24 Oct 14 - Happy First Birthday

Happy Birthday to the Blog - 1 year old today & the 225th Blog Post. It's been an amazing year with a great selection of Birds seen, both in the UK, but also on the trips abroad. I have also seen & photographed an amazing amount of other wildlife over the last year. Too many great species to cram into a single post, so I will focus on 13 of my favourite stories or photos, one from each of the last 13 full or partial calendar months to hopefully wet your appetite to go back & explore some of the posts. It is traditional for many bloggers to do a round up of the year. I'm going to do that on the Blog's anniversary instead.

Oct 13 - Cape May Warbler: The highlight of October was the day twitch to Unst for the Cape May Warbler, just for the whole craic of the day, as well as seeing such a massive UK rarity. I wasn't that impressed when I saw the first photos of the Cape May when it first turned up, but it was a more subtle & great looking Warbler than I was expecting. Unst, Shetlands (29 Oct 13)

November's Bird has to be the stunning Hawk Owl in Zwolle, Hollard. This was an opportunity for me take the car over to Europe for the first time & it was a great 2 day trip with a good mate, Dave Gibbs. The Hawk Owl was amazing as it sat completely unfazed only 30 metres away from the assembled crowd of admirers.

Nov 13 - Hawk Owl: A great Owl & a World Tick. Zwolle, Holland (27 Nov 13)

December saw me heading off to the Andamans & mainland India for a 7 week trip, the first 3 weeks of which were with old mate, Brian Field. Choosing the best Birds for the 400+ species seen (about 75% photographed) is very difficult, so I am going for this Andaman Flowerpecker. A small, subtle endemic species. Anybody who have travelled in SE Asia will be used to Flowerpeckers being small, active Birds high up in the rainforest canopy & rarely giving good views. So it was great to see this Andaman Flowerpecker only a few metres away for an extended period. Initially, I had to step back as it was closer than the 3.5 metre minimum focus on the 400mm lens.

Dec 13 - Andaman Flowerpecker: Ghandi Park, Port Blair (22 Dec 13)

The Indian trip carried on to the end of January & I travelled through the Western Ghats, Gujarat & Rajasthan before finishing in Delhi. India is a great country for wildlife, although there are often long, slow journeys to the good sites. The other good thing is there are plenty of great mammals to see out there. It would be well worth looking at the Indian posts for anybody thinking on visiting any of these parts of India.

Jan 14 - Wild Ass: This was my favourite mammal of the year & it's a real shame as these 4 Wild Asses had walked for a mile or two across the bare dried up lake bed for a mile or two & then crossed a 1/4 mile salt bed, only to find Bill, myself, the guide & the jeep parked up by the only vegetation for miles. After sniffing the air for a few minutes, they turned & headed back to where they had just come from. Desert Coursers, Gujarat, India (17 Jan 14)

Within a week of being back from India I was off again to the Western Sahara & Southern Morocco for 10 days. This was a great trip to an infrequently visited part of the Western Palearctic. Not a huge number of Birds & Mammals, but some good species seen in this interesting area. It was interesting, but worrying, to talk to Trevor Charlton, the finder of the putative Moltoni's Subalpine Warbler recently, about one of the main Birding areas, Oued Jenna. This is the Cricket Warbler site and conventional information is, this area wasn't mined in the recent civil war. From what Trevor was told, it may well have been mined & cleared and mine clearance isn't 100% certain. This was an area we visited twice as we had to return after hearing about two Sudan Golden Sparrows which weren't on our expected list: we found them along with an additional two.

