24 Oct 23 - Happy Tenth Birthday

It's ten years ago since I decided to buy a decent digital camera. My mate Pete Moore recommended I bought a Canon 7D & 400 mm lens. Pete also helped me get up to speed on the best settings for this combination. My first trip out was eventful as I was photographing a Kingfisher at Middlebere, when news broke about a Pallid Swift at Christchurch. I ended up getting thrown in at the deep end with trying to photograph a Pallid Swift in flight that afternoon. This was my first Blog Post.

Pallid Swift: This Pallid Swift on my first day out with the camera really pushed my comfort zone (24 Oct 13)

I've written another 885 Blog Posts since that first Blog Post. For this tenth birthday Blog Post, I will pick my favourite Blog Post from each Blog year. This is a particularly hard task as there are so many Blog Posts to choose from.

I'm not sure how I managed to get out Birding in the first year of having the camera, as I managed to create 229 Blog Posts during the first Blog year. I took a year off between contracts to travel to the Andamans & mainland India in Dec 13 to Jan 14, quickly followed by a short nine day trip to Morocco & Western Sahara in Feb 14, a week in Israel in Apr 14 and a three day trip to Croatia in May 14. With so many Blog Posts to chose from it is difficult to work out a favour Blog Post, so I've based it on this photo of four Wild Asses walking across a salt pan at Desert Coursers in Gujarat, India.

Four Wild Asses walking across a salt pan: Desert Coursers in Gujarat, India (17 Jan 14)

I was still taking a break between contracts at the start of the second Blog year, but that was because I was about to head off on the expedition ship, Braveheart, to Pitcairn Island, Henderson Island and remote French Polynesian islands. Pitcairn and Henderson Islands had been high on my list of places that I dreamt of visiting, with Pitcairn Island for its history of the Bounty mutineers and neighbouring Henderson Island for its endemic species. However, I never thought would be possible to visit this remote British dependence, until I saw Wildwings were offering a two week trip on the Braveheart to Pitcairn and Henderson Islands and some nearby French Polynesian islands with a few days on Tahiti. I booked up as soon as I saw that trip advertised. One of the other attractions was the opportunity to land on remote uninhabited islands in French Polynesia which were the home to several more island endemics: the highlight of which was obvious the enigmatic Tuamotu Sandpiper.

Tuamotu Sandpiper: The sweet-toothed Wader, Tenararo, French Polynesia (12 Nov 14)

It is a different subject for my favourite Blog Post of the third Blog year. I had spent a fair bit of this Blog year working on a long contract in Winchester & that limited my travelling. But there was an opportunity for a mini break to Ireland with Dave Gibbs & Paul Chapman that Autumn for a Royal Tern. After getting good views of the Royal Tern, we headed down to The Dingle for the evening where Dave & Paul planned to run a moth trap. There wasn't room in the accommodation for the three of us, so I headed off and found a B&B in the nearby village of Annascaul. By chance this is the village with the famous South Pole Inn which was owned & run by legendary Polar Explorer, Tom Crean. Crean travelled to the Antarctic three times with Scott & Shackleton and he was one of the three men, along with Shackleton & Worsley, to cross the South Georgia mountain range. He is one of the unsung heroes of the Golden Era of Polar Exploration and his story is as inspiration as Shackleton's story in my eyes.

Tom Crean's statue: This great statue sits in a small park to commemorate Tom & it is opposite his pub, the South Pole Inn (28 Aug 16)

The fourth Blog year was a quiet year where I was having to focus on the Winchester contract. There was no opportunity for foreign travel. I will stick to the historical theme of the last Blog Post. I drove past the Fovant Badges in Wiltshire in Apr 17 & this was a good opportunity to see the new Badge that had recently been carved into the down. The lost London Rifle Brigade Badge had been re-carved, one century after the Badges were originally carved. The others were created by the regiments who were training in the area before they were sent to the First World War trenches. Sadly, for many soldiers this area will have been the last part of England that they spent a lot of time in. It's great to see that volunteers are spending the time to not only look after the existing Badges, but to re-carve one of the lost ones.

