Great Bustard - 17th Feb

So if you read my previous post from Saturday the 16th Feb you would know that I was hot on the heels of a wintering Great Bustard on a nearby estate. And that although I saw the bird the previous day it was miles away and I couldn't really photograph conclusive proof. So with some nicer weather on Sunday and a call from the local Keeper to say he had seen the bird heading back to its favoured spot, I headed off again just after lunch determined to get a photograph.

I found my way into position a lot stealthier than the day before, and instantly I could pick out the bird huddled down on the far side of the Stone Curlew Plot. Bingo some rather distant grainy pics at 500 yards or so, but definitely a Great Bustard. A couple of times over the next hour or so the Bustard stood up went for a short wander grazing a couple of times before heading back to the one large tuft of grass on the open ground.

It was clear to see no wing tags, Having seen the bird earlier in the week the estate called the Great Bustard group out from Salisbury Plain to see if they could shed some light on its being here. The guy came out pretty quickly and having located the bird with the landowner seemed to think it was one of their released birds and around 2 years old, having lost both wing tags. Although this seemed most definitely the most plausible explanation as Salisbury Plain birds have showed up in Somerset from time to time, North Hampshire being the same kind of distance away. It seemed strange to me that a bird this big that is tagged with some pretty large wing tags would just so happen to loose both. (Maybe I just hoped it was a wild one and I had the discovery of a lifetime)

The one thing that was clear to me however was, I wasn't going to get any closer to the bird. It appeared so skittish, every time it did venture out from behind its tuft, a slight noise, movement from the nearby Roe Deer and even on one occasion a Woodpigeon sent it strutting back to its tuft. Whilst savouring the Bustard a falcon shaped bird darted quickly over my head and landed out on the ploughing, having my lens focused on the Bustard it took me quite a while to find the bird in flight and missed out on a good angle. It landed on a furrow and sat and sat and sat. It was still perched there by the time I left, and I concluded that it was juvenile Peregrine, slightly browner in colour than any I had seen before. Another awesome patch tick to go with the weekends Bustard.

Eventually the Roe Deer rose up from the furrows they had been led down in, making their way towards the fresh foliage atop the curlew plot. The Bustard didn't appear to be too tolerant and was soon up on its giant drumsticks and wandering across the top of the field to a nearby plantation. This allowed me my only decent-ish ID shot I was happy with as the bird kept to the skyline. The below pic is quite a heavy crop but beggars cant be choosers right?

Satisfied I headed back to my car parked out on the road, leaving the Bustard heading for new cover, and the Peregrine perched motionless on the furrow. I got some great views of fleeing Skylark, Reed Bunting and Linnet in the warm afternoon sun as I head back down a game cover crop topping off a cracking afternoon.

You just never know what might turn up on your doorstep! Wild, released or totally unexpected.

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Danebury & Red Rice - 25th Jan

This will be a bit of a first for me, a no photo blog post! Some of you might say all the better. After being office bound all week due to the snow, the previous day I had seen on Going Birding for Hampshire that quite some big numbers of Farmland birds had been seen within 10 mins of work.

That pretty much sorted my friday lunchtime. I was soon out the office door and off towards Danebury Hillfort. The large flat fields on the Danebury road resulted in nothing more than the odd Buzzard and around 2000 Rook.

Spying a rough piece of set aside cover next to a fairly low hedge row on the smaller road back towards town I took a punt pulling up in the gateway. Not having the camera with me it was quite nice for a change to make use of the scope. With plenty of Snow still covering the surrounding fields this hedge row proceeded to erupt with flock upon flock of small birds as they fed on the cover crop next door before returning to perch back upon the hedge.

Yellowhammer were the easiest to ID, with the bright yellow breasts and heads glowing against the dark hedgerow. With the odd pause in movement, I started to make out Corn Bunting, Reed Bunting, Linnet & Dunnock amongst the throngs. And more interestingly a Buzzard perched on a fence post mid hedge right in amongst them all.

With the constant movement it was pretty tricky to get an accurate count but if I had to roughly estimate I'd say

c.250 Yellowhammer
c.370 Corn Bunting
c.200 Linnet
c.22 Reed Bunting
8 Dunnock

All in all quite pleasant just to do a little bit of Birdwatching without having to worry about photographing it all. However I was a little gutted I missed out on some relevantly close shots of some Yellowhammers.

