New Year, New Start

So it is a New Year, well already nearly 2 months down in the New Year, but I have been very neglectful of my blogging over the past 6 months or so. So 2014 is hopefully going to bring with it a conscious effort by me to keep this going.

Where to start? Well with flooding in the South adding a lot of water to usual habitats, birds seem to have been a bit sparse to come by. An early January visit to Blashford Lakes seemed a good idea, with a clear day forecast the lure of photographing the Starling Murmuration against a setting sun was to much, and it would also be a great location to get year list up and running.

Lots of birds about and highlights of the day included Black Necked Grebe, Goosander, Goldeneye and a lone drake Red crested Pochard all good additions to the year list. Plenty of birds were making full use of the Woodland hides feeders with Siskin & Lesser Redpoll regularly visiting the Nyger seed. To my surprise I manage a new lifer from the same spot as a birder next to me on the bench got rather animated at a couple of the Redpoll, slightly larger paler and less streaky, my first Mealy Redpoll. With a cracking sunset setting the sky a glow all that was required was the Starlings. On my last visit over the Christmas period 30,000 came into roost on a dull day. Tonight nothing! Just my luck, the sunset was pretty special though.

Coal Tit

Blue Tit

Grey Wagtail 

Female Siskin

Female Siskin

Avon Valley Sunset 

No Starlings :-(

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First's For Me - 27th Jan

So I get a message late on the saturday afternoon from Joe at - This Isn't Portland Birding asking if I fancy going for some unusual Hampshire visitors the next day. Bewick's Swan, Tundra Bean Geese & Green winged Teal all possibles. With the sun out and shining by midday we arrived at the Avon floods at Harbridge, after geeing himself up Joe did manage to drive through the puddle that flooded the road, and we quickly found our way around to a roadside field covered in Mute Swans.

Ditching the car on the side of the road we were soon peering over the 5-bar gate into the corn field beyond. Turns out the dairy farmer was also present spreading the field in a fresh covering of cow shit. As if the smell of the country wasn't enough to contend with, a chainsaw started in the hedgerow on the opposite side of the field causing the majority of the Swans to take flight and disappear. I did manage to pick out 3 Bewick's in amongst the blur of white. I must admit the sound of 35 or so Swans wingbeats at close range is quite something.

The Bean Geese had been seen in the same field the night before, but no sign on this occasion so we spent quite a while scanning the distant floods, and trying to pick out the Greylag & Canada Geese to no avail. Plenty of Wigeon, Teal, Lapwing & Starling all making use of the extra waterways.

We braved the flooded road again and parked up on the Bridge to have a good look from a different angle. The Bewick's reappeared no more than 70 yards away and gave some nice views, my first outside of the Slimbridge grounds.

Giving up on the Geese we drove the mile or so down the road to Blashford Lakes, Joe had spent the majority of Saturday afternoon scanning for the Green-winged Teal so thought we would have another bash from the Ivy north screen. Finding a GWT in amongst c.2000 other Common Teal isn't an easy task, and after an hour or so we gave up. Plenty of Canada Geese, Gadwall, Moorhen, Coot and the odd Pochard also on the Ivy lake.

Walking back towards the car we picked up the two Black-necked Grebes on the Rockford lake, at a relatively viewable distance along with some more Pochard, a dozen or so Goldeneye and a lone Kingfisher. The pathway back to the car also brought a couple of Bullfinch the male look stunning a top the nearest tree.

From one side of the Forest to the other, I had been meaning to visit Mercer Way in Romsey for some time in the hope of seeing the wintering flock of Hawfinches. Numbers logged on GoBirding had peaked at 35, so hopefully the chance of seeing my first had pretty good odds. We turned up in the middle of this housing estate and headed over to a small park area of rough grass and a few trees beside the canal. I must admit I wasn't overly confident that the UK's most illusive finch would be here in abundance.

Spying a group of birders over the far side we headed over, they were watching a Brambling low down in the brambles by a nearby puddle. Joe's finely tuned ear soon picked up the call of some birds in a small clump behind us, so we left the small group to there brambling and soon picked up 4 or 5 Hawfinch in amongst the trees. Its not until you see this bird in the flesh do you realise how huge they are. Several came and went, flying in and out ever 2 or 3 minutes, occasionally dropping down to drink from a muddy puddle.

Unfortunately getting photographs isn't the easiest, although they were quite prone to sitting proudly on the branches of certain trees, there always seemed to be a lot of debris in front of the bird. So no clean photographs, and I apologise for the quality of this one but I had to post, my first ever Hawfinch!

