Ring Ouzel saves the morning!

After 2 long days of planning and 2 nights of working, I had to get out and get a morning's birding in. The Great Orme's a great place for migrants but alot can go missing on there.

Wondering up onto the Orme, there seemed very little about, a few Chaffinches flying over along with the odd Skylark and a couple of small flocks of Meadow Pipits. A complete contrast to that of previous days this week where visible migration had been high with over 200 chaffinches mixed with a handful of Bramblings passing through.

Scanning over the fields to where a Ring Ouzel had been reported a couple of times this week looked bleak. Very few birds about, I spent an hour carefully scanning from the limestones over the sheep fields in search for one, best being a flock of 40+ Starlings, a Fieldfare and a Raven. After debating whether to turn back, a harsh chak-chak call broke the silence coming from a tree directly in front of me, I'm not an expect on bird calls but I had an idea it could have been something good. It flew out and landed on the limestones 6m infront of me, A male Ring Ouzel. It gave fantastic views and was very much welcomed to what proved to be a quiet morning.

Here is a record shot of a Ring Ouzel I had in Spain earlier this year

There are also a good number of Waxwings still around in Bangor today with up to 55 birds in one place. To slightly top that, Aberdeen have broken the 2,000 mark with a massive flock arriving today! Lets hope they filter their way down and stay the Winter.

Siberian Invasion

With hundreds upon hundreds of Waxwings pouring into Great Britain, it was only a matter of time before they filtered their way down to North Wales. There have been massive counts of over 400 Waxwings togther in places in Scotland.

There hadnt been too many reports this week of the birds in North Wales, a couple regularly dropping in on the Great Orme and a couple spotted in Bangor. I happened to be in Bangor on Thursday 28th and it was just as well I pulled myself out of bed when I had a phonecall of Chris Bridge claiming he had 19 waxwings not far from the main university. 5 minutes later, I was down there watching the leaves turn brown, yeah, they'd flown off! Great, good start!

I decided to have a quick drive around Bangor to see if I could relocate this stunning birds. After half an hour or so, I spotted a small group of starling-like birds sitting in a conifer tree not far from the menai. Instinct told me Waxwings and they were! The birds were incredibly mobile and looked completly lost in an unfamiliar country.

They soon moved on, so met up with Chris again and decided to wonder back up to the university and literally as soon as had, 35+ Waxwings flocked from nowhere and landed literally metres away from us in nearby trees, fantastic sight to which they were that close- you didnt need binoculas!

Hopefully these birds will stay around a bit longer and we get more birds filtering down into North Wales

Rewarding Day at Inner Marsh Farm

With birding on situated on the back burner due to university, I was keen to get out on Saturday for a session. With a good push of Eastilies earlier in the week, a White Winged Black Tern turned up at Inner Marsh Farm on Thursday. I was hoping it would stay and it did. It's been a good place for terns so far this Autumn with a couple of Black Terns, a Whiskered Tern and now a White Winged Black Tern.



As I arrived, the bird was circling very high up in the air over the wood a good mile away, could have been anything as far as I was concerned. So I thought i'd give it time to come down into a closer view...Anyway, scanning around produced 5 Whooper Swans fresh in from Iceland, a massive number of Teal darting around in flocks, 2 curlew sandpipers, 2 water rail, 2 little stints, 4 Snipe and 20+ Golden Plover were the best.

Little Stint



Whooper Swans



Snipe

By this time the tern had desended and wasn't too far off the main pool in front of the hide, a lovely juvenile bird with a fantastic dark rump, white tail, red legs and a strong facial pattern. The bird must have done some miles around that pool, it finally came down to rest on a few occassions whilst I was there providing an excellent opportunity for a picture.

White Winged Black Tern

Before setting off, a female Merlin bombed right passed the hide which was great to see. Next stop of Point of Ayr which i've been patching every saturday for the last month or so, very little in the way of migrants.

Out for a duck or two!!

Friday 1st October saw myself and Chris Bridge up and out the door at 5am. The point, well to find and twitch a couple of good birds. The first stop was at Draycote water situated near Coventry. We got there for 7.30am and then realised we couldn't get in until the gates opened at 8am. Ignoring all forecasts of rain, we thought we'd give the day a shot thinking all birds would've been grounded by the depression. How bad could the rain really be?!

It took us less than 20 minutes to lock on to the Lesser Scaup which was situated with a small group of Tufted Ducks. It was a drake in an semi-eclipse plumage. A nice bird and a lifer for myself.

As the weather conditions were bad, it was difficult to get a good picture of the bird.

The next stop was Dowdeswell, Gloucester. The past couple of days the reservoir has held a Wilson's Phalarope but within a few miles in getting to the site, negative news came on of our star bird which then caused big problems. Maybe it was me, well I have had to species of Phalarope in the last two weeks, surely a third wasn't going to be that easy! Or maybe I was just greedy?!

In the hope that the bird would be relocated, we headed further south to Chew valley for another two target birds: Ring Necked Duck and Ferruginous Duck. After a nightmare drive through Bristol and even worse weather conditions, atleast I started to wonder what on earth possessed me to even get out of bed. We got the the site and to much of our disbelief, there was verging on 1000 ducks on the water.....! We were very fortunate that the rain had layed off a little to just light rain (which still gave very bad viewing conditions), but believe me this was welcomed after the conditions we'd just witnessed, torrental non-stop rain...it was causing local flooding in areas.

Anyway after 15-20 minutes, Chris finally pulled out a distant ferruginous duck out of the crowds of tufties, pocard and coots. A task which near enough seemed inpossible. It was one though and very much welcomed!

If the duck was at this distance we wouldn't have had such a problem. This is an image from Spain earlier in the year when myself, Stephen Menzie and Christopher Bridge went.

Following this, the rain came down worse than ever an sadly we had to call an end to the day. It was impossible to bird in these conditions but still it was a break. So 500 miles for two ducks, yeah, please don't remind me but sometimes you have to take risks, because if you don't you may well not get the rewards!