The Fovant Badges: The lost London Rifle Brigade has been re-carved between the Post Office Rifles and the Devonshire Regiment (11 Apr 17)

Finally, the contract came to an end & I was free to travel again in the fifth Blog year. I planned a three month trip away, started in Colombia on a Birdquest tour with my late good mate Brian Field. I then squeezed in a couple of weeks on my own exploring Chile before flying to Ushuaia and boarding the Oceanwide Expeditions ship, Plancius, for a seven week trip from Ushuaia to Holland via South Georgia, Tristan da Cunha, St Helena, Ascension Island and Cape Verde. It is very hard to pick a standout day in such an amazing and varied three months. Ultimately, it would have to be a Blog Post from the time spent on the Plancius during the Atlantic Odyssey or West African Pelagic. On this trip, I saw about forty percent of the World's Seabirds, twenty-six of the ninety one Cetaceans and four of the seven species of Sea Turtles. I also got to visit another couple of remote British dependencies. I think the highlight Blog Post has to be the one where we saw a group of Flying Squid. I wasn't aware that Flying Squid existed, until we saw them & I'm glad to have got a photo of one group.

Flying Squid sp.: At Sea Tristan da Cunha to St Helena (15 Apr 18)

I spent most of the sixth Blog year working on another long term contract back in Winchester. Again, there was no time for foreign travel, so the Blog year was mainly local Birding and other Wildlife. But I couldn't resist the opportunity to spend a weekend on Shetland twitching the Tengmalm's Owl. For me, this was one of those mythical species on the British List which I never thought would occur again, let alone give Birders a chance of seeing it. It was one of the memorable twitches, but it was spoilt a bit by bad behaviour from two unknown twitchers that evening.

Tengmalm's Owl: Bixter with lighting thanks to Pratt-boy who insisted on turning on his torch against the instructions of the locals & houseowners (23 Feb 19)

The main event of the seventh Blog year was the C19 outbreak, especially losing the whole of the Spring to the lockdown. I was restricted to blogging about #BWKM0, Birdwatching at Kilometre zero which was a hashtag that was used a lot for Birders watching from home. However, the standout trip for me was my last carefree pre-C19 twitch to see a long staying Hermit Thrush on St Mary's. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to day trip to St Mary's to see it over a weekend. Eventually, I bit the bullet and took a day's unpaid leave on about the last nice weather day of the year. I saw it just in time as it departed a few days later.

Hermit Thrush: St Mary's (4 Dec 19)

Continuing to work from home was the one positive of the second year of C19. I was doing a lot of local Birding, but it took me some time to get back into the twitching and I ensured that the handful of twitches I went on were conducted in a safe way as far as C19 was concerned. So, masks in garages & shops and no lift sharing. The stand out twitch was to Tenby in Wales to see Wally, my first Walrus. However, I wasn't expecting Wally to be upstaged by a very showy Harbour Porpoise who put on a superb display that evening.

Wally the Walrus: Tenby (16 Apr 21)

Harbour Porpoise: Tenby (16 Apr 21)

The nineth Blog year saw me take early retirement from the IT world and look forward to more Birding opportunities. I managed two enjoyable and C19 safe mini-breaks to Ireland to see the Egyptian Vulture & a Northern Harrier, with the showy Baikal Teal on the Somerset Levels on the first trip & the Least Tern on the second trip. But the best day of the Blog year was another memorable twitch to the Scillies for the Blackburnian Warbler. This was upstaged on the way back by finding a Loggerhead Turtle on the return journey: there less than two hundred & fifty UK records.

Blackburnian Warbler: Bryher (17 Oct 22)

Loggerhead Turtle: At sea St Mary's to Penzance (17 Oct 22)

The tenth Blog year finally saw the return to overseas travel with a spate of C19 delayed foreign trips. It started with seven weeks returning to Indonesia with Bird Tour Asia trips to the Banda Sea & Remote Moluccas. I then had a few days Birding in Sulawesi, Bali & Java looking for Birds I had missed in the sixteen weeks I had spent over three long visits in 1991 & 1992. In Jan, I was travelled again with a week in Argentina before rejoining the Plancius & heading for the Falklands, South Georgia & Antarctica. In the late Winter, I was off again for my third trip to New Zealand looking for & seeing my last three Kiwis before joining what was to be a badly run and very disappointing West Pacific Odyssey from New Zealand to Japan, where the ship failed to put basic rules in place to manage a C19 outbreak onboard. The result is we were not allowed to land at Truk in Micronesia or on the planned Japanese islands. I will provide more detail of how badly Heritage Expeditions mismanaged the trip when I get around to sorting out the photos. For now I will not recommend anybody travels with Heritage Expeditions. Having completed all the C19 delayed trips, I managed to squeeze in a bonus trip to Angola with a couple of good mates, Phil Hansbro & Richard Carden in June. Again it's going to be hard to select a single Blog Post to adequately sum up the year. But in contrast to the disastrous Heritage Expeditions trip, the Oceanwide Expeditions cruise to Antarctica was a delight & another well-run trip with this excellent & professional expedition company. I've not had chance to sort out the photos, but I will leave this as my favourite photo of the trip & one of my favourite photos of the last ten years.