Feb 14 - Sudan Golden Sparrow: An excellent bonus Western Palearctic & World Tick. Oued Jenna (11 Feb 14)

I didn't managed to get out much in March as I was spending most of my time wading through the thousands of photos from the Indian & Western Saharan trips. But my interest picked up following the news that a Pond Heron at Hythe, Kent had been confirmed as being a Chinese Pond Heron. I teamed up with local Birder, Marcus Lawson, who has only recently moved from Kent for the trip. Our timing was perfect as it was located when we were about 10 minutes away, but flew just before we arrived. Fortunately, Dave Gibbs saved the day with a phone call to say it had been relocated, allowing views sitting in a garden tree before it dropped out of sight. We later found out we were even more lucky when it transpired this was the last time it was seen well. A brief flight view that evening was its last sighting. Sadly, its long dead corpse was found a few weeks later, allowing confirmation of its identify by DNA. The next question is will the BOU allow this onto the UK List? Having seen the target Bird, we went onto Dungeness & saw Great White Egret, Glossy Ibis, Glaucous Gull, Hume's Yellow-browed Warbler & a number of good, but commoner, species. A great day out to one of my old pre-university stomping grounds.

Mar 14 - Chinese Pond Heron: Dropping down to a concealed garden pond after its last prolonged view (8 Mar 14)

There is no problem trying to work out the best bird for April. It clearly goes to this obliging Scops Owl seen during the 10 day Spring Israel trip. Owls & Nightjars have long been a favourite group of families for me. I have spent many happy evenings abroad out looking for them & trying to sound record them. In this case, I didn't even need to worry about using a recording, as there were a number of different males all winding each other up throughout the evening. So all I had to do for the 2 nights I stayed at the Kfar Ruppin kibbutz was to try & get some good photographs. This particular bird sat a few metres from the camera & wasn't unset by my presence or the flash as it continued to call.

Apr 14 - Scops Owl: Kfar Ruppin, Israel (13 Apr 14)

May was a difficult month to work out the best story, given the successful trip to look for Rock Partridge in Croatia: which we saw by 06:00 on the first morning of the trip. However, the story has to go to the end of May Bird. The camera has also been invaluable for getting a documentary record of many of the species seen. Like many of the other local Birders, I tend to cover my patches on my own, so it's good to have the ability to get some record shots to support a description, in case the Bird disappears before others arrive. This was one of the reasons why I bought the camera, having seen how other Birders have documented rarities they have found on the Northern Isles. Additionally, there is always that risk that having found something good, you fail to note one of the key details needed to clinch the record. The camera proven its worth when I heard a Yellow Wagtail calling behind me at Old Harry at the end of May. Turning round, I was surprised to find it wasn't a Yellow Wagtail & it had a grey head. I grabbed some photos as a record shot, so I could work it out later. Later didn't happen in the end until late that evening as within 5 minutes I was hearing the news of a probably Short-toed Eagle at the nearby Morden Bog. The rest of that story is well known. This really upstaged my Grey-headed Wagtail, which if accepted, will be a 7th for Dorset & 1st for Poole Harbour.

May 14 - Grey-headed Wagtail: Female. Getting good photos were essential to help confirm the identification of this rare race in Dorset. Old Harry (31 May 14)

It has also been a good opportunity to look closely at Dragonflies & Damselflies this year. Dragonflies are a group, I've been getting into in recent years, but having the camera has certainly made it a lot easier to figure out the different species. Having a camera is a great way to see those small subtle details that separate some of the similar species.

Jun 14 - Brilliant Emerald: This Brilliant Emerald was one of five Dragonfly Ticks for me this year & I was really pleased to get this flight shot, especially as it captured the yellow U shape on the face, which separates it from the more widespread Downy Emerald. Esher Common (13 Jun 14)

Another piece of fun with the camera has been the ability to compare photos to pick out different individual Butterflies. I assume this must have been tried before for Butterflies, I know it has been tried for Birds. So it was interesting to try this out on the Swallowtails at St Aldhelms Head. These were found at the end of June 14, by walkers on the coastal footpath close to the Coastguards lookout at St Aldhelms Head. One was pointed out to local Dorset Birder, George Green, along with the news the finders had seen two earlier that day. I finally connected with one on 2 July and made a couple of extra return trips to photograph them. The result was from looking at the photos I had taken & photos kindly forwarded from other photographers, I was able to show there were five different Swallowtails involved. Since that time, I've shown the photos to Neil Hulme, who confirmed that all five Swallowtails were males. Therefore, it begs the question as to whether any females hatched out. If so, they are likely to have quickly mated & presumably dispersed. I did return at the end of August to see if I could find any second brood Swallowtails, but I had no joy. There is the risk of collectors having been there looking for caterpillars to collect, but then it's also possible that if a female hatched out, She might have mated & dispersed to start a new colony. So something to look out for elsewhere in Dorset in 2015.

