Pirate birding

The ups and downs of twitching

2011-11-15T10:07:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, I’ve never quite understood the appeal of following directions on a bleepy grey box, just to stand amid a crowd of over-excited, bearded, middle aged men. Then again, getting up at six in the morning to stand amid a field of cows in the cold, wet rain or sea-spray is just as nonsensical: each to their own I suppose. In fact, one could even argue that the former at least offers a reasonable probability of encountering something unusual , even if the “unusual” is as likely to be some bizarre aspect of human behaviour as anything else. However, it’s been quite a long time since I’ve done anything remotely resembling twitching, and as such, it’s been quite a long time since I witnessed such bizarre behaviour.

Nevertheless, today saw me “twitching” a Dusky Warbler on the local patch. It was hardly a twitch as for the first 15 minutes or so, I was the only person there. Nevertheless, after about 10 minutes I found it, and was watching it when along came three bearded, middle-edged men. I casually mentioned that I was watching it and they casually mentioned that their bleepy grey box told them it was by the entrance to the farm track and so they set off to look for it there rather than where I was watching it. Curiously, they didn’t see it and soon gave up and set off to search for some cranes and white-fronted geese instead. Although viewable for most of the morning from publically accessible areas, in their wisdom they thought it better to march straight across several privately owned fields in order to see them. They didn’t as far as I know, but their departure coincided with the arrival of said geese, evidently flushed, and also a cracking 1^st winter Pallid Harrier. Their departure also coincided with the arrival of two local birders in the shape of Andy and Dougie both of whom were afforded excellent views of said harrier.

I’m not quite sure what the moral of this story is. It’s not often three birders that rarely stray from their patch are treated to a combined total of nine patch ticks (if you count sub-species), two lifers (or UK ticks at least) and three self-found tick in the space of 20 minutes, so perhaps the moral is go twitching more often? Andy and Dougie graciously awarded me the kudos of finding the harrier, but methinks they are just avoiding the paperwork:-)

Edit: occasionally there are some additional perks to twitching (see here).

Black-headed Bunting

2011-10-09T10:58:00.000-07:00

A few record shots of the Black-headed Bunting we found on Shetland.

Shetland

2011-10-05T12:45:00.000-07:00

I'm just back from a week on Shetland with Dan Chaney and Mike Duckham. We stayed at the north end of Yell and spent our time birding Yell as well as Fetler and Unst. The team did fairly well finding Black-headed Bunting on Unst, a UK record 3 American Golden Plover together on Fetler, co-finding Fetler's first Pallid Harrier with Brydon from Shetland Nature and the usual supporting cast of scarcities including 3 Hawfinches, 2 Barred Warblers, a Pec Sand and umpteen Yellow-browed Warblers. I'll add some photos of the Bunting in due course, when Dan gets round to sending them to me and also do a more detailed trip report. In the mean time, I'd love to hear from anyone else who has good photos of the bunting as it would help the submission process. Finally - big thanks to Dougie Preston and Brydon for the local gen.

White-rumped Sandpiper

2011-09-17T04:33:00.000-07:00

Found this about a mile from my house. A few record shots below.

Crap record shots of a decent bird

2011-04-03T07:39:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across this on the way back from Windmill Farm today. I seem to have a habit of stumbling across birds when driving back from Windmill Farm. One of these days I'll actually find something when I'm not in the car. Another of these days I'll get a a decent photo.

Thailand, Australia and a Hoopoe on the patch

2011-03-12T12:09:00.000-08:00

Welcome back readers. Sorry for not posting for long, but I've been away and very busy since returning. Below are a few snaps from my trip from Thailand. Not many bird photos I'm afraid, but I managed some better ones from Australia (scroll down). I also scored Gurney's Pitta and Spoon-billed Sandpiper. You can download a full trip report for Thailand here. I haven't done one for Australia, but I'll leave you with some video footage of Superb Lyrebird. How many species cab you hear it imitate? Can you spot the Eurasian Blackbird in there?

Since returning, I've felt a bit birded out, but I did as the Spring season approaches, I'm slowly gaining the enthusiasm again. I went out to the Lizard today for a stroll around Windmill Farm. Driving back I saw a Hoopoe, which was very nice. It flew across the road towards Predannack Airfield.

Thailand (from top to bottom): Pacific Reef Egret (Koh Phi Phi), Scaly Thrush (Doi Inthanon), Dragonfly and Spider (Doi Inthanon and Khao Pra Bang Kram) sunrise and sunset (Doi Inthanon), Hill tribe kids near Chiang Mai.

Australia (from top to bottom): Rainbow Bee-eater and Bush Bronzewing (near Bendigo), Koala (French Island), Grey Butcherbird, Laughing Kookaburra and Rainbow Lorikeets (Mornington Peninsula) and Wallaby and Superb Lyrebirds (Sherbrooke Forest).

Late Autumn specials

2010-11-25T07:34:00.000-08:00

As a former east coast birder, I’m used to November comprising of Little Auks, but nothing much else of note. Fortunately, autumn comes later in the south west and as the rest of the country freezes, the birds head down hear en-masse to seek refuge in the sheltered valleys where insects still thrive.

The birding over the last week or so on the Lizard has been superb. Late autumn started well with a spate of good seabirds including a Sabine’s Gull and a cracking Long-tailed Skua off Bass Point. Regular scouring of the most sheltered valleys is starting to pay dividends though. I stumbled across two Yellow-browed Warblers in two days without really trying last week, with a supporting cast of Siberian Chiffchaff and numerous Blackcaps, Firecrests and Chiffchaffs. While out doing fieldwork yesterday I had a fly over large pipit. Unlike most, this obligingly landed in front of me and called. Richard’s rather than one of the rarer ones, but great nonetheless.

I’m off to bird in the orient and Australia from next week, so won’t be doing much Lizard birding. Back towards the end of January, so sayonara readers (what few you are). I’ll try and update my blog while I’m away. I’ll leave you with this superb photograph taken by Thor Veen. (Un?)fortunately, not an example of Lizard suppression, just one to hope for on the Lizard next Autumn. This one was photographed in Canada recently. That said, Brian’s probably had one or two in his garden without telling anyone;-).........

Pied Wheatear find

2010-10-14T05:40:00.000-07:00

Two days later than anticipated, due to flight-cancellation, Thor Veen, Arjen VantHoff and myself finally managed to board a flight to the Scillies. My first visit there – so I was quite excited. On Tuesday the 12^th of October, Thor and I set off to circumnavigate the great Isle of St Mary’s (Arjen had already returned home by that stage). Avoiding crowds of people as much as possible, but nevertheless stumbling across the RB Fly and Little Buntings without really trying, we were reminded of just how much easier it is to twitch birds than find them yourself.

By mid-afternoon, the previous week of non-stop birding and a dose of man-flu were taking their toll on me and I stopped to restock on caffeine and food while the Thorminator continued his quest to scour every bush and blade of grass on St Mary’s. Perhaps inevitably if you believe in Karma, but certainly confirmation the expression “no pain no gain”, I received a phone call from Thor stating he’d briefly seen a possible Pied Wheatear on the Golf Course, but hadn’t been able to clinch it before flew off north towards the BBC mast. At that time, he was wholly unaware of the reports of a possible from the same area, although I’d managed to glean the gist of the story from a mate. At his request, I pegged it down in a taxi ASAP to offer help relocating it. Fortunately we were able to do so as, after half an hour or so, the bird obligingly popped up in front of Thor. After reeling off a few photos as the bird happily fed a few metres away from us, and offering scope views to some of the lucky birders who happened to be nearby but without scope, we phoned it out and anticipated the impending pandemonium with amusement. I was particularly impressed with the guy in the bright red jacket who waddled towards it as fast as his lard-arse would carry him and promptly re-phoned RBA in an authoritative voice confirming the identity and location. Evidently, young rapscallions such as ourselves, can't be trusted to impart such information correctly.