King Penguin: St Andrews Bay, South Georgia (22 Jan 23)

These are only a few of the 886 Blog Posts that I've written to date. There are many more Bird, Cetacean, Sea Turtle, Butterfly, Dragonfly or other Posts. I hope this has wetted your appetite to explore other Blog Posts which can be searched for on date or using the species lists on the right hand side of the Blog. Finally, thanks for helping to generate the over six hundred thousand Blog hits over the last decade. Hopefully, the next decade will be as varied and enjoyable as the last decade.

23 Feb 19 - The Tale Of Twat-boy & Pratt-boy

Last week I had a phone call from my twitching buddy Peter Moore while I was at work, as he knew I would want to know about the breaking news of a Tengmalm's Owl on Mainland Shetland. He was working on a principle that a problem shared would double the stress for all involved, so psychologically he wouldn't be the only stressed local Birder. It showed well to a number of locals who managed to get there that day, but was not seen the following day. Given the time of year, it seemed likely to me that it would still be around, but it had just found another roost for the day. Therefore, I wasn't surprised when it was relocated & showed well for most of the Thursday. The good news Peter seemed less stressed having accepted he couldn't head up, but I spent the day with a weekend trip going around in the back on my mind. Each of these island twitches are different & they may or may not appeal. It was on a relatively accessible island & it was an Owl: one of my favourite families. I wanted to go. The problem revolved around how to give myself a good crack at an intermittently showing Owl, whilst not impacting work. Being self-employed these days, my life revolves around two different patterns. Not working & therefore having the time to fit lots of Birding in & having time for extended twitches. Alternatively, I'm working with limited free time & secondly, I don't get paid when I take time off. Had it been December, then the decision would have been easy, drive to Aberdeen & head over on the boat or plane for as long as it took to see the Tengmalm's Owl. But I've recently started a new contract & work is hectic, with little chance of taking a day or two off for the extended trip. That left a weekend trip as the option, but I still needed to ensure I wasn't going to lose the Monday due to not having any sleep the night before, due to an overnight drive back from Scotland. I hadn't seen a lot about charters being offered. But after the recent publicity from Alan Whitehead & friends, who were involved in a very nasty charter plane crash in Sep 17 on an aborted twitch for the American Redstart, I wasn't keen on a charter from a small northern airfield. This got me looking at flying up from one of the main airports for the weekend. To cut a long story short, there was a flight first thing Saturday from Heathrow to Aberdeen with a connecting flight to Sumburgh. I could return the same way late on Sunday afternoon which would get me home before midnight. It wasn't cheap, but when I factored in the lost income if I took at least one day to drive up to Aberdeen, the costs balanced up. Flights were bought, a hire car was booked for the weekend on Shetland, Heathrow parking booked & I sorted out some accommodation for Saturday night. The following day I nervously checked RBA a few times, but it was negative news all day: clearly there was a pattern of different roost sites & the alternative roost sites had not being sussed out. As I left work that evening one of the local Tawny Owls was calling: was that a good omen? Perhaps not as good as the comet was for William the Conqueror, but time would tell.

