Foot it

Perhaps foolishly, given my lack of free time I’ve decided to take part in the Foot it challenge. The aim: to see as many bird species as possible leaving and returning to the house entirely on foot. The real aim: to loose the beer gut. Another aim: to get in the top 5 of total species seen and get a few birds that nobody else manages. I’ve set myself a target of a 100 species, and have managed to get out a few times. 

Some of the routes I've covered so far

Here’s  a summary of my efforts so far:

First major effort of the year was last Sunday, when I meant for a stroll round Pendennis Point and on to Swanpool. Missed a few possibilities, such as Purple Sandpiper, but caught up with a the Red-necked Grebe at Castle Beach and found a Slavonian Grebe there as well, which was an unexpected bonus. They’re really hard to get down this way – actually the first I’ve seen in Cornwall. Total haul for the day: 50. Half way to the target.

Chiffchaff - a fairly common bird around Falmouth in winter. Managed to catch up with about 10 of them in Swanvale

Great spotted Woodpecker. No particular reason for showing this one other than the fact I failed to get any decent shots of scarcities

The next notable effort was a quick scoot round the Penryn River mid-week, before work. A wintering Common Sandpiper was an unexpected bonus. Total up to 61.

This weekend I decided to embark on my first lengthy walks. A 12 miler round past Flushing to Mylor on the Saturday, followed by a slightly shorter walk to College Reservoir on the Sunday. Highlights on the Saturday was a overwintering Whimbrel (there can’t be many foot it challengers who’ll manage this one), a Black Redstart and splendid views of Great Northern Divers and Black-necked Grebes. Sunday was a bit more disappointing, as I failed to see the Bittern and a few targets such s Marsh Tit. I did add a few though. Total now on 78. Here’s the complete breakdown

 Great Northern Diver. One of five giving their eerie calls.

 Bonus prize for guessing the species

Mylor Harbour - sailing home to Ben Ainslie. Always a pleasant place to go birding as well as Sailing. 

6^th January 2013

Falmouth:

1	Black-headed Gull
2	Lesser Black-backed Gull
3	Herring Gull
4	Great Black-backed Gull
5	Rock Dove / Feral Pigeon
6	Woodpigeon
7	Collared Dove
8	Pied Wagtail
9	Wren
10	Robin
11	Blackbird
12	Blue Tit
13	Jackdaw
14	Starling
15	House Sparrow

Pendennis Point:

16	Goldfinch
17	Cormorant
18	Shag
19	Buzzard
20	Med Gull
21	Meadow Pipit
22	Rock Pipit
23	Dunnock
24	Song Thrush
25	Long-tailed Tit
26	Great Tit
27	Magpie
28	Carrion Crow
29	Raven
30	Chaffinch

Castle Beach:

31	Red-necked Grebe
32	Slavonian Grebe

Swanpool:

33	Mute Swan
34	Canada Goose
35	Mallard
36	Tufted Duck
37	Little Grebe
38	Grey Heron
39	Moorhen
40	Coot
41	Kingfisher
42	Greenfinch

Swanvale:

43	Water Rail
44	Great Spotted Woodpecker
45	Grey Wagtail
46	Blackcap
47	Chiffchaff
48	Goldcrest
49	Jay
50	Siskin

8^th January 2013

Penryn River:

51	Teal
52	Little Egret
53	Sparrowhawk
54	Curlew
55	Common Sandpiper
56	Greenshank
57	Redshank
58	Green Woodpecker
59	Redwing
60	Firecrest
61	Coal Tit

Tremough:

62

Lapwing

10^th January 2013

63

Kestrel

12^th January 2013

Penryn River:

64

Fieldfare

Trefuses Point:

65	Oystercatcher
66	Whimbrel
67	Black Redstart
68	Linnet

Mylor Harbour:

69	Black-throated Diver
70	Great Northern Diver
71	Great Crested Grebe
72	Black-necked Grebe
73	Turnstone
74	Mistle Thrush

13^th January 2013

College Reservoir:

75	Wigeon
76	Goldeneye
77	Snipe
78	Bullfinch

Out for a Sunday stroll

Quite by chance, I stumpled upon this when going for a walk with the missus around Loe Pool yesterday. As it happens, somebody else had stumbled across it earlier, but they're always nice to see and it was a pleasant surprise. A few minutes later I stumbled across a calling Yellow-browed Warbler and tristis Chiffchaff. All in all a pleasant day out.

First-winter male Ring-necked Duck. Apologies for the rather poor quality. The light was starting to fade.

Paddypower

A couple of rather poor shots of the Paddyfield Warbler at Church Cove. Worth it, if only for the comedy dialogue from someone present on how to tell it apart from a 'normal' warbler.

