Birthday Bus Birding

Do you remember last year I turned fifteen? Well, this came as a shock to find out, but this year I'm going to be even older. The cheek of it all.  Tomorrow I turn the ripe old age of sixteen... time to break out the walking stick.
 In keeping with the tradition of the last few years, I celebrated the last few days of being a (variable of course) age by going birding. You may be proud to know that for this year's pre-birthday events, I didn't even twitch. After last year I think not twitching was... umm, wise.  So, just good old - old, stop reminding me - fashioned birding.
On Saturday I headed out with Caleb and Liam  for a day of birding around very windy Sussex. Bus birding to be precise, which constitutes a lot of buses and, well, on this occasion, not a lot of birds.
We started the day shortly after sunrise at Brighton Marina, and saw some large waves and a Rock Pipit.  Exciting times.
 On from there, buses to Hove Lagoon for some distant views of a Great-northern Diver on Southwick Canal.  This was a county tick though, so a nice addition to a list that I don't really keep. Possibly as it would be scarily low if I did.
 Despite the wind's best intentions to  blow us away, Liam managed to find a pair of Common Scoter out on the sea from the beach here, a relatively good bird in Sussex at this time of year.
Back into East Sussex after that, to the Ouse Estuary Project where we had nice views of Kestrel and half a dozen or so Snipe in flight.  The light had begun to fade by this point, so we made our final stop at Newhaven to try and find a Caspian or something else interesting among the gulls coming in to roost.  The wind then decided that shouldn't be possible and reached rather its peak of the day. 'Blowing a Gale', I believe would be a fitting expression.
There was a Shag in the harbour, and with seemingly nothing among the gulls, we called it a day. The weather was not hospitable.
 The journey home took me to an all time personal best, ten buses boarded in a day! It turns out the excitement of buses ran out for me about ten years ago. I think trains to be more bearable a form of public transport.
 We didn't see anything amazing, but still, not an unenjoyable day's birding. At least I didn't dip...

Sweet Sixteen

He's arrived. That well travelled local celebrity is here again. Back for his sixteenth (yes, sixteenth) winter, Valentino! Yes, please do go ahead, applause there is justifiable. London's most famous gull has returned.
 It's always a worry in early October that maybe this year Valentino won't return. At around eighteen now he's getting on.  How long is it before he retires and spends his winters on a Mediterranean beach rather than a eutrophicated lake with rats in London? Or worse, abandons us for Wanstead.  After making a few excursions to the flats last year that's a growing possibility.
 But let's not think about that, for now, let us just rejoice. What a bird!

Coincidence

I can at times be a bit of a sceptic.  After twitching a Red-footed Falcon which never even existed, I now like to have a little more than a single tweet to go on - Pictures help too.
 So when, on Friday a Yellow-browed Warbler was reported from Regent's Park, although I didn't completely doubt it, I thought it a little odd.  Last year I had my first Yellow-browed Warbler, an individual which took two attempts to see. It was also one of, if not London's only Yellow-brow that year.  That was at Regent's Park too, coincidence? Sure, why not?
There was only one reporting, but I was heading that way on Saturday anyway, so it was worth a look.  Checking where in the park it had been seen threw up another little oddity: It was seen at the north-east end of the lake before flying to the island. Huh, that's where it was last year. The coincidence grows, as does the scepticism.
 Having spent an hour or so searching the area without even hearing a call, we decided to give up with no warbler and go and photograph the Herons.  Funnily enough that's also what happened last year.

So no, this - unfortunately - doesn't have the kind of ending where the coincidences were just coincidences and the bird was there showing nice as you like.  If only.  However, I don't believe it to be a tale of falsehoods and stringing.  It was reported by people who I believe are good birders, so I'm sure it was there.  At first at least, to save face I'll say it wasn't there when I went.
 As such, it is at risk of contradicting myself that I say, in this case perhaps being sceptical was wrong and it was just a pure fluke of coincidence.  Or, just a returning bird with a routine it likes to stick to, even if it was eight days earlier this year.
 But what am I thinking, last year it took two attempts, so let's see what happens this week.  Just ignore the hindering factor it hasn't been reported again and is probably a hundred or so miles away by now.  Or maybe a little closer to home perhaps?