My personal plane thanks to Loganair: 37 seats to choose from as long as it was one of the four on the back row

I had two days so my plan seemed OK, but I went to bed on the Friday, still wondering if I was doing the right thing. 02:00 the following morning & the alarm was going off & I had managed a half night of sleep. It was incredibly misty as I left, but fortunately that improved as I left Dorset & I made good time to Heathrow. It was a good flight into Aberdeen. On arrival, I checked RBA & there was negative news on the Tengmalm's Owl. Everything was paid for so there was no turning back now. I headed to the gate when the Loganair flight was announced. There were about twenty people at the boarding gate. I was expecting to see other Birders, but couldn't pick any out. I guessed they would arrive soon as the boarding gate had just been announced. After twenty minutes they announced they were ready for boarding the plane. As I stood up, one of the ground crew came over & asked if I was going to Sumburgh. I replied yes & was bemused as to why I was being asked. It became clear when he turned to his colleague & said we've found the passenger. The other twenty people sitting at the gate were going elsewhere & it was just me on a 37 seater plane: this was now getting very surreal. Having got on the plane I expected I would have a choice of seats, but told I still had to sit at the very back to help balance weight. It was a very personal service from Claire the flight attendant & I did ask for a photo on the plane. I couldn't ignore the safety briefing as it was a one to one briefing, followed by good service on the hot drinks & biscuits front. I'm guessing they had people on the flight off Shetland & that's why the plane went with just me on it. I was relieved it wasn't cancelled.

Arrival at Sumburgh: Less than three hours earlier I was at Heathrow waiting to take off

With the lack of other passengers, we arrived about thirty minutes earlier than expected. As the plane came to a halt at Sumburgh, I turned the phone back on & the Tengmalm's Owl had been found: game on. The hire car was waiting & about an hour later I was arriving at Bixter. There was one free parking space & a small crowd on the homeowner's driveway. There was a scope set up & I was told to go straight to it, as everybody there had already seen it. I had hoped it was going to be obvious, but it was sitting deep in cover behind leaves & twigs. It took a few seconds to look through the obvious front branches & focus on the Owl further back. Once focused on it, it was fairly obvious. I left the scope to allow a young local have a look, before going back for another view. After getting my bearings & trying a few places, I finally managed to find a place to set my scope up to get a view. Over the next two or three hours, it stayed pretty much in the same place, but every now & then it had a scratch or preen, before dozing again. Talking to some of the other Birders there, my gamble of going had worked perfectly: they had spent nine hours there on the Friday with no joy.

Tengmalm's Owl: It was sitting between the leaves in the centre of this photo. Once you got your eye in, then it was fairly obvious that it was filling about half of this photo, not that anybody will believe it from this photo. On a number of occasions, it woke up, moved around & when it looked in our direction, the white of the facial disks were obvious: but not to the camera

Finally, I got chatting to a couple of the local Birders there & it turned out one was Jon Dunn. I've read many of Jon's weekly summaries for RBA, but never put a name to the face. It was good to meet Jon. My plan B for the weekend was if I managed to see the Tengmalm's Owl, I would spend time looking for Orcas & Otters. I must admit that was just a vague expectation, but on asking if there had been any recent Orca sightings, Jon & the other Birder who name I didn't catch, both said some had been repeatedly seen at the Northern end of Mainland Shetland that morning: wow. I've not seen any sightings on RBA for weeks, but it turns out that was down to the sightings not getting on to the query I normally used. Jon had a quick look at their movements & said I was likely to be disappointed as they had been moving North along the NE coast, but had past the last point visible from a road a couple of hours earlier. Therefore, unless they turned around, there was little hope. It was now about 14:00. I could spend the next few hours watching the Tengmalm's Owl sleeping or do some exploring. I chose the latter option with a view of getting back for 17:00. It was interesting looking around the bays to the South of North Roe, as well as, North Roe itself, but Jon was right: I wasn't going to see any Orcas. I arrived back about 17:00 & found the crowd which had been around a dozen while I was there, was now about sixty people. After about fifteen minutes, we were told by another of the locals who was organising the twitch, that we would be allowed to move closer to the front of the house. The hope was it would allow us to have a better viewpoint & it might appear out of the trees before heading along their coniferous treeline close to where people were standing. When we were allowed to move, various people headed closer to the trees so they would be able to look along the side of the garden, as well as, seeing the front garden where the Tengmalm's Owl was roosting. I opted for a different position where I could see close to the roost area. On the Thursday, it had appeared & sat around for fifteen minutes before heading off along the side of the house to hunt. Everybody quietened down as it was getting darker. I set the camera up on 16000 ISO as I figured I was going to need every single ISO in that 16000 given how quickly the light was fading. Then to my amazement somebody about eight metres quietly played a recording. I don't know who it was, but he will be forever known as Twat-boy. I did look into the group, but couldn't figure out who had played the recording. Everybody present will have seen the Tengmalm's Owl as it had been on view nearly all day. It was still on view for all the time I had been back. So, there is absolutely no excuse for anybody to play a tape to try bringing it out of cover, except for the individual to have been a Twat. It was only played once, so I assume he was told to behave by people around him or maybe he was just so proud up for being the only person to have thought to play a recording, that he didn't feel he needed to show off again. Totally unnecessary & for the record he just confirmed he was a Twat.