Shetland

I’ve bought myself a shiny new camera, which I’m hoping will give me the excuse to update this a bit more often. In that spirit, here’s a lowdown of a trip I did to Shetland with Mike Duckham and Sean Minns.


In summary: we birded quite a lot, but didn’t find much. Highlight was a 1st Winter Boneparte’s Gull on the shore at Burrafirth. The weather was pretty suboptimal: howling NW for most of the trip, making it bloody hard work to find anything from the east. We did manage a few scarcities: RB Fly and Barred Warbler, and by remaining news ignorant, managed to surprise ourselves (but nobody else) by stumbling across a Blyth’s Reed and Little Bunting. The birding was that difficult that at times we resorted to twitching, as the photos below (mostly) testify.

28th September – South Mainland. Arrived in Lerwick and headed south. A Yellow-browed at Quindale was my first of the Autumn, but nothing unusual on Shetland. We flushed a bird from a veggy patch that looked like a Little Bunting, but didn’t clinch it. Somebody else did. We also failed to find the Sibe Stonechat at Hoswick, but did see a Wood Warbler there.

29th September – Unst. Uyesound in the morning produced a Yellow-browed Warbler and Scaup but little else. We got some cracking views of rostrata Redpolls at Norwick, which were there along with a Pied Fly. We also thought we found a Blyth’s Reed Warbler at Halligarth and a Little Bunting at Clibberswick, but these turned out to have been found by other people previously.

30th September – Unst. The weather was pretty crap today – howling Northwesterlies. However, it did produce the bird of the trip: a first-winter Boneparte’s Gull on the beach at Burrafirth. It inconveniently flew off before I could get a photo, winging it down Loch of Cliff never to be seen again despite extensive searching.

1st October – Unst. After looking for the Boneparte’s Gull for a while without finding it, we gave up and twitched the Hornemann’s Arctic Redpoll and Pechora Pipit at Northwick. The experience left me with a reminder of why I don’t like twitching, despite cracking views of both. Too many muppets charging around like idiots.

2nd October am – Unst. The day got off to a good start with a ringed Barred Warbler at Uyesound.
2nd Oct pm – Fetler. Cracking place and very underwatched, despite it now having a full time resident birder. Bird of the day was a cracking Long-eared Owl at Tresta, followed by a juv Marsh Harrier at Funzie.

3rd October – the weather was shite at so was the birding. We drove down to Lerwick and failed to find anything, not even the stuff we twitched on the way. Highlights were probably a few things on the north of Unst in the morning: a rostrata Redpoll at Skaw, a few crests etc around Norwick, and a flock of Snow Bunts on Lamba Ness.

4th October North Mainland – a bit of a late start, but we headed up to Kirgood where things started to look promising with a pipit with a strongly marked face hogging the canopy. I spannered this a bit, failing to take in the key features for Olive-backed the one time I got a decent view of it. It then promptly vanished. Two Yellow-broweds weren’t really compensation. The weather deteriorated in the afternoon, making birding extremely difficult, but sheer determination bagged me an RB Fly in the garden at Tresta.
5th Oct – South Mainland. We pottered around, a bit birded out, and hence not finding much. The weather was nice though. A knackered Scaup was probably the highlights in the finding stakes, although cracking views of Wood Warbler and the Sibe Stonechat eating mealworms at Hoswick was nice. It ate at least 15 while I was there, probably making it’s onward journey difficult.

6th Oct – we pottered around again in crap weather without finding much before catching the ferry home.

Some nice waders

I recently found a Dowitcher spp and a White-rumped Sandpiper in Ireland. I didn't manage to get any photos unfortunately. Here's a selection of some waders I found last year, just to show that I do occasionally manage to snap them.

Two patch ticks

I started birding the Lizard regularly, when I moved down to Cornwall almost three years ago. Back at the beginning, I thought that the 200th species I’d see during my time there would be some medium grade American vagrant. Green-winged Teal or American Golden Plover perhaps. As it happens though, I’ve seen neither of those species at my 200th over three years was actually far less spectacular: an Eider. Closely followed by a Short-eared Owl, bring my total to 202 (I saw a Purple Heron when I visited in 2008 before adopting the area as a patch). But that’s the beauty of birding on the Lizard. Almost anything can turn up, common or rare. Who’d have guessed I’d see a Pallid Harrier before a Short-eared Owl or a Bufflehead before an Eider! Or that my first Shrike on the Lizard would be Brown Shrike (probably enough). Ok, so it’s often a slog – the birds can turn up anywhere and there’s a lot of cover to check and you can often go long periods without finding anything noteworthy. It doesn’t matter though. It’s a great patch and even when there’s nothing much about, the scenary is still spectacular.

The ups and downs of twitching

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).