Jul 14 - Swallowtail: Individual D. The full set of mugshots & how I was able to separate the different individuals can be found in the Swallowtail mug shots post. St Aldhelms Head (6 July 14)

August 14 is clearly an easy decision as to the species for the month, but trying to work out the best photo was more difficult. It has to go to the Map Butterflies which dominated the month. This was a totally unexpected find and for a couple of weeks it was looking like not only had I found a very rare Butterfly, but also there was a fledgling colony with 20 proven individuals photographed. As a result, news had to be shutdown down on the site to try & provide some protection for the colony, whilst starting to work with the local landowners & Butterfly Conservation to see what could be provided for longer term protection. Sadly, the news did get out & the site was visited by both a commercial & a private collector. It was a really frustrating & unexpected bombshell to then find that somebody had come forward via a reliable conservation body, to admit to a release at the site. This individual's story that it was an accidental release, is blatantly a lie. But it's more than likely a cover story to try to avoid potential prosecution, given it is illegal to deliberately release an alien species in the UK. We have never got the real story of how the release occurred & it is unlikely this will ever happen. But it is a really shame as it would have been my best UK find ever had it been untainted. I still need to return to this story at some time with the evidence as to why it had to be a deliberate release and not an accidental release. In the mean time, you can enjoy the story as it develops about the initial discovery of a Map, the realisation there was a Map colony present & the news of the release in the 3 posts.

Aug 14 - Map: Individual B. This was the second individual found at the site & the first female. Therefore, it was the individual which changed the story from a lone male to multiple individuals. Swanage (7 Aug 14)

The last year has also been a lot of fun looking at the Birds seen from another & more detailed angle. Up to when I bought the camera, I tended to look at something until I had identified it. Sometimes I would then carry on watching the Bird, but often my eyes would start wandering to look for something else. With the camera, I have found that while I might even pick up the camera & stop watching my subject quicker than I would have done without the camera, I am spending a lot more time looking closer at the subsequent photos. Consequently, I am noticing a lot more than I would have probably seen in the field e.g. the ability to freeze a wing & then look at the individual feather markings is rarely possible in the field on a moving subject, but with a good photo it is often possible. This has lead to me becoming far more interested in trying to age or sex some of the Birds I've seen & in turn, this has helped broaden my knowledge. I am now using this new knowledge to start looking at ageing & sexing of Birds in the field.

Sep 14 - Adult Green Sandpiper: A fairly common Wader in Poole Harbour, but great to look at a Green Sandpiper closely to age it as a 1st Winter. Even better, when I returned the next week & found this Adult Green Sandpiper for comparison. Middlebere (26 Sep 14)

Back to the subject of using the camera for helping to identify tricky species. The choice for Oct 14 was difficult as there were 2 very interesting Sylvia Warblers seen and photographed. First was the putative Blyth's Lesser Whitethroat at Portland Bill & this was followed mid month by the putative Moltoni's Subalpine Warbler at Porthgwarra, Cornwall. Fortunately, the first Bird was caught and DNA has been send off. The Moltoni's was only seen in the field, but reaction to playback & its partial moult are good supporting evidence, to go along with the more subtle plumage details. Whether that will be sufficient to get it accepted, given the only call that was heard is given by both Moltoni's and Western Subalpine Warblers and the other distinctive call of Moltoni's was not heard, is probably a decision we will be waiting for over the next few years.