Cracking find and cracking photo by Thor. Good work fella!

The multi-coloured megalarious

2010-10-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

There seems to be a lot of debate surrounding the merits of punkbirder twaddlespeak at the moment (see here and here). Here’s a brief insight into our experience of using such language on unsuspecting passers-by:

Random passer-by at Cot Valley: what are you looking for?

Me: nothing in particular, we’re just seeing what’s about.

Random passer-by at Cot Valley: that’s nice.

Thor (in Dutch-accented, punkbirder speak): Mega rare!

Random passer-by at Cot Valley: really? Where is that from then?

Thor: America.....

Random passer-by at Cot Valley: really. What colour is it then?

Thor:..or Siberia, hopefully

Random passer-by at Cot Valley (to husband): here - they're looking...what did you call it again? A megalarious? Apparently it's brightly coloured.
Me: hmmm...I don’t think he meant one particularly species...he was referring to rare birds in general.
Random passer-by at Cot Valley: Oh. I see. Well that's a big lens you've got!

Anyway. Needless to say, we didn't find the multi-coloured megalarious, and had to settle for some more more drabbly coloured mesolarious instead:

Found at about 8am in 60 foot cover at Porthgwarra. Also needless to say, given that these photos are really pretty good, Thor took them.

Bird ID quiz

2010-09-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

We all love great photos. Here is some cracking ones of some recent arrivals on the Lizard. But lets face it, most birding, especially in Autumn, involves damp conditions, piss-poor views, bad light, and distant birds. Here's a a few to remind you that it's easier to identify birds on the internet than it is in real life. These should all be gettable quite easily, but if you can do them from the ones on the left, I'll be impressed!

Easy:

Harder:

Even harder:

Another Blue-head?

2010-09-19T13:26:00.001-07:00

Answers on a postcard

Quail

2010-09-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

Went for a pleasant stroll across the Lizard today, leaving late due to drunken antics the night before. Caught up with this beast - better in real life than the photos suggest. Also flushed a Quail near Ruan Pool, which was nice for me, but probably not for it. Oddly enough, the first one I've actually seen in the UK even though I've heard many a wet-my-lip emerging from hayfields and flying overhead at night and seen a few abroad. I've always felt inclined to leave the poor things in peace safe in the knowledge that I would eventually flush one by accident as I did today. Aside from that - there seemed to be a few migrants around, with plenty of yellow wagtails still. I'm fairly sure there was a couple of 1st winter Blue-headed wagtails feeding in the cow fields above Church Cove. Seemed to have very dark masks for flavissima. That said, I'm not that hot on identification criteria of this form in 1st winter plumage and appreciate if anybody could give me any pointers.

Lots of scarce but no rare

2010-09-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

Despite promises that Earl might deliver a Gloria-like array of Nearctic goodies and despite a pretty spectacular migration of the eastern seaboard of the states, the Lizard has been completely devoid of Dendroicas . It hasn’t been devoid of birds though. I’ve probably seen more Wheaters, Yellow Wagtails and Whinchats in the last week than I have in the entire time up until now, with at least 100 of the first two and at least 30 of the latter. However, despite thrashing the entire peninsula for pretty much five days solid, I haven’t really connected with anything. The best I managed was a single flyover Lap Bunting. West Penwith has played host to flocks of Ortolan, Wryneck and Melodies with a supporting cast of Wilson’s Phalarope and Citrine Wag, Tony’s found c. 6 wrys and 3 orts and Steve managed a woodchat and a flock of black terns. I just haven’t been in the same place as the goodies though. On the plus side, I’ve found a couple of new migrant hotspots, but to be honest, birding has been pretty dispiriting of late. I blame my new camera, which as the shots above attest, I haven’t quite mastered. It should be pretty good for record shots, but it seems to have prevented me from finding any records to shoot! It should hopefully allow me to prettify this blog though.

Edit: any thoughts on the race of these yellow wags anyone?

The Reverend Thomas Bayes on birding

2010-08-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

The very Reverend Thomas Bayes, the son of London Presbyterian minister was thought to have been born in Hertfordshire in about 1702. He studied in my own home town of Edinburgh and amongst other things, attempted to prove that the principal purpose of God was to make us despicable human souls happy. What has the good Reverend got to do with birding I hear you ask? Well, allow me to explain in a rather roundabout manner:

Today I was seawatching from Bass Point. Shortly after securing cracking views of my first ever Great Shearwater from the Lizard, I observed a petrel for about 2 mins as it flew past relatively close. Detailed description aside, to all intent and purposes, it looked like a Wilson’s Petrel. In fact, based on its appearance, I was about 99% confident it was one. The trouble is, being 99% confident of ID, doesn't mean there’s a 99% probability it actually was one, simply because the obvious confusion species, European Storm Petrel, heavily outnumbers Wilson’s. I don’t know the true figure, but let's say, for the sake of argument, by about 100 to 1. Well, it so happens that the good old Reverend Thomas Bayes came up with a formula for working out this problem, although I don’t think he was thinking about birds when he did. For the mathematically minded, the formula is as follows:

Probability of rare bird = probability of ID x probability of it being one based on numbers / (probability of incorrect ID) x probability of it not being one based on numbers + probability of correct ID x probability of it being one on numbers).

That entire complicated math leads me to the rather unfortunate conclusion that it there was a 49.7% chance it was one. Less than 50%! Indeed if I factor in a bit of false expectation due to the fact I’d just seen a Great Shear and the conditions were spot on (say 95% confidence with ID) and we allow European’s to outnumber Wilson’s by 200 to 1, then the figure drops to a woeful 8.7%.

Of course, all of this doesn’t matter one bit if one is certain of identification, but it does get you thinking. I wonder how often the rarities committees take such probabilities into consideration? I suppose they do qualitatively, as mega rare birds increasingly require mega good evidence, but it’s rather worrying that even if one is 99.9% confident with identification of a bird that is outnumbered 1000 to 1 by its potential confusion species, the chances of it actually being one are only 50:50.

SeaWatch SSW

2010-08-10T13:47:00.000-07:00

I’ve often wondered whether the Lizard competes with Porthgwarra on a seawatch. I've tried to test the theory a few times, albeit never for much longer than a couple of hours. The few times I’ve tried it, I’ve generally found that, although counts are similar, Porthgwarra fairs slightly better. I think observer coverage may play a part though. After trial and error, consensus seems to be that the best place to seawatch from is sitting just below the coastwatch station at Bass Point. Most seabirds seem take a flight path across the bay from Black Head, passing really close-in at Bass Point, but then continuing in the same direction and thus passing further out when flying past the most southerly point. Oddly, the best viewing is thus looking north across the bay and on the whole, I think birds pass closer than they do at Porthgwarra. This poses a bit of a problem if you’re on your own. You can look out with a scope to catch the more distant stuff, but as the viewpoint is quite high up, a fair amount flies under your field of view. However, in really poor visibility this can be an advantage as you can just use bins and still see most stuff.

