A pleasant evenings ramble around

Produced the goods tonight, in the form of two Little Owl at known sites and a third at what was certainly a new site for me and could well be a new site for Paul, and it couldnt have been easier really - sat right next to the lane atop a small bush. The light was falling rapidly but with the aid of some heavy editing this image is just about usable:

Very welcome sight indeed

Red-legged Partridge

And the sunset was just laavely today

Hearing Stuff

Today was an perfect example of how we rely on our ears just as much as our eyes as birders. I found myself at Swithland reservoir listening to the dawn chorus at a horribly early hour this morning - 4.55am to be precise. The reason for such lunacy? The Golden Oriole that had been present for the last two days!
When the news orignally broke of this bird I thought there was little point in running after it as most Leicestershire records involve birds that rarely linger, as a result I was thoroughly unprepared for going to see it yesterday too when the bird bucked the trend and stayed for a second whole day! Surely this was too good to last and eager to avoid another Savi's warbler incident I made sure I was there at the very crack of dawn this morning! Turns out I should have had an extra hour in bed as although plenty of birds were singing (including a nice Cuckoo, only my 2nd this year), none of them were the Oriole and it only led to increasingly nervous thoughts!

Eventually though the golden flutey notes reached my ears and there was truly no mistaking it for anything else once I'd heard it properly! Lifer! Too bad it joins Quail on the list of stuff I've ticked but haven't actually seen, better than nothing though! By about 7am the Oriole had quietened down somewhat and hadn't shown itself at all so I called it quits at that point and headed off to see if I could hear me some Quail as it seemed like a perfect day for listening to stuff! The site I visited was the National Forest land near Bagworth where there were several singing Quail last summer but none were heard today unfortunately. So I headed home, pleased with my 3rd lifer in a week! This birding lark is easy so it is.

Blogger, brace yourself!

Because three of Leicestershire's premier bloggers, and myself, went to Norfolk today!
Things didn't go to plan as I arrived at the Llama's house (on the other side of Leicester to where I live) bang on time but quickly realised I'd left not only my scope but also my bins at home, what a dick! Thankfully John saved the day as he had a spare pair of binoculars and so I piled into the back seat with Mr Dave Gray and off we went to Norfolk!
First stop (not counting the pit-stop at a Scottish burger merchant) was a top secret job where yours truly ticked his first ever Montagu's Harrier (a ringtail) with minimal difficulty before we moved onto a Corn Bunting site (im not supressing this, I just can't remember its name!) where we saw a Hen Harrier and another possible Montagu's along with a few Wheatear in a ploughed field.



Hen Harrier (five primaries as opposed to 4 in a Monty's)

Yellowhammer

After this promising start to the day (raptors were EVERYWHERE) we moved onto Titchwell, hearing a Cetti's Warbler as soon as we stepped out of the visitors centre and then finding this obliging fellow just a short way down the path.

First photo I took of the bird, the rest were useless!

The Lagoons were a tad quiet today with only a couple of loafing Little Gulls standing out from the crowd and so we quickly moved onto the beach for an attempted seawatch that was quickly abandoned on the grounds that there was very little on/moving over the sea and so we focused on the mass of waders on the shoreline instead:

Avocet - this was actually taken on the saltmarsh whilst John was attempting to molest a butterfly

How many species present??

Turnstones look immense at this time of year!

After this we moved back down the coast to the Snettisham reserve where two Turtle Dove were perched on a fence right next to the entrance, giving wonderful, albeit short, views. Snettisham didn't produce many new birds for the daylist in the end but what it did give was a wonderful view of literally thousands upon thousands of waders spread across the mudflats. Plenty of Brent Geese were lingering still too, not only here but at Titchwell earlier also.

Snettisham mudlfats being all atmospheric and moody

The final port of call today was the Nene washes on the way back, suggested by John, and what a good suggestion it turned out to be! Booming Bittern, drumming Snipe, 3 Short-eared Owl and best of all, 2 (think Andy, John and Dave saw three) Crane were rewards for the detour! The Cranes also sneaked onto my life list in the process, spiffing!

Nene washes being a tad damper than anticipated. Hope the Corncrake brought their aqualungs!

So by my count between the four of us we saw/heard 102 bird species today, two of which were lifers, not bad at all!

Middleton lakes RSPB

Was visited today for the first time. I'd heard a great deal about this site and its potential to be the RSPB's "flagship" midlands reserve so was looking forward to visiting today despite the less than encouraging (in terms of staying un-moistened) weather forecast.
And so we went, we saw, we conquered! Im not sure what exactly we conquered apart from managing to wander around the whole site but it was nice to see yet another chain of gravel pits being reclaimed by nature.