Oct 14 - Putative Blyth's Lesser Whitethroat: Portland Bill (1 Oct 14)

Hopefully the coming year will be as exciting as this first year has been. One final thing that has also been exciting is how much I've enjoyed the blogging & how popular the blog has been been. Yesterday, the blog passed 51,000 hits. I had no idea when I started how much interest there would have been in the blog, but I certainly wouldn't have predicted it to be that popular. What has also been exciting is how well viewed the blog is, as since I added the flag counter in May (which counts internet countries so Jersey, Guernsey & the Isle of Man were bonus countries), the blog had been read from 96 different countries, with the 96th, Seychelles, being added today. I wonder which will be the 100th country. Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed the blog as much as I have & you continue to follow it. In the meantime, there are links back to each of the stories behind the monthly photo to look in more detail at those that interest you.

30 Sep 14 - It's All Happening At Middlebere

Middlebere is a site that is best to visit on the rising tide as it's one of the last places in that part of the Poole Harbour to flood. But the height of the tide is also a factor. On spring tides it can go from fully out to high water in about an hour, on some neap tides the creek doesn't get flooded. But today I hit it perfectly. The tide pushed up but left a reasonable amount of mud exposed for Waders to roost on through the hide tide. As I walked into the hide, the creek was a mass of 1029 Black-tailed Godwits & 354 Avocets in two tight clusters. There was always some mud exposed on the high tide so there was the chance for prolonged views of the Waders. Sadly, no small Waders, but 10 Bar-tailed Godwits, 7 Greenshanks & 7 Spotted Redshanks also kept things interesting.

Avocet: Part of the 354 flock. They normally roost on Brownsea, but will roost at Middlebere on the lower high tides

Black-tailed Godwit: Part of the 1029 flock. Again normally they roost in numbers on Brownsea, although they often roost in smaller numbers (generally less than 150) at Middlebere, Brands Bay etc to avoid flying back & to be ready to feed as the mud is exposed again

A first Winter Green Sandpiper was back on the pool in front of the hide. This pool has been well visited of late by both a first Winter & an adult Green Sandpiper.

Green Sandpiper: 1st Winter. The broad spotting on the tertials indicates this is a Juvenile/1st Winter

Green Sandpiper: 1st Winter. Which is my better side, this side?

Green Sandpiper: 1st Winter. Or maybe this side?

Green Sandpiper: 1st Winter. After all that, it's time for a rest

Later on this Little Egret dropped into the same pool to feed.

Little Egret: They are commonly seen here, but it has taken a lot of visits to photograph one this close

Mute Swans are erratic visitors at Middlebere and this is only my second sighting here this year after one in the Spring.

Mute Swan

Mute Swan: After circling it did set down on the water

The visit continued to get better when a first Winter Marsh Harrier, grabbed something & settled down on the kill.

Marsh Harrier: 1st Winter birds look very dark & uniform at this time of the year

Marsh Harrier: 1st Winter. Note the pale tips to the primary & secondary coverts and the uniform flight feathers

Marsh Harrier: 1st Winter. Not a great shot, but it shows the uniform flight feathers also have pale tips to them

Marsh Harrier: 1st Winter

It was later joined by a female Marsh Harrier, but it wasn't interested in sharing the food. After a chase, the female departed and the first Winter bird went back to the kill.

Marsh Harrier: Female being seen off by the 1st Winter Marsh Harrier

Marsh Harrier: Female. On first impressions, this looks like another 1st Winter bird as it has the buff tips to the primary & secondary coverts and the flight feathers. But it also shows contrast between dark & light secondaries which points to a bird that has a mixture of old & new flight feathers. The more extensive buff-yellow patch on the leading edge of the wing can occur in some 1st Winter birds, but is more prominent in older females 

Marsh Harrier: Female. The contrast between the old & the new secondaries is quite obvious as is the dark wedge of outer primaries

At one point, the subadult male that was around a few days before put in another appearance.

Marsh Harrier: Subadult male

Marsh Harrier: Subadult male: A distant record shot view of the upperwing (which will have to do until I can get some decent shots)

With all this Harrier action it was no surprise to see the Avocet & Black-tailed Godwit flocks spooked a few times.