I wonder whether this is why I faired rather better than Porthgwarra this afternoon? Visibility was dire, at least for the first couple of hours. Their haul for the day (0600 to 1200 and 1400 to 1930) was 22 Balearics, 3 Sooty Shearwaters and 4 Bonxies. My score in roughly half that time (13:00-19:00) was 16 Balearics, 7 Sooties, 2 Bonxies, 2 Puffins, 5 Stormies and a Cory’s. OK the Cory’s might well have past them while they were on lunch break and the stormies were feeding offshore around a pod of Dolphins and I may have double counted, but on balance, it suggest that the Lizard can outscore West Penwith in the right conditions. Maybe the fact that stuff passes closer is advantageous? Certainly, the guys down there are a lot sharper than me, so if observer skill has anything to do with it, they win hands down.

Anyway ,the real purpose of this post is really just to convince myself that the mythical beast, the Fea’s Petrel is possible off the Lizard and I should put in more effort rather than sacking it off after a couple of hours.

Breeding Blue-headed Wagtails

2010-07-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

Now that the horse has bolted, I suppose it’s safe to open the stable door or something like that. Anyway, for some time now, I’ve been keeping an eye on the pair of Blue-headed Wagtails that took up residence on Lizard Downs in late Spring. I first noticed one of them carrying food on the 15^th of June. Since then, I’ve been seeing them pretty much every time I go down to the Lizard, but initially thought the nest had failed as I hadn’t seen them carry food since the beginning of July. Yesterday I stumbled across one of the fledged young though. Unfortunately the best I could manage during the time I've been watching them, was a couple of crap record shots digibinned with my phone (above). Hopefully someone will manage to get some better shots soon. Interesting that most (all?) of the recent records of breeding Yellow Wagtails in Cornwall have been flavas....

Cracking views of a Basking Shark

2010-06-03T10:18:00.000-07:00

Basking Shark in Housel Bay. Possibly the worst attempt at wildlife photography ever, but given that I snapped it with my phone you get an idea of how close it was!

Rare Lizard Clovers

2010-05-31T17:21:00.000-07:00

Above: Long-headed Clover Trifolium incarnatum molinerii

Above: Upright Clover Trifolium strictum

Above: Twin-headed Clover Trifolium bocconei

Mediterranean sunny days in Cornwall

2010-05-25T14:45:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted, mostly because my post-doc fieldwork is in full swing, and I've been spending most of my time with my head to the ground looking at plants instead of watching the skies for birds. Nevertheless, the glorious sunshine on Sunday and Monday produced some good birds on the Lizard, as well as accelerating the flowering of some of the Mediterranean plants.

It started well, with a Turtle Dove near Culdrose on the drive down. Patient watching for overhead migrants eventually got me splendid views of a Red Kite over Lizard Downs. Unfortunately, the best birds were heard, but not seen. I set off from Lizard Downs towards Predannack Wollas doing my usual checks of the water-levels in the Mediterranean Temporary Ponds, one of the habitats I'm studying. Whilst walking around in the Mediterranean sunshine, admiring the Mediterranean habitats, I was pleasantly surprised to be seranaded by Mediterranean sounds. Somewhere high overhead, a flock of Bee-eaters flew over uttering their splendid liquid trill. Unfortunately, Predannack Wollas doesn't offer splendid views of the Mediterranean sky, and I had to content myself with sounds rather than sights. Still - cracking birds, and as I was lucky enough to have splendid views of many in Spain a few weeks ago, so I really can't complain.

Monday, was less productive. Despite camping overnight and getting out at 04:30, the best I managed for my efforts was my first Spotted Flycatcher of the year at Church Cove. In true fashion, Tony sauntered into his garden several hours after I arose and immediately eclipsed my efforts with a bit of on the ball wizardry, having already done so the previous day with both birds and plants.

P. S. A pint of Spingo for anybody who can identify the plants in the photos (left).

Spring

2010-03-20T12:19:00.001-07:00

They say that one Swallow doesn’t make a Summer, but given that most Cornish summers involve torrential rain, the new arrival of a Swallow and a Sand Martin at Caerthillian and Old Lizard Head respectively, was heartening in as much that at least it suggests that the driving rain will be a degree or two warmer. Apart from that, the drake Lesser and Greater Scaup found by Andy on Monday, were - very oddly indeed, still sat on Hayle Kimbro (to the uninitiated, Hayle Kimbro is little more than a big puddle and would therefore be expected to give any self-respecting diving duck a bit of a head-ache). Hoopoe in the village recently suggest that prizes could be good for those inclined to put in the effort, but work commitments have unfortunately prevented me from even attempting to bag the big ‘un.

Siberian Chiffchaff

2010-01-23T12:02:00.000-08:00

I managed to track down a classic tristis Chiffchaff today at Helston Sewage works, prompting me to offer/recycle a few thoughts on identifying this race (comments and corrections welcome). First-off they're not that cold grey. If you find a really cold steely grey one, it's probably an abietinus. Although the underparts on tristis are cold white, the upperparts are actually quite a warm buffy colour, especially around the ear coverts. The rear of the supercilium is also quite buffy and there's often a slightly buff wash to the sides of the neck. When seen in the field, they completely lack any olive-green tones (they have green tones only on the underwing). Abietinus tend to have quite a bit of olive green on the tertials and coverts. There's photos of classic abietinus here and here. Note the steely grey tones contrasting with the olive-green in the wings. Tristis on the otherhand looks like this or this. Tristis also often have a very black bill and legs. Our collybitas can vary a bit in colour, but are generally much warmer than abietinus, usually have some olive-green tones, and are not nearly as pale underneath as either tristis or abietinus. See here and here

The Helston bird was calling. Tristis sound quite different. They have a monosyllibic call. Both abietinus and collybita give either the classic hueeet call (listen here) or a slightly more confusing pweet call (listen here), sometimes mistaken for "eastern" chiffchaff, but readily given by our collybitas. Most people seem to attribute this to the call of juvenile birds during Autumn migration. Oddly, I heard several giving this call last April and May. Some abietinus sound a bit more disyllabic, or almost trisyllabic (listen here). I heard a bird in East Norfolk give a call like this last November. To me tristis is a bit more sad than the others. It reminds me a bit of a Bullfinch (listen to the second "Siberische Tjiftjaf" down here). They can be quite variable though. Compare the other recording of the same bird.

Of course, there's also the complication of 'fulvescens' and other integrades. There are some more useful sites, which go into a lot more detail here, here, here and here.

Ring Ouzel!

2010-01-16T10:25:00.000-08:00

My diligent sifting of the thrush flocks in the hope of something rarer paid dividents today, albeit not quite in the manner I'd wished - i.e. no Black-throated Thrush. However, to my utter astonishment, I stumbled across a slightly scruffy-looking, but to all intent and purposes, healthy Ring Ouzel. It was about here at Church Cove near Poldhu. A quick check of birdguides reveals it isn't actually quite as rare as I thought in January - i.e. four records in the UK already this year and about 2-3 most years. I wonder if it was an early migrant blown across in last night's strong southerlies, or perhaps more likely, an over-wintering bird mixed-up with all the other thrushes? Nevertheless, probably a blocker for at least a month or so on the patch yearlist. Other additions included a Merlin between Poldhu and Church Cove, a Black Redstart at Church Cove, and Hen Harrier and Stock Dove near Cury. On to 100 now, not too bad for four visits, but lots more effort required me thinks.

