Short shrift but one down!

Hello all, its been a mere two weeks since my last blog post, I think this counts as fulfilling my blog resolution to post more often!

Short Shrift

I've spent a tremendous amount of time in the pursuit of seeing Short-eared Owls this year. Shorties are my favourite birds without question and at this time of year I just can't help myself!
A few sightings have occurred in an area near me; an area that has held wintering birds in the past. I have visited the area probably a dozen times now - at dawn, at dusk, in the middle of the day, during rain, during wind, during sunshine and have precisely zero sightings to show for it. Yay.

The local Little Owls have been more obliging thankfully. I've recently been corresponding with fellow owl enthusiast Richard Pegler who also owls in the same area as I do and as a result we've both gained a couple of new sites to monitor. Cushty.

 

 

One Down

Because I've spent so much time owling recently, my quest to improve my county list had gone off the rails slightly. In January. Not a good start! In my defence I have been swotting up on my gull I.D theory; I must admit I was lacking in that particular area and thought I'd better release my inner larophile as a warm-up technique. I had intended to head over to Albert Village lake on Tuesday afternoon to have a look for some white-wingers but was sidetracked before I began by the Great Grey Shrike in the far east of the county..

Great Grey Shrike is a bit of an enigma for me - before today I had seen three in the UK; two at Harrington and the odd bird at Fakenham the other winter but never one in Leicestershire. So I was keen for this one to be the first county tick of the year, even though I'd forgotten to add it to the list of "most wanted" species in my last post. Oops.

Either way, off I went and got extremely lucky by all accounts. As I approached the spot where it had been reported from last, I saw a bird perched on a hedge about 50m away. And there it was. For just about long enough to rattle off a few record shots.

 

 

It disappeared almost immediately however so I departed down the road for a look to see if I could find it, didn't, and so returned to the place I'd seen it last. Three other birders including Steve Lister had appeared by now and had relocated the bird very distantly on the opposite side of the road to where I'd seen it. It quickly did another disappearing act so off I went, happy.

 

 

17 to go!



 



Another one...

Yes, another year has passed; now is the time for reflection of past deeds and for the planning of new ones! First and foremost of my new deeds for this year is to try and post more on here, I can explain away large chunks of my blogging absence by the fact I was living in a caravan at Rutland Water for a few months but more recently Ive upgraded to a wee cottage and equipped it with some internet so no more excuses!

My main aim for 2014 will be my county list. I've always only really cared about county birds and eagled-eyed visitors to the LROS website will notice a new addition to the county listing page - me! I'd never even bothered compiling a county list before - I knew what I had and hadn't seen but had never been bothered enough to put an exact number on it. Now I have and that number is 212 which puts me at the giddy heights of 41st place in the table. I must admit I expected it to be higher - a few months ago I leafed through my Collins doing a quick rough list and ended up at around 230 species, god knows what I'd been smoking that day as the actual number was much lower.

The downside of compiling my list has unfortunately made me want more! I can't help but cast admiring glances up to Mackay, Berriman, Lister & co. all happily sat at around the 270-mark and as a result my main aim for this year is to increase my county list as much as possible. So I'll set myself a challenge. This time next year I'd like to be on 230 species. That makes 18 county ticks required this year, quite a big ask! The task is made slightly easier as there are several relatively easy-to-see species that I should be able to add without too much bother although this will unfortunately find me moving into the dark (or should it be dirty grey?) world of gulling.

The following species should be relatively easy;

Iceland Gull
Glaucous Gull
Caspian Gull
Wood Warbler - will probably require a twitch but the species is still annual in Leics & Rutland
Corn Bunting - a few small colonies remain in the outskirts of the county

My list has a big, fat void around the area of seabirds and with some favourable weather and a little luck I could possibly add any of the following

Gannet
Manx Shearwater
Any Skua
Storm Petrel
Eider

And the following are certainly possible and/or have been recorded in the county in the past few years

Red-necked Grebe
Ferruginous Duck
Lesser Scaup
Honey Buzzard
Stone Curlew
Dotterel
Rough-legged Buzzard
Hen Harrier
Monty's Harrier
Cattle Egret
Great White Egret
Glossy Ibis
Water Pipit
White-winged Black Tern
Red-backed Shrike
Hooded Crow
Red-footed Falcon
Savis Warbler
Snow Bunting
Lapland Bunting
Wryneck

If I get all of the above I shall have achieved my goal but lets face it, I certainly won't!
That leaves stuff of a rarer calibre that might just turn up;

Broad-billed, Baird's, Terek, Marsh, Stilt Sandpipers
Dowitchers
Bluethroat
Small Gulls - Ross's, Bonapartes, Sabine etc
Two-Barred/ Parrot Crossbill - especially with the influx of rare crossbill this winter
Squacco Heron
White Stork
Purple Heron
Black Kite
Rosefinch

so...plenty to be getting on with. Although even by some miracle I did manage to see all of the above birds, I'd still be around 10 short of the Leicestershire big-listers. No fair!