Avocets

Black-tailed Godwits: Still trying to work out how I found feel if one of these had dark underwings

The best point of the afternoon was finding a 1st Winter Mediterranean Gull on the foreshore. Despite being a common breeding bird in the upper harbour and a common wintering species around the Studland area, it is a rare bird at Middlebere. In 17 years, I have seen Mediterranean Gulls here on 4 occasions, including a flock of 3 on one visit this Summer. Whilst directing the other visitors in the hide onto the Med, I then realised there were 3 more 1st Winter individuals. Soon after an adult joined them, followed by a 2nd Winter. In the space of 10 minutes, I had doubled my number of Mediterranean Gulls for the site. They hung around for an hour or so, but despite good numbers of Black-headed Gulls being there, they departed as one of the Marsh Harriers booted everything again. Unfortunately, I failed to get any worthwhile photos of the group. I finished off the day, by returning to the Brands Bay hide for the late afternoon falling tide & got my first photos of the new Great White Egret.

26 Sep 14 - The Birding Gods Are Listening

Back to Middlebere, but I still managed to miss the rising tide. But the weather was mild & the light OK, so I decided to see if any Raptors came along. I wasn't disappointed with 6 species of Raptors (in order of appearance): Kestrel, a first Winter Ringtail Hen Harrier, sub adult male Marsh Harrier, Merlin, Peregrine & finally a Buzzard. Must be my best Raptor day in terms of numbers of species. The 2 Harriers & the Merlin are freshly into the area. Unfortunately, the Harriers kept their distance & the Merlin did a quick fly past (but long enough to enjoy it with the bins).

In a recent post, I photographed a 1st Winter Green Sandpiper on the pool in front of the hide. I ended up saying I wished I had some photos of an Adult for comparison at this time of year. The first bird of note seen was an Adult Green Sandpiper on the same pool. I'm sure this is just luck, but in case the Birding Gods are following the blog, I would like to be able to show you photographs of a Siberian Rubythroat on Old Harry in the next few days!

Green Sandpiper: Adult. Note the streaky breast. This is more uniform on 1st Winter birds

Green Sandpiper: Adult. Note the fine spotting on the wings, especially the tertials. The tertials have broader spots on 1st Winter birds

Even better a Green Sandpiper dropped into the pool later in the morning & it was a 1st Winter bird. This was very photogenic & allowed me some better photos.

Green Sandpiper: 1st Winter: This bird has far more uniform breast without the obvious streaking on the adult. Also the spotting on the tertials is larger & more distinctive

Green Sandpiper: 1st Winter. The centre of the breast was more streaky, but still not as streaky as the Adult

Green Sandpiper: 1st Winter. A nice view of the rump & tail. Pity there wasn't a central dark band to the rump & tail. That would have a sparked a major Dorset twitch, given Solitary Sandpiper has not been seen in the county before

Green Sandpiper: 1st Winter. Just posing for the camera now

Black-headed Gull: This Black-headed Gull also wanted its photo taken on the pole

As I was planning on leaving the Great White Egret from Studland flew in & dropped into the back of the marsh: but not before I got the chance to get the scope onto it. I saw it a couple of times over the next hour while I hung around, hoping it would appear on the creek as the water started to drop. But both views were less than a minute as it flew, before landing out of sight again. This is the first time, the GWE has been seen from the main hide (as it was first seen from the Harrier hide on the 7 Sep).

19 Sep 14 - Ageing A Close Green Sandpiper

It's not uncommon to hear or see Green Sandpipers at Middlebere from July to the following Spring. But normally they are either flying over the marsh or flying rapidly in front of the hide before landing one out of view. So it was a real bonus when one dropped in on the small pool in front of the hide for 2 or 3 minutes. Not long enough to really enjoy it, but long enough to get some photos. But I'm not going to complain, given it's only about the second time I've seen one on this pool. This is a first Winter Green Sandpiper. Now I just need to photograph an adult Green Sandpiper.