Update: photos of the bird here

Jack Snipe

2010-01-13T10:17:00.000-08:00

My third trip down to the Lizard and over half way there with the yearlist already. Somehow I think the second half will be harder. Despite the almost tropical weather by recent standards, still evidence of the former hard times. Some of the Redwing seem to have cleared out, but there were still several big flocks of Fieldfare, thankfully looking somewhat less desperate in their feeding efforts. Stacks of Snipe - at least 70 on Lizard Downs, including a single flock of 24 and another 40 or so at Windmill Farm, with a supporting cast of 1 Jack Snipe and 4 Woodcocks. The only other noteworthy birds were a large feeding flock of Kittiwakes and Gannets of Lizard Point, evidently blown north in yesterday's storm, the customary Choughs and a single Dunlin feeding in a flock of Goldies.

Seaweed feeding frenzy rivals Blakeney Fall (almost)

2010-01-11T10:44:00.000-08:00

I decided to check out a few of the coves on the Lizard today in the vain hope that I might stumble across a Ross’s Gull. Needless to say, I didn’t. However, Perprean still threw up one or two surprises. A bed of rotting kelp was literally hopping with birds. In the half hour or so I watched it, no less than 50 Redwing, 20 Blackbirds, two dozen Robins, a dozen Song Thrushes, a Dunnock, 8 Rock Pipits, 7 Wrens, 2 Redshank, a Turnstone, a Collared Dove, 2 Chichaffs, a Blackcap, a Stonechat, a Lapwing, a Meadow Pipit and best of all, a Water Pipit took advantage of the glut of food. Something I’ve never witnessed before – it was almost like encountering a fall on Blakeney Point. Elsewhere, a Purple Sandpiper, a Med Gull and 6 Black-throats at Kennack Sands, another Med Gull at Poltesco, a Woodcock & a Dartford Warbler at Croft Pascoe and a Chiffchaff at Church Cove were the best hauls of the day. Thrushes and Plovers everywhere, including several Mistle Thrushes, actually my first on the Lizard.

2010: the year of the big patch yearlist?

2010-01-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

A thin dusting of snow on the Lizard Peninsula takes Cornish motorists by surprise

Ho, hum and Happy Hogmanay to one and all - welcome to the teenies. Apologies for the lack of updates of late. The snow and other frivalties prevented much birding in the last month. Anyhow, another year, another year-list. Actually, come to think of it, I didn't do one last year, but thought it would be fun to try one this year. This time a patch year list for the Lizard Peninsula, with three aims:

(1) to see c. 175 species
(2) to find a few decent birds
(3) to see a few decent birds without having to travel too far

To be kept fully up-to-date here: http://ilyabirding.webs.com/lizard2010yearlist.htm

Put in my first visit today (64 species) and what a corker it turned out to be. Walked down the Loe Valley from Helston Sewage Works to cover Loe Pool after a tip-off from fellow Lizard birder Andy. Freezing cold, blue skies, redwings, fieldfares, snipe & woodcock everywhere. Water Rails by the dozen skating on the ice and at least two Bitterns and a Red-crested Pochard. Divers offshore, Firecrests onshore and at least half a dozen chiffchaffs sitting on the sludge tanks picking-off virtually the only insects left in Britain.

Pendeen: unseasonal migrants, inflatable rubber rings + more of the usual fayre

2009-11-29T09:56:00.000-08:00

After last night’s storm, Tremough stalwart Thor Veen, newbee Will Jones and myself (neither new nor stalwart) headed for a morning’s seawatch from half way down the cliffs at Pendeen Watch. Pretty decent all in all. Freezing our ass off from 8:00am to 11:30am, despite the sheltered spot we found, scored us the following:

1 Common Tern
1 Leach’s Petrel

5 Grey Phalaropes

2 Little Auks

2 Puffins
70+ Common Scoters
3 Great Northern Divers

1 Red-throated Diver

2 Black-throated Diver

A few more unidentified divers

5 Bonxies

1 dark phase Arctic Skua

18 Balearic Shearwaters

2 Manx Shearwaters

1 Med Gull
Shedloads (literally) of Auks & Kittiwakes

2+ Common Dolphins

1 inflatable life ring

0 dead cows
1 distant possible Giraffe

Mostly going back west. Not bad for a morning's work. Cornwall ticks in the shape of Leach's, Little Auk & Redthroat for me, and (pleasingly, albeit embarrassingly:-) for Will - two lifers!

Bar the possible Giraffe and a few phalaropes that must have died en-route, nice to see our stuff pretty closely matching the stuff they had from St Ives, suggesting we're not complete feckless stringers. I'd be suprised if they didn't have a few Bals they're suppressing;-)

The Lizard strikes again

2009-11-15T10:43:00.000-08:00

Nothing about birding on the Lizard in Autumn 2009 can ever be straightforward. First the Brown(ish) Shrike, then the Green(ish) Warbler. The events of yesterday, are thus probably to have been expected. Tremough newby Will Jones and myself were down at Church Cove, witnessing the aftermaths of last nights Storm. Walking along the road near the carpark, we caught a bird out the corner of my eye, scooting across the small pool and into the dense vegetation around the edge. Something about it, didn't quite suggest moorhen, so I went down to investigate, while Will kept a close eye on the pool from above. The pool is less than two metres across at its longest and there isn't that much to hide a bird. Or so we thought. Just as I approached the water's edge and gave the vegetation a poke, out shot a crake! It flew across the pool, and landed in a clump of dense vegetation on the opposite bank. BLOODY NORA! Or, more accurately, the thoughts running through my mind given the hurricane force westerlies: BLOODY SORA! Unfortunately, the only features we got on it, were the fact it was smaller than Water Rail, had a brown back, streaked with black markings and a short bill. Confident, that we'd relocate it (it flew less than 2m away into a clump of vegetation less than two foot across), but very reluctant to repeatedly flush the bird, I decided to phone several local birders while Will kept a close eye on the pond. The alternatives to Sora were pretty good too: Little or Baillon's Crake (my impressions were of a slightly larger bird, but very hard to say on such a brief view), or perhaps more likely, a late Spotted Crake. As nobody could make it down for about 45 minutes, we decided to have one more attempt at flushing it, with a view to establishing its identity. However, the bird itself had other ideas: it spontaniously vanished. I walked over to the patch of vegetation we were both 100% sure it had flown into, and absolutely nothing emerged. Either it kacked in the bush, or it serruptitiously slithered away down the ditch that drains the pond, invisible, despite having to cross open ground.Unfortunately, vanished it remains, despite eight of us searching for it until dusk and again this morning. I hope someone finds it again. I'll have another search for it early this week, but I strongly suspect we let it slip away.

Apart from that - a very good candidate for a 'Siberian' Chiffchaff (so much so, that I submitted it to Birdguides as such) at Helston Sewage Works. I'm not totally up on the latest ID (comments on a post card please), but the bird lacked any hint of yellow/olive tones, the upperparts were grey-brown and the underparts were off-white, with a buff suffusion on the breast, flanks and ear-coverts. In true fashion, unlike the dozen or so colly chiffs present, it didn't call though. There was also an unseasonal Willow Warbler (standing out like a Bright Green Warbler amongst the other phylloscs - pp also seen) along with a classic steely grey-white abietinus.