After all that waffling have a rubbish photo of a Brambling I took near Barnsdale yesterday

And a less rubbish photo of a Little Owl taken whilst not seeing a Great Grey Shrike near Hungarton the other week

In recent weeks/months I've also seen the Great Grey Shrike that Paul Riddle found at Harrington (thanks Paul!), the Black-throated and Great Northern Divers at Swithland and Rutland respectively and had a trip to Norfolk where a ringtail Hen Harrier was seen whilst inspecting storm damage at Brancaster. Update done!

#3 Birds!

Third and final installment. The way things have been going lately expect another blog post sometime around August. I'll look forward to it ;).

Despite feeling like I've not done much birding this year I've seen a fair bit I suppose, I've only been on two birding related trips (north Norfolk coast and Thetford Forest) but working at Rutland Water really does help with sneaking in an hours birding before/after/during work everyday. The feeding table under the caravan window has also kept me entertained on many cold mornings before work, its nice being able to bird without going outside!
Anyway, no photos were taken on a recent trip to the Thetford Forest so I won't mention that any further but a trip to Snettisham and Titchwell in mid-february was more successful photography-wise so....

Siskin at Titchwell

Brambling in the same place

House Sparrow - actually taken the next day at Ouse Washes

Song Thrush

Dodgy effort at the Long-tailed Duck

Spotted Redshank

No winter Titchwell trip is complete without a shot of a Sanderling bounding along the edge of the surf

After much deliberation we decided this Diver to be a Black Throated - any thoughts or comments would be much appreciated.

 

Other good birds seen but not papped on the day included Bittern and ringtail Hen Harrier

 

The yard list has crept up towards 100 (94ish at the minute) with a recent addition being the Great Northern Diver that was spied miles off towards the valve tower in the North Arm on Saturday afternoon. Good bird that. Whooper Swan was also a welcome addition after missing the last flock to fly up the North Arm. Here's a few other decent birds (and a couple already mentioned!) that have found themselves on the end of a phone-scoping in recent weeks at work;

 

Drake Smew from AWBC

Confused Black-necked and Slavonian Grebes in the North Arm (also both on the yard-list :D )

Intrepid Hide-robin on Lagoon 3

Great Northern Diver off the dam

Scaup with Pochard and Tufted Duck accomplices on Lagoon 1

Rails on the Egleton Meadows - showing very well at the minute - up to 6 birds.

Afforementioned Whoopers from the workyard

 

I've not been at home much this year but a welcome and overdue addition to the garden list a few weeks back was Lesser Redpoll, no doubt enticed into the garden by the shiny new niger feeder that the Hooded Birder purchased a couple of weeks prior. A few Siskin sightings have also helped spice things up after a general lack of them in the garden over recent winters.

 

And finally, Owls.

Seems like ages since I've written anything or uploaded any images of owls but I can break that run today! One thing I can report on is the evident abundance of owls in the area surrounding Rutland Water , Barn Owls are clearly doing well in the area, I'm always seeing them! Normally when I've not got my camera with me but about ten days ago I chanced upon a lovely shot of a Barn Owl in the falling light. Having to shoot through my less-than-clean windscreen was a challenge but I'm quite pleased with the overall result;

 

 

Little Owls have unfortunately not been as easy to find in the area surrounding Rutland Water but I headed out to a site near Lutterworth today and happily found a pair of Owls on their favoured haystack literally gagging to be my new header image!

 

This image and the next three aren't the best I'll ever take but I'd never managed shots of pellet regurgitation before. Behold...

A keen eye can just make out the pellet falling infront of the bale. click for bigger as always.

 

 

 

Must be slipping...

Three of the last four posts have included a lifer so I was always going to be up against it trying to keep that ratio going!

Today I headed over to Blueberry Farm near Maidwell as I'd realised it had been about three months since I last did any birding in Northamptonshire - as I'm no longer driving to and from Uni three times a week and as Amy is summering in Sheffield I've been strangely absent from the county for a good while now!

So, off I went to Maidwell to see if I could catch up with any of the Whinchat that had been seen there recently. This was a tick of-sorts as I needed it for my Northampton list so hopes were high of finding one! Upon arrival I took the track from Hanging Houghton down into the valley and parked along the southern-most boundary of Big Lichfields (Field K on map below) where the likely Whinchat area could be scanned from the comfort of the car.

