Sunny November Waterfowl

As well as the afore mentioned wildfowl in earlier posts, Slimbridge and its surrounding reserve where abundant in a few other Wildfowl species. 5 or 6 Shelduck joined the masses of Wigeon on the tack piece. Along with 40-50 Greylag Geese, all very vocal as Sparrowhawks and Buzzards regularly flew past.

Shelduck

Shelduck

Shelduck

Greylag

Greylag

In smaller numbers, several Grey Heron stood sentry duty on the edges of flooded outcrops, Dead still in the bright morning sun. Tufted Duck & Pochard drifted close to the hides allowing the occasional close up photograph, along with a rather tatty looking drake Shoveler.

Grey Heron

Tufted Duck

Drake Pochard

Drake Pochard

Drake Shoveler

From the Holden Tower various species could be seen on the flooded shores of the River Severn, 70 strong flocks of Dunlin fed on the flooded grassland along with Canada Geese intermixed with a lone European White-fronted Goose. A small flock of Barnacle Geese also fed along the shoreline. A much closer Barny fed inside the Slimbridge grounds, enable a photo of these chunky geese.

Barnacle Goose

Barnacle Goose

Barnacle Goose

After a quick spot of lunch, we headed around to the Zeiss hide, stopping only briefly as there were dozens of screaming kids running through the hide! Much to my annoyance, a good hour or more was spent in the Van Der Bovenkamp hide, as supposedly a Bittern was in the tiny block of reed in front of it. Its fair to say no Bittern was spotted by me, much to my annoyance. Occasionally the huge mass of Golden Plover would take flight before settling back down to feed.

Golden Plover

To finish the trip off, we thought we would go for the pair! Having managed some stunning views of the Short-billed Dowitcher down at Lodmoor in September, I thought I would get a spot on the long staying Long-billed Dowitcher that had been at Slimbridge for a good few months.

The bird was present out on the South Lake along with 50 or so Black-tailed Godwits, but with the sun dipping rapidly the whole scene was just a lot of shadowy birds so no pictures unfortunately, but good to get the set in the bag, and round off a pretty good day!

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A Black-headed Bombsite

With the cricket season here and the weather already proving a wash out, the first friendly was cancelled, so what to do with a unexpected free sunday? I know a trip down to the coast and Titchfield Haven NNR. The weather was still pretty indecisive and I must say any reserve that has enough hides to keep you sheltered from the frequent showers is good in my book.

The good thing about Titchfield is you park literally on the sea-front, the Solent merely feet away, plenty of action out on the waves but none of it anything other than Sailboats and Wind-surfers. On the opposite side of the road lies the Titchfield Haven reserve, a well managed and great location for watching wildlife, 6 Hides separated to 3 either side of the river that runs down into the Solent. The first thing that hit me though was the noise, thousands of Black-headed Gulls calling from the scrapes. A quick wander along the sea-front to the visitor centre and got my first glimpse of a pair of Linnets sat atop the surrounding gorse bush. Turnstones wandered up and down the footpath around the side of the small harbour totally unperturbed by the amount of human traffic. You often wonder when you turn up at these places, seeing the huge amount of cars and people if its going to be standing room only around the reserve, luckily nature didn't seem appealing to most, as once inside I probably only saw 10-15 people for the rest of the day.

The visitor centre side of the reserve has 3 hides overlooking the river and the water meadows. The usual Grey Heron, Cormorant, Mallard and Moorhen showed up on the river in the 1st Hide, the second two showing a bit more variety, a fairly biggish flock of Black-tailed Godwit grazed on the far side of the meadow, rising and falling regularly as they were often bombarded by Lesser Black backed Gulls.

Black-tailed Godwit

I did get quite excited about 15 minutes later when a stunning male Marsh Harrier (my first of the year) soared overhead spooking the Godwit flock and pretty much anything else within the vicinity. He landed briefly before being mobbed by 5 or 6 Carrion Crows, pretty rapidly disappearing back up the water meadows. Lapwing, Canada Goose, Teal and a Kestrel all showed well in the meadows as I sat dodging the rain drops in the hide.

A rather surprisingly nice lunch in the reserve cafe, and I was off out the other side of the river, All 3 hides over looking the scrapes and distant reed beds. It took a while to focus on any other birds as the Blur of Black-headed Gulls becomes more apparent. It would be hard to guess numbers but I'd say anywhere between 3000-4000 mostly paired off and nesting.

Just a narrow view of the Scrapes showing only a couple of Gull islands.

Once distinguished from the ever moving throng of Gulls, I spotted 9 feeding Black-tailed Godwit, 7 Avocet, Shellduck, Snipe, Shoveler, Gadwall, Oystercatcher, Herring Gull, Buzzard, Coot, Pheasant and a rather distant Fulvous Whistling Duck - a presumed escapee mingling with a couple of drake Mallard.