Green(ish) Warbler - part 3

2009-10-31T02:21:00.000-07:00

Managed to get down before first light and nail a recording of the bird as it emerged from roost calling. Downloadable from here. Recorded with a Seinheisser ME66 onto an Olympus LS-10 Linear PCM digital recorder as a wav file (thanks to Thor Veen for the loan of the equipment - Dave when am I getting mine back!). Excuse the rather poor quality and sounds of Stuart Piner getting the assembled masses onto the bird. It was quite distant with a lot of background noise. A mp3 version kindly cleaned by Hugh Harrop using a high-pass filter is available from here. In my opinion very similar to this call of a normal Greenish on the Xeno-Canto website by Wouter Halfwerk in Kiat Ngong wetland.

A recording of a Green Warbler by Stuart Fisher in Kumarakom, India is available here and one of a Two-barred Greenish by James Eaton at Mondulkiri in Cambodia here. Note the lack of House Sparrow like "chirrup" quality to the Greenish Warbler, present in both Two-barred and Green. The Church Cove bird also lacks this.

The top sonogram was kindly created by Hugh Harrop is a high temporal resolution version of two of the clearer calls. The bottom version, created by Neil Hagley is a longer version of the recording. Both are a near-perfect match of the Greenish Warbler sonograms published in the 2001 Dutch birding article by van der Vliet et al, available here (if you subscribe to RBA - you can also get it with the 7 day free trial), Green has a W-shaped sonogram and Two-barred even more peaks and troughs. There are a whole bunch of useful songs and sonograms here.

Incidentally - there are some more photos of the bird here. The third one down initially struck me as particularly interesting as it does suggest that the bird had a more typical Green Warbler wing formula - i.e. P3 and P4 are the longest and P2 is between P6 and P7 in length. In Greenish P4 and P5 are generally (although not always) the longest and in only 14% of females and 9% of males is P2=P6-7 (see Dutch Birding article here). However, there are some more photos in the UK400Club blog here. On this photo, the wing formula is suggestive of Greenish - i.e. P4 & 5 look the longest and p2=P7-8. This demonstrates the hazard of determing wing formulae from photographs.

Green(ish) Warbler - part 2

2009-10-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

I got down to Church Cove a bit after first light and the bird had already been found. It had been calling continually, but wasn’t when I arrived. Unfortunately those present first thing, weren’t particularly familiar with the call and were unable to say which species it was. I played my iPod (which I’d also been playing in the car on the way down) to a few present, and most people seemed to think it was closer to Greenish, but few were willing to commit with 100% certainty. I heard it call once in flight, to me it sounded more like Greenish, but hard to tell on one call. Those who’d seen it initially suggested that the bird had quite a distinctive yellow wash to the underparts, supporting Green. For the next few hours, it showed briefly at intervals up in the canopy, generally in quite poor light as it became very misty. I saw it quite well on a number of occasions – in all of the views I got, it looked very lacking in yellow, the supercilium had a hint of very pale yellow (but no more than this one) and the wing-bar (strong) looked creamy. Had I seen it without prior knowledge of it being a possible Green, I would quite happily have passed it off as being a bog-standard Greenish (obviously after eliminating Arctic). The only slight oddity was that it looked a bit drab, or dingy below. Others commented on seeing a yellow wash to the bird under certain lighting conditions, but I just didn’t get this at any time. However, the tone of the bird did seem to vary quite a lot dependant on how silhouetted it was. During the morning, I also heard it call again once, and again in my opinion it sounded a bit odd, but more like Greenish. We also gave it a bit of Rare Eastern Vagrants on the iPod and seemed to get a bit of a behavioural response from Greenish and not Green, but not really enough of one to say anything important about this. I voiced in my opinions on the appearance and call at the time and didn’t really receive any resistance, but was very mindful of the fact that others had seen it in better light before I got there. I did phone RBA though, stressing that I wasn’t 100% sure, but that I thought it was a bog-standard Greenish and as such, a drive across the country probably wouldn’t be worth it. I should also add that my field experience of this group is very limited – I’ve found 3 Greenish Warblers in Norfolk in the last three years (which I obviously grilled closely) and have seen two others, but have never seen Green or Two-barred and have never seen Greenish abroad.

The bird then disappeared for several hours. Most people stayed on, as all of us were unsatisfied with the lighting conditions under which we had seen the bird and only one or two voiced opinions on the call. Fortunately it was relocated about mid-afternoon after the mist had cleared and showed well (or as well as a phyllosc can) for about 20 minutes, and was seen by the 30 or so birders present. It then became quite obvious the bird really didn’t have distinctive yellow wash to the underparts and the throat etc. The supercilium was indeed washed with a very pale lemon-yellow, but in my opinion, pretty standard for Greenish Warbler. The wing-bar was strong, but creamy rather than yellow-tinged and the throat and face lacked a distinctive yellow wash to suggest Green (at most only a hint of pale yellow). Other observers, including one person who got it through a telescope noted that the supercilium did not meet in front of the eye, which is a pro-, but my no means definitive Green rather than Greenish feature. I missed this, but I completely believe that this was the case.

In short, I appreciate that they can be very tricky to identify at times, but to me the real question is, was there anything to suggest it was a Green rather than Greenish? I appreciate that both would be rare in Cornwall, but personally I just didn’t see anything at any point that made me think anything other than Greenish. I would welcome comments from anybody else who saw it today, particularly if you heard it (I missed it both times when it was calling continually). Also, if anybody with field experience from Asia has any thoughts I would be interested to hear them.

Green(ish) Warbler

2009-10-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

A bit of a frustrating day today. I was down at Church Cove fairly early morning, but didn’t give it a very thorough search as I bumped into another birder who had just given the area a blast without seeing much. I did encounter a flock of phylloscs upon arrival and glimpsed one which appeared to have a shortish tail, but my bins were steamed-up, so I went back to the car to get a cloth to clean them and could only relocate a firecrest, which I assumed it to be. After a blast of the Housel drinking pools and the Youth Hostel gardens (nowt bar a Black Redstart) I headed home. Shortly after getting there, I got a text from Tony – “Greenish reported church cove by end house mariners cottage”. Ouch! Realising the date (and hence the possibilities) – I decided to head straight back. I arrived at about the same time as Andy and a few visiting birders. No sign for a couple of hours, but news trickled through that it might be a Green Warbler. Double ouch! As the bird hadn’t been seen I was confused as to how the bird had changed identity, so phoned Stuart Piner at RBA to find out the story. Found by a visiting birder from Cambridge – one Mr Poyser. I relocated the bird while actually on the phone to Stu (who says blokes can’t multi-task!), but decided on single-tasking and hung-up before getting the full story. Myself and about five other birders managed reasonable views, but in very poor light. I gave it a blast of Rare Eastern Vagrants on my iPod, but it didn’t respond to either, nor did it call. To me it seemed very fresh – clean white underneath rather than yellow, but with a bit of yellow in the supercilium. Based on my views, I’d lean towards Greenish rather than Green, but the light was appalling and I'm sure the original finders would have seen it much better. No hint of a second wing-bar that I could make out. Certainly one of the "Green(ish)" super-species rather than a wing-barred Willow though. It was favouring the trees around the pool near the carpark rather than the bushes down by Mariners cottage and crossing over to the graveyard on occasion. I’ll be down first light tomorrow to try and get better views. A very late date for a Greenish!

