Sunday 23 September 2012

At last, some autumn birding!

While not on the scale of today’s Shetland megas, there’s been some decent birding this weekend in East Anglia. Jono and I spent Saturday in North Norfolk, and I’ve then been braving the wild and windswept Suffolk coast today.

Species highlights were almost exactly what you’d expect for the time and place: a few skuas and shearwaters (single Manx and Sooty) at Sheringham early on, followed by an invisible Yellow-browed, a very visible and very lovely Red-breasted Fly and a Barred Warbler yesterday, and then a scaly juv Red-backed Shrike, a moderately distant Leach’s Petrel and a smart Pec Sand today. Oh, and a surprise in the form of a Hawfinch, as well – filling itself up on hawthorn berries after its sea crossing.

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Didn’t manage to find anything else unusual – but just being out in the peace and quiet (even in the wind and rain) with the sound of freshly arrived Goldcrests and Robins is fantastic, and potentially exciting birding. I love it!

Monday 10 September 2012

South Africa: the Best Birding Breakfast yet…

Another trip highlight was the excellent forest birding along the garden route, around Wilderness, Knysna, and Nature’s Valley to the east. We stayed for three nights at the excellent Kingfisher Country House, where each day begins with a superb breakfast and some great birds just inches away. A selection of bird feeders have obviously been in place for quite some years, attracting forest specialities in for excellent views. Picture the scene:

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The undisputed highlight for me was the Knysna Turaco, with at least three birds coming in to munch on breadcrumbs… not a bad looking bird!

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Other forest specials included Black-bellied Starling and Chorister Robin-chat:

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And then there’s an array of commoner birds, including dapper Swee Waxbills:

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… iridiscent Amethyst Sunbirds (as well as Southern and Greater Double-collared Sunbirds and a Gray Sunbird, on the western extreme of its range)…

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… handsome Olive Thrushes…

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… and atypically showy Terrestrial Brownbuls, much trickier to see well elsewhere.

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Also noted on the breakfast table itself were homemade quiches, frittata, filled potato skins and muffins, and an excellent selection of cereals, sausages, bacon, eggs, coffee and fruit juice. Given this little lot, it was very difficult to tear ourselves away to go birding elsewhere… and not just because we’d eaten too much!

Wednesday 5 September 2012

South Africa: Cape Town pelagic – albatrosses and more

One of the highlights of our holiday was a pelagic birding trip out of Simon’s Town (on the Cape peninsula) on Saturday. Given that our entire itinerary was booked up through Birding Africa, who have close links with Cape Town Pelagics, we’d planned this in from the start since I gather they are often over-subscribed. I can see why – the seabirding was nothing short of spectacular, and that was on a relatively quiet day!

Arriving at the harbour early in the morning, I was somewhat taken aback by the size of our boat – this was certainly not the Scillonian, or even the Sapphire! Max capacity was ten, comprising the skipper (Alan Blacklaws), bird guide (Dalton Gibbs) and just six birders. However, it became clear that the boat was built for speed, not for size, and we bombed along through the calm inshore water to Cape Point, before heading out up to 20 miles offshore in a search for trawlers hauling nets. Fortunately, we found one – and saw plenty of great birds.

To start with, the common ones…

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This guy is a White-chinned Petrel. Deceptively small and cute-looking on the water, they’re actually quite large, I guess about 30-40% longer wingspan (and broader-winged) than a Sooty Shear, which were also fairly common. We must’ve seen hundreds of the White-chinneds, sailing around on characteristically bowed wings.

Much more attractive, but just as abundant, were the Pintado (or Cape) Petrels. These are beautiful looking birds, with a chequered black-and-white upperwing. Hard to resist when you’re holding a camera!

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Other relatively common birds were Antarctic (Brown) Skuas, Cape Gannet, Kelp Gull and Wilson’s Petrel. But we’d come to look for bigger birds… like this ugly brute:

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This is a Southern Giant Petrel, Macronectes giganteus. Dalton pointed out that Macronectes translates roughly as “giant death”… which sounds about right, especially if you happen to be a cute baby seal pup. Differentiating between Northern and Southern Giant Petrel isn’t straightforward – the colour of the bill tip is one decent feature, yellowy-green on Southern, and reddish-pink on Northern. The dark eye also suggests Southern. We did see a Northern briefly, but it didn’t hang around for photos. In flight, both species have a wingspan similar to the smaller albatrosses, and a noticeably hunch-backed appearance.

So, what about those albatrosses, then?!

The commonest species, showing up from just off Cape Point, was the Shy Albatross – we must’ve seen at least 100 birds, I reckon. The easiest feature to pick up was the almost totally white underwing, with only a very narrow black border, and peg marks at the leading edge of the base of the wing when seen well. Younger birds show the grey wash on the neck and breast sides, but I believe all ages remain paler on the mantle than the wings (unlike Black-browed, which are more uniformly dark right across).

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Once we’d got well clear of land, we also saw a decent number of Black-browed Albatross – the species most often encountered in European waters, albeit still as a mega-rarity. These are incredibly smart birds, the adults in particular.

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And then there was the best bird of the lot – a single Northern Royal Albatross, which sailed effortlessly past the back of our boat, looped round and back the way it came, and was then never seen again. Absolutely stunning, with an enormous 3m wingspan, completely white back, and completely black wings. They breed around New Zealand, and (like all the large albatrosses) have a worrying small and declining world population. I didn’t get any shots of this bird, but Dalton’s kindly emailed me these two record shots…

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… what a bird, and what a trip! I’d love to go back and do it again, any time.

Monday 3 September 2012

Out of Africa…

…so the photos start here!

Suzanne and I returned from a simply awesome 18-day trip this morning, the best we’ve done yet without a doubt. The combination of non-stop stunning scenery, great birding, flowers and wildlife, some fantastic accommodation and hospitality, and the flexibility and peace and quiet of independent self-drive was a winner for sure.

This first post is intentionally light on words (while we’re ploughing through thousands of photos, and sadly getting ready for work tomorrow)… but here’s a small selection of photos to whet the appetite. The subject species are all connected by a theme related to the holiday – leave a comment if you can work out where we’ve been, and what the connection is!

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