A Birding Moral

Phalaropes are great. I've seen two of the three species, Grey, and as of last week Wilson's.
 Filled with an enviable (for us oldies, I'm nearly sixteen) and seemingly endless energy, they never appear to stop moving.  You'd think they'd be a nemesis to photographers. Not so. With Grey at least they're practically a photographers best friend, particularly if they're in Sussex. They seem to know no boundaries, being more than 24 inches away is out of the norm. A photographer would generally suffer from having 'too much lens'. And as we all know, photographers - generally - love complaining about not having enough lens. So too much? Basically unheard of. This was how both last year's Hove 'play-ground-paddling-pool' bird, and the recent bird on the Cuckmere  performed.  I went for the Hove bird, it was amazing. The Cuckmere bird was showing just as well, and in more natural habitat, you could bet your hat I was going to go! What's more you could be sure I was going to get the first train of the day there. It's practically guaranteed I'd walk the three or so miles from the station to get there before sunrise.  And you know what? It was down right certain the Phalarope would show amazingly.
 This was to be my third Grey Phal. The Hove bird, a hardly tick-able fly-by from a pelagic, and then this. Ignore the fly-by, this was going to rival the Hove bird, this one was going to be great. Wasn't it?
Nope. Nee.  Nein.
 The bird had moved from a small pool to what would probably be classed as a lagoon. In which it stuck to a single current and never came closer that 15-20 foot, more often 50. Terrible.  At the time I'll admit, to my shame, I was a little disappointed. A scarce migrant down to 20 foot, that should be amazing, shouldn't it?  In the moment, it didn't really seem so. There's a simple answer here - the Hove bird ruined it for me. Well, that and the pictures from the day before.

                                                             I mean it's not that bad


 Does this mean then, that unless my next Grey Phalarope is less than two foot away I'll be disappointed? Honestly, I hope not. How often do they show quite that well anyway?  I'm sure two in the last two years is just a coincidence.  At least with Wilson's it just needs to be within 500 foot, and Red-necked just needs to be there...
 The moral of this story? Never (ever), have expectations with birding.  Or, just make sure you go the day before.

The Boat was Diesel, There Were Still a lot of Petrel

During my month in Ireland, I did go birding, yes.  But only twice.  About ten hours of birding for a month, not great I know.  To be fair, there seemed to be little around - Not that that's a viable excuse.  England on the other hand was seemingly brimming with migrants and rarities.  I mean there was even a group of three Wrynecks. Three of them. I'd be over the moon with just one!  Ireland of course, had none of this, well they steered clear of western Ireland at least.

 As such, the two birding forays of the trip were not twitches (If you can believe that), but nor were they regular birding days (if there is such a thing).  No you see, I finally entered the realm of the Pelagic.  A realm I'd been dreaming of for a long time.  I like boats. Oh, and of course, I like sea-birds too. 

My stomach is of the constitution that it, umm, doesn't handle car-journey's that well.  So you can, I'm sure, imagine my worry of spending five hours out at sea.  I won't paint that picture any clearer, for your comfort and mine.  I found however, fresh sea air, along with Storm Petrels flying just a few feet away make for a good remedy to keep sea-sickness at bay. Who'd have guessed...

Although I think following their nonsensical flight through the view-finder may have counteracted that a tad.  I added hundreds of shutter-counts to my camera, and this is practically all I got.  Fast little things!

 Aside from the Storm Petrel, the first Pelagic trip produced two Sooty Shearwater, a handful of Manx and this Bonxie.  It's amazing how much more impressive they are when they're not blobs on the horizon.

 

The second Pelagic involved one of those lovely 5am starts.  Eating muesli at 5am isn't that easy.  It also sadly involved a lot less Storm Petrel, only about twenty throughout five hours.  The Manx's however were out in much larger numbers.  A Sooty (I think), more than half-a-dozen Bonxie, oh and two of these beauties...

Long-tailed Skuas, yeah they're rather something!  One even had the audacity to chase a Bonxie, it must have been mad.  They showed amazingly, one flying right over the boat!