Expect the unexpected

2009-10-19T09:45:00.000-07:00

Thursday morning saw Thor Veen and yours truly down at Church Cove for yet another pre-work blast of the bushes. First light, mid-October, a light south-easterly, overcast conditions and a fair few grounded migrants. Just right for something from the east: Red-throated Pipit, Red-flanked Bluetail? The possibilities were endless. It was therefore with an air of expectation that I checked the trees around the pond at Church Cove. What would it be? Taiga Flycatcher? Eastern Bonelli’s Warbler? Redstart or Yellow-browed more likely. Some interesting passerine if anything at all. What I certainly didn’t expect, is what I saw: a roosting Cattle Egret! WTF? Unfortunately it saw me at around the same time as I saw it and it decided to depart. Even more unfortunately, Thor “was trying his luck in the graveyard” (his words, not mine), and missed it, despite my attempts to call him as it flew over him. It just goes to show though: you never can predict what’s about.

PS. Discovered shortly afterwards that it may have been in the area for several days, but in true Lizard fashion was suppressed. I decided to follow this example, only informing a few local birders. If roosting in the area, it would have been horribly prone to disturbance (as I inadvertently discovered myself). I’ve checked several times and I don’t think it’s roosting there anymore. Bound to be around somewhere though....

Humble beginnings?

2009-10-11T06:14:00.001-07:00

I was curious to note that Kate Humble has been elected as the new president of the RSPB (see here). Needless to say, a position of gravitas and levity. But what's that I spy? That couldn't possibly be the new president cavorting naked in front of the camera could it?

More on Brown Shrikes

2009-10-09T12:58:00.000-07:00

Having done a fair bit of reading over the last few days and having received many helpful comments from other birders, I now feel a bit better qualified to comment on the identification of this shrike. In short, I think it is a Brown Shrike, intend to submit a description to the BBRC, but suspect that we may not quite have enough to get it through. The only sure fire way to clinch these buggers is on wing-formula (see right - click on image to see it properly ). Actually, the Lizard bird represents a bit of a test case as to whether these birds can be accepted without in-hand measurements or clear photographs of the primaries (devine revenge for my post about field notes?). Typically Brown has 4-5 exposed primaries, Izzy 6-7 and Red-backed 7-8. Note - all these figures include P2, which isn't always visable. Overall, this generally leads to an impression of shorter primary projection in Brown Shrikes (a feature of our bird), but note how this is partly due to the wing formula. Also compare here and here to see why I think estimating primary projection in the field can be subjective (both photos are of the same Red-backed Shrike).

First-off, a bit of an overview of taxonomy of this and the confusion taxa. Basically there are four or maybe three races of Brown Shrike (the nominate (cristatus), lucionensis, superciliosus and confuses. The last one isn’t diagnosable and may represent an integrade between cristatus and lucionensis. Only cristatis is likely to get here (the others are mega far-east) and has breeding and wintering grounds overlapping with e.g. Radde's Warbler. Many of the typical Brown Shrike features (e.g. long tail) are accentuated in the eastern races, so those of you familar with Brown Shrikes from the far-east may not appreciate the extent to which they can be quite similar to other shrike species. There are four races of Isabelline Shrike. It all becomes bit of a 'mare naming them, as the old type specimen was attributed to a different race, so that race became the nominate (see Pearson 2000 Bull. B.O.C - also here). However, it’s also been argued that Pearson’s changes are not valid as the type was actually a hybrid (Panov 2009, Sandgrouse), so it might change again. I’ll stick to Pearson, in which case we have isabellinus (Daurian Shrike), phoenicuroides (Turkestan Shrike) and aranarius and tsadamensis. Only isabellinus and phoenicuroides are serious vagrancy cabdidates as the others are short-distance migrants from the far-east. Red-backed shrikes comprise three taxa: the nominate collurio (Europe), pallidifrons (Siberia) and kobylini (Caucasus and Crimea). The fourth: juxtus was the British type that’s now extinct. Anyway there's some good photos of eastern Shrikes here even though most represent races unlikely to get here.

Second-off – why is almost certainly not a red-backed shrike? Firstly, very few 1st winters or females have very dark, almost black ear coverts (see here for a typical one). However, red-backed shrikes, especially the eastern ones are a very variable and some females can look very like males. Males have black ear-coverts, and male-type females do too. It's conceivable that the odd female or juvenile does get quite dark, like the Scillies bird last year, which had a typical Red-backed Shrike wing-formula (see here - you'll need to login to surfbirds though - browner than ours though). More importantly - 1st year shrikes of both Brown and Red-backed have distinct pale fringes to the tertials (and greater coverts) and adults (second years?) only rarely do. This feature was noted in the field by several observers, suggesting our bird was a 1st winter. Other features in support of it being a first-year was the barring on the upper-tail coverts observed in the field. Adults also generally have darker-based bills and dark lores. 1st winter Red-backed Shrikes always have distinct heavy streaking on the back, lacking on Brown. The photos show only feint streaking and from field observations I'm confident that heavy streaking was lacking. Another feature in favour of Brown, was the observed clear-cut and bolder fringing on the coverts (see here - again login to surfbirds). The bird on top is a Brown, the lower Red-backed). Other supporting features in favour of Brown are the general tone of the bird and the lack of obvious grey nape.

This leaves isabellinus (Daurian Shrike) or phoenicuroides(Turkestan Shrike). I think the general tones of the bird rule out Daurian Shrike. They never really look anything like our bird. I think the serious sticking point is whether the bird was an usually brown Turkestan Shrike lacking the typical rusty tail, the latter being the very reliable feature, alhtough often this can be a bit subtle - see here for an example). In the field, I saw no evidence of an obvious rusty tail. The photos suggest the uppertail coverts and rump are slightly rusty and do show some contrast with the mantle, but the lower tail appears much browner. This is a pattern quite normal in brown shrikes, and not evident in photos of Isabelline Shrikes I've seen. Whether it's entirely unprecedented, I'm not sure of though. Two other features strongly suggestive of Brown over Turkestan are the very dark-brown ear coverts and very obvious pale supercilium. Again, I'm yet to see photos of a bird of either race with such a distinct supercilium, but welcome comments to the contrary.

Anybody who fancies a bit of further reading - I thoroughly recommend Tim Worfolk's article in Dutch Birding (2000, 22:323-362).

Possible Brown Shrike

2009-09-27T06:19:00.001-07:00

First found by Tony Blunden (involved in the Brown that was on the Scillies). Managed to get down with Thor Veen who took these photos. Sorry about the quality - the bird was distant and the photos have been heavily cropped. Click on photos for a larger version

Would be interested in any thoughts on its ID. Looks quite good for Brown to me, but I do have reservations - e.g the squareness of the tail and the paleness of the lores - (although tail appears rounded on the left hand side). Will comment more and post fieldnotes in due course. Any comments welcome though.

Can you guess what it is yet?

2009-09-26T12:02:00.001-07:00

I rarely post my own photos and the picture opposite is the reason why I tend to stick to field notes! Shameful isn't it? Really need to get a lens for my camera soon.

