily away from the despised geese, but regrettably ran out of land at Ness Point, Lowestoft. Rejecting the idea of plunging myself into the sea as penance, I merely covered my eyes. Fortunately no Purple Sandpipers approached to peck at my feet, and the Black Redstarts mercifully remained silent. Phew.

Seizing upon our unfortunately bird-friendly location, Dad, however, was very keen on looking for an adult Iceland Gull which had eluded him previously. At Hamilton Dock, there was no sign (triple phew!), so we headed over to Lake Lothing. There was a supermarket there to purchase lunch, too – how convenient. While I charitably and diligently searched for the gull (under duress, clearly), I couldn’t fail to notice a Shag feeding in the distance and, oh, a Black-throated Diver. Damn. But no Iceland Gull. Obviously, since I’m not yearlisting, I didn’t consider paying £1 to drive into a multi-storey car park to view the docks from the roof, either. That would just be silly.

Correcting my earlier navigational error, we headed back into Norfolk, and turning off the A47 at Acle, I had a brilliant idea: we could go looking for seals at Horsey! They’re cute and photogenic, and better still, they won’t increase my yearlist and I won’t get any more abuse directed my way from East London!

Keen (or suspicious) viewers will at this point note that the EXIF data in the photo above does not entirely support my tale. Once again, I regret to admit that I took a wrong turn, and found myself deep in the Broads amongst a maze of narrow lanes. Seeing signs for a Visitor Information Centre at Ranworth, I followed them, hoping to find a map that would correct my route to the coast – but alas, the centre was closed, and a thoughtless scan of the broad revealed a pointy-headed, ring-billed, spiky-tailed female aythya. The Marsh Tits sneezed in laughter as I wept.

Having determined that we were now quite close to home, and by now thoroughly depressed at all these unwanted additions to 2012’s notes, I considered heading back to base early – but decided it would be very rude to disrupt Mum’s preparations for dinner. Seeing a procession of cars heading up the A149 and into Hickling, I followed, intrigued. They all seemed to be heading down a narrow, muddy lane, to another visitor centre. What could be going on?

Hearing a strange bugling noise in the distance, I followed the crowds who appeared to be converging on a rather ramshackle windmill. How strange! Looking around as the noises got louder, I suddenly realised what was going on: they were BIRD-WATCHERS! And then these flew over before I could avert my eyes (or my lens):

D’oh! For the next hour, I tried hard to concentrate solely on counting the massing hordes of Barbour jackets Marsh Harriers, but try as I might, the booming tones of a fluorescent-waistcoated NWT warden couldn’t be ignored: “There are two Merlins operating in the vicinity of the old mill!”, he yelled, and before anyone could ask what exactly they were operating on (surgically tearing apart an unfortunate Meadow Pipit, perhaps?), an involuntary reaction had taken hold of my palm on the tripod handle, and I’d swung round to year-tick yet another new bird. A sad day, thoroughly unpleasant.

Returning home to reflect on my failed attempts at avoiding birds (and the 150 species now nestling in my notebook), I decided to abandon further attempts at list containment. It just hadn’t worked. So on Sunday, I filthily ticked my way round north-west Norfolk, resulting in the large number at the head of this post, and culminating with a rather superb Black Guillemot at Holkham. Quality – a genuinely tricky bird to see in the county, and totally unexpected.

However, obviously I really wish I’d stayed in London, spent every waking moment trailing round my nearest ‘green space’, beating errant dogs off my shins, getting hacked off with their chavvy owners and seeing b*gger all, don’t I? Clearly that would clearly be superior… in some way that I can’t even begin to fathom.