 We were also quite fortunate with Cetaceans, having up to five Minke Whale, and rather a lot of Common Dolphin - three of which swam right by the boat, if only for a few seconds, it was still a little mesmerising. 

Ignoring the daunting, ever-present feeling that the rocking of the boat would get the better of my afore described constitution, it was great fun. I like boats, I like sea-birds, so of course, I like Pelagics.

A Quick Stint at the Marsh

Remember when this blog was true to its name and was about birds?  When scopes and telephoto lenses were a common feature? When I regularly complained about dipping, or less commonly, told of successful twitching? It seems to have been an eternity doesn't it...  But fear not, for on Friday, my scope having been recovered from hibernation and my binoculars having been dusted down, I went birding. Yes, you read that right, birding. A rather nice spot of local twitching to be precise. A bus, a train and a walk later (OK so maybe just local-ish) and we had arrived. Let's get the eyes back to looking at blobs in the distance, and what better way to start than with the Vange Marsh Wilson's Phalarope.
 There were half a dozen or so birders there already, so it wasn't long before one of them had got us onto the hyperactive speck that was the Phalarope.  Even at that distance there's no mistaking a phalarope! Although I wouldn't have been too happy to comment which species for myself...

Slightly closer, but by no means close, were three delightful, and oh so tiny Little Stint, scurrying around some sleeping Mallards.  A species I've wanted to see for a while now (The Stints, not the Mallards), so it was nice to get some reasonably decent scope views.

Asides from taking such stellar photographs, it was just good to be back in the field birding again, and with some great birds too!

Ireland lepidoptera...

My goodness it's been a while since my last post, about a month now? What's that you say? Two months!? Well yes, I rather think you're right.  One month of that time I have an excuse for however, and the course of this post will be focussed on that month. The excuse? Ireland.  This year, in tradition with the last three or more, I spent an enjoyable month staying with family in the Irish countryside - or in colloquial terms, up a hill.

 In short, a month of mothing. And now, in long, but not full, unless you want to hear the details of what I saw on each of the 36 days...

 It was Ireland, so of course, the weather was not great: nights were often pretty cold, and days were often very windy. But working with and around the weather, it actually turned out a superb trip for moths.  We only set up a light-and-sheet trap on a handful of occasions, and although that did contribute a fair amount, most of the moths seen on the trip were either by day or by torch-light.  Altogether I totalled up over 140 species, though most of that was in the first few weeks, towards the end it was hard finding anything that wasn't a Square-spot Rustic.

 Early on, before the reign of the Rustics, was when one of my favourite species from the trip turned up rocketing around in the house, the beautiful Antler Moth. Although not an uncommon species, we only ended up having one of these lovely little moths during my stay.

Although never bringing that many species at a time, the light-trap did however bring some stunners: Pebble Prominent, Scalloped Shell, Scalloped Hook-tip True Lover's Knot, Four-spotted Footman... being just a few that stood out, to be honest most of them were stunning!

 Another firm favourite was Ghost Moth, I had two, on separate occasions. One, a rather worn individual on Ragwort, and then this beauty by the light one morning! What an an incredible moth. Of course, I couldn't resist taking a few photos...

And what would a month of mothing be without Micros? Aside's from a lot easier on the eyes that is. I spent most days looking for micros, and found a good number around the land.  Nut Bud Moth even challenged Square-spot Rustic for the 'Most-ubiquitous-moth-in-Ireland' award. Blastobasis adustella was also in the running.

 Prochoreutis myllerana, Mompha locupletella, Carcina quercana... I'm beginning to think writing a list of micro names will take a lot of time...

 Although it wasn't packing quite as much colour as any of the aforementioned, Phylloporia bistrigella was a micro favourite, at only 3-4mm it's one of the smallest, unless you dare to attempt Nepticulidaes. Phyllonorycter are bad enough too.

Rather like the conversion of a book into a film, a lot's been left out. But I can't see my self making it through writing out 140+ moths names, or  even less likely, anyone making it through reading them all.  But the highlights have been covered, it was a good trip.  Oh, and you know what? I even went birding (whatever that is). More on that to come...