Black-tailed Godwits

Oystercatcher

Male Shoveler

So all in all a pretty a pretty good trip, with 35 Species logged, I'm sure there would be a few more if I could identify the bird song from the reed beds and trees. And an even bigger bonus I guess is I didn't get wet!

Sika Sunday

A beautiful crisp morning, bathed in Golden Winter Sunlight, Spot on! Sat Nav set,  3 x Memory Cards packed just in case!! The destination the RSPB's flagship Heathland reserve at Arne overlooking Poole Harbour and the distant Brownsea Island. After a short sunday morning layin and a steady drive down the 70 odd miles from home to Dorset, We ( the Girlfriend and I ) arrived around 11.35am grabbed a quick bite to eat and off we set.

Pretty much instantly distracted by the bird feeders next to the new Information Kiosk (I say new, but then I haven't been for 3 Years). Teeming with life, Chaffinch, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Robin & a pair of Nuthatch all visiting on some kind of chain line. Also strutting his stuff beneath the feeders a male Peacock, not your average bird table sighting.

Male Chaffinch

Male Chaffinch

We headed first out on the Shipstal Point trail towards the Salt marshes and Poole Harbour beyond. First sighting a rather large herd of Sika Deer grazing on a paddock field in the middle of the reserve. 

Grazing Sika Herd

The first birdlife encountered as we headed towards the shoreline, the haunting call of a Curlew, another 100 yards through to the edge of the Salt marsh and the culprit could be seen, joining a passing group of Avocet heading towards the Middlebere Channel. Now I'm not sure what it was that flushed the birds as it moved so fast, falcon-like low over the crests of the waves as it disappeared around the corner of the headland. But if I had to take an educated guess I'd say a Merlin however I can neither confirm nor deny.

Further on around the path whilst trying to get a picture of a small flock of birds dropping in and out of the heather, to which im 99.9% sure were Meadow Pipits, The arrival of 2 Sika Bucks on the path below rather whisked me away. We got so close that I slowly moved to the other side of them in the end, walking straight past, as the light was better for a picture. Bit disappointing as its supposed to be a Wild beast but Im not complaining about the pictures. The path ended in about 30 yards right on the edge of the large area of Salt marsh overlooking Poole Harbour and the distant town of Poole. About 50-60 yards out was the remaining Sika herd, probably 40-45 deer.

Sika Buck 

Sika Buck 

My Fave I Think - Sika Buck 

Sika Buck

Sika Buck  

Sika Hinds

Being on ground level spotting Birds on the marshland proved a little tricky, with just the large bank of Oystercatchers visible on the waters edge a few Hundred present I would think. We took the boardwalk path around to the Double-Decked hide over looking the marsh, bringing a slightly different viewing angle and some slightly different birds than im used too. Curlew, Brent Goose, Shelduck, Wigeon, Teal & Little Egret all feeding out on the marsh. Lots of small groups of Teal, rising from hidden channels and joining other smallish groups. Hard to say the kind of numbers present really. The peaceful sound of the water lapping against the peaty edge with the odd Duck call was broken by the hoarse cacophony of a circling Raven.

Oystercatchers

Brent Geese

With the wind battering the open hide windows, we headed back towards the Car for a drink and the path out towards the other hide overlooking the eastern end of the Middlebere Channel. Whilst watching the procession of Sika crossing the path, slightly reminiscent of the wagon trains from the western films, We were rewarded by 6 Goldcrest fluttering about in the Silver birch tree above our heads. The walk back to the car also brought a slightly more wild sighting of the big Sika Buck.

The Big Boy

After taking the winter finch walk back to the visitor kiosk and only being rewarded with a small flock of 15-20 Starling, we headed out on to the Coombe Trail, on good authority from the RSPB staff that its about this time of day the Short Eared Owls come in. Spending a good 45 mins scanning the surrounding Heathland with no reward not even a Stonechat on the odd Gorse bushes, We headed down to the hide, briefly taking in 2 Black-tailed Godwits fighting on the waters edge.

Now the Middlebere Channel at this time of the day (3pm) looks quite an impressive stretch of river, but quite deceiving really as the tide was heading out, more and more small groups of Avocet headed down to the where the rapidly retreating water left and increasing expanse of mudflat. Numbers ranging into the thousands traveling westerly down the channel. Brilliant stuff having not seen the graceful Avocet before in the wild. In front of the hide large numbers covered the width of the river, the water appearing quite deep coming no further up than the tops of there stilt like legs. Also sifting through the shallow mud more Black-tailed Godwits, Redshank, Teal & Snipe. A large flock of Lapwing circled in the distant fields. 

Avocet

Avocet

The walk back across the Heath still resulted in no Short Eared's but the time was going fast, traffic all the way home was pretty heavy, but didn't spoil a great day out! Even home, just in time for Mum's Sunday roast! Apologies for the rather descriptive account, I hope all that got this far are not too bored!