What...Err, Pipit?

Excluding the patch, it'd been quite a while since I was last out birding. That stunning 1st winter Caspo was the last time I'd ventured away from the park for birding, and even then it was still just down the road. That being the case, I welcomed a trip out to Rainham Marshes on Friday to properly start the year's birding. It didn't disappoint: birds, sunshine (yes that does still happen), more birds and a good ol' dollop of stringing. What more could you want? I suppose a Glaucous-winged Gull wouldn't have gone amiss...
Having travelled by public transport I met up with Jean-Michel Blake (a new London birder, recently moved here from the probably much more bird-filled Zimbabwe) at Purfleet station, before we headed to the marshes.
 The unseasonable mildness we had been experiencing with the weather of late, has now gone. Very far away. It was a bit 'chilly'.
 Having scanned some of the ducks we headed round to look for the Dartford Warbler, which has seemingly ended up on the wrong side of the river. We were greeted with the cursory 'It was here ten minutes ago', and followed this up by giving it a further fifteen minutes to show itself.  The wait, although brief was not in vain. No, sadly the warbler did not show, but we had a Barn Owl pointed out, as this photo oh so clearly shows, so I'm not complaining.

We completed the circuit of the reserve, getting several great views of Marsh Harrier, a few Snipe, a flash of a Kingfisher and a total of 45 species.
Then, after a hot beverage had been consumed, it was time to look for Short-eared Owls along the Thames path.  There was a slight delay, caused by me losing, and subsequently (a hundred or so metres back the way we'd come) finding half of my scope's eyepiece... But no need to worry, ten minutes later a Short-eared Owl took up in front of us! Always such stunning birds to see.
With the train service home being rather infrequent, we began the walk back along the edge of the Thames to Purfleet. It was during this walk I picked up on what, from their call, I expected to be a pair of Rock Pipits, as they took up from the shoreline. I fired off a few photos as they went over. Now let the stringing commence. Upon reviewing the images, the birds seemed paler than I'd have expected, and the eyebrow was pretty strong too...hmm. Thoughts of Water Pipit started to creep in.

Having narrowly caught the train, and once the arduous experience of being a sardine on a bus was through, I got the photos up on the computer, where they looked even better for Water Pipit. There was even a white outer-tail feather. I daringly braved posting the images online, and thankfully was rewarded with several agreements to my suspicion. Water Pipit! Sure, it's not a rare species, but it's one which I'd long wanted to see.
Good company, good birds, terrible photos.

A Most Egrettable Day

Well certainly not regrettable!
Up at the uncomfortable and undeniably cold time of 05:20 yesterday, saw me heading down to Kent for a days birding around the Dungeness area.  With such an early start, the sun was barely starting to rise as we approached Lydd.  A large white bird hovering along the roadside caught our eye, and revealed itself as we approached as a Barn Owl.... oh, at last!  One of my most long sought after life-ticks, which had avoided me (sometimes by fractions of a second) for about two years of looking!  It veered off over the trees as our car drove past, and unfortunately I couldn't get a look at its face.  A surprise start to the day, and perhaps a good omen?

 A few minutes later we were watching a field of around eighty Bewick's Swan, a second lifer before the sun had risen.  A single Whooper was in with the Bewick's and in the low light was fairly tricky to pick out.

 After we'd had our fill of the Swans (metaphorically speaking, of course) we moved on to Scotney Gravel Pits to try, and fail for White-fronted Geese, before heading to look for the recent stars of the show in Kent - Cattle Egret.  Despite there now being a lack of Cattle, we found both of them with relative ease around some farm buildings. Watching from the car, one of the two showed beautifully, sitting still for a few minutes in the sun - which, on a bird this white was rather harsh!  Three lifers before ten, pretty good going wouldn't you say?

 After a while it started to move off along the line of a fence, so a little reluctantly we left for the ARC hide at Dunge. Everything was, as expected, rather distant, but it was still nice to see Bittern, two Great-white Egret, Smew and a couple of Marsh Harriers. When things died down at the hide, we stopped for the Tree Sparrows, and then went to the coast for a spot of seawatching. It was ridiculously breezy on the beach, at one point my scope toppled over... Despite this, we did manage Razorbill, Guillemot, Common Scoter and Red-throated Diver, not too bad a haul.
 With time left, we went back for the Cattle Egrets and had more fantastic views.  Perhaps slightly better than earlier, as they fed on insects in the fields and then paused for a while on a hay bale.  Oh for some clouds!  Exposing them correctly was incredibly tricky, but the views were somewhat awesome.

Another stop back at Scotney on the drive home got us Black-necked Grebe, and a load more Tree Sparrow to end a superb day's birding (well, technically it wasn't twitching). Fantastic birds, three lifers and I got my year-list up to 102, a personal best this early in the year.  A long but successful day.