A coconut for anybody who can actually guess what it is. The only clue I'll give you (apart from the very obvious one above) is that it was on Predannack Airfield, I found it today and it is a long overdue self-found lifer for me. Actually the first I've had since moving to Cornwall.

Sour grapes or field craft?

2009-09-16T04:21:00.000-07:00

Before I start, I should probably make it clear that the following is undoubtedly the former, as I haven’t got round to buying a decent lens for my camera. Stay with me anyway....my take on one of the prevailing arguments in birding:

Birders these days, exercise their hobby in an era of digipics and instant news. Sometimes I wonder what it must have been like back in day when, if you found a rare bird, the best you could do to get the news out would be to sprint to a phonebox and call a few birding mates, who would probably be out birding anyway. If you wanted to silence the sceptics, you had to hope that news filtered out and that the bird would stick around for fellow birders to see it. If you lived on Lewis, that probably meant about six months later. The only real way to get around that problem was to get pretty handy at taking field notes. Well, you could blast the bird in question out of the sky or bush, but for some reason, that became unfashionable about the turn of the century. These days though, nobody seems to bother with notes. One call to RBA or Birdguides and the pagering masses arrive and digi-snap and the entire country can see your bird, so why bother? Why indeed? The human brain is more subjective than the camera lens, and more prone to error.

I suppose there isn’t a need really, but I can’t help wondering if birders are losing some of their field craft and not looking at birds as closely as in the good old days. I wonder how many modern-era birders could actually sit down and accurately describe the entire plumage of a Blue Tit? OK – doesn’t really matter – easy to ID, but what about a Gropper? They’re pretty common down this way, but in all honesty, I haven’t attempted to track-down that many reels to their source and bar the classic diagnostic features, how well-equipped would I actually be to deal with a Lancy or a PG tips in the field? I find that drawing a bird and taking notes helps we look at birds more closely, which brings me on to the real reason for this post:

Yesterday afternoon, after a good thrash of the Lizard, I stumbled across an Ortolan. Almost certainly the one seen previously about a mile or so away, but nevertheless, the incident had that element of surprise that one normally associates with finds. It was a very obliging bird indeed, sitting out in the open for long periods, permitting close scrutiny, even though when it did to decide to fly it didn't like returning to the same place. A great bird to enjoy out in the sunshine on my own and so much better than twitching one at Cley. I could have got a mediocre digipic through by bins with my phone, but to be honest I really didn’t see the point. Even an Ivory-billed Woodpecker researcher could have put it to shame and much better ones already existed. It did offer a really good opportunity to get back to ye good olde days of taking field notes though. I’ve attached my best efforts with the view that, even if a bit grubby, public airing of laundry isn’t entirely bad.

A decent seawatch and an overdue account of my Pec Sand find

2009-09-01T12:07:00.000-07:00

Although I missed out on Hurricane Bill's spectacular at Pendeen, due to work commitments, I did manage an hour and half off Lizard Point yesterday late afternoon. Things started off well when a Puffin, almost the first bird I saw, flew east. Less than a minute later a Sooty Shearwater flew west suggesting I was in for a good un. I soon scored another Sooty, but was distracted by a fishing boat chugging east with large numbers of gulls in its wake. I thought I saw a Sabine's Gull in amongts the gulls, but was distracted for a few minutes by several petrels also in the wake, one of which appeared not to have a white underwing stripe - too distant to be sure. Any scouring back through the gulls, I noticed there were actually two juv Sabine's Gulls. Around the same time. two more Sooty Shearwaters flew past. A good haul for 20 minutes! A texted Andy and Tony, neither of whome could make it down, but actually things got quieter. The next hour or so produced a steady trickle of Manxies, Fulmars and Gannets, 1 Balearic Shearwater (W), another Sooty Shearwater (W), 1 Bonxie (E) and few more petrels, most of whch were stormies, the rest of which were unidentified. Last decent sighting of the day was an Ocean Sunfish flapping its dorsal as it drifted slowly past.

I've been out birding a a few times over the last couple of weeks, including a trip back to my old stomping grounds in Norfolks, but aside from Garganey (Cantley Sugar Beet Lagoons), Spoonbill (the long resident bird at Cley) and Green & Curlew Sands (Cley & Rushhill), I didn't see much and havent updated the blog. I should have really updated it for Pectoral Sandpiper though. Late afternoon on the 14th of August, after a scouring the Marazion reedbeds for Aquatic Warbler & Spotted Crake to no avail, saw me scanning the waders on Marazion Beach. As I walked towards the causeway to St Michaels Mount, I noticed bird which stood out from the Dunlin by being slightly taller and having greenish legs. A closer look revealed the classic pale saddle stripes, clean white belly and breast streaking tapering to a neat point. A Pec Sand! Rather early for a juvenile. After watching it for about 10 minutes and taking a few field notes I decided to text a few locals and ring Birdguides. While on the phone, a dog walker scared all the waders off, and unfortunately, although I saw where most of them went, I lost track of the Pec Sand. I walked down to where most of the waders were. What followed, is an embarrassing incident - one which I’d rather forget about, and one which I could attribute to the fading light, but really there’s no excuse! Just as Dave Parker was arriving, I located the group of dunlin that were flushed and immediately noticed one with clean white underparts and fairly clear pale saddle markings. I thought I’d got back on the Pec, and informed him it was there. He looked at the bird more closely in my scope and said he could only see Dunlin. I looked at it more closely and could only see Dunlin too! I thought the bird had moved in the mean time, but it hadn’t. I’d mistaken the Dunlin for a Pec Sand. I actually began questioning whether I’d completely cocked things up first time round. Then I remembered the legs and no – the bird I’d first seen definitely had noticeably greenish-yellow legs and the “Dunlin” definitely had dark legs. Fortuitously both my notes and the extremely poor snap I took through my phone confirm this, along with some pretty obvious structural differences (I was quite relieved when I got home and double checked though!) I set of in search of the bird on other parts of the beach, but in the event, the fading light defeated a relocation.

Wilson's Petrel & Hoopoe

2009-08-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

Wilson's Petrel - Thor Veen

After a quiet Spring, it was great to get Autumn off to an excellent start. First off, yesterterday (1st August) saw Thor Veen & Arjen Van t'Hof and myself set off at the ludicrously early hour of 3:00 am to St Ives to join several other local birders on a fishing boat pelagic organised by Paul Freestone from Cornwall birding. About seven miles out, after stirling work by Roysten on the chum and fishing (I never knew Mackerel were attracted to chum), the shout went up - Wilson's Petrel! A lifer for me! After getting on the first, I happened to notice there were two and reckon I just got in there with the shout, so I suppose I can even have it self-found, although in all honesty credit goes to Paul for organising the trip and the albatross crew & Thor for shouting the first. Final haul for the morning also included stonking views of Bal Shear, about 30 stormies, two Arctic Skuas, 3 Common Terns, an Arctic Tern, 3 Puffins, a large shearwater spp, a Med Gull, an Ocean Sunfish & two Risso's Dolphins.

Second off - today saw myself down at Windmill Farm on the Lizard. Walking back to the van after a fruitless visit to Ruan Pool, I heard what sounded very much like a Hoopoe. It being early August, not April and Cornwall, not Spain, I didn't really believe my ears, but after about a 10 minute search of the adjacent fields, sure enough, up flew a Hoopoe heading towards the goat willow. Seem to have developed a habit of getting out of season migrants. In true fashion, after reaching for my camera in an attempt to digibin it, it buggered off towards Predannack Airfield and I couldn't relocate it, despite searching for about an hour. I gave up on it and headed for a seawatch, which produced Bonxie and common tern, which were notable only insofar as both were, rather embarrassingly, patch ticks.