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Harbridge Buzzard

Leaving Blashford I thought we would have a quick pit stop in Harbridge, a small village near the River Avon. The river usually breaks its banks in the winter months and the water meadows are completely flooded and covered in various wading birds and Swans.

I had timed it right the overnight rain had added to the flooded meadows and also the village road, so pulling over on the bridge I had a good scan with my binoculars as the rain started to come down.

A few Mute Swans, a male Reed Bunting and distant flushed Snipe along with a lone Buzzard where the only birds of note.

Wet Buzzard

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Latest Visitors

With the family nearly settled in the new place, finally got around to bringing down the bird feeding stations and feeders. Its amazing how diverse the species we are now seeing in the garden, last nights brought our newest visitors in the form, of a pair of Reed Bunting to the mixed seed feeder, which is now positioned in the tree at the bottom of the garden on the edge of the River Test

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Barn Owl & The 2012 Century

With a good hidden spot scouted out for owl watching, Nat and I set my 2 man real tree hide up on the Common late on Sunday afternoon in anticipation of Short-eared's the result to which I wrote about in my previous post.

Whilst watching them from a distance I was always hopeful that if the Barn Owl joined the fray it might stray a lot closer to the hide than the Shorties would. My hopes didn't prove to be disappointing as after about 30 mins of watching the Barn Owl hunt the long grass beyond the River Dever, it started to work either bank back and forth towards the hide. A few well placed squeak calls on the back of my hand, and he / she was heading straight for the hide. I have to admit in my amateuristic state of Owl attraction, I tempted it so close that I couldn't focus my lens in time, and was beginning to wonder if it might join me in the hide.

None the less a fantastic afternoon spent watching the Owls, and a real privilege to see such an awesome bird in the daytime. Plus I reached 100 Bird Species for the year with a Male Reed Bunting.

Barn Owl 

Barn Owl

Barn Owl 

About To Drop 

My Favorite 

In Flight 

As Close As "Barnie" Got Before I Lost The Focus :-(

Exmoor & Back Again

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a little trip down to Exmoor planned, unfortunately not specifically for Wildlife Watching, and wasn't able to take the camera out and about. The location the Orchard Wyndham Estate about 6 or 7 miles from Minehead on the Eastern outskirts of the Exmoor National Park.

Orchard Wyndham Estate

The first encounter of the day a small murmuration of Starlings coming off of roost as it got light over the Illchester to Taunton road, I've never been lucky enough to encounter such a sight, and although it was only a small number (a couple of thousand) it certainly wet the appetite too see the birds heading to roost in all their glory.

After arriving during a rather sudden Downpour, which came rolling in from the Bristol Channel in a mere matter of minutes, the hopes of a dry day wasn't looking good. However it soon cleared, leaving clear blue skies and beautiful golden light. The wind mind, was pretty much gale force so standing still in one place without being blown 15-20 yards proved to be a little tricky.

Although I was soon pleasantly supprised an a little amazed with the species seen and the numbers in which they were present. Flocks of Bullfinches & Goldfinches were present in the Ash Trees on the edge of the Estate, with the Bullfinch numbers way into double figures, the males striking pink underside highlighted by the bright morning sun as they flew from tree to tree.

Now my next sighting questioned my birding knowledge a little bit, there I was in the middle of the rolling Somerset countryside, no real major watercourses around other than a smallish stream, and the customary ditch alongside every hedgerow. 5 or 6 Reed Bunting perched in the nearest hedge row, A somewhat unusual sight I think to myself, but all was to be revealed, or its the reason Im giving. The other side of the hill alongside the B3190 stood several hundred acres of cover around 7ft in height, which on closer inspection appeared to be Reed used for Thatch. Would be logical right?

Other species I noted around this area, Hundreds of Pheasants, 4 Woodcock, Rook, 6 Buzzard, Carrion Crow, 5 or 6 Wheatear, Blue Tit, Magpie, Great Tit & Blackbird.

The afternoon brought a walk across some set aside Wheat stubble fields, the abundance of bird life rising from the ground was pretty incredible to be honest. Huge numbers of Skylark, Yellowhammer & Corn Bunting. All species I'd feel lucky to see at home.

The wind drew the weather in pretty fast, and it was pitch black by the time I made my way back along the A303, so no late afternoon Starling spotting. But a most enjoyable day, unfortunately I sit writing this post at my desk this afternoon, gazing out of the window at the dreariest grey wet day for a long time. But its nice to reminisce even though it was only yesterday.