Hawfinch

So not a bad day out all in all, 2 new 'Lifers' for me in the form of Black-necked Grebe & Hawfinch, and Joe even managed to catch up with the Green winged Teal a week or so after. Joe's GWT

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Blashford Lakes - 13th Jan

With plenty of new additions to the year list in the bag we headed back through the New Forest to finish the afternoon off at Blashford Lakes, Hants Bird News had been logging 2 Bittern for the past fortnight or so, so the odds of seeing 1 had to be good right?

I wasn't really expecting to pick up an new ticks but the shear number of wildfowl out on Ibsley water was something to behold. c.900 Shoveler, c.300 Greylag Geese which happened to erupt from the water and fly straight towards the Hide windows. 

Cormorant, Tufted Duck and a few Pintail were dotted in between the Shovelers, I also managed to pick out a couple of distant Goosanders, trying to get a count when 2 drakes flew straight past the hide. I did get another tick after all!

2 Out of focus Greylags, ruining or making the picture?

Greylag flyby

Leaving Ibsley Water behind we headed across the road to try for the illusive Bittern in the Ivy North hide. The words you most definitely don't want to hear when entering a hide are "your 2 minutes too late, its just walked right across that open channel and into the reeds". 45 minutes later, and we are still watching a small area of reed bed, about 10ft across.

Too say I was a little pissed off would be an understatement, the brief visit of a Kingfisher outside of the hide window did nothing to lighten my mood, which got progressively worse as I headed home Dad had great pleasure informing me that he had just flushed a Bittern from one of the small areas of reed alongside the River. What a patch tick that would have been!

Overall I guess it couldn't really put to much of a dampener on what was a cracking day for species and weather! 56 logged throughout the day.

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Gorgeous Goldeneye

The Goldeneye is a duck I am not accustomed to seeing all that often, and definitely not at any close distance. Coming across one of the side pools at Slimbridge, away from the main collections, I am guessing the waterfowl on it are not totally part of the collection nor totally wild, but the opportunity to photograph these rather striking ducks was to good to pass on.

There were a few Females floating around as well, but they don't appear anywhere near as stunning as the Drakes. The iridescent Green/Brown/Black feathers on the head look beautiful when they catch the light. Which I managed to capture in a few shots, several of the birds where in full Winter adult plumage and certainly stand out bolder than the others! Stunning ducks! Captive or not!

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My First Bittern

A dry day, a Christmas family day out. Cameras, Scopes, Binoculars & Warm waterproofs packed. Sat Nav programmed for Slimbridge WWT, A quick flick around the collection of ornamental birds and plenty of ducking a diving at the hoards of incoming Geese.

Incoming Greylags

And off towards the Kingfisher Hide, a quick pit-stop in the Van De BovenKamp Hide as the majority of foot traffic where headed towards the more exciting Kingfisher Hide, was well worth the stop, as after around 5 minutes of scanning the edges of various reed beds, my first ever Bittern spotted skulking along the edge of the water 100 yards from the hide, Magical! Interesting to see the Mallard on the water mirroring the Bittern as it stalked its way along the waters edge to a thick clump of reeds. Showing for a good 10minutes, Not the best photos, but definitely clear enough to tell what it is. Well worth the trip!

Bittern

The Kingfisher hide didn't show any Kingfishers, but a good outlook over the water meadows showed a lot of Curlew in the distance, the Bird feeders hanging from the nearby trees, had Blue Tit, Great Tit, Chaffinch and regular visits of scavenging Jackdaws a few sitting still long enough for me to shoot of a couple of pics.

Blue Tit

After parting with a small fortune for a Baguette in the Restaurant we got down to some serious Wildfowl watching, first stop over looking the Tack Piece, the Martin Smith Hide giving any visitor and serious birder a pretty breathless first glance. Ducks, Geese, Swans as far as the eye can see, Hundreds, Thousands all feeding on the flooded water meadows. Wigeon, European White Fronted Geese, Goldeneye, Pintail, Pochard, Bewicks Swans, Mallard, Common Teal, Tufted Duck, Redshank, Dunlin and Lapwing all mixing together.

Feeding Wigeon

Just A Small Number Of The Feeding Wildfowl

A Huge flock of Golden Plover fed on the far side of the water meadow often rising and re-settling again, getting us all excited in the hope of a Peregrine zooming through the middle of them, no birds of prey unfortunately other than two rather sedate Buzzards perched on matching fence posts. Also spotted on the Tack Piece a good view of a pair of Lesser Scaup a somewhat rarity for the country.

Common Teal

View Of The Tack Piece

Golden Plover

Golden Plover

A final stop at the Rushy Hide, gave some great views of drake Pintails, and a female Goldeneye.

Female Goldeneye 

Drake Pintail

So all in all a good day, with a couple of firsts the Bittern, Pintail & Lesser Scaup. And seeing thousands of wintering birds on the Tack Piece something I wont forget in a hurry. Definitely worth the trip!

Happy New Year Everyone!