I do have a few complaints recommendations for the site however after this first visit. Firstly, finding the site itself proved challenging with no signposts to the site, we actually found it by accident in the end, we didnt realise the RSPB carpark is at the Middleton Hall itself. Secondly there was little in the way of paths, particularly around the wetland trail with a pair of ruts formed by a 4 x 4 the best it got for large parts, leading to confusion as to where you could and couldn't walk. My main beef however was with the total lack of hides or screens or basically anything that would stop birds being disturbed by people on the bank. Perhaps its because I'm used to birding at the Rutland reserves where you basically can't see the lagoons unless you are in a hide but I think this is a better strategy for keeping disturbance to a minimum. Plus on days like today where heavy showers keep passing through you end up rather damp without convenient hides to, errrr, hide in.

In terms of bird species that we saw the list wasn't huge and nor was it filled with "rare" but warblers were plentiful, as were hirundines. Waders seemed thin on the ground with only 3 species seen (LRP, Oystercatcher and Lapwing) although an Osprey passing overhead added a touch of excitement.

I'd never tried photographing hirudines properly before today - its challenging

So all in all its a very promising reserve considering its age although I do recommend that the paths are improved and that screens/hides be installed to limit disturbance before this can truly be classed as a "flagship" reserve. Off to Norfolk with the Drunkbirder and Mr Llama tomorrow, should be fun!

Well as it was sunny....

It seemed rude not to nip out for a couple of hours earlier this afternoon.
First stop was Jubilee Park where I spent an hour or so chasing warblers around but no photos to show for the effort except this Reed Bunting:

This Peacock Butterfly was also kind enough to sit still long enough on some Ladys Smock (at least I think thats what it is, please correct me if I'm wrong):

And there were two Little Egret on the pool:

After this it was time to take advantage of the sunshine and go to find some Little Owl. Predictably, it had started to cloud over by the time I got to a couple of my favoured sites but a few reasonable images were attained of single birds at both sites:

This chap is becoming quite a regular on this blog!

Belated write-up

Bit of a late post now considering the events I shall discuss mainly happened on Monday but I've been in Sheffield for the past few days and so now is the first opportunity I've had to spin my tale of woe concerning not seeing the Savi's warbler on Monday morning at Rutland. I'd actually managed to get myself to Rutland for the not so shabby time of 6am and arrived to find the reserve (along with most of the county) shrouded in fog.  This didnt seem to be putting the birds off their dawn chorus with loads of the commoner warbler species either seen or heard on the way to the Savi's spot where I was slightly proud to find myself the first person present, this rarely happens! To cut a long story short I was there until 8am when I went for a peek at Lagoon 4 as the fog had cleared and then again from 9-10ish and saw/heard precisely zero Savi's. Had a look at Lagoons 3, 4 again, 2 and then 1 after this but couldnt muster much besides a single Curlew Sandpiper on Lagoon 4.

Sedge Warbler giving it some welly

The only positive to be taken from the excursion occured pretty much as soon as I arrived at the Savi's spot at about quarter past 6. Part of the fence has blown down here and besides providing a handy stepladder for people attempting to see over the fence and see the Savi's it has left a section of the adjacent Lagoon 2's margin visible. And it was here that I noticed some strange tail patterns in the water, not unlike the patterns a feeding carp kicks up, heading to the left. A convenient chair was commandeered from the Savi's spot to see over the fence as I followed the trail of disturbed water to near a swans nest on Lag 2 where I got this series of terrible images - the fog and low light was making autofocusing through the vegetation impossible and the combination of excitment and fumbling with the manual focus clearly didnt help matters. It may be helpful to click on the first image and then scroll through them using the right arrow to see that the indistinct brown blur I've circled in the first image is actually moving.

If you havent guessed already, it was another Otter, adding to my first ever sighting of one a couple weeks ago! Somewhat less surprising to be honest though as they are regular at Rutland but seeing this one made me certain that the one I saw on the Soar a couple of weeks ago was definitely a dog otter, this individual seemed smaller and sleeker, indicating to my untutored eye at least, a female or adolescant animal.
It actually showed much better than the terrible images indicate, even sneaking up the swan platform to see if it could steal an egg, the swan just stayed still and the otter quickly retreated once it realised no eggs were exposed.

In other news, I finally tracked down the new Avengers movie when I discovered it was showing well in the Sheffield Odeon yesterday and thankfully we connected along with several other interested observers at 3.45pm. And it was good.
Later on at least 5 Tawny Owl were calling in the grounds of the Botanical gardens, despite the area receiving a severe "wetting". Im still yet to see one though, and this upsets me.

tomorrow perhaps...

I shall go and try to see the Savi's tomorrow I reckon. Two exams today with a three hour supervised period inbetween - dulltastic. And it is perhaps for this reason that I can't be bothered to leg it over to Rutland, despite the fact that this bad boy is a potential full life tick - the best sort of tick, especially when it sneaks onto your county list in the process!
So here, have an owl that I found on the way home today. As you may surmise this is the famed "hooded birders current header image bird" located on its favoured haystack, not quite as good a photo today though im afraid, better than nothing though and it soothes my "what if the savi gets murdered by otters overnight?" urges