I produced this map of the site originally for my dissertation, as the one provided by Natural England is frankly useless.

p.s if anyone would like a copy of this map, don't hesitate to ask, either via the comments box or hoodedbirder@hotmail.co.uk

 The target species was found immediately (x3) flitting from perch to perch but they were way off in the middle of the field....and as it's a pretty big field I had little chance of getting a decent image of one! So...I settled down for a couple of hours in the hope they would come closer whilst listening to the soothing tones of the Soton vs Man U match on ze radio. My patience was rewarded as they came closer....and closer....and closer....until they were in (sort of) photographic range;

They were literally on the cusp of flitting to a couple of perches mere feet away (one already was stupidly close, but it was obscured by vegetation) when.....a walker came past and flushed the lot back into the middle of the field! Bugger!

The walker did briefly flush them all into the same bush though, which was nice.

Eschewing another long wait for them to return I went to find some owls instead,  heading back to the site I'm visiting most at the minute, to see the soon-to-be-dispersing juveniles!

One!



Two!

Finally, on the way home this Red-legged Partridge thanked me for not running it over by posing nicely by the side of the road;

 

Odds n ends

Just a few bits to catch-up with today;

Yesterday when it was nice and sunny I managed to get a couple of images of the Smooth Newt tadpoles in the garden pond. It had been obvious for a number of years that we had a healthy breeding population of newts in the pond but this is the first year I've managed to see any of their offspring. Maybe I wasn't looking properly before but there are certainly plenty present at the minute!

 

 

 

Sticking with the garden theme the Bullfinch are still present in force, with at least 10 individuals being seen each week. The juveniles are starting to moult into their adult plumage which again, is something I've never noticed before. I need to start paying more attention I think!

 

 

Sorry about the shoddy image but it was dull and rainy at the time... I shall have to get the hide up soon and go for a better one.



 

Finally, this evening turned out to be really quite nice after the rainy, turd of a day we'd had here in Leicestershire so I headed out, first to Frolesworth on the hunt for any of the Pied-Fly/Whinchat/Redstart that had been seen in the area recently but it was very quiet in the end and almost nothing was seen, perhaps I'd left it too late in the day. The light was rapidly disappearing by the time I rolled up at the Little Owl site from the previous post but the two juveniles from last time were quickly located close to the nest tree and a few images were rattled off (the last two with the aid of a hearty flash and redeye reduction afterwards on the editing software!);

Spotted Crake!

I'd been yearning to have a dig at the Spotted Crake at Birstall Meadows over the past few days as it would have been a full-fat life tick but things kept getting in the way until yesterday when I was put off going by a general lack of sightings, leading me to think perhaps it had buggered off...

Which leads me to this morning when I received a text from the lros news service indicating there were now two Crakes present...this pushed me over the edge and I soon got my arse into gear and headed over to Birstall!

I think one of the main reasons why I hadn't headed over sooner was that Crakes are notorious for disappearing for hours upon hours but today couldnt have been simpler really....short walk from the car to the crowd of observers, of whom included Dave Gray and John Hague, the latter staying to help put me onto a Crake when one showed which was very nice of him, although he did raise a false alarm that turned out to be a Water Rail, the nerve! It wasn't long however until a proper Spotted Crake appeared - it truly is satisfying on a biblical level when a life tick occurs in your home county!

Mission accomplished, John went on his way whilst I spent the next hour-or-so Crake watching, in which time I'd imagine that the Crake(s) showed for no more than 5 minutes in total but by my reckonings thats good going! Fairly confident I saw two birds aswell - never got both in the same field of view but one bird appeared paler than the other.



Didnt manage an image of one so you'll have to imagine a Crake roaming around at the back

 

Also today I finally got round to doing a bit of Owling, finding a couple of juveniles at one site that were a first sighting for me this year - I suspected breeding as there was a pair tightly holding the territory in question earlier in the year but this was the first sign of any juveniles, not a moment too soon either as they were almost fully grown! One posed nicely for me (albeit in poor light conditions) so a couple of images were obtained;

 

Its been a while...

But in my defence I've not done much birding at all since the trip to Rutland a couple of weeks ago and its been generally quiet across the county so there wasn't anything to blog about really!
Until today.....
When I went Owling earlier this afternoon and saw 4 birds at three sites including the first evidence of breeding success (owlets heard hissing) that I've witnessed this year which was nice. Too bad I'd accidentally switched my camera to a different setting to usual and didnt realise until I got home - the result is many of the days "best" images being completely useless!
A couple survived however and are just about publishable:

Aside from the Owling earlier the garden has exploded into life recently with the numbers of most garden species being swelled by an influx of fledged juveniles. Blackbird, Robin, Chaffinch, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Starling, House Sparrow and Greenfinch youngsters have all been noted in the garden this morning along with a glorious count of 5 adult Bullfinch - they have become increasingly regular over the past few years in the garden with at least a pair being seen most days but its not often that we get 5 at once;