Tengmalm's Owl: This was taken on 0.5 second, 16000 ISO & with the lens close to 100 mm to grab every extra bit of light. I was balancing the camera on the top of the scope as I had given up on any chance of a photo. It looks light, but that is more a testament to the quality of modern cameras than any light in the sky. It was also taking a second or two to focus & I was having to guess when the autofocus might be OK

Eventually, the Tengmalm's Owl appeared & sat just exposed on the front of the wood: half in & half out of the trees. It was there for a few minutes & I tried the camera. It was taking two or three seconds to struggling to focus & had long exposures, even on 16000 ISO. But it was still quite a reasonable view in the scope as being old-school, I had taken my scope with me. Quite a few only took their bins & were probably struggling to hold them still enough in the poor light. Then to my amazement, some idiot turned a bright spotlight on & put it straight on the Tengmalm's Owl. It immediately looked away. After twenty or thirty seconds the light was turned off. Again, another totally unnecessary & thoughtless action. I've no idea who the idiot was, but he will be forever known as Pratt-boy. He was standing close to where Twat-boy was & might even have been the same person. There has been a lot on twitter about irresponsible use of torches & I totally agree with those sentiments. If people had taken their scopes, they would have been enjoying reasonable & totally identifiable views: my Leica scope was still working well given the lack of light & I assume some other scopes would still have been OK. Other Birders near me were equally pissed off when the torch went on, including another Birder with a camera who complained about the light. The problem was, for us to have told Pratt-boy to turn the torch off, we would have had to raise our voices enough, it might have disturbed the Owl. But the torch was off. But a couple of minutes later, the torch was back on again. This time it stayed on for a minute or two, but was aimed at the trees near where the Tengmalm's Owl was sitting: so that it wasn't directly on it. Again, there was absolutely no need for this bad behaviour & I'm as annoyed at the people near Pratt-boy who let him act like the dickhead he was. Eventually, the torch went off, but came on for a third time. Then people realised it was getting later to catch the ferry back to Aberdeen & there was a mass departure, which appeared to include Pratt-boy amongst them. I waited for another ten minutes as there was no point in trying to take the Lerwick road with a lot of people driving fast as they had left it close to the point where they might struggle to get the ferry. Even the scope was past being useful by this point. Here is a photo I took while the torch was turned on. Personally, I would have been much happier to have not had the light to take photos with, but given it was on & Pratt-boy was too far from me to be able to do anything about it, I decided I would take advantage of the light. But this photo does not excuse the bad behaviour or express my sympathy for the recordings or torches being used. For me, this is no different to the bad behaviour of photographers who are so selfish that they feel they have the right to get really close to a rarity so they can get a good photo, without any consideration for other Birders, both who are there or might be arriving later. Bad behaviour like the use of torches, is only going to run the risk of pissing both the local Birders off, as well as, also the home owners, who had been so welcoming & allowed us to stand on their driveway for the day. At lunchtime, they had also been offering the small group soup & hot drinks.

Tengmalm's Owl: Best of my photos with the light on

The trip had seen to be a big gamble given the cost. But I was happy with the result. I still had most of the Sunday to go Birding on Shetland. I'll cover that in the next Post. I felt with the track record of the last few days of it not showing, then I had a good chance of predicting the lottery ticket numbers. Perhaps I need to keep them to myself to pay for the flight. But then it was worth the money with the craic of having my 'own' private plane. I can't see that happening again.

The front garden at dusk: The Tengmalm's Owl was still tucked into its roost above the right-hand Pampas clump

Finally, I would like to thank Jackie & Erik Moar for allowing us access to their garden & driveway & for the welcome cup of coffee. Thanks for the chance to see such a cracking Owl, even if my photos don't do it the justice it deserved.