Wallasea About That Then

It's been a while since I've used quite so bad a title, may I have your forgiveness?
With the forecast set for sun all day, we headed to the Essex coast yesterday to look for an oversized Kestrel. Wait no, a Rough-legged Buzzard.  Namely, the Wallasea Island bird which has been present for about a month now.  After dipping one in Cambridgeshire last month I was glad for another attempt.
 Most of the raptor activity was told to take place later on in the afternoon. So a couple of hours trudging along the seawall brought in a few year-ticks. Nothing too mentionable, but it was nice to see an abundance of Corn Bunting, with flocks of at least thirty birds around. The estuary held a few waders as well as Teal, Wigeon and Shelduck with the occasional spectacle of several thousand Brent Geese in flight.
 At about two it was sufficiently late in the afternoon to start the raptor-watch from the carpark. Well, maybe still a little too early - it was quite a slow start with just a distant Marsh Harrier to keep us company. But given time the Marsh Harrier was joined by two Kestrel, and a stunning Ring-tail Hen Harrier.
 After half and hour had passed (and while trying to relocate the Hen Harrier), I had another large raptor fly into scope view.  As it flew it showed off long wings and a white black tipped tail. If this wasn't enough it even began to hover! Readily ID'able as the Rough-leg despite it staying in the far, far (maybe even further) distance.  Our goal was achieved, and although the views were somewhat underwhelming, it was a great bird to continue a great start to the year.
 With the sun now getting low in the sky, we drove just a couple of hundred metres down the road to get a better view of the fields. And with this, there would hopefully come good views of Short-eared Owls. A single bird in the distance started things off, and when the light started to get bad counts went up to at least five! They showed magnificently for the scope, and did occasionally come closer. Of course, the light made getting a decent picture impossible.

They were very vocal and seemed eager to fight, one taking on a Marsh Harrier, while a Hen Harrier flew below them. What a sight!  We watched them until it was becoming too dark to see them, and then left for home.
 There was a slight bit of misfortune on the way home, I foolishly managed to miss seeing a Barn Owl by half a second as it flew by in front of the car.  Embarrassingly Barn Owl's still a lifer, which just makes it a bit more painful! A vocal Little Owl at the top of a tree provided silver linings, to end an incredible day's birding.

Back in the Game

After over a month, last Wednesday my lens was back from the repairs.  What a relief. And what a dilemma.  As you may well know, I had originally believed it to be the displacement of a lens element. A fairly costly repair yes, but ah, if only that's what it had been.  No, what had broken was the Optical Stabiliser.  Which belongs to quite a different spectrum of price - in short over twice as much.  Eegh, painful just about comes close to it.
 So after weeks of macro photography, it was nice to be back in the field with a telephoto again.  I dread to think of the shots I may have missed in that time.
 On Sunday I headed over to Kensington Gardens to fill my memory card up with picture of birds, to make a change from insects.  Indeed I was also keen to see the Tawny Owlets as I hadn't had a chance to get over there for them this year. After a bit of searching two did show pretty well, even flying in broad daylight!  Although only to a new tree.  By now they've been out of the nest for quite a while, and already look more like adult birds.  Not many downy feathers left!

So that's the last matter of the slump resolved, I'm back in the game.  Now with the weather we've been having await many images with blown highlights....

A Little Ob-Skua

It would appear I've become slightly hooked with seawatching.  This morning I was back down at Splash Point for, by far my best session yet.  Fantastic would indeed be a good way to describe it.

 By 7am we'd already had Whimbrel, Razorbill, Guillemot, Common Scoter and a few Swallows, already a decent start, but not really what you would class as fantastic. An Arctic Skua changed that. Although to call it distant would be an understatement.  It wasn't more than ten minutes before we then had a Black-throated Diver pass by.  Two lifers by 8am, not bad.

 A few Red-throated Divers, Med Gull, more Whimbrel, Scoter and Swallows came next.  Then came a Bonxie.  Or as I suppose I should say, a Great Skua.  What an impressive black dot.

 These were all well and -very- good, but nothing really stunned me quite as much as the Short-Eared Owl coming in off the sea.  Really a beautiful bird, and it certainly caught me by surprise.  

 Another Bonxie and Arctic Skua went by, but after that it did start to quiet down.  A close in Common Tern, more Med Gull, Red-Breasted Merganser and then we had reached the point when the sea went quiet.  Just as I was leaving though there came another surprise.  Rather an immense surprise.  I only caught a few second view... but Shorelark!  I was slightly bemused when it was called.  Thankfully, it was pointed out to me just before it was out of sight of my eyes -which isn't that far away.  There was no time to sort out optics.

 There, I think that lives up to Fantastic... don't you?