Green Sandpiper: The fine spotting on the dark upperparts, clean cut white underparts, short eye stripe, strongly barred tail & dark green legs separates this from a Wood Sandpiper. Hearing the distinctive call as it flew in & seeing its black underwings & clear white rump also sorted the identification out before it landed

 Green Sandpiper: The broad spotting on the edges of the tertials indicates this is a juvenile/1st Winter. An adult would have much finer spotting

Green Sandpiper: The relatively unstreaked head and lightly streaked breast indicates this is a 1st Winter bird. There are some great photos of aging of Green Sandpipers available in the excellent ringing PDF download Green Sandpiper from the Identification Atlas of the Birds of Aragon. It certainly is a lot more useful than my ancient Guide to the Identification and Ageing of Holarctic Waders

Wood Sandpiper: A winter Wood Sandpiper to compare. Note, the more scaly edgings to the golden brown upperparts, the less defined breast which runs more into the white belly. Also the stronger pale supercilium and the more yellowish-green legs. Desert Coursers, Gujarat, India (18 Jan 14)

8 April 14 - Another Owl

It was an uneventful journey down to Eilat with few birds seen en route. However, we did have a quick roadside stop by the Arabian Oryx reintroduction site in the Yotvata Hai-Bar Nature Reserve. Arabian Oryx were extinct in the wild, but reintroduction schemes are being pursued in a number of countries including Israel, Jordon, Saudi Arabia, UAE & Oman with a view of reestablishing captive bred populations. Currently, there about about 100 Arabian Oryx in Israeli & the ones at Yotvata Hai-Bar are in a large 12 square km fenced enclosure. They are accompanied by a number of other species they are trying to reintroduce including Ostriches.

Arabian Oryx (left) & Addax (right): Some Arabian Oryx have already been released back into the wild in Israel, but there appear to be no plans to release the Addax, until they can be sure they once occurred in Israel

Dorcas Gazelle: These were on the other side of the road from the Yotvata Hai-Bar Reserve & we assumed they were wild as we didn't see any other Mammals or Ostrich on that side of the road and think the fence may be to keep animals off the road

Once at Eilat, we checked into our hotel, the Nova Like, for the next 4 nights & soon after were heading back to Yotvata again for some uninspiring food in the restaurant there, while we were waiting to meet up with our Owl guide, Itai Shanni, for the night.

There was time to celebrate the previous night's Hume's Tawny Owl (with ice cream of course)

Itai with Edge, Nigel & Simon: At the end of the evening, Itai gave us a few extra sites to try over the following few days

While we waited for it to get dark, we headed off to the sewerage works at Yotvata as there were a pair of Little Crakes feeding on one of the pools there. One of the Little Crakes was feeding in the edge of the reeds, but didn't show itself well enough to allow any photographs.

Green Sandpiper: This flew into the muddy pool & started to feed

Green Sandpiper

Temminck's Stint: The Green Sandpiper was then joined by this Temminck's Stint 

Yellow Wagtail: Yellow Wagtail races are often really hard to figure out, especially on migration. This looks like a 'superciliaris' bird which is a hybrid of Yellow Wagtail races

Masked Shrike 

Next stop was the two large circular fields on the Yotvata kibbutz. We walked this one in the hope that the Oriental Skylarks that had been present there over a week ago were still around. But we didn't seriously expect they would be given Yotvata is regularly watched by Itai. We also had a drive around the neighbouring fields in case there were any Caspian Plovers around as one had been found near Ovda earlier that afternoon. Not surprisingly there weren't any at Yotvata.

The circular field is irrigated by a huge circular sprinkler

Fox: Initially feeding on the edge of the circular fields

Fox: The Fox then sat on the dunes which are part of the borderline with Jordon & watched us

Finally, it started to get dark. Once dark we drove around a number of fields in the Yotvata area. After a couple of hours of looking, Itai spotted a Pharoah Eagle Owl in the spotlight, which gave good views.

Pharaoh Eagle Owl: This is the nominate ascalaphus subspecies which ranges from NW Africa to Egypt, Israel & West Iraq