Other Lizard Wildlife

2009-07-25T12:46:00.000-07:00

Summer can be fairly slow for birds, so here's a sample of some other Lizard wildlife snapped with the phone cam (hence the poor quality). Not too great on non-birdy IDs, think I've got them all right now, but any comments welcome. Cheers Tony & James for putting me right

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Bog Asphodel

Four-spotted Chaser

Slender Club-Rush

Green-winged Orchid

July sightings

2009-07-18T17:20:00.000-07:00

July is generally a quiet month, but as proved quite good at least insofar as I've seen a noteworthy bird almost evertime I've been out. It started with a Storm Petrel fluttering past Lizard Point on the 7th, with a Balearic Shearwater past there on the 12th offering nice comparisons with the Manxie it was with. There also seems to be quite a few Med Gulls around, with two 1st winters at Swanpool on the 9th and a near-adult on the Penryn River on the 18th and loads reported elsewhere in Cornwall. Apparently a very good breeding season on the continent. Wader numbers picking-up too, with a Green Sandpiper on Ruan Pool on the 17th and a Greenshank on the Penryn River on the 15th and 18th. Curlew and Redshank increasing in numbers there, with about 20 of each, but no other wader species bar a Common Sand

Seawatching

2009-07-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

I've never been the biggest fan of sea-watching in the past. I've done, my bit and scored stuff like Cory’s in Norfolk, but I don’t really have the patience to sit there for hours on end waiting for the unlikely to happen. Somehow in Cornwall, sea-watching takes on a more appealing dimension. I suppose the main reason is that you're far more likely to actually find a decent bird. 710 Cory’s flew past Lizard Point in 6 hours last year and you’ve actually got an outside chance of scoring a Fea’s. I think another reason its appealing at the moment, is that there's Scottish Football Association else around at tis time of year, but July is actually the peak month Cory’s. To be honest though, thus far, my struck rate with rare passerines has been nil (hence the lack of updates) and so far and virtually everything noteworthy I’ve found has been at sea: Sab Gull in April (the 1st British spring record for several years) and more recently Bal Shear & Storm Petrel – common birds here, but novel enough for me to keep me interested. Anyway – as a guide to what to go for when and how likely you are to score have a look at the charts above (click on it for a legible version). Numbers are mean number of records per day in Cornwall based on submissions to Birdguides.

A week in Menorca

2009-05-16T11:43:00.000-07:00

Balearic Woodchat Shrike - note the absence of white primary patch and more extensive black on the crown (photo courtesy of Dave Appleton - www.gobirding.eu)

One of the perks of being a professional ecologist is that you occasionally swan off to international conferences. I've just come back from a week in Menorca, and although it wasn't a birding trip I did manage a few of the resident highlights including, Audoin's Gull, Gypo Vulture (x3), Bee-eaters (x5), Black Kite (x8), Hoopoe, loads of Calandra & Thekla Larks and Zitting Cists, a Stone Curlew and a Balearic Woodchat Shrike. Some of these are exactly the kind of thing I'd hope to find on The Lizard this Spring, but almost certainly won't. Speaking of vagrancy - it was interesting to see that a Bal Woodchat turned-up in Ireland shortly after I returned. This got me thinking. These badius boys regularly fly over the range of senator in North Africa and goodness knows how many make it to Spain? Why don't they interbreed? Surely a good candidate for a full species under the BSC if ever there was one....

The Lizard in Spring

2009-04-24T16:12:00.000-07:00

Digiscoped at Hayle Kimbro Pool 24/4/2009 I wish!

Having successfully modified my research work to (a) ensure that it involves lots of fieldwork on the Lizard and (b) involves fieldwork this spring, I'm spending quite a bit of time down there. However, much as I'd like to say that the photo (left) was taken on the Lizard recently, and that I'm a fully paid-up member of the suppression gang, it wasn't and I'm not. The reason I haven't updated the blog much recently, is simply that I haven't actually seen anything worthwhile. Today was a little better. Plenty of hirundines and mipits moving through ahead of a thunderstorm, at least 4 groppers, 1 singing Cuckoo, a Tree Pipit and a Redstart, suggested a few migrants were around as well as the resident Dartford Warblers and Choughs.

P.S. A pint to anybody who can guess where the photo was taken. Clue: I did take it last week.

1st winter Sabine's Gull

2009-04-14T15:23:00.000-07:00

1st winter Sabine's Gull west past Lizard Point, 9:05am, 9th April 2009

It is well known fact that most serious birders, whether they admit it or not care about their reputation. It is also a well known fact that a sure-fire way to destroy your reputation is to claim outrageous single-observer records on a sea-watch, particularly if it's the first bird you've found in your newly adopted county. Imagine therefore, the rather curious mixed feelings of trepidation and elation I felt when I watched a 1st winter Sabine's Gull fly past Lizard Point last Thursday. Exceptionally rare in Spring and a bloody good record even if I say so myself. However, not only quite common in Autumn, but also exactly the kind of bird that raises a few eyebrows and causes even the most genial to cast aspersions. Why couldn't it have been something nice and shiny and enjoyed by the masses, like a Great Spotted Cuckoo or a Snowy Owl? Anyway - after watching it for about a minute and a half as it flew past, I was able to take a few fieldnotes. Make of them what you will. The fact it was almost entirely in 1st winter plumage and only just beginning moult into 1st summer struck me as odd. I know Sabs have a reverse moult strategy compared to most gulls, but would have expected the bird to have moulted on wintering grounds. Any thoughts?

Pirate birding: to patch or not to patch?

2009-04-05T12:48:00.000-07:00

Part of the coastline of The Lizard peninsula

Since getting serious about birding about 15-years ago, I've wanted to have a decent patch to work. I love the idea of birding a place regularly every morning and building a really decent patch list. I've patched a few areas, but to be honest it gets a bit dis-heartening if the best you can hope for is little gull and even a shag gets you about as excited as a teenager in the full grip of puberty. What you really want is a patch where anything can turn-up. Even a Yank Nightjar. Living in Penryn thus poses a dilemma. There's a few good local spots. The nearby reservoirs have turned-up Pied-billed Grebe & Lesser Scaup, Pennance Point might catch the odd southern migrant of the winds are from the SE and Swanpool has turned up Little Bittern in the past. The trouble is that birding these spots, you can't quite help wondering what you're missing. Most of the coastline around Penryn & Falmouth faces the wrong way and the good parts of the Fal Estuary are a 30 mile drive away on the other side. The Lizard on the other hand has it all. Sheltered coves that scream Dendroica, a solid track record of Continental overshoots and even an appearance by the aforementioned Nightjar. The trouble is - it's about 20 miles away - about 25 mins drive early in the morning and about 45 if stuck behind a happy camper. I haven't quite settled on the patch solution yet - but I'm leaning towards mixing it up a bit. Get out most days to do the local spots, but work the Lizard pretty regularly too. I'm going to keep two lists one for just the Penryn area and one for The Lizard & Penryn area. I haven't totallled them up yet, but will do soon and post them here.