2 Jun 16 - The Final Finnish Ticks

I was half way through the second Finnature trip on my Owl trip to Finland with Mark Edgeller, Andy Rhodes & Simon Ingram. It was only 06:30 in the morning, but we had met the guide Olli at 03:00 & been at a hard Birding pace since we started. In the previous Blog Post, I had covered some of the crazy species seen including a Willow Grouse sitting on a lamp post & very close views of a male Capercaillie. But we had come to Finland for its Owls & so far we had seen only three of the five key species: Pygmy Owl, Ural Owl & Great Grey Owl on the first Finnature trip in the Oulu area. We had also seen a Short-eared Owl, but that didn't count as they aren't hard to see in the UK. Our final two target Owls were Tengmalm's Owl & Hawk Owl. I had seen Hawk Owl before after twitching one in the centre of the small town of Zwolle, Holland in Nov 13, but it was a Tick for Simon. As Hawk Owls are such cracking Owls, I was keen to see another. Fortunately, Olli said the right words when we met, that he knew a site where we can see a Tengmalm's Owl & we will start by looking for that first. Both of the small Owl species are happy to nest in nest boxes & by the start of June, they are bringing food to the chicks. There is little chance of upsetting their breeding cycle by brief visits to the nest box at this time of the year. The only drawback is the light was very poor & I was trying to hand hold an unstablised 400mm lens on ISO 10,000.

Tengmalm's Owl: This nest box was near to a quiet road where we waited. Olli walked over & scratched the tree, which was the cue for his friend to appear

Tengmalm's Owl: This is the nominate funereus subspecies which occurs from Scandinavia to the Pyrenees & the Urals. The overall range of Tengmalm's Owl is huge as it is occurs in all the conifer forests across Northern Europe to China & Alaska, Canada & the Northern US (where it is called Boreal Owl)

After looking for the Willow Grouse, Black Grouse & Capercaillie (see the previous Post), it was time to head off to look for Siberian Tit. This was another nest box stakeout.

Siberian Tit: This pair were actively feeding the youngsters in this nest box

Siberian Tit: It quickly popped out again

Siberian Tit: This is the lapponicus subspecies which occurs in Scandinavia & European Russia

Siberian Tit: They occur from Scandinavia to Alaska & NW Canada

Siberian Tit

Northern White-faced Darter: Female

Grey-headed Wagtail: Male

Next on the itinerary was Hawk Owl. The numbers of breeding Owls fluctuate annually, depending on fluctuations in Vole & Lemming numbers. This year, the numbers of breeding Hawk Owls weren't high, but Olli had a site a few miles before the Russian border. It was a bit of a drive, but worth it. It was such a remote site, we could have spent a month trying to find this pair without local information.

Hawk Owl habitat: There was a lot of similar habitat

Hawk Owl: Olli said the youngsters of this pair has recently fledged. We decided to stick with the parents, rather than cause them concern by looking for the youngsters

Hawk Owl

White-tailed Sea-eagle: Adult

By late morning, we were back in Kuusamo. We had enough time for a leisurely drive back to Oulu to catch the plane home to the UK. Our short four day trip was over, but it had been a good trip & four days was long enough. If you are planning a trip to Finland at this time of year, I can thoroughly recommend booking the guided trips at Oulu & Kuusumo with the Finnature guides. They seem expensive for an eight hour long morning, however, they will have most if not all of the speciality species staked out. But book early to ensure you can get onto a trip as spaces are limited. Finland is such a vast area & it would be very time consuming to try finding these species without very good local information. However, as a cost-effective compromise, you can hire cars at a reasonable price & driving in Finland is easy. There is plenty of self-catering accommodation available online. Therefore, it is reasonable to book the two Finnature trips & have a few days Birding on your own seeing the easier species. There were a few other Scandinavian goodies I didn't see, but they occur several hundred miles further North. They were Pine Grosbeak, Brunnich's Guillemot, King Eider & Steller's Eider. However, these are best seen by a trip to Varanger Fjord in Norway. I've seen all of these species as vagrants in the UK over the years, but I am still tempted to go to Varanger Fjord for a few days at some point in the future. One final thought, I wish I had bought one of the mozzie head nets before the trip. Olli lent us some for the final morning & having one for